Here I am at Wengen-Grindelwald, on a bright, sunny Thursday afternoon! It snowed all day Tuesday and visibility was minimal, but the powder accumulated. Wednesday was perfect--the sun came out and there was plenty of room for "first tracks" throughout the day. And, I could see the slopes I had skied the day before! Thursday brought even more sunshine, and there was still a bit of untouched powder. All in all, it was a very satisfying ski trip. This photo comes from a free service--the photographer shows up on a slope, advertising that any photos he takes can be downloaded from the service's website. He hangs around for a couple of hours and snaps photos of whoever skis by. The photos are posted on the website in half-hour "bins," so it's pretty simple to figure out whether the photographer caught you "in the act." In the U.S., I could pay for an 8" x 10" glossy--I already did that in the pre-digital age! Anyway, Wengen was suggested to me as a skiing destination by friends of my sister, Judi. The village is in a quintessential alpine setting, or maybe it's my mind's stereotype of a quintessential alpine setting. No private cars are allowed, but several taxis and electric carts roam around. The final 15-20 minutes of the ride to Wengen is on a cog railway. The aerial tram to the ski slopes is literally a few steps from the railroad station. I continue to marvel at the convenience of public transportation for skiers.
I managed to get a ski partner only for about an hour and a half on the first afternoon--a computer science professor on holiday from Dresden. Unfortunately, I tired him out before I was ready to quit for the afternoon! However, during my three days of skiing, I struck up conversations with various folks who shared the chairlifts with me, usually starting with "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I worked on my French and German when I didn't end up with one of the many Brits who take their ski vacations here. The professor from Dresden was pleased to hear that I bothered to learn some German, commenting that doing so was unlike so many other Americans who assume that everyone else speaks English.
A few more observations from my skiing experience:
1. Yes, some ski areas have trees between the slopes, but virtually everyone stays away from them. The powder was great among the trees, but I don't recommend skiing there when you can't see where you will end up or you don't see ski tracks from someone skiing there before you! I tried that once, and ended up having to climb out of a ravine!
2. Don't share a T-bar with someone who is a lot taller than you. I ended up on a T-bar with a rather tall ski instructor, and by the end of lift, my hip was killing me!
3. Be very careful using a slopeside port-a-potty while wearing ski boots--the floor can be very slippery! (Yes, I managed to keep my balance, but it was difficult!)
4. Order tagesuppe (soup of the day) for lunch--it comes with fresh bread that tastes even better when dipped in the soup!
While I was skiing, Henry was traveling to Sussex, England to give a talk and meet with a former post-doc. Upon our return, we were both ready for a bit of warm, sunny weather, and we found it in Locarno over the weekend. We left the snow behind in Zurich, and when we reached the south side the St. Gotthard pass, the sun was shining. We strolled along the waterfront of Lake Maggiore, and dined outside! It was so warm, I had to remove my jacket. What a concept! Locarno did not have as much hustle and bustle as Lugano (a plus for us), and the waterfront was delightful.
No skiing this week--our stream of visitors begins with Henry's sister, Janice, and her husband, Neil, and continues over the weekend, with Alan, Henry's sister Alice's husband. Henry insists we don't have to clean the apartment, but guests give me the impetus!
Here I am, passing through Zurich once again. But, first I digress to our trip to Paris. Henry and I flew from Zurich to CDG on Air France. This was a huge concession by Henry, as Air France is not part of United's Star Alliance. Thus, he did not receive any Mileage Plus miles to add to the million he has collected over his years of travel. A further concession came on our return from Paris. Alas, although we were able to go to the Lufthansa (part of the Star Alliance) lounge in Zurich before our departure to Paris, we were unable to do the same at Charles deGaulle Airport on our way home. Air France has its own terminal at CDG; the other airlines are in terminals a train ride away, with their lounges beyond the security checkpoints for which we had no boarding passes. Henry definitely gets benefits from being a loyal United/Star Alliance customer, but I'm more used to sitting in steerage! In any event, Air France not only feeds its passengers (okay, it was a snack, but the chocolate filled croissants were rather decent), but also offers wine at no extra cost. Once upon a time, the U.S. airlines did that too!
Although it snowed during our visit to Paris, we had enough sunshine to take the elevator up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. Well, two out of three of us went up--Henry preferred the comfort of a park bench at ground level. Going up at all, no less to the second level, was a major feat for Sara and me, as we both have a fear of heights. My acrophobia, however, has definitely diminished over the years--maybe it's from taking long deep breaths and years of sitting on Taos Ski Valley safety bar-less chairlifts. While Sara immediately moved to the back of the elevator, I stayed in front to take pictures. The views were fantastic, and we were quite content with foregoing the third (top) floor.
The day before, while we waited for Sara to return from a class trip to Strasbourg, Henry and I visited the Musee d'Orsay (sorry for the absence of accent marks), one of my all time favorite museums--right up there with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Orsay has an outstanding collection of Impressionist paintings. While with Sara and attempting to find somewhere she had not yet been, we went to the Museum of Jewish Art and History. The exhibit tracked the movement of Jews as they were expelled from country after country in the last millennium. It was especially interesting to see aspects of Jewish communities in northern Africa.
For those of you that can remember back to our French class in seventh grade, our hotel was very near "Place d'Italie." That's where the fictional family in our French textbook had an apartment! It turned out that our hotel was also just around the corner from Rue Mouffetard, a Latin Quarter street known for its daily outdoor markets. I'm a sucker for wandering from stall to stall--buying is not a necessity, but taking lots of pictures is! On Sunday morning, I took myself over to a much bigger market next to the Bastille. I succumbed there, but only to buy some home-brewed hard cider for Sara, who we had just discovered is very fond of it. The photos range from pig heads to langoustines and fruits and vegetables to flavored salts and fresh spices. It was obvious that the locals who frequent the market have their favorite vendors--vendors and customers appeared to be on a first name basis, and although many vendors sold the same things, all of them had people lined up to buy their supplies.
Of course, we managed to eat well, but to our surprise, prices for most items (not just food) were generally a noticeable amount cheaper than in Zurich. Indeed, I bought a bunch of postcards and quickly wrote and sent them off before our departure! In any event, Sara made our trip a delight--she is comfortable in her surroundings, speaks French fluently, and has managed both to work hard and to take advantage of her time abroad. She might need to sleep the entire time she is in Zurich in mid-March on her way back to San Diego, but she definitely will have earned it! No, she won't sleep the entire time--she has already informed us she is saving her dirty laundry to wash at our apartment!
My skiing at Hoch-Ybrig during the week was a bit of a disappointment--mostly because of white-out conditions. It snowed the entire time I was there, which brought nice powder, but it wasn't until I got to the lower third of the ski runs that I could see! Every time I would ski a bit and then stop in the white-out area, I would get momentarily dizzy and disoriented. I should have figured out that the solution was not to stop until I could see!! I'm sure that's what my usual skiing partner, sister Judi, would say!! Right, Judi?? Anyway, I'm moving on to a big-time area tomorrow--the Jungfrau region, which includes Wengen, Murren, and Grindelwald. For the James Bond fans out there, Murren-Schilthorn is where the skiing scene in "On her Majesty's Secret Service" was filmed.
Yesterday, Henry and I went to Basel, just a one-hour train ride from Zurich. Beyond the very nice exhibit of Picasso etching prints at the Kunstmuseum, the highlight of our day was a delicious lunch at a Michelin recommended restaurant. It was one of those places where we had to watch our table manners, but they didn't throw us out when we moved our forks from our left hands to our right hands after cutting our food!
I'm still working on my German, even though I'm not continuing with the classes. I did have several humorous moments while skiing. One was this past week when I was having lunch at one of the slopeside restaurants. Trying to make use of my German language skills, I said to the server, "Ich mochte (sorry for the lack of umlauts) bestellen" when I was finished with my meal and wanted to pay. I couldn't understand why she asked me what more I wanted to order and then walked away when I said "Nein." When she didn't otherwise appear to be interested in taking my money, I realized that I meant to say, "Ich mochte bezahlen." The former means I want to order; the latter means I want to pay. I went somewhere else to eat the next day! When I was at Andermatt and renting skis, the young fellow who helped me spoke some English, but when he was adjusting the DIN settings on the skis (these settings alter how much pressure is needed for the bindings to release), he asked me, "How do you drive?" I couldn't understand what he was talking about until I remembered that the German translation of "to ski" is "Ski fahren." "Fahren" is the German word for "to drive." Not only is it used in the context of driving a car, it's also used in other contexts, such as cycling ("Rad fahren")!
Since my last posting, Henry returned from Berlin, we traveled to Andermatt for skiing (Henry helped with the avant-ski, but he returned to Zurich before apres-ski), I skied two days and came back to Zurich in time to unpack, do the laundry, and pack again for our 4-day trip to Paris to visit with Sara. In about an hour from now (having done the laundry again yesterday), I'll be off for another ski trip. I'll be staying at the apartment of our Del Mar friend, Rod Franklin, who received kudos in a prior posting. Einsiedeln (where Rod lives, but is rarely there) is a 35-minute bus ride to Hoch-Ybrig, a smallish ski area, but very convenient. Needless to say, the price is right on the accommodations! Many thanks, Rod!!
Andermatt is a delightful little mountain town near the Gotthard Pass. The Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn includes a cog railway system that makes its way over several passes. One of them is the Oberalp Pass, which separates Andermatt from Sedrun, another small mountain town. Taking advantage of the cog railroad, I went back and forth between skiing the Andermatt lifts and skiing the Sedrun lifts. While the first day of skiing brought clouds, wind (the upper cable car and all the chair lifts were closed, but the lower cable car was operating and I experienced T-bar "lifts" for the first time in eons), and snow, I also found someone with whom to ski in the afternoon. I very much appreciated the company--and we both felt more comfortable skiing "off-piste" with a partner. My fellow skier was (and still is) a Brit, a farmer by trade, with family and friends in Switzerland who apparently are fair-weather skiers. I guess that when skiing is in your backyard, you can be choosy about when you head for the slopes. He was extremely interested in U.S. politics, and we joined in an apres-ski beer to continue the conversation. Although I skied alone the second day, the weather was delightful. Unfortunately, the memory in the camera was full--alas, our photographic memories of Andermatt/Sedrun are cloudy (pun intended).
With a sample of one (or maybe two, if I count Sedrun separately), I have the following observations about skiing in Europe:
1. A lot of the slopes are groomed.
2. The snow, though some of it was powdery, is heavier than the fluffy powder at many ski areas in the western United States.
3. Much of the terrain is geared toward beginner and intermediate level skiers.
4. A number of slopes (or pistes) are multi-use slopes. Many people hike, both up and down, on the slopes; and many others bring sleds on the lifts and slide down the easier slopes. Park-type benches dot the slopes, so you don't have to sit on the snow to take some time to enjoy the views.
5. T-bars still exist is significant numbers.
6. More people than I expected wear helmets while skiing or snow-boarding.
7. Eating/drinking establishments are far more prevalent along the slopes than in the United States. One spot had movable lounge chairs--similar to what you might find for sunbathing at Powerhouse Park (next to the beach in Del Mar) or on the beach.
8. "Trails," if one can call them that, are marked by posts that are painted fluorescent orange. Outside the posts is considered "off-piste" (yes, you can find more powder there), but no one particularly cares where you ski around the wide open expanses. There are no trees to speak of (gee, maybe that's because the ski areas are above the tree line), just some fields of bushes through which you can try to get a rhythm (that's "through" the bush fields, and hopefully not "through" the bushes themselves).
9. Even in Switzerland, with its high prices, you can ski at more reasonable prices than in the United States. That's true at least when you account for the cost of getting there and back (by train/bus), the lift tickets, and ski rental. The SBB (Swiss train system) has a great deal that covers travel, ski passes, and a discount on ski rental. Not to worry, you can still spend lots of money at Zermatt, St. Moritz, and other spots.
Gotta go. I leave for the train station in a few minutes. Our trip to Paris will have to wait until my next posting! Suffice it to say, we had a wonderful time with Sara, and she looks great!
So, today was my last day of German classes. Nearly everyone in the class is continuing, but I had to make a choice between German class and skiing, and chose skiing. I feel I got a very start, and am hoping to study more on my own--at least to get through prepositions and two more cases! Learning German requires a lot of memorization, especially which nouns are masculine, which are feminine, and which are neutral, as well as the plural form of each noun. Then there's splitting verbs in two, making sure the second part of the verb is in the second position in a statement or question and the first part of the verb is the last word before the ending punctuation. Of course, there are irregular verb conjugations as well. In any event, I am now able to read menus well enough to figure out what dishes have dreaded (to me) liver, sweetbreads, and certain particularly nasty vegetables. And, I can say "Nehmen Sie VISA?"
Last weekend, Henry and I chose Sion as our train destination. Sion is located in the Canton of Valais, where French is spoken. Yay!! I could practice my French. The weather was very yucky (a term of art) on Saturday morning. The train from Zurich was packed with weekend skiers, snowboarders, and other snow lovers, but most of them got off in Visp, to connect to ski areas. The highlights of Sion are castles set on top of two hills--the city sits mostly in the valley in between. One of the castles has a delightful museum, chronicling the history of the area, from prehistoric times through the present. Because of its geographical position, Valais became a popular route for the Crusades and trade through the Alps. With about at least a foot of snow already fallen in some spots, and with the snow continuing to fall, it was no easy task to hike up the hill to the museum. After a number of slips and slides, we were rewarded with a wonderful view of the castle ruins atop the adjacent hill, and, when the sun came out after our tour of the museum, the city of Sion below and the Alpine peaks along the horizon. Although only a few of the explanatory notations in the exhibit were in English, Henry and I managed between the German and French explanations. I also managed to explain in French to the cashier why Henry should receive a discounted entry to the museum. As we left the museum, I commented to Henry that we would never find a museum like this in the United States--it couldn't comply with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)! At the same time, part of what made the museum so interesting was its layout--many small rooms (close to 30 in two buildings) on half floors (four steps here, five steps there), each room with a separate theme.
Back to food--About the only way to get low fat (forget no-fat) food is to buy Weight Watchers products! Go figure...
The last few days, Henry has been in Potsdam, Germany, giving a talk and serving on an advisory committee of a scientific institute there (PIC, but don't ask me for what it stands!). Following his return, we will head off to Andermatt, so I can ski and Henry can "avant-" and "apres-" ski.
The only English language station we get on our television is CNN. Thank goodness for that! At least I could watch and understand Obama's entire inauguration speech in real time! And what a wonderful sight it was to see so many people joining in history in the making. I could feel the excitement across the airwaves! Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on one's viewpoint), the honeymoon is over tomorrow, with much hard work ahead. As far as I can tell, which isn't much after just over two weeks of German, Obama is getting good press here.
Last weekend, Henry and I rode the train to and from Lugano. We're taking advantage of the half-fare passes we bought for train travel throughout Switzerland. We lucked out with the weekend weather. Not only could we view the snow covered mountains along the way, but it also was warm enough for me to remove my scarf, gloves, and hat after we arrived in Lugano! Indeed, there were even some sailboats out and about on the lake. We had a lovely lakeside walk after failing to succeed in communicating in Italian with the waitstaff at lunch. It's rather amazing that a country as small as Switzerland can have 4 official languages (German, French, Italian, Romanisch), with some areas being provincial enough that many people do not speak German, the otherwise most widely spoken language in Switzerland. It will be interesting to find out whether I will be able to understand German German when we move on to Munich, no less be understood when I speak Swiss German. In fact, the dialects are different. When Henry tried speaking German German to a local shopkeeper the other day, the shopkeeper responded that he could more easily communicate with Henry in English than to follow what Henry was saying in German German. As was the case when we returned by train from Einsiedeln, our return train from Lugano was filled with skiers and snowboarders, daytripping from the cities to the winter mountain resorts. Public transportation really works!!
This is the week I've been looking forward to in my German class--the topics are essen und trinken. I told Henry we have to go out to dinner this weekend so I can order for both of us in German--Swiss German that is. Interestingly, as I learn more German, but am still at a loss as to how to say a specific word or phrase in that language, I automatically try to think of the word or phrase in French, rather than English. I suppose that's good practice for when we visit Sara in Paris in a couple of weeks!
It took over a week and a half for us to see the sun here in Zurich, but it finally arrived yesterday. On Sunday, we had a sneak preview of sun when we took the train to Einsiedeln to visit Rod Franklin, a friend of ours from Del Mar who currently works just outside of Zurich.
Because Einsiedeln is out of the valley in which Zurich sits, it does not suffer from overcast skies and it also doesn't suffer the lake effect from the Zurichsee (it's really a lake, but no matter). It was just as chilly in Einseideln as in Zurich, but the sky was wonderfully blue all day! The city of Einseideln was built around a monastery which continues functioning to this day. The friars produce some decent wine, which we had with our lunch. The outside of the monastery building does not prepare one for the rather over-the-top ornateness inside the cathedral. Cherubs and angels are not only part of the painted and gilded ceilings; they also hang over the nave. If cathedrals do rococo, then this is surely one of them! The apparent sighting of the black madonna is also reflected in several pieces. Rod has graciously invited us to stay at his apartment, which will make skiing quite a bit more convenient for me once I finish with my German classes.
I've been to several museums, and all exhibits have been impressive, especially in the quality of their presentation. It certainly helps that they all have English commentary, but they are also very informative. I bought a museum pass which gets me into most museums in Switzerland without additional entrance fees, so I've been able to go to a museum for an hour or so at a time, see one exhibit, and save the other exhibits for other days. It definitely breaks up the German studying time!
It's amazing how smoothly and precisely the bus, tram, train, and cable car system works around here. When the schedule says there's a 3-minute connection, you don't need to worry about making it. The Swiss pride themselves on keeping to the schedule.
If I gain a lot of weight while I'm away, I will likely be able to attribute it to all of the cheese I'm eating. The assortment is great, and all of it is good. We had cheese fondue for dinner the other day--Henry stopped at a shop where the number of grams of fondue cheese you request is grated for you on the spot. Just add wine and garlic and melt the cheese, and the delicious dinner is ready! Also, the Swiss apparently don't believe in skim milk. It's tough to find even low fat milk and yogurt, no less non-fat!
The last time I was in school was in 1976. Now, I'm the oldest one in my German class, and I'm starting with the least knowledge of German than anyone else in my class. I signed up for four weeks, and I'm spending a few hours every afternoon/evening studying to keep up! Some things never change--I'm still taking school seriously! But, it's fun, and I hope to engage in some German conversation by the end of the month. Some interesting side notes about the class--the 9 students in the class are from 9 different countries (USA, France, Romania, Serbia, Brazil, Venezuela, Ireland, Italy, and Eritrea).
The teacher speaks German virtually the entire time (no surprise), but the default language is English. Of course, that's not a problem for me, but it is for some of the others in the class. It will take me a while to get used to the mixed up way (to me, anyway) that words and sentences are constructed in German.
For example, with numbers higher than 20, the number in the ones column is said before the number in the tens column--e.g., 64 is spoken as vierundsechzig (four and sixty). While I wait to hear what's in the tens column, I miss what's in the ones column! During the breaks, students go outside to smoke--again, no surprise, but while I know that more young (and old) folks smoke in Europe than in the US, I am pleasantly surprised that cigarette smoking does not appear to be as widespread here as in other European cities. What a relief!
A few more miscellaneous observations--Food and most everything else is very expensive here. Chicken breast (skinned and boned) is about $16/lb., and whole chickens or chicken parts are not much less. And, as in the US, beef costs more than chicken. Also, enjoy your fruits and vegetables at the relatively inexpensive prices in the US! Nevertheless, a wide variety of products are readily available, and shopping is very convenient. Underneath the main train station is a huge mall--the shops are small, but numerous. The best part about shopping there is that I can walk around inside, instead of outside in the snow! Also, instead of walking back up the hill to our apartment along the switchbacking streets or on the icy steps that cut through from street to street, I can take a cograil car to the end of our street. Our monthly bus pass includes all types of public transportation--busses, trams, trains, cog railways, and boats.
I'm looking forward to the weekend, when it's supposed to be bright and sunny!
Thanks for all of your comments and emails! (And, hi Chip! What's your email address?)
Here I am at Wengen-Grindelwald, on a bright, sunny Thursday afternoon! It snowed all day Tuesday and visibility was minimal, but the powder accumulated. Wednesday was perfect--the sun came out and there was plenty of room for "first tracks" throughout the day. And, I could see the slopes I had skied the day before! Thursday brought even more sunshine, and there was still a bit of untouched powder. All in all, it was a very satisfying ski trip. This photo comes from a free service--the photographer shows up on a slope, advertising that any photos he takes can be downloaded from the service's website. He hangs around for a couple of hours and snaps photos of whoever skis by. The photos are posted on the website in half-hour "bins," so it's pretty simple to figure out whether the photographer caught you "in the act." In the U.S., I could pay for an 8" x 10" glossy--I already did that in the pre-digital age! Anyway, Wengen was suggested to me as a skiing destination by friends of my sister, Judi. The village is in a quintessential alpine setting, or maybe it's my mind's stereotype of a quintessential alpine setting. No private cars are allowed, but several taxis and electric carts roam around. The final 15-20 minutes of the ride to Wengen is on a cog railway. The aerial tram to the ski slopes is literally a few steps from the railroad station. I continue to marvel at the convenience of public transportation for skiers.