Cow Love

It seems fitting to finish up our blog with some pictures of Swiss Brown cows. These gentle herbivores with fuzzy ears sticking out walked up to our hearts and demanded we pay attention. I am not sure if it was the sound of their bells or the striking mountains they preferred to pasture in, but cows always seemed to be in the best places I found for self reflection. Now that we are back in the States we will have to find new places. I won't be blogging so much, but I will let you know what I find in our Amazing Maps: Northwest Adventure Blog.

Signing out on the Year in Switzerland. Darrell.

P.S. Thanks Ruth for all your love, inspiration and assistance.

Coming home… Settling back in.

September 4, 2011

Fortunately, Darrell’s cousin (Jen – our last US visitor to Switzerland) had a long career in the Army. She told us that the Army talks to soldiers coming home after a long deployment about what to expect. It was good for her to frame that for me and just let me know that there is a process to being home again. We clearly are not the same people we left as. I mean, we are still fun-loving energetic, and lovable :) , but with such a different view on life and living. I’ve been home since August 25^th now and have had some time to try settling.

It has been hard to say I am happy to be home without any caveats because there is still a lot of work ahead of us to get settled. We’ve just been going through tasks for so long now. Lately, it has been get cell phones (we have new numbers if anyone needs them), turn on utilities, go to a wedding, visit our neglected property in eastern Washington, start cleaning and moving back into our house, thinking about house projects we need to do, weeding our out of control garden….

But we are settling, and there are lots of things in the works here now. I’ve ordered a raclette maker and we are looking at espresso makers so we can stop using our drip coffee pot (friends in Switzerland were always amazed that we would drink that “stuff that you leave in a container”). We have plans for a firepit outside so we can do regular grills with wood instead of with our gas grill – which is for sale now. I am also excited to say that we now have a home carbonation system so I can drink wasser mit Kohlensäure (carbonated water) any time I want. I’m planning to sit in on the university German classes and am trying to figure out how to make regular visits back to German speaking countries so I can practice.

I am also excited about some of my favorite Bellingham things like social exercising (runs and bike rides with girlfriends), a 25K run in January on Orcas Island that I just signed up for, spontaneous and frequent get-togethers with friends, our killer Farmer’s Market, NPR at the right time of the day, and good American micro-brewed beer (after giving Swiss and some German beers a serious chance, I have to say that it really doesn’t get much better than American micro-brews for tasty beer). I am happy to say though that at our first meal with friends, I said en guete (enjoy your meal) without thinking about it.

I suspect that there will continue to be things that strike me as interesting or odd, but there are already some to talk about.

• Red onions. Darrell claims that Switzerland had red onions, but for whatever reasons, I didn’t have red onions for a year – and I had forgotten about them. Discovering them on a salad though was wonderful!

• Toilets – I am still trying to figure this out, but I think the flush handle is on the opposite side (left side here – I remember it always being on the right in Switzerland). Even more importantly though, in Switzerland almost every toilet had a toilet brush beside it (public and private) and it was clear that you were to clean your own toilet bowl. Here, there are some toilet brushes, but not as commonly. It is an odd feeling to have been very careful about cleaning up in Switzerland and then come here where it isn’t expected.

• My neighborhood… It is an old charming neighborhood in Bellingham with turn of the century houses of all styles and with tree lined streets. I loved this neighborhood when I left. The first day we went back though, I had a bit of a panic attack. All I could think was that this place was so chaotic. The houses were all different and maintained to different degrees, the yards were different shapes, the alley ways were dingy, there were parked cars and power lines everywhere (both of these are underground in Switzerland)… I honestly had to get out of there. It was just so different than the well kept Swiss homes, apartments, and green spaces with clean lines and similar styles everywhere. A week later though, we’ve had dinner three times in a row outside in our garden and I am happy to be back in my house again. Unfortunately, I think the power lines will always bother me.

• There are a lot more American flags than I remember. Still not as many as Swiss flags, but there are plenty of the Old Glory here and there.

• The brats (bratwurst) are really small here.We have to spend some time exploring what our local options are.

• And related to that…. MUSTARD – I am sure I royally embarrassed Darrell by breaking out into excited (loud) chatter about all of the mustard options (picture below) we had at our local grocery store. As one friend here pointed out, we weren’t even at the nice store, we were at the ghetto store and still had probably 40 different mustard options – Russian, Chinese, Düssseldorf, American picnic, chipotle, Hawaiian, horseradish, cranberry,jalapeno, wasabi, honey …. oh the varieties! In Switzerland, we did most of our shopping in Fehraltorf with small grocery stores, but I think it is fair to say that most groceries there focused on carrying one or two brands for each item, so options were always limited. For example, all Mexican products were always the Old El Paso brand only.

There is only one more thing to happen that will make life complete… and we are in the process of that right now… stay tuned.

Swiss Cycling Experience

Narrow well maintained roads, farm stands, and diverse scenery. That is how I would sum up my best bike riding experiences. The Swiss realize they have a special place; they create roads, vistas and nooks that exploit the landscape so all can enjoy. Towns, farmers and the road engineers all seem to agree on making rds for those who want to enjoy the journey.

Horilibrau:Bierfäscht

Fischenthal Brewing Hörnlibräu had its annual party, Bierfäscht on August 21st. Ruth and I joined our friends for a real treat. Mario and Manual brewed six of the tastiest beers we had in Switzerland. They roasted a cow, had tents, and a special bar made for the event. They also played a game called Nägelhauen (pictured below), a common bar game where you try to hammer nails into a stump with a pointy hammer (?). Most of the town seemed to show up. We will miss our friends and good times they shared with us. P.S. Congratulations T and M.

Coming Home…. On the way.

August 23 - 25, 2011

Moving is always hard and time-consuming, but an international move (at least the way I did it) has some unique considerations – for me, the luggage was the challenge. The cheapest way to get our household goods back to the U.S. was to check them as excess baggage – and Iceland Air had the best price for that, which is why I flew Iceland Air and decided to throw in a stopover for two days.

Darrell had already left with the fully packed ski bag (thank goodness!), my fold up bike, and a box of things – plus his check-ons. That left me with 2 boxes of things, 2 boxed bikes, 2 suitcases, and 3 backpacks – does that add up to 8 plus 1 carry on??? Yup, that’s it. The challenges – pretty simple – how to get all of that to the check-ins without ever leaving it unattended, which is impossible without help. Fortunately for me, people popped up to help. In Frankfurt (where I flew out of), I got two baggage carts (2 Euros each, but refundable when you returned them – that part is important). As I started to load them, a man came by and said something about helfen – which sounds enough like help that I knew he was asking if I needed help. To make a long story short, he was Polish and his name was Sebastian. He made a living by cruising the airport looking for bottles with a refundable deposit and baggage carts that he could return for the 2 Euro refund. He spent a lot of time with me- which was a bit creepy, but ultimately, I was very thankful. After all of my luggage was checked, he left with both of my carts and a handful of Euros from my change purse (which I gave him).

OK, step 1 completed. The next problem was in Iceland. There isn’t on-site storage for baggage at the airport, but I had researched and found a place just off-site (500 meters away, which can be VERY far when you have this much luggage) that would store my luggage for a fee. I went through customs pushing my two carts overflowing with luggage and boxes – with a little help from the customs guard. When I called the off-site baggage storage, the woman was quite no nonsense about me having to get there on my own… so I got two carts and started pushing them out of the airport. The route started with a sidewalk, but turned into a road. To be exact, it was the only road that leaves the airport. Fun.

Fortunately, I was in Iceland and not the US; this road had traffic, but it wasn’t a highway and the traffic wasn’t consistent. My plan of attack was to leap-frog the carts. I pushed one about 50 meters, then went back for the other, pushed it 100 m, then went back for the other, and so on. At one point, the cart waiting for me up ahead flipped over spilling everything onto the shoulder. Damn it. Then the one I was pushing dumped. At that point I shouted out a cussword – which I am sure is what led to the two young people to come ask me if I needed help. The landscape here was pretty barren with no people around except one worker tending the airport lawn and these two young people hanging out talking to him - I was lucky they were there. The rest of this journey was cake with their help!

After storing the luggage, it was a nice bus trip to Reykjavik (from the airport in Keflavik). The highlights of the stopover were:

• · Being at the tectonic plate boundary; standing on the North American plate (pictured below) looking across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to see the Eurasian plate 7 km away (cool!)
  

• · Seeing the Icelandic horses – famous for being small (don’t call them ponies if you don’t want to offend the locals) and having a unique gait called the tölt. Apparently, the tölt is so smooth that you can drink Champagne while riding the horse and not spill any.

• · Seeing a geyser field – The Great Geysir is no longer active, but is the origin of the English word for geyser. The Strokkur geysir didn’t fail to please though – I saw it spout 4 times in about 20 minutes.

• · The Blue Lagoon – ahhh, what a great way to end the trip. I stopped here the morning of my flight home - on the way to the airport. The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa located in a lava field. This ended up being a great way for me to let go of the stress of moving and get ready for a nice re-entry back into the States.

The rest of the luggage handling was much easier. I asked the people at the luggage storage to drive me back to the airport, and they happily obliged. In the U.S., a customs agent helped me through the final check, and then Darrell was there to help with the last leg to our car. My first thoughts – gosh, Americans are so nice. I was heartily welcomed back by the man at passport control, had help from 3 customs agents with baggage, and talked to a nice lady on the train about her son. What struck me most, is that Americans smile a lot – this is good. Yup – I’m back…

Mt. Rainier welcoming me home as I flew into Seattle.

Any resemblance?

Lots of fun and Cliff Clavin facts at the Einstein Haus Museum in Bern.

Fountains: Art, Form, and Function

Pontrasina, Engadine

One my greatest little pleasures in Switzerland was finding the town fountains. Some time I was surprised by the artistic fountains . .

Zurichbad, ZH

or how they were commissioned to mark a special event (like above).

Old Slate Fountain, Tirano IT

But one thing I could always count on was a cool, drink of water and a place to wash my hands.

Good-bye Eawag.

August 19, 2011

My last day was today and I am sad to leave. I gave a final presentation of my work conducted at Eawag and am happy to say that it is a solid bit of work – this year was a smashing success professionally. We followed the presentation with an Apéro later in the day and then some time at the local lake for a Bar-BQ.

One thing we talked about in earlier posts is how neat it is that here the custom is for you to bring your own cake for your birthday, and by the same token, you have your own party when you are leaving. Most of the parties at work are in the form of an Apéro – which was great for us because we were able to use lots of food from our Swiss pantry. At the Apéro , I was surprised to have some gifts from the people in my department (UTox). A lovely book of Switzerland from the two group leaders I was working closest with (because they knew how much I loved their country), a recycled water bottle and glass from the department chair (because what is better than that when you work at an Institute of Aquatic Studies?), and a scrap book from everyone.

The scrap book is awesome. Basically, anyone who wanted had a page with a picture they added. For example, Flavio added his famous tiramisú recipe (although it is in Italian and I won't get the translation until next year when he comes to visit!), Adi added pictures of the ICP-MS for me (so I could remember the instrument that he worked so long with me on), and David had a note written in English that he held up in his picture (he spoke Swiss German, and by the end we had worked out our own wonderful way to communicate with each other, it often involved me drawing pictures and one of us running off to a computer to look up a word). There were lots of pictures of activities from the lab and from outside adventures with my closest friends there.

Maybe best of all is the name on the front. It says Les Ambassadeurs. If you’ve been following the blog, you know we called our dog, Fiona, the Ambassador. Honestly, with all the emotion of leaving and stress of moving out, and a touch of sadness still for loosing Fiona, this caused me to cry. I have to say though, that I am honored to be considered Ambassadors ourselves. As our friend explained, not only was Fiona an Ambassador, but so were we – simply put, we gave our European friends a different sense of what an American is. I really really am honored. Thank you.

The lake was nice – it was a place I went in the early spring with some of the PhD students and post-docs to just hang out on a sunny Saturday. It was great to do that one last time with them and with some other friends - this ended up being our last good-bye with many of them.

As Darrell said when I was looking through my scrapbook the next day… it is like I just came back from camp. I made so many wonderful friends, learned so much, and just had fun. Add to that my huge accomplishments with research, new skills I am bringing back to my U.S. university, and European colleagues I hope to work with in the future... I couldn’t have asked for more and will cherish this time and these memories forever.

New / Old Gate

Mountain biking and hiking in Switzerland you get use to go through fenced in areas. Turnstyles, metal, and wooden gates are all used. Many of them are spring loaded. This system of boards and slats was unique though. Hikers can swing their legs over it when it is closed. With a dog or bike you just slide the boards back making an opening (as shown above).

Languagesde>en YahooCE

The board of acres steps for hikers tons climb more over them.

Nuclear Powered Stand

This week's Selbstbedienung is a nice ice cream stand, and judging by its neighbor (see the cooling tower) they have a good power supply.

Ruth Leaves Switzerland

I returned to the US two days ago. Ruth start her journey home today. We hope you enjoyed our blog, and we hope our stay in Switzerland helped relationships between the two countries in some small way. We will never forget our new friends and countless adventures we had in Switzerland. Thank you for all the made it possible.

PS. We will continue to post pictures until the end of the month and Ruth will share some of her own stories and thoughts....

Signs

Standard colors and symbols helped us navigate the thousands of trails we found in Switzerland. The government and tourism lobby felt it was important to pay for standardization of the signs for the benefit of the tourists. These would be great in Washington what do you think?

Thank you Switzerland

Riding home on a plane to USA, it was fun to reflect on our time in Switzerland. We thoroughly enjoyed our time. We came wanting to immerse ourselves in the culture . . . and we did. For example, I (someone who didn't prepare meat for 17 years) started fires and grilled Cervelats (the Swiss equivalent of an American Hot Dog) like the rest of the country on sunny summer afternoons. The friendly, honest, and very thoughtful Swiss people made us feel welcome. So much so, I waved the Swiss flag on their national holiday. I enjoyed and I learned to like obeying Swiss laws (as everyone else did), and now wish more societies followed their own laws as a matter of routine. Most of all, living aboard gave me chance to see the world from a new fresh perspective. It will help me to enjoy the little pleasures and treasures in life. And, it renewed my optimism that we can do great things once we agree on the goal and follow through. Viva Switzerland.

Last Train Ride

Today was my last train ride on Switzerland's fine network of trains. Ruth and I invested in a General Pass that allowed us to hope on all public trains, buses, and boats. Over that last 11 months, I took approximately 160 trips to 70 different locations within Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, and Austria. When we did rent a car for a vacation, I realized how nice it was not to be at the driver's wheel. It is funny how much a form of transport can change a person. Because of the trains, I was much more punctual. I traveled, saw and experienced more of Switzerland because of the pass. And I learned more than I would have if I owned a car. Train rides meant I could study German, read the local papers, see the landscape in a way I would not have in a car. Most important of all because we traveled with literally hundreds of others we meet many interesting and engaging people. For example, Peter and Marianne (shown here) will be a lasting friendship.

I will forever support public transportation systems.

News Flash: Heat drives tourists to new lows.

Witnesses reported a crazy man who jumped into the fountain in Zurich's Stadlehofen district and danced while singing: "Singing in the Fountain what a glorious feeling" (in English, with a Bellingham dialect). The 32 degree weather and close proximity to a train station may have something to do with the bizarre behavior.

Steiner's Bakery in Fehraltorf

Boy we are going to miss this selection.

A special pie

Our Swiss friend, Christine, loves Darrell's apple pies. She was over tonight helping us clean our apartment and Darrell made this for her, complete with the Swiss cross... Christine pretty much rocks and deserves lots of these pies.

Ultimate Bicycle Stop

This canal on the Aare River was a perfect swimming spot for these touring cyclist. Switzerland has lots of informal swimming holes that make a great place to take a break.

The Hills Are Alive...

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was surprised to find my friends at work did not know anything about "The Sound of Music". Shortly after that post, a care package arrived from Darrell's sister in the US with a DVD of the movie (thanks Marnie!). We quickly scheduled a movie night with "the girls" complete with a tapas style pot-luck. Being with the girls was as much fun as sharing the movie with them... RMS

This week's Selbstbedienung: Fresh Farm Milch from the Swiss cows on the other side of this barn. The sign said that the coin-op function wasn't working, so the farmer trusted you would just put the correct amount in the slot before pouring the milk.

Shooting Range Visit

After wondering about what goes on in a Swiss shooting range all year, we finally just went and asked what was going on. The gun club was having a competition and were kind enough to let us go in and see for ourselves. Shot guns and ominous looking assault-style rifles were being used to shoot at targets 300 meters away. Automatic recorders tallied the score with 10 rounds. A bull's-eye was 10 points. If someone shot an 84 (total points), they got a round of local cheese. In an attached tent, members sipped on wine and talked around tables while waiting for their turn.

I am glad we asked . . . I could get interested in any sport that gave cheesey prizes! When telling this story, one Swiss friend added that all men of military age were required to practice shooting. Once they shot 84 they were done. Every community has a range to make it easy to practice. I must admit, I like a country that wants all their gunmen to have a 'B', before they pass.

Sleeping on Straw

Switzerland has a program that pairs economy-minded hikers with farmers interested in earning some extra income. The hay loft of this farm was converted in the summer into a bunk house. Hikers for a small fee got a place to sleep (albeit close quarters) and breakfast in the morning.

Window Dreaming

I liked this photo,  I snapped while on the train to Tirano.    This young boy was totally fixed on what was rushing bye.  It could have been me 20 years ago.

Bernina Pass Ride

Bernina Pass Railroad and Autoroad head south and west from the Engadine Valley. On a nice summer day, my friend Peter and I road the train over the pass into Italy. After fueling up on some pasta, we returned, but this time I was on my bike. Going over the pass twice allowed us to see the glaciers, valleys and cows from different perspectives and lighting.

Hard to sit still.

Cousin Jen and Ruth, were enjoying the views from the Gongerat Alpen Train above Zermatt.

The windows were open and everyone was snapping pictures.

Lake Charm: Lago d' Orta, Italy

Our good friend, Iris, took us to the picturesque Italian town of Orta. An old boat ferry took us over to the 'Island of Silence' where monks reflect and swim in the cool water (just like I did).

A self service stand with a sweet tooth in mind.

This week's Selbstbedienung blog entry was from the Alpen Hutte Cappe Cristalina. After a 3+ hour hike, you can choose from some of the best sweets in Switzerland all brought up via helicopter. Swiss prices are included.

Lucky Sheep

On Riffelberg looking at Gabelhorn high above Zermatt.

Bergweg

The red and white strips show you the way in the high mountains. The colors remains you were you are... Switzerland.

Alpenstein Bliss

New friends, Maya and Misty (the dog), took Jennifer, Ruth, and I for a classic Appenzell hike. It had it all: cliff top trails, friendly cows, berghausli (small mountain hut) with great treats, and cool lakes (to swim in). What a great day!

What a view

Sitting on top of the Gornergrat (Zermatt) you are at a study site for a whole host of glaciers coming off the Monte Rosa Massif. With Ruth in the photo I am in heaven!

This diagram puts into perspective how much the glaciers are retreating. Since it was drawn, there were large differences from what was there and what I saw that day.