Twice As Nice

Let's see now... picking up exactly where I left off... returning from Singapore to land in Zürich quite early that Thursday morning in late May, I arrived home to a full house...

Yes, can you believe I just recovered a half-started blog entry from nearly five months ago?? That must have been when I lost the blog mojo. Never mind that so many details have faded, I found some good pictures that were never shared and will nevertheless try my best in the recounting...

Indeed, Steph and I were lucky to receive our first-ever return visitors to Switzerland, of course you remember Steph's parents--code-named Kay and Archer to protect the innocent. Gluttons for punishment, they scored some cheap airfares and again landed in Zürich 13 months after their initial visit last year in late April. I blame the Global Economic Crisis for (among lots of other things, as I find convenient) general expense aversion and a relative dearth of visitors in 2009 compared to 2008. Or perhaps that a majority of friends and family are exhausting their schedules raising young children these days, making a trip to Disneyland (much less Switzerland) an arduous undertaking.

This year's 10 days with Kay and Archer required slightly different organization than last year's, per yours truly trying my hand at working again in 2009. A common theme emerges: work interferes with blogging, work interferes with Hobbes's swimming schedule, work interferes with visitors, work interferes with [reader's choice]... Instead of touring Switzerland's entirety, we opted for bookend weekend excursions to France and Germany and left them to their own devices with Zürich as home base during the workdays.

We ventured first just over the border to Strasbourg, a perfectly excellent French border town sporting plenty of interesting German influence amidst the heart of the Alsatian wine region (Steph's and my second trip since June 2008). Awesome Gothic church, great white wine, lots of Flammeküche (Alsace pizza, not to be confused with Pflaumenkuchen, or German plum tart), just a solid European town. Pictures below tell the story. Later that week back in Switzerland, Kay and Archer hiked in the vicinity of Zermatt and The Alps' famous Matterhorn peak (still haven't seen it myself) bordering Italy, and spent Friday with Steph exploring the voluminous castle in Montreaux over in my Swiss-French neck of the woods (I was working), later commuting home with me.

Saturday we visited the impressive impressionist van Gogh art exhibit in not-so-far-away Basel, Switzerland and then trained it yet again to finish the long weekend in Mainz, Germany, home to a nice Hyatt and quite near the Frankfurt international airport for their flight home Monday. Mainz scored better than expected, pleasant in its own right, more than simply a Frankfurt suburb. The highlight of the trip was an afternoon historic castle and vineyard cruise down the Rhine River through the heart of the Rheinland-Pfalz region. Castles on bluffs around every turn with Riesling vineyards strewn steeply below. We disembarked at one of the many villages along the way for a light lunch including a liter of the local white for a bargain 5 Euros served by the 85-year-old proprietress. Ich kann es nie genug sagen (I can't say it enough): Germany rocks!

Strasbourg pics link here. I think I have Rhine pics at home, but no access tonight in Lausanne. Sorry! http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=368064518703%3A542620968

Waking Up Where?

View Crazy Travels, Jan-Apr 2009 in a larger map

Work sure has cramped my blogging style. Perhaps not work per se, but the recent deluge of travel associated. Yes, I've recently exited Work Phase I (Sit at Desk Reading & Learning) and entered Phase II (World Travel To Visit Customers). These are exactly the phases that I anticipated after accepting this job, and called them out as such during the interview. Also as predicted, Phase II is starting to tax me ever so slightly, especially having to show up in Lausanne whenever I'm not otherwise flying around. I've refrained from saying "I told you so" to senior managers, as conventional wisdom dubs this a not-often-career-furthering move. And when I'm not traveling for work, we seem to be jet-setting on vacation. That's a nasty one-two punch to blogging, no doubt.

Since my last half-finished blog entry regarding my ten days in Miami and Houston in early April, I spent a week in Belgium for work (Belgium rocks!), London over a four-day Easter holiday for vacation (shopping, shopping, shopping and a Meal of the Year candidate!) and then ten fantastic days vacation in the Caribbean, flying into NYC for an afternoon and evening, then to St.Thomas and sailing the British Virgin Islands for a week on a catamaran (every bit as fantastic as it sounds, run don't walk and book your trip for 2010), a quick overnight at the Ritz-Carlton St.Thomas, and finally flying out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, after finding the undoubtedly best mofongo (fried plaintain) and Argentinian-style churrasco steak on the island. Now I'm headed for work again to Korea (no worries, the southern one) and Singapore for the next ten days. Because I like to calculate such things, I've calculated over 70% of my days spent on the road in one form or another since starting work in December. Tugging your heartstrings yet?

Ah, it breaks my heart how mightily the blog has suffered. It's a fun method for us also to recall our various crazy experiences. Since I've slacked off, Steph has visited Duchanbe, Tajikistan and Johnnesburg and George, South Africa (the map above shows our travels so far in 2009, yellow for Steph, red for me, blue for both). I never finished our skiing stories from St.Anton or during the World Economic Forum in Davos. We squeezed in weekend trips to Paris (yet again!) and Colmar, France. We've seen Oasis (surpisingly so-so), The Killers (surprisingly awesome) and The Gaslight Anthem (surprisingly loud) in concert. I'm continuing studying German--my abilities now steadily approaching the scant edge of decent--and I ate tongue for lunch at my beloved work French-cafeteria (tastes like beef, oh wait, it is beef). And since my income after four months now appears dependable, we've subsequently bought wine, furniture and garden patio supplies like crazy. Most excitingly, we welcomed my wonderful nephew into the world last week, the first child of my younger brother!

We have been collecting a decent number of pictures over the past months, hopefully I'll have some downtime in Korea to caption and post those with a quick recap. That wouldn't be a bad review of the year. Wish me luck!

Snowballs & Wipeouts, Pt. 1

Before this year I had forgotten that skiing was such a workout, especially on longer and more demanding runs. Although our skiing fitness continues to improve, imagine my embarrassment when Steph snapped this photo of me between runs on the slopes several weeks back. Right in the middle of changing my shirt, too! At least I had my sunglasses on.

Hardly a ski weekend passes without some unexpected craziness. Let's see if I can catalog our adventures. As background, ski runs are called pistes in Europe (the French name) and their difficulty ranges from category Blue (easy / shallow grade) to Red (medium / shallow-to-steep) to Black (difficult / roller coaster-plunging steep). Additionally for truly athletic hazard seekers, free or off-piste areas of non-groomed snow are available for cutting one's own trail in red and black-graded catgories. Our destinations so far in order of attack:

Flims-Laax-Falera (Dec 6-7)
No it's not a degenerative nerve desease, it's a string of three Swiss towns sharing marketing rights for a huge swath of mountainside with pistes as wide as highways. For this our maiden Alpine ski voyage, we joined a loosely organized group of 20(!) ex-pat Zürich friends and acquaintances, heavily tilted to the U.S., Australian and British persuasion. On my very first not-so-bunny-hill practice run with the new skis, I fell traveling about 5mph and twisted my knee quite painfully. Great start (and still my worst injury to date). The good news now is that it only hurts when I fall skiing and twist it again in the same manner. By the end of the weekend, however, I was managing down the red runs.

Our group of 20 reserved dinner Saturday night at a classic Swiss chalet, positioned slightly uphill from a final ski run into town. We all struggled more or less slipping up the rather long, steep slope (depending also on whether one wore nightclub footware or boots, I chose the latter), eventually arriving at the restaurant for cheese fondue, bottomless caraffes of wine, and drinking the proprietors completely out of Kirsch (cherry schnapps); everyone imbibed somewhere between three to six shots. Our group's raucous tumble down the slope back home included a massive snowball war, insofar as the targets could stand and weren't already rolling downhill. Grade: A

Hoch-Ybrig (Dec 21)
One can only pronounce the name of this smaller, more local ski area after living in Switzerland for a year; it's a tongue-and-throat twister. Steph and I daytripped it one Sunday for more solo practice and for the joy of being overrun by punk teenage snowboarders. We faced an unfortunately constant rainy drizzle, which without the aid of goggle windshield wipers made it quite tricky (and occasionally nerve wracking) to perceive if the run was heading down or up and how steeply. By day's end we were thoroughly dampened and chilled for the train ride home. Grade: B-

Flims-Laax-Falera (Jan 10-11)
Our second excursion to many Swiss ski snobs' favorite destination was a slightly more sober affair. We were flattered to be the only native English-speakers (of course everyone's English is nevertheless perfect) attending the birthday celebration of a German friend, a group of 10 mostly Germans with a sprinkling of Swiss and Finns. This group was all about skiing (not drinking) and Steph and I and two other casual skiers maintained a sensible Blue & Red itinerary, rendezvousing with the others after their Black & Off Piste missions. Après-ski and dinner were sensibly fun if not wild and crazy affairs. Grade: A-

Make sure to tune in for the exciting Pt. 2 post coming soon, where Stephanie nearly knocks Vladimir Putin off the chair lift..!

Swiss Ski Season

With spring right around the corner (perhaps?), Switzerland continues to enjoy its coldest and snowiest winter in over 40 years. In early November the snowfalls started in earnest and have barely relented since, piling up to twice the average annual depth. But don't worry about us (were you?), because to say that Switzerland is enjoying this winter is no euphemism--everyone here is ecstatic. Although the snow melts quickly in the city flatlands near the large lakes, such as Lake Zurich and Lake Geneva, it continues to accumulate across the vast Alpine heights and create possibly the best ski season anyone here can remember. And as we're finally learning this year, forget entirely about cheese, chocolate and Rolexes...this country is absolutely all about skiing.

As new arrivals to Switzerland in Nov 2007, we prioritized settling a few million lifestyle items over skiing that first winter. Without skis, friends, a car or a clue where to start, the thought of a weekend in the mountains instead of, say, drearily searching for new furniture, seemed a touch ludicrous. Ah, but the game had changed come Nov 2008, eh? After a year in Europe with our feet replanted partially-solidly underneath, we laid the groundwork for investigating the hubbub. Still carless but now comfortably employing the bus and hourly rental car service, we found a far-flung suburban discount ski outlet (discount is still an oxymoron in expensive Switzerland, but we saved 700 Francs at the very least) and each bought the whole kit--fancy composite carving skis, boots, pants, ski socks, goggles, gloves, helmets (very trendy), you name it.

So adorned, we sat around the apartment waiting for snow to fall and the phone to ring--and wouldn't you know, they did. Repeatedly. For reference, the last time we skied was two days over Thanksgiving weekend 2004 (an awesome trip to Whistler, British Columbia) and, at least for myself, less than half a dozen days prior to that in my life (Steph grew up skiing in MN and is much more experienced) . Now in the last three months, I've been out 10 total days on six occasions, still mild by Swiss standards, with at least two more excursions in the works.

This tiny country--half the size of South Carolina--features 157 distinct ski resorts. In the winter, it's not a stretch to imagine the entire Swiss transportation infrastructure built to accommodate their national pastime. Even reasonably-popular ski areas situate one or more lifts directly adjacent to or a short walk from a main train station; buses fill the gaps between resorts and several towns are even completely car-free. It's therefore quite commonplace (and we still find hilarious, although we'd like to try it soon) to see people fully geared-up on a weekday morning, clunking out of their city apartments in those terribly awkward ski boots to a local bus stop, then clunking through the busy Bahnhof, clunking onto any number of trains and then off in some resort town--100 miles door-to-gondola, no street shoes necessary.

I'll try to tell some slope stories next time, we have a few. In the meantime, here are some pics from several outings this season: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=2hd8fyj.cljaeiaj&x=0&y=1pik12&localeid=en_US

The United States of...

The United States of Awesome. That phrase was coined by one of our (American) Zürich friends during his recent Thanksgiving U.S. holiday. Not only did I just shamelessly pilfer it, I turned it into the theme for recounting Steph's and my return for Christmas 2008. And we generated ample variations to amuse ourselves throughout the week of our stateside return between Christmas and New Year's.

It's no secret that a trans-Atlantic journey via frequent-flier miles at holiday time is an exercise in compromise. Compound that with some unavoidable, relatively last-minute changes to our internal travel plans, plus some relatives in slightly hard-to-reach places, and a crazy itinerary results.

We left Zürich on Tuesday morning, 12/23, for a four-hour train ride to Milan, spent the night at the Park Hyatt (very nice), took a loooong flying day to JFK airport followed by a connection to BWI (Baltimore) airport, drove 45 min. to Washington DC (spending 2 nights with Steph’s sister’s family, one night at the Park Hyatt DC, awesome restaurant), back to BWI via Amtrak and wow! it’s different than the Swiss rail system, flew to Charlotte NC (1 night at the new Hyatt Place), drove to Aiken SC (2 nights with my parents), drove to Atlanta GA (1 night at the Grand Hyatt), then flew back to JFK and—well airborne when the Times Square ball dropped--on to Milan, and a four-hour train ride back to Zürich to arrive home the afternoon of 1/1. Mostly traveling free of charge, if not totally relaxed.

The weather treated us right, with temps ranging from the forties in DC to low sixties in Aiken (!), much better than what either the Midwest or Switzerland have dished out lately (although Zürich has certainly been more comfortable than Chicago or Minneapolis, but then so has Siberia). Christmas day was wonderful, there’s nothing like watching nieces and nephews tear into the present pile.

Without further adieu, here are a handful of rejiggered acronyms for the homeland after now 14 months living abroad…

United States of Affordable. Thank God for U.S. consumerism. Virtually everything costs 50-70% less than in Switzerland, no lie (have I mentioned that before?). True to form, we brought large suitcases nested in gigantic suitcases in order to each lug 75 lbs. of goods back to Zürich. Tiring work when you move around as much as we did. But we haven’t forced ourselves yet to bite the bullet and pay 17 Francs for a $5 bottle of shampoo, or 300 Francs for a $120 GPS, etc., etc.

United States of A, B, C, D… The selection of products in the U.S. is also vastly superior, by the way. Flavors, colors, sizes, styles, and on and on. Not just something for everybody, something for everybody and their mood.

United States of Aktion. Aktion is a German term for “Sale”. Although it was just after Christmas, it was hard to find an item not marked down. There were still lots of shoppers, but things did appear a bit subdued from the outright shopping mayhem of the past, say, five years (although it galls me to acknowledge even one iota the ceaseless slew of economic doomsday media reports).

United States of Automobiles. If after the summer’s fuel price scare and recently increased environmental consciousness Americans are driving smaller vehicles or driving less frequently, good lord I couldn’t tell. Big cars, cars everywhere, everyone driving big cars everywhere. Although there's so much more wide open space to cover in the U.S. Much to the horror and extreme financial detriment of Detroit, we took Atlanta public transportation from Buckhead to the airport and it was surprisingly clean, fast and convenient.

United States of Adobo. We ate Mexican food three times. Muy delicioso. And lots of great bagels, too, but unfortunately 'bagel' doesn't start with an 'A'. And most importantly…

United States of Angus. When we weren’t eating Mexican food (and when we were), we ate beef. A steak the size of my head in Washington DC. A burger the size of Stephanie’s head at JFK. Christmas ornaments made from meatballs. American beef is hands down the best in the world. If you haven’t tried beef outside the U.S., don’t. You’ll only disappoint your palate and/or damage your jaws and always insult your wallet. In Europe order pig or chicken instead—it’s often noticeably better than in the U.S., the flipside of beef. So since my return I’m eating all meals with a side of flax seed oil until my cholesterol returns to normal.

So there you have it! A whirlwind trip, but one we really enjoyed. It always makes us appreciate the good parts of both continents. Our next planned trip stateside isn’t until June, so if you want to see us before then you’ll have to find or forge a cheap ticket to Europe. Good luck!

Also some pics: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=2hd8fyj.6mpvp243&x=0&y=fb0zz6&localeid=en_US

The Best Fest, Pt. 2

OK, I left off approach- ing the Hofbräu-Festzelt (party tent) in leather pants and suspenders. At 6:30pm on an un- seasonably cold Friday evening (which also happened to be a German national holiday) the Oktoberfest fairgrounds were completely packed. Unfortunately this didn't make things warmer, as my Lederhosen were the shorts version, not pants. Our U.S. group of 10 nudged its way shoulder-to-shoulder for twenty-five minutes down the main fairground aisle and then the tent aisle, finally finding the Hofbrau entrance for ticketholders. A short wait and we were in.

I don't know how to describe the environment other than complete revelry and chaos (and quite warm and moist); check out the pictures at the end of the post. The Hofbräu tent fits 7,000 people, mostly on reserved benches arranged so closely together that you're literally back-to-back (pressing somewhat uncomfortably) with your unknown neighbors. The ticket price includes 2 Maß (two liters of beer) and half a roasted chicken (surprisingly quite delicious!). Anything additional, e.g., a gigantic pretzel, more beer, etc., costs a few Euros. After one liter of beer, everyone in the tent is handling their BAC pretty well; things are under control. After one-and-a-half liters, everyone is bombed more or less simultaneously. Then everyone continues to drink somewhere between 2, 3, 4, ? liters more. Brain cells beware.

A centrally-located German oompah band plays mostly classic German drinking songs, occasionally interspersed with a popular song from the last 40 years (still in oompah format), and, literally every five minutes, a short toasting song called Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit, or "Toast to the coziness!" At first you toast your table-mates, but before long everyone also toasts the neighboring tables, then people spill into the aisles (due to simply too much coziness) and everyone continues toasting basically everyone all night long. Yes, beer is flying everywhere, and the heavy glass steins are dangerous. We met several awesome German people from Stuttgart and near Frankfurt. Under the heavy influence of beer, most were initially fooled into thinking I also was German and not American, due to my Germanic complexion, ability to pronounce five German words, and my dynamite Lederhosen. Everyone is politely herded out of the tent at 11:00pm; I was waylaid on the crowded dark fairgrounds talking to some weird drunk German guy and somehow separated from our group, requiring me to figure out the tram and walk back to our hotel alone. I somehow made it, Stephanie was justifiably relieved to see me, and I her.

Steph and I enjoyed the honor of repeating the exercise the following morning, starting again at 11:30am for lunch seating at the Hippodrom tent (colorful carnival theme, more upscale and considerably roomier at only 3,200 guests) with our Zürich group of 8 (German/Manhattan/ Australian/Philly/Mexican/Swiss). Guess what? Up to the first liter-and-a-half of beer, we were all still feeling ill from the night before. After that, we all felt great and started toasting the neighboring tables, etc. After 2, 3, 4, ? more liters we were politely kicked out for the next seating at 3:30pm, but then rendezvous'ed with some of the U.S. group and drank additional liters in a cold outdoor fairgrounds beer garden. Finally, for whatever reason, we returned to the scene of Thursday's crime--the Hofbräuhaus itself--for dinner and yes, more beer. Needless to say, craziness ensued all day and evening. I'll spare the details (I can't remember them all anyway).

As could be expected, Sunday was payback time from all the bodily organs harboring hurt feelings from Thu-Sat's inelegant treatment. And there was no escape during the four-hour train ride home. One of our Zürich number looked solidly green from 9:00am at the hotel through the entire trip until we arrived at 4:30pm; his stomach kept rebelling. Poor Stephanie exited the train (with me accompanying her) directly at the Zürich airport--not yet near home--to board a flight for Ekaterinburg, Russia of all places for a week-long work trip. Matt & Mel spent that Sunday night and partial next day with me at our place before continuing their honeymoon to Interlaken and then Italy. Every single Oktoberfest participant that I'm aware of caught a cold the next week; who would've guessed that three solid days of drinking in 40-degree wet weather would compromise one's immune system?

Regardless, the combination of old friends from home together with new Zürich friends at a spectacularly fun event made for our best single time in Europe the past year. A fair number of pictures have been culled so as not to preclude any Oktoberfest participant from running for public office later in life, but these are still good: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.3flf93f7&x=0&y=60q99s&localeid=en_US

The Best Fest, Pt. 1

I'll start with a zinger--Munich's Oktoberfest is the best time we've had in nearly a year in Europe and ranks among our top parties of all time. After having tentatively planned to attend for years but now finally within striking distance, our nagging apprehension that the event would be campy or touristy or overrated was off base. If marathon beer-drinking isn't your thing, you should probably select a different vacation spot. But if your liver can handle a weekend of craziness, this is the carnival for you.

In a nutshell, Oktoberfest (held since 1810) runs for two weeks and three weekends hosting six million visitors in Munich's festival grounds. It's a gigantic carnival whose prominent feature is a wide corridor of 14 "tents"--temporary structures but more like gigantic decorated warehouse buildings--hosted by local Bavarian breweries. Beer is served only by the Maß, or heavy 1-liter glass stein, early and often. Each tent holds three seatings per day, lunch from about 11pm-3pm, happy hour from 3-7pm, and an evening seating from 7-11pm. Tickets are required for bench seating, otherwise crazy people queue outside for hours for general admission standing room. Various tents hold anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000 people. The festival is additionally celebrated by men dressing in traditional Lederhosen, or leather trousers, and women in Dirndls, which look like a St.Pauli Girl dress.

Our Chicago friends Matt and Mel--who quit the rat race and have crewed in the Caribbean for the past two years and just obtained their own 45-ft. catamaran for chartering (check them out and book an awesome vacation at http://www.sailfreeingwe.com/)--got married the last weekend in September and subsequently honeymooned for two weeks in Europe, including visiting Oktoberfest accompanied by a group from their wedding party. Steph and I obtained tickets (via eBay in German, not easy) for the U.S. group for seats in the Hofbräu tent on Friday evening Oct 3, and we were also invited to the Hippodrom tent for Saturday lunch with a group of Zürich friends.

Matt & Mel came to Zürich to unwind for a few days at the Park Hyatt (he's a former Hyatt employee) after their wedding and before the big event. I greeted them at the airport and showed them around Zürich a bit the first afternoon before jet- and wedding-lag took its toll. The four of us spent two nice evenings together and then boarded the train for Munich on Thursday morning. The ride was uneventful save for an atypical draught beer vendor hawking his wares up and down the train aisles--at 8:30am (we declined, beer and espresso don't mix). The various U.S. group members and one early Zürich couple--our good Australian/Philly friends--rendezvous'ed throughout that afternoon and evening. Steph and I had briefly toured the city (two days, one night) way back in 1998 and our group similarly visited the Marienplatz and Rathaus Glockenspiel and meandered through the old town before (like all groups) being irresistibly magnetically drawn to the legendary Munich Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. In that cavernous raucous beer hall we luckily snagged a far-flung corner table, began drinking beer in earnest and seemingly barely stopped for the next 48 hours.

Coming out of the gates far too early on Thursday night made Friday afternoon a bit rough (I'd say Friday morning but we didn't actually see it). We walked from our hotel through dismal steady rain to Munich's enormous public park, the Englischer Garten, for lunch and a recovery panaché, or 50/50 beer with 7-Up (so as not to shock the system too much either way). After a critical nap, I donned my Lederhosen and traditional German shirt (obtained from eBay and a Munich clothing store, respectively) and we all headed to the fairgrounds (I was the only U.S. group member decked out but Saturday's Zürich group was well-costumed; Steph had tried in vain to procure a Dirndl...next year)...

OK, sorry to stop here for now, but there's more description and, more importantly, pictures of Hosen, Dirndls, massive steins, bloodshot eyes, etc., to come.

French Quarter Quarterly

Whew, it's becoming harder and harder to catch up from my blog backlog! OK, prep yourself for some lame posts. Oh well, at least I have some pictures.

Steph had another work trip to Paris in late August/early September, which she craftily extended through the weekend for some R&R and invited her husband (me!) to join. All in the spirit of honoring our half-serious oath upon departing Chicago for Europe to visit our favorite city quarterly, we've surprisingly almost achieved that goal this year--our third visit in nine months.

I arrived Friday afternoon and after rendezvous'ing and situating ourselves at our favorite Hyatt Madeleine, we headed to a classically Parisian quaint grocery-shopping street for wine; Steph (who has been refreshing her French with a weekly tutor) impressed both the wineshop staff and me with a fairly full French conversation regarding our wine options. We promptly carried the bottles to a lovely dinner at the downtown apartment of one of Steph's coworkers, where we spent the remainder of the evening.

Saturday we again repeatedly rented the all-too-easy and so-available Vélib bicycles to explore Paris as we love to do. We checked out the city's outskirts, visiting the canal district for a very neighborhoody and different feel than downtown. We hunted down a recent award-winning bakery (and that's saying something, given just a bit of competition in the city) and over-ordered all manner of sweet and savory baked goods, which we promptly biked to a nearby park and scarfed on a bench. Cruising back into the city center in the mid-afternoon, we stopped at a lively Bohemian bar called Chez Prune for a beer before returning to the vicinity of the hotel. We shopped briefly at our favorite food shops around the Madeleine church (and peeked in the window of 2007's MOTY champion Maison de la Truffe) before the mandatory Saturday afternoon nap, necessary to pass our non-eating time more quickly.

We hit a neighborhood wine bar to warm up for dinner, a simple restaurant known for its steak frites; we make a point of eating steak outside of Switzerland, where the price-to-value relationship is a bit too out of whack by our spoiled U.S.-beef eating standards. We stopped at another café for a final nightcap glass of wine, until we realized how close we were to Harry's New York Bar (we've visited before), where we stopped again for a final-final nightcap. Harry's dates from the early 1900's; it's decked out with a fascinating array of throwback (authentic) U.S. university banners (which creates a weird sense of nostalgia) and is widely credited as the birthplace of the Bloody Mary in the 20's. They haven't lost a step, as the one I sampled again that Saturday night ranks as possibly the best (or close second) Bloody Mary I've ever imbibed.

Four hours on the train saw us home that Sunday. Chalk up yet another perfectly lovely trip to Paris, although I am slightly concerned how we'll fit in that final trip in Q4. Pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.6hn4l8ib&x=0&y=-mcdd8z&localeid=en_US

Coastal Craziness

Way back on August 1, after spending all of 1-1/2 days back in Zürich since returning from the U.S. (just long enough for Hobbes to reacquaint himself with our smells), we boarded a train that Friday morning for a seven-hour trip through the Alps and down into Italy. Destination: the Adriatic Sea.

The Australian/American (Philadelphia) couple who first opened the friend floodgates for us at Europameister--Steph and he ride the same commuter train to the same office complex--invited us with a group of eight unknowns to the beach resort town of Rimini, Italy, for the weekend. Steph and I, still jet-lagged and generally travel weary, were slightly regretting our positive RSVP several weeks prior, generally grumbling about the 14 total train-hours and staying in a cheapo beach hostel (not our usual highbrow style) during the coming three days with a group of basic strangers. A work colleague of Steph's had characterized Rimini as a tourist trap for Germans, and blog followers may remember my generally mixed feelings on Italy from my first-ever trip in March. But far from being homebodies and willing to take chances to meet people, we dug down for a little extra social energy and set out. Funny how those decisions always seem to pay off.

We half-accidentally bumped into two group members--another Australian girl and American (Iowa) girl--on our train and chatted for most of the trip; it's easy to kill lots of time learning about everyone's background & situation and comparing notes on Switzerland. I absorbed the rather parched countryside views as our Swiss train passed through the famous Emilia-Romagna region's gourmet trifecta towns of Parma (prosciutto), Reggio (Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese) and Modena (balsamic vinegar) before switching trains in sweltering Bologna. We spent the 45 minute layover sampling some tasty panini-type sandwiches before boarding...the Italian Nightmare Train.

The final planned 70 minute ride seemed to last 7 hours itself. On a packed, crummy old undulating train with broken air-conditioning and windows that barely cracked, the relentless baking sun and humidity were stifling. The journey began with an hour's motionless delay. My lightweight shirt and drawers were soaked through with perspiration--with actual damp dark spots like spilling water on one's self. Quite lovely, but I certainly wasn't alone. At some point, things became comically uncomfortable; we just laughed. Ultimately we arrived in Rimini, deciphered the bus system (not nearly so organized Switzerland's but then, whose is?) and cruised in a somewhat better-ventilated bus down the town's long main strip to the hotel.

The tiny modest hostel room, also sans-AC, met our low expectations with a combo bathroom/shower that indiscriminantly sprayed water all over the sink, toilet and aging bidet (?). We walked the short distance to the beach and rendezvous'ed with the previously-arrived full group around 6pm, also enjoying a short beachside jaunt through the warm salty waves. The all-Zürich-based group featured two Londoners, two Scots, a Canadian, and one Swiss in addition to the already familiar double-Australian/double-American combo; all single (one dating couple) and mostly younger by several or more years; nobody had known each other before moving to Zürich anywhere from three years to nine months ago.

To make a long weekend story short, everyone was extremely friendly (keeping with my theory that not many ex-pats are duds) and we had a blast dining, drinking, dancing and beach clubbing until way too late both nights and relaxing in typical laid-back beach town fashion during the day. The beach was surprisingly large and uncrowded, full of Italians with hardly a German in sight. After only a day of unwinding, the hostel room seemed perfectably serviceable--it is a beach town after all, yes, not a global finance hub? Nearly every local was happy and friendly, food was inexpensive and occasionally delicious, our companions were fully entertaining and we felt right at home. My previously somewhat hard stance on Italy softened appreciably after a totally enjoyable weekend and I can say (gasp!) that I cautiously look forward to returning in the future.

Just to make us appreciate Switzerland all that much more, however, the entire Italy-based train ride home lacked AC and we fidgeted variously (I quite hungover, although Steph not surprisingly had behaved much more responsibly), uncomfortable under a constant slight film of perspiration for the full seven hours. I even unbuttoned five buttons and left my chest fairly exposed the entire trip. How's that for embracing the local culture? Doesn't seem so silly to me now.


View Larger Map

A New Kind of Hiking

Not five minutes into the shrouded humid forest, we sensed big trouble. Mosquitoes swarmed virtually every step, especially for the poor soul leading the charge, kicking them up from the damp overgrowth obscuring the seldom-used trail. Yet our defenses held them at bay. We had hoped against but rationally expected this possibility and soldiered on. Alas, the Achilles heel of our tenuous stand-off with the blood suckers was its sustainability. The oppressive humid heat and exertion encouraged ample sweating, quickly diluting the OFF!. You know the feeling when your sunscreen application is wearing off and you just barely sense the sun burning your skin? We all sensed almost simultaneously the bug spray wearing thin and, of the dozens if not a hundred mosquitoes literally bouncing off us every minute, one or two buzzing jerks gaining purchase. For me, it began on the heels of my hands where my hiking poles had rubbed the protection off first; not normally a choice site for a mosquito, eh? Yeah well, these suckers were tough. We heavily reapplied with OFF! and moved along.

After perhaps two miles, we reached a clearing at a gravel county road and paused to reassess in the cool open breeze. Billy had sustained more than a few bites on his shaved head, having unwisely opted for a hat during our initial ten minutes before donning the head net and unfortunately trapping one lucky mosquito inside. Gavin unhesitatingly ditched his head net for the full torso net (including head, quite stylish) and Billy and I followed. The suits were comfortable enough that I accidentally tried to eat a Snickers bar through mine (either that or I’m just dumb); the Snickers was so melted that it almost worked. We crossed the clearing and plunged into more trees.

While perhaps less inspiring than Yosemite’s panoramas or the desert’s vast austerity, this GT section featured some lovely scenery, most notably serene forested lakes and reedy grasslands. The going got rougher as we near-bushwhacked through the completely overgrown trail over marshy terrain and muddy depressions. The mosquitoes and horseflies never relented, occasionally scoring a good bite through the nets. Our mental fortitude hung tough but ebbed gradually over five, six, seven miles with the dipping sun until another all-too common setback struck--we lost the trail.

Every case runs a little differently, but it happens to everyone. Too many four-wheeler trails and other hiking trails crisscrossed, our vague map was no help, we followed the wrong blaze on a tree, took a presumed shortcut to reconnect and found ourselves still off the correct trail and uncertain of our exact location with perhaps 90 minutes of sun remaining. That was the final straw—beleaguered and grumpy, we agreed on an evacuation plan, determining to follow a trail south and west to hit one of two county roads that reconnected with the GT.

We exited the forest onto a county road, nervous about trespassing slightly between disconcertingly junk-strewn farms showcasing rusted equipment and a burning garbage can, all the while imagining rock salt-filled shotguns pointed at our backsides. We traversed our ninth mile of the day on concrete to reconnect with the trail. In the rapidly dwindling daylight, we scouted both sides of the trail intersecting the road with equally dismal results—one side in a thigh-high-grass field bordering a particularly unfriendly looming farmhouse, the other side ensconced in dark wet forest, both sides swarming with dusk-enthused mosquitoes. No decent place to situate a tent (much less two), with road signs additionally warning against tents and trespassing, and no water sources.

We may have contended and persevered against one or two such negative elements. But faced with mosquito swarms, trespassing, no flat dry ground, no water and no sunlight, we ultimately differentiated between roughing it and stupidity. For the first time in any of our lives, we embraced a completely new type of hiking—hitch-hiking.

Yes, you heard it, UHR 2008 aborted. While Gavin attempted via emergency cell phone to locate and contact the few motels and bars in the surrounding towns, searching in vain for a shuttle or taxi or desperate proprietor to drive 20 miles to a remote county road to pick up three strangers, Billy and I started thumbing the infrequently passing vehicles. Several slowed enough to observe our spooky mosquito net and headlamp getups before accelerating on; some drunken teenagers paused for amusement to hear our story and offer a few words of useless advice; in the dark a blood-chilling cacophony of howling let loose from the nearby looming farmhouse as if from a pack of wild dogs or perhaps werewolves (minutes later, our throats remained surprisingly intact).

Finally a beat-up car containing a man and several kids stopped. A local farmer, he offered useful advice regarding exactly where to camp without trespassing and then thank heavens! further offered to drive us to our car or a town bar. I’m certain we appeared an equal measure of probably normal but perhaps slightly odd to each other (eek, Deliverance!) as we carefully negotiated him dropping off his kids and returning to carry two of us--Billy and me without gear--back to our trailhead car 15 miles away via pitch black county roads. He did, and during the drive he said his kids had asked him why he actually returned to help us. He explained that he’d lived in Alaska for fifteen years and knew exactly the feeling of being bug-bitten, lost, thirsty and exhausted. Our guardian angel that night, for sure. We found our car, followed him back to find Gavin and the gear miraculously unaccosted in the dark after 40 minutes alone, paid him $20, thanked him profusely and sped gratefully toward the nearest decent-sized town with a real hotel. Chalk up 2008’s short UHR as the weirdest one yet.

Epilogue: while the mosquito bites were TNTC (too numerous to count), Gavin won the tick contest that evening, removing 10 from his chest, back and legs, vs. 6 for me and Billy’s mere 4, all tenaciously grippy but none yet engorged. Following UHR tradition, we consumed as much pizza and draft beer as our stomachs could hold at a local bar later that night.

Click to enlarge the GPS/Google Earth track (above) as hiked from right to left. Pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.1e9zyexn&x=0&y=vlfjqp&localeid=en_US

Back in the U.S.A.

Our nearly two-week trip back to the Midwest in July started like a whirlwind and eventually settled down. Steph and I conveniently flew together direct from Zürich to Chicago, actually the return leg from our original outbound tickets from Chicago in November (lacking our final visas, Switzerland hadn’t allowed a one-way flight in without proof of return, sensible enough). Without delving into detail, we saw as many friends as possible during a short stint in Chicago and spent the most time at Steph’s family’s lake cabin an hour outside of Minneapolis. As happy as we are seeing a few friends during our too-short return trips, we’re equally disappointed for the majority we don’t see. Coordinating everything is tremendously tricky and we now realize that our expectations should revolve around seeing everyone once every three years, not every year (of course, not including people visiting us in Europe!).

This blog’s primarily U.S. audience certainly doesn’t want to read about Steph’s and my somewhat altered perceptions of our home country after nine months away, right? Such platitudes, however mild, simply aren’t entertaining. Suffice it to say that our culture is consumerism, for all the benefits and drawbacks that insinuates. Since the prior blog entries revolved around a favorite activity--hiking--I’ll stick in that groove and focus on recounting an ill-fated adventure during our U.S. return. You’ll recall that Sven and I partake in an annual backpacking group excursion that includes my two brothers and several college friends from U of Madison. The excursion is dubbed UHR—the Ultimate Hiking Reunion—and as one could expect with guy-only trips, it’s usually planned with equal doses of hardened experience and local geographic ignorance to challenge the group; we jokingly call it hard core.

Backpacking isn’t hiking per se (like a day’s nature walk) and it’s not camping (with your car ten feet or a mile away); we trek everything you’d need to survive outdoors for three nights or so, 30-40 lbs. each, into remote areas seeking solitude. Planning revolves around geography, distance and water. We’ve been slightly lost and removed from water sources in Death Valley (in 2001, not so funny), snowed in at 10,000 feet in the New Mexico Rockies (2002), traversed the rocky Joshua Tree desert in California (2003), soaked by a weekend of rain in waterfall-laden Red River Gorge, KY (2004), broken down weeping at the expansive granite cliff beauty of Yosemite (oh wait, that was the Mariposa battallion in 1851, not us in 2005), covered nearly a half-marathon per day across the forested rolling hills of the Superior Hiking Trail, MN (2006), and kayaked between islands across frigid, choppy Lake Superior until our arms fell off (2007).

With too many competing schedules, budgets and home bases among the group, UHR 2008 consisted of just us three brothers for three days and two nights on the Glacier Trail (GT) in the forests of northwest Wisconsin (Sven claimed our Faulhorn ascent as European or ‘EUHR 2008’). Our largest worry was not the sketchy GT trail information (especially unclear campsite/water possibilities) but the region’s wet spring and early summer—read, mosquitoes. But what’s a UHR without some risk?

The brothers rendezvous’ed Friday noon (Steph wisely stayed at the lake cabin) in the nowhere town of McKinley, WI, positioned between homesteads of Minneapolis and Madison. Interestingly, while Gavin and I waited for Billy (yes, aliases) in a Subway parking lot, a local sweet corn saleswoman in a pickup truck on the corner recruited me to stand in briefly while she used a restroom and grabbed coffee. At first I believed she had sensed from afar my MBA business savvy, but quickly I realized that her street-smart, Trump-style “Apprentice“ approach rendered my talent moot; her perfect location, location, location at the town’s main crossroads would have enabled any drooling fool to sell, as I did, $24 worth in five minutes. While I realize U.S. food prices have skyrocketed, her $6 price for a bag of 14 ears handily beat Switzerland’s usual $4.50-for-2 ears. My commission was a free bag of farm-fresh sweet corn, for me a $31.50 value or $378/hour!

As always happens, organizing our departure consumed most of the afternoon. Amidst a passing rain shower (bad omen?), we left one car at the planned endpoint and then carpooled with the gear to the trailhead 30 miles away. We divvied up items as equitably as possible, with tents, food and cooking equipment being the usual heavy culprits. A bright hot sun followed the rain showers, creating an instantly sweaty, steamy atmosphere that softened our precious king-sized Snickers bars before we even fully packed them. Leaving nothing to chance, Gavin had procured plenty of DEET and Deep-Woods OFF! as well as anti-insect head nets AND nifty full torso nets in case of extreme emergency. The forest-edge trailhead hosted a few buzzing mosquitoes, so we donned the head nets and doused our exposed arms and hands with OFF!. Thus charged, we entered the woods...

Pictures next time.

The Descent - Kinda Faul

We woke the next morning in the cold Faulhorn bunkroom to silence, i.e., no rain. Within ten minutes we were groomed (no shower) and packed and stepped outside for the short, slightly chilly jaunt to the dining room. We paused to admire our same panorama view but of the Alps in a different mood, a deep gray backdrop to impenetrable pools of clouds lying below and between the numerous peaks. Our simple breakfast consisted of bread, a few small packaged cheeses and various condiments with coffee and tea. We settled up with the hostel's courteous caretakers, purchasing bottled water (?!) to refill our Nalgenes (the hotel collects non-potable rainwater for its plumbing), and descended the switchbacks into the cool, damp morning.

The presumably breathtaking views from the ridge we planned to follow were unfortunately completely obscured by clouds. Within five minutes of departing a thick fog rolled over us, and I snapped the above picture of the Faulhorn's protruding summit with the hostel and its helicopter landing pad in profile. The mountain's rough, rocky, snowy northern-side terrain contrasted sharply with the prior day's southern smooth ascent. We hiked an hour through the rugged, spooky cool landscape without encountering a soul. Ever descending, we hit our next landmark, the Berghaus Männdlenen Alpine hostel tucked into the ridge's folds. Not particularly thirsty but just because we could, we stopped for a coffee, unintentionally ruffling the hostel's slightly oddball three-person crew who pretended to straighten things up in our presence despite being near no-occupancy. Um, thanks, but reallly we don't care. Our brief respite ended in more ways than one, as a fairly pelting rain greeted us upon exit. We donned our rain gear and continued walking.

Sven claims to particularly enjoy backpacking in nasty weather as a good chance to enjoy the elements and test his gear. Since we had expected rain from the beginning, I was more or less in the same mind frame and we gleaned some slight masochistic glee from finally "roughing it" a bit as the rain and wind picked up, whipping through the canyon valleys and dousing us pretty well. By late morning we finally began passing a few ascending hikers, some properly outfitted and some just ignorant or dumb, already soaked and looking chilled in cotton sweatshirts, no hats and wet running shoes instead of boots. As SwissGuy's comment on the last blog entry wisely points out, don't mess around in the mountains. These kids were already looking at catching a week-long cold or worse.

The rain lessened its sting after an hour and more or less abated completely 30 minutes after that. We were entertained by first one, then several, then eventually dozens of jet black, shiny 6-inch-long Swiss salamanders across the trail--some motionless, some skittering along, and more than one pair openly engaged in what we first thought was wrestling, but later realized was copulating (truly embarrassing for all parties). The ridge path stayed high above the now green-pastured valleys below, active farms with grazing livestock dotting the landscape as only Switzerland can provide; nearly every hike here feels like an idyllic postcard walk.

In fact, during the final quarter of our hike, the livestock became downright, hm, shall we say, in-your-face with more than a few 1,000-lb ladies flopped down right across the trail, indolently observing our approach. The scattering of bulls present--as evidenced by their short but pointy horns--was not so amused and eyed us quite steadily. I'm not sure if "American Hikers Gored By Swiss Dairy Cows" would make CNN Headline News but, opting for discretion, we carefully picked our way off the path, tromping further upward though long wet grass and mud to avoid any international incidents. As backpacking luck often has it, our move proved rewarding as through a break in the clouds we thereby caught a view completely over the ridge's back side, a sheer drop thousands of feet above the bright blue Brienzersee lake flanked by cliffs. Unbelievable. We arrived at the Schynige Platte cogway rail station amidst a renewed steady drizzle. After the morning's wet, rocky, six-mile and 2,000 foot descent, we gratefully peeled off the rain gear aboard the historic cogway train that carried us the final wooded, sharp 5,000 feet down to Interlaken.

So what was our review overall? Well what can you say? True backcountry backpacking with days of solitude it ain't. But the nonstop panoramas and vistas provide the most spectacular scenery you could hope to lay eyes on. And a thought just dawned on me. Maybe removing 20 pounds of gear and eating fried eggs and sausage with beer instead of dehydrated spaghetti sauce isn't a bad way to go after all. Those Swiss, they've thought of everything.

GPS & Google Earth representations of the hike (click to enlarge):

Day 1 - Ascent from First past Bachalp lakes to Faulhorn















Day 2 - Ridge descent from Faulhorn to Schynige Platte with Interlaken (between the lakes) below

The Ascent - Not So Faul

Prior to the July 31 completion of his two year ex-pat venture, Swedish Sven (actually from Wisconsin now residing in North Carolina) visited Zürich for a long weekend in mid-July. Since Sven and I had reconvened annually the past seven years for a group backpacking tradition, we planned to extend that theme during his visit via an overnight hike in the Jungfrau Alps above Interlaken. Bless his soul, Sven arrived bearing the most spectacular gift possible—his espresso machine (mine broke in January, was dubbed unfixable by a Swiss expert and went un-replaced); it naturally requires 220V input, perfectly suitable in Sweden or Switzerland but unusable in the U.S. Overwhelmed with emotion, I blubbered my heartfelt gratitude and ruined a few Kleenexes upon regaining home-espresso capabilities.

That Thursday evening we organized our backpacking gear for our Friday-to-Saturday hike. This being my first overnight hike in Switzerland, I wasn’t sure what to expect. For a normal U.S. backcountry trip, we’d carry a tent and sleeping bags & pads and stoves and pots & pans and fuel and a water filter and all our meals pre-dried; each pack might weigh 30-35 lbs for two or three nights out. But per my limited understanding based on some (mostly German) research, Switzerland doesn’t really allow backcountry camping. Instead various huts, hostels and hotels are scattered amidst the network of hiking trails that covers the country-- even in “remote” hiking areas--so basically you’re never really that remote. In a tiny, densely populated country whose most precious natural resource is its beauty, hiking is not a pastime but an industry.

We planned to start above Interlaken and mountain-village Grindelwald and hike up to the local peak, the Faulhorn (8,800 ft.), stay Friday evening at the hut/hostel Berghotel Faulhorn—Europe’s oldest mountain hotel established in 1830--and hike down an adjoining ridge the following day. The plan’s only wrinkle was the weather forecast: nice for Friday’s ascent but rain blowing in for our “hotel” night and Saturday descent. Via phone a week prior in broken German, I had booked two bunks in the Berghotel’s 60-bunk Touristenlager (still not entirely sure of the amenities) and then let the cancellation date pass on Thursday. Rain or no rain, we were going hiking...

But like a doomed Everest expedition, disaster nearly struck before we could leave base camp. Disaster in the form of two extremely chatty Irish women (sorry, chatty and Irish is already redundant) who somehow stole our window table at the neighborhood bar Thursday night as Sven and I were responsibly finishing up our second beer, and then proceeded to buy us several additional large beers solely to suspend our departure in order to harangue me for being unemployed, for my woeful knowledge of Zürich dance clubs, and our U.S. politics in general. Actually they were pleasant enough--and it's occasionally relaxing to not say a single word for two hours--but we wisely let them hop a cab for unknown clubs while we stumbled home to catch our early AM train.

We blearily grabbed our packs and caught the bus to the train station Friday morning, the hangover not really kicking in until halfway to Interlaken and in full swing as we cogwheel-trammed and ski-lifted ourselves to Grindelwald and then First, our trailhead at 7,100 ft. Our small daypacks were light, perhaps only 10-12 lbs, carrying little more than a change of clothes, toiletries, light blankets, snacks & emergency rain gear, having forsaken nearly all backcountry equipment including sleeping bags. The hike was not long but fairly steep at 3.5 miles and 1,700 ft. gain; we progressed slowly to appreciate the absolutely gorgeous weather and scenery, passing the classic Alpine Bachalpsee lake on the way to the Faulhorn.

Steph and I had dayhiked the same route to the Berghotel Faulhorn two years prior on vacation but not explored too much. Management maintains the small establishment's interior quite well for its considerable age, although signs of antiquity abound. Despite all supplies requiring helicopter-lifting to the hotel's concrete landing pad once or twice a week (a spectacle Steph and I observed on our first visit, really amazing), the tiny restaurant's menu was impressively complete. As Sven devoured a nice sausage-in-homemade-pea-soup for late lunch, the proprietor explained that the bunk reservations had been fairly full that evening until every party except us canceled due to weather; luckily we had all 60 bunks to ourselves.

We spent the late afternoon at the Faulhorn's peak, perhaps 50 ft. above the hotel itself, gawking at the amazingly clear 360° views including the region's famous triple feature of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks. We unpacked onto the best two bunks available (the Berghotel also features six small private rooms, of which two remained booked that evening, so Sven and I were not the sole guests present a la The Shining's Overlook Hotel). Dinner was spectacularly mountainous cuisine: Alpine macaroni in cheese sauce for Sven and classic Rösti hash browns topped with Spiegelei fried egg for me, washed down (gingerly this evening) with a single beer.

The expected storm arrived as dinner ended, rattling the old dining room. Violent wind and rain lashed in as I cracked open the exit door, slamming it shut again to regroup like in some melodramatic movie. Laughing in disbelief, we sprinted outside and up a flight of stone steps to the bunks, drenched, cold and panting after 15 seconds' exposure. The bunk room temperature had plummeted amidst the approaching cold front at 8,800 ft. to perhaps 40-something degrees. We bundled up with the lightweight fleece blankets we'd brought, reinforced by several heavy wool blankets provided with the bunks, and allowed the angry, pounding rain to lull us to sleep, dreaming of tomorrow's adventure...

Some scenic pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.595lcmoz&x=0&y=dv5ybu&localeid=en_US

July 4, Swiss Style

Surprising- ly, we saw more fireworks than expected during our first July 4 in Switz- erland, i.e., exactly one. Some loony American ex-pat in the next town over blasted off a doozy, of which we observed only the bright red crest over the eastern city hillside from our evening patio vantage. Considerably more entertaining was a weekend visit from our frequent European partner in crime, our fifth rendezvous in eight months with Steph's college roommate, M. Sadly for us, this second visit to Zürich marked her final Euro weekend trip as her Fulbright teaching grant reaches its conclusion in mid-July and she leaves Germany after nine months to return home to the U.S.

Our July activities with M--already familiar with Zürich city from a January tour--focused more on the outskirts. As we like to do with guests, we ran her ragged and then fed her well. Steph lacks a true road bike and M wasn't moving hers back to the U.S., so they had bargained and wheeled and sealed a deal for M to transport her bike from Essen (not easy, even on Euro trains) to Zürich for Steph's discounted purchase. We celebrated M's arrival and the deal's consummation with a group ride after work on Friday, the same 13-mile round trip that Steph and I had blundered into (but now we're pros) featuring unexpected vineyard, lake and mountain views. We relaxed that evening, drinking wine and grilling pizza from scratch (have you ever grilled pizza? Slightly challenging but fun.).

Saturday we hopped the train 90 minutes south to the new-favorite Vierwaldstättersee area for a day hike from little town Küssnacht am Rigi to Lucerne. The area sits at the Alps' foot--before the mountains get too serious--featuring excellent views of peaks above lakes. We hiked about about three hours and 7.5 miles from Küssnacht under Mt. Rigi, up through a network of forested nature trails and back down to destination Lucerne under Mt. Pilatus (we visited Lucerne and Pilatus with my parents in June). I love maps and also thus Google Earth, so above is a representation of the hike from bottom-left to upper-right (click to enlarge). After emerging from the forest, rather than hoofing it another mile or two directly to downtown Lucerne, we elected the more reasonable option of pausing for Kaffee + Kuchen at a tiny village bakery and then relaxing in a lakeside park waiting for the ferry to shuttle us across the lake and ultimately deliver us downtown. We found Lake Lucerne equally as charming on this beautiful summer day as on our introduction. After several tries at finagling in German (finagling isn't easy when you're not fluent), we managed an early outdoor dinner seating at our Old Town Lucerne restaurant of choice, the brasserie that served Steph her 2008 MOY-to-date in June; everything was again excellent.

Waking from Sunday sleep-in saw clouds and light rain roll into Zürich (summers are rainier here than Chicago, but also not as hot and humid) and we took it relatively easy, consuming ourselves with cooking all day prepping for the homemade Mexican food fiesta we had promised M for her birthday the prior week; authentic Mexican is as difficult to obtain in Germany as in Switzerland (probably all of Europe). I really usually avoid tooting the horn, but sometimes the combo of Swiss ingredient quality and our practiced preparation yields fantastic results--perhaps the best Mexican dinner we've ever made, bite-for-bite like Chicago's Frontera Grill, source of most of the recipes. Corn tortillas, roasted salsa, poached chicken and guacamole, all from scratch among other condiments and side dishes. A truly gut-busting good time.

Steph sadly escorted M to the train station the following morning on the way to work. We'll miss her dearly, since her proximity in Europe and our frequent excursions together provided that hardest-to-attain and most valuable missing element from home, that is, a close friend at hand with which to share adventures and experiences. We're anxiously anticipating her return trip to Europe!

Pics from the weekend here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.3lpztl1n&x=0&y=1xy94p&localeid=en_US

Get Your Frog On

Exactly paralleling old home Chicago, Summer 08 didn't arrive in Zürich until about June 20. Let's hope it stays a while! But our collective impatience for summer is nothing compared to Sweden's. After suffering through long, dark, cold winters, the Swedes embrace summer's onset like nobody's business. So much so, in fact, that the summer solstice weekend of June 21 is arguably their most important holiday, featuring a traditional Midsummer celebration nothing short of wacky. As Sven found online recently from an English-Swedish newspaper:

'I've been invited to a Swedish Midsummer party, and frankly, I'm terrified. I've been told it involves eating raw fish, drinking copious amounts of vodka and dancing around a big phallus while I pretend to be a frog.'

If this piques your interest (how could it not?), digest the fascinating full article here: The Lowdown on Swedish Midsummer. Or dare to take the next step and check out the hilarious banned IKEA spoof on the celebration. An invitation for a non-Swede to such a private, close-friends affair is a rarity, and even after working several years with good relationships with several Swedes, nobody remotely considered broaching the possibility with Sven this year. Rats! Maybe it's a good thing because the hangover from this party purportedly lasts a week.

Our Skåne County tour across the windswept Swedish(-Wisconsin) plains on Thu-Fri lead from Staffanstorp village to nearby Lund and Malmö, Kullaberg and Helsingborg. Heard of those? Capital city Stockholm is nearly 400 miles further north and we weren't about to attempt it. Copenhagen, Denmark is actually the closest big city, we laid siege on Saturday.

Lund (below map, 'A') is a cute Swedish town with an awesome cathedral, much cooler inside than our more fabled but austere Zürich churches, with an intricate 600-year-old astronomical calendar clock and a spooky 900-year-old crypt. Malmö ('B') is the capital of Skåne and Sweden's third-largest city (not large by U.S. standards, less than 300,000 people) with an active Old Town plaza nightlife scene where we took in several Europameister games. Kullaberg nature park ('C') sits atop a sharp peninsula jutting into the Kattegat sea between Sweden & Denmark; we hiked down a steep rocky trail to a craggy seaside viewpoint and later to the peninsula's tip for expansive views and a healthy dose of windburn. Kullaberg claims infamy as the birthplace of "Swedish Sin", Europe's first resort area to allow mixed-sex bathing in the late 1800's (scandalous!).

Hiking out we saw groups of Swedes heading to an already-swelling Midsommer party gathering at the peninsula's lighthouse (invite only, regrettably) preparing to get their frog on. We stopped in Helsingborg ('D'), the closest point between Sweden and Denmark separated by a narrow strait, another nice town with several interesting fortifications given the proximity of the historical enemy. Due to their proprietors and employees downing dill schnapps in the woods all Midsommer weekend, most shops were unfortunately closed but we located an open Turkish-run café for mandatory Kaffee + (really good) Kuchen. Although Sven claimed his wife would never believe us, the weather particularly on our hiking day stayed mostly miraculously sunny (yes, even one sunny Swedish summer day is newsworthy), although frequent rain squalls also chased us.

Saturday we crossed the big bridge for a day in Copenhagen (København in Danish, pronounced SHOPE-en-hahm, which I quickly confused with Schlagrahm, German for 'whipped cream'). Once off the kitschy crammed main tourist avenue, we found Copenhagen quite pleasant, with fairly grand squares and neighborhoods and architecture somewhat reminiscent of Paris (admittedly I know zilch about architecture). After a shaky start the weather cooperated admirably and we enjoyed strolling around the city, a patio lunch complete with lingonberries, and another Kaffee + Kuchen diversion. My only regret was not sampling more Danish pastry and kringle, with bakery windows presenting a much different selection than our usual French/German/Swiss variety. Sven hails from Racine, Wisconsin, and don't believe for one second that his ex-pat assignment to Scandinavia was randomly dealt as you examine the eery relationship between Racine and kringle.

Heavy rains finally chased us away on Sunday with our journey from overcast 60°F Sweden to sunny and nearly 90°F Zürich shocking our unaccustomed systems. Where did that sudden summer weather come from?? We didn't even dance around a Maypole to earn it.

The usual routine here. Map. Pictures. http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.2ne0e0sr&x=0&y=9zsl37&localeid=en_US


View Larger Map

Midsommer in Scandinavia

Hej! Continuing rendezvous'ing with old friends soon not-to-be-living in Europe any longer, we traveled to Sweden last week to meet college friend Sven (guess whether that's his real name) before his ex-pat contract terminates and he returns to the good ol' U.S. of A. on July 31. Last Wednesday evening during the critical Sweden v. Russia EM match, Steph and I flew from Zürich to Copenhagen (Denmark, but the closest airport to Sven) with the flight's captain announcing Sweden's 2-0 loss and elimination just as we landed. So much for victory partying with the Swedes. Sven met us, smoothly manipulated the train ticket machine (always tricky in a new country with a line of impatient locals behind you) and we crossed the impressive Oresund Bridge--Europe's longest bridge and the world's longest border crossing--to the Swedish city of Malmö and subsequent short drive (yes, he has a car like normal people) to his house in nearby tiny suburban town Staffanstorp.

Steph and I were excited for our first ever exploration of Scandinavia; furthermore an opportunity to over-analyze a new culture always interests me in particular. For example, who knew that Northern Europeans differentiate Scandinavian (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) as a subset of Nordic (also including Finland, Iceland)? From ex-pat war stories previously exchanged with Sven--living with his wife and young daughter in Sweden for 16 months--life for uninstructed Americans in Sweden and Switzerland appeared to share interesting similarities, e.g., astronomical prices, despite the wide latitudinal difference. Fodder for much discussion during the weekend, we eventually chalked up our similar adjustment experiences to the European lifestyle in general and, more specifically, small wealthy trade-protected neutral proud rugged stoic countries intelligently yet reluctantly adapting ever-so-gradually to the realities of the EU and shrinking globe (EU member Sweden, despite retaining its own currency, is changing more quickly).

In an important, "Ahh, so we're not crazy" moment, we agreed that particularly difficult to assimilate given our Midwest U.S. puppy-dog personalities (recognized in Europe as among the unabashedly friendliest people in the world) is these countries' fierce independence manifesting itself not nationally but individually. As Sven recounted, if an elderly lady's groceries topple to the ground, or the closing train doors threaten to crush a pregnant woman wrestling on board a 40-lb stroller including baby, or a man is drowning, a Swede won't help unless specifically asked; to provide aid unasked compromises the struggling person's assumed strength and autonomy. Sven called it their "Viking roots". The Swiss often (not always) behave similarly, and it requires a huge mental adjustment for us not to perceive such behavior as rude or insensitive or unchivalrous. Take Sven's example of being tentatively approached late at night in a near-empty, frozen train station parking lot by a man ultimately needing a battery jump; after inquiring something in Swedish and Sven requesting English, the man said, "Oh, good, you're American, that means you'll help me!"

Where the countries differ dramatically (other than tax rates) is countryside landscape--Switzerland is hilly or mountainous virtually everywhere, while Sweden is the spitting image of Wisconsin. I mean you'd swear that you were driving through Wisconsin or Minnesota or Michigan. Wide open spaces, flat Midwest farm fields, sky everywhere. No wonder so many Swedes, Danes and Norwegians settled there, it must've felt exactly like home. Sweden's climate is trying: constantly windy with sun/rain combinations even more schizophrenic than Switzerland's, i.e., if you don't like the weather (or do), just wait an hour, coupled with seasonal extremes of dark and light--a mere six hours of wintertime daylight and hardly ever dark in summer. A streak of generally crummy weather over their 16 month stay, plus new house construction finishing early (surprise?!), sent Sven's wife and daughter back to the U.S. several months early while he finishes his work contract.

All right, enough cultural notes already. Amazingly enough, our visit coincided with none other than the summer solstice itself, June 21, longest day of the year, day of the Midnight Sun, heralding the infamous debaucherous Sweden Midsommer celebration. But I'll describe that crazy event and our exploration of Sweden's Skåne county (the best part about traveling is using new alphabet symbols) and Copenhagen, Denmark in the next blog entry. For now, suffice it to say that although we drove for hours all up and down Skåne (highlighted blue), it actually isn't much in the grand geographical scope. Quick, which is bigger, Sweden or Texas?