Christmas Eve in Salzburg

Yesterday, the 23rd we took the train from Zurich to Salzburg.  We arrived at 2pm, had a quick late lunch, and then went to a music concert in the Baroque Museum in the Mirabell Castle complex.  We followed that up with an organic, vegetarian Indian dinner and then crashed at our hotel.

This morning was Christmas Eve!  We spent the morning doing some shopping, and got some snowshoes.  We had originally planned to get cross country skiis, but the poor weather (it's raining) and the challenges of transporting skis everywhere on public transit suggested that snowshoes would be the better choice.   I'm sure we'll have pictures of us on snowshoes in a few days when we get to Faistenau!

After lunch we went out to the famous Salzburg Christmas Markets.  I enjoyed this quite a bit - lots of interesting food, drink, spices, nuts, fruits, and other gourmet foods.  And the Christmas decorations were really spectacular.  I took quite a few pictures - some of the better ones are below.  We've been relaxing in our hotel for a couple of hours before heading out for dinner.  Not too many restaurants are open, but there's a Japanese place just down the road that looks good, so we'll try that...  Tomorrow morning we're going to try to attend the Christmas Morning Mass at the Dom.

(Click on the pictures for closer views:)

One small part of the main market, which surrounds the Dom (cathedral)

The Brezel (pretzel) stall

All kinds of tree ornament... I thought the hedgehog was particularly cute.

An angelic choir of identical angels.

There was a skating rink just outside the market, with this costumed angel skating around it handing out treats...

Apricot Schnapps.  Claire is not a fan.

Samiklaus... and Claire surprised in the background

6 Months in Zurich

We've been in Zurich for almost 6 months, hard to believe...  The time has gone quickly - first with getting settled and learning our way around, and then with being very busy at work (for me) and school (for Claire).

Next weekend is Christmas, and we'll be in Salzburg - then staying in a little village near Salzburg to ski for a few days - then on to Munich for some shopping and New Years Eve.  We're looking forward to vacation!

However, despite being very busy we've managed to get out and do something fun almost every week or weekend though.  Not all of these events have been mentioned on the blog, as most of them weren't really exciting, or I didn't take a lot of pictures!

But since we're coming down to the end of the year, I thought I'd do a wrap-up post with a few of those things...

In October, we went to the Jucker Pumpkin Farm - it's a slightly odd but charming attraction, a farm which has turned itself into a weekend outing destination by building huge replicas of "Swiss Cliches" out of ... pumpkins!  And of course they sell pumpkins and squash, at least a dozen kinds, apples, preserves, baking, pumpkin soup, and since this is Switzerland beer and sausages as well.

 

 

Mid-November I went to the Zurich Slow Food festival:

I got the equivalent of a large meal, just wandering around tasting cheese, olive oil, coffee, chocolate, wine, sausage, sake, cured meat, and much, much more.

It was amazing - a huge event, hundreds of vendors, thousands of people.    There were cooking shows (in German) too.

Below is a hand-made, hand-pump espresso machine, not very convenient to use, and not very affordable at 3665 Swiss Francs (just under 4000 dollars...) but it made really, really excellent coffee.

I came home with a shopping bag stuffed with about 40 pounds of food.  Some of it is being sent back to Canada as Christmas gifts...

On December 4th we went to a music concert at the Grossmunster cathedral.  It was Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, four male voices and a soprano saxophone.  The sax was like a "5th voice" and the style of music was somewhere between medieval choral and free jazz... it worked really well in the echo-ey interior of the cathedral.

We also have visited the Zurich Christmas market, and done a bit of Christmas shopping in and around the main shopping district.  Zurich is beautifully decorated, with lights everywhere and huge Christmas trees.

Bahnhofstrasse, (the main shopping street) late at night after the stores have closed.

Window display of a store selling mostly chocolate & candy

A huge Christmas tree in front of Credit Suisse in Paradeplatz.
The "Occupy / 99%" protesters were here just a few weeks earlier.

And that's it for now.  We've got one week of work left and then we're off to Austria!

Running the Zürich Silvesterlauf

Just a short note tonight! Today Claire and I ran our first race here, the 35th annual Zurich Silversterlauf.

Silverster is "New Years Eve", and "Lauf" is Run.  I know it isn't New Years Eve yet, and I can't explain why they have the run two weeks early.

As usual for Zurich, it was easy and convenient to take the tram from our house to the race start.  Apparently there were about 17,000 people running in different parts of the race (there were different categories and distances).  Our category was very crowded - for the first of the four laps, I was thinking of the Pampelona Running of the Bulls, while Claire was reminded of the Bravo Del Botti race we saw in Montepulciano.At various points around the track we ran under big inflatable arches, and had to negotiate around corners and other obstacles - but mostly it was just other runners all around us.

We did pretty well.  Claire came in about 5 minutes behind the fastest women - a very good time and 12th in her age category!  I managed to beat her by 15 seconds, but that was far behind the fastest men, and I was in something like 190th in my category.  There were 3000 women and 5000 men in the race, so we did ok.

Off to the Ball

For 125 years, ETH has had the Polyball, which is well, a ball. They decorate two main buildings, one a big old domed building which has classrooms but also a gigantic foyer with a very very high ceiling that goes all the way up to the dome. The other building is the Polyterasse, is mostly underground (on the side of a steep slope) and houses the gym, cafeteria, bookshop, library, a coffee shop/bar or 2, and multiple hallways which I have never gone down.  This years theme was "El Dorado".

They had four stages (with at least 8 bands and a DJ or 2), and four dance halls. The biggest was the one in the gym with a big band and hardwood floor brought in for the occasion, the second largest was in the big foyer, they had a big band when we arrived and a classical ensemble with an opera singer when we left.  The two other stages were much smaller, one had latin music and the other rock-jazz fusion.  Every dance stage was packed, the two smaller dance floors were dominated by the younger crowd. But the other two floors were a mixture of every age.  We spent quite a bit of time watching people dance to the big band (mostly swing and variations thereof). When we were leaving and passed the classical ensemble and opera they were dancing mostly waltz or something like that, I am not an expert.

This is a big event, I think there were over 1000 people there, the party started at 7pm and ended at 5am (that is not a typo).  There were more students there than I expected as tickets were expensive, but there was a wide range of people. It looked like a cross section of the population of Zurich, not only those who have associations with ETH were there.  Everyone was dressed up in their very best, the women mostly in evening gowns (or at least their best dress), one women in a true "ball gown" complete with layers of crinoline.  The men, mostly in suits but a few in tux, or even tux and tails. Unfortunately, the pictures aren't great as we had the flash turned off and couldn't tell the pictures were poor.

Ready to walk the red carpet (yes there was one).

Dance lessons were held early on. 

The main ballroom (the gym) with a big band and lots of dancing. 

The ETH Big Band, they were very good. 

More dancing, notice the murals on the walls, depicting the "El  Dorado" theme.

One of the bands, we had a brochure (in German) explaining who was who etc but we never bothered to figure it out. 

They were also quite good, but jazz/rock/brass fusion (I don't know the genre) isn't really my favorite.

Opera!

Switzerland the Land of Chocolate

We both eat more chocolate, including Torrey.  He tends to eat only 85 or 90% now, with so much selection you can be picky.  I have always been a milk chocolate fan but really like dark with "stuff" in it, I have a few favorites, dark with cranberries and dark with cassis (black current).  I try not to buy it, being at home a lot and studying doesn't make for good discipline.

We live quite close to the Lindt chocolate factory and yes they actually make chocolate there.  I am curious if Lindt in the US or Canada is make there, does it say "Kilchberg, Suisse" on the back?

My friend Stephanie pointing out the "Swiss Clichés" on the chocolates. 

They open a bigger store for a few months before Christmas. 

I'm sure this looks familiar.

"New" apparently they have never done bears before.

Study Study Study

Did I mention it is more work to be a student than it is to have a job? I am very sympathetic to my brother in law Kaley who has been working full time and taking classes for years.

This semester is reaching is peak and will stay at level until the end of December, as long as Torrey keeps doing the majority of the cooking and grocery shopping, as well as putting up with "no fun Claire" I think I will make it. I have to say that he has been incredibly understanding and helpful, despite him not living up to his own always so high expectations.

One group project will be behind me by the end of this week (presentation and report), two more group projects to go. I'm not a fan of group projects as they take so much longer and I don't usually add to what you learn. Also as the only person with English as a first language I have the job of editor. I tried to leave that behind at my old job, but alas it continues. It is sometimes entertaining to read what my fellow students write, other times I have no idea what they are trying to say. In one of my group projects one of the girls' English is incredibly poor I am amazed that she is even taking a Masters in English. She is also not really pulling her weight in the group project. I oscillate in being annoyed and relieved by this.

For one of my group projects we are looking at "Does the Application of Artificial Snow Negatively Affect Fens in the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch?". This is for my Environmental Assessment and Evaluation class. We were given a data set (an incomplete data set), and told to determine if there were any negative effects. Well there are (based on literature) but our data set isn't great, so it is hard to tell. This is supposed to help us understand a "real life" situation. It is the dataset that our professor (who I am sure is younger than me by a number of years) had to deal with when he started managing the Biosphere.

Snow cannon, for "artificial snowing" as my German classmates call it.  I have stopped correcting it as it is longer to say it properly in English, even the professor says it this way.  

Here also is my favorite book (if you judge this by the amount of time I spend with it). I like it so much that I even get Torrey to read it, for hours, even on a Friday night. Did I mention he is also relearning physics and math? Him helping me with physics is going better than I expected, I guess after 7 1/2 years of marriage we get along well enough.

I consider this Alzheimer prevention, I think I have added years to my mental stability.

 This is the ONLY thing that is cheap in Switzerland, tuition. Subsidized by the government for all students including international students.  However, there has been discussion of changing this over the last few years.  Just in case you can't read it it says 659 CHF which is about $740CD per semester.  I looked a graduate programs before we moved and this is about how much is costs for 1 credit, and would cost about $12,000 per semester if I went to the University of Washington.

Invoice for my first semester. 

For the weekend of September 14-16, Claire and I went out to Pontresina and met Mom and Dad, who had arrived there the same day from the south of Switzerland.  We (well, Claire did the work) had planned a big hike up the Val Roseg, a spectacular mountain valley heading south from Pontresina towards the Italian border.

Here's a map of our hiking route. Pontresina is (A), the Hotel Roseg is (B), the lake at the foot of the glacier (Lej Vadret) is at (C) and the Hut Coaz is (D).  So now I'll explain what all those places are...

Friday after lunch we started at the Pontresina train station and hiked south up the valley.  This part of the hike looked a lot like British Columbia - dry pine forests, mountains and the river...

The hike wasn't very steep and we arrived at the hotel early for dinner.  This is Claire on the bridge just outside the hotel...

The scenery there was already beautiful, but it got better... The next morning, Saturday, after fortifying ourselves with a big breakfast with lots of cheese, we headed up the valley.  That big ridge of gravel along the left side of the picture below was left behind by the glacier as it melted, only a few decades ago.  The hotel had some old black and white photographs showing the valley filled with ice up to there - it looked very different then.

There are waterfalls down the sides of the valley, and sometimes you can see mountain goats.

A few hours up the valley, looking back down toward the hotel:

 

Me on one of the bridges over mountain streams:

 And Claire with the mountains behind her:

After a few hours we made it up to the lake.  Here's Mom and Dad with the lake in the background:

The trail continued along the lake for a while, and then turned steeply up the side of the mountain.  Until that point the hike had been pretty easy, but after here it was more difficult, with scrambles over large rocks, rough footing, and a relentlessly steep climb which switchbacked upward for what seemed like hours.

After a while, the Hut Coaz (our final destination) started to be easier to see, out by the edge of the glacier.  But we still had about an hour to go to get there...

We saw some marmots, but other than birds, no other wildlife:

Finally we got there!  The view back down the valley was incredible, we could see all the way back to Pontresina, where we had started the afternoon before.

The view of the glacier was also incredible.  It was melting in the afternoon sun, with chunks of ice sliding down the rock, loud cracking sounds, and even little avalanches of ice:

Our last picture from the top... Heading down was much easier of course.  We're looking forward to doing lots more hikes like this next year!  The weather has started to turn cold now, and although it's just five weeks ago that we took these pictures, many of the mountain huts will have closed by now.