Hut Biel - Hiking in the Central Alps

We finally did some hiking! When Torrey and I were in Italy a few years ago we discovered alpine huts. Throughout the Alps you can hike for hours and come upon a little hut in the middle of nowhere. There you can get a hot meal and a beer (or hot coffee). One thing we want to do at least a few times before leaving Switzerland is a multi-day hut to hut hike.  We didn't do that this weekend but we did stay at a hut. The one we stayed at was really just a hotel in the mountains accessible by cable-car.  I got the impression it is much busier there in the winter for skiing. Nevertheless the hiking was very nice, weather great, and veiws spectacular. We went with a couple we met at church who are also from Seattle. They had a friend (also from Seattle) who is beginning a special joint MIT-University of Madrid program in global bioengineering who came over from Spain for the weekend. (We have met some very smart people here in Switzerland!)

Torrey, Shivang, and Chris in the cable car from Bürglen to Beil.

View of Bürglen from the cable car. 

Beginning our hike from just above the hut.

This is a very popular place for mountain bikers. However, a lot of the trails have loose rock, stairs, and or steep portions. We might come back with our bikes but stick to the flatter trails.  This guy was hiking up the hill at about the same speed as us while carrying his bike. 

At the top! 

These kids are racing down the hill and back during their lunch  stop. Dad was standing at the top with his stopwatch.  I'd guess the kids were out-hiking the parents and the parents are tiring them out.  

Some of the trail was along roads that joined small farm houses together. Some sold Alpine käse, but none seemed to be open when we passed. So far Alpine käse is our favourite kind of cheese. 

View from our room, we choose to have the luxury of a private room, but our friends were in the door. Fortunately for them they were the only ones in it.

Waiting for dinner. We paid for 1/2 board which includes dinner and breakfast. Dinner was quite good, broccoli soup,  stir-fry with pork and vegetables. Breakfast was bread, cheese, yoghurt and cereal, pulls some of the best coffee I've had so far in Switzerland.  

Torrey was out early in the morning before breakfast trying out my camera. There are water fountains everywhere in Switzerland, many of them potable. We were told we could drink all the water, even straight from the stream.  

On Sunday morning our friends headed down the cable car from Beil back the way we came and then on to Lucerne. We wanted to do a bit more hiking so hiked across the ridge to another cable car. 

At the top of the ridge. 

We caught up with our friends a few hours later in Lucerne. This is the 2nd time we have been to Lurcerne but this time we wandered around taking in some of the touristy sites. 

Shivang, Chris, and Stephanie in front of the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge).

View from the Wachturm (watchtower) of the Musegg battlements. 

Atzmannig

Last weekend Torrey's coworker from Kirkland (who has been living in Zurich with his family since December) invited us to Atzmannig.  Atzmannig has a toboggan run, chair lift, carpet slides, and various other play activities. The great thing about this place is adults get to play too. One reason they invited us this particular day is they were having a Steinstossen event whcih they knew Torrey would love to try. Steinstossen is a traditional Swiss stone throwing competition.  Stones used are usually are not much over 50 kg, but ours were lighter.  It was a fun day!

Torrey looking strong throwing the stone. 

Two of our friends three kids got to try too. The youngest was quite disappointed he was too young. 

Torrey in action.  

Ladies get a slightly lighter stone. Judging from the photos I had a bit too much height on my throw. 

On my way up the chair lifts so that....

I can ride the toboggan down.

Torrey on the toboggan.

Relaxing in the shade after a hard day of play.  

Cheryl and her kids enjoying the playground. 

German Lessons

Torrey and I have both started taking German classes through Berlitz.  Google pays for one year of lessons for both of us and we plan on taking advantage of this.  Torrey started in July, and has classes twice a week for one hour at the Google office.  I wanted to do intensive classes until my Masters program begins in September.  I began my class on August 5th, and have classes every day for 2 hours and 15 minutes.  We are both in Level 1 but yesterday I passed where Torrey was at in the book.  Torrey's class has three students, all Googlers.  My class is at the Berlitz office in Bellevue (I mention this only because we used to live in Bellevue).  There are 7 students in my class each one of us from a different country: South Africa, France, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Syria, and Canada (myself).

I am frequently reminded of how international this city and still find it fascinating to meet people from all different countries.  Another example, is I had lunch yesterday with some "Spooglers" (spouses [or significant others]) of Googlers, around the table were 2 Americans, an Austrilian, Russian, Swedish, and one women from the Netherlands (who was Asian).

Back to German class...we also have to do a fair bit of work on our own in order to not fall behind. The homework they assign doesn't usually take very long but reviewing and memorizing verb conjugation, and vocabulary (including if it is masculine, feminine, or neutral) takes a while.  I have generally been spending at least 2 hours a day outside of class.  It is a fair amount of work, but it is satisfying to be able to read and understand more.  Unfortunately, they speak Swiss German here, and not German. I think the second most commonly spoken language seems to be English, rather than German.

So I have learned to count (sort of), know how to ask how much something costs, I know if one building is beside, behind or across from another building and many other useful things.  I was doing fairly well but today I was lost at the end of the class. I am getting the masculine, feminine, neutral and when it changes what all mixed up. There are a couple people who seem to be doing fairly well, one girl is picking it up very quickly and the other 2 had some German background. I was determined to study this afternoon but my new friend Stephanie (who is from Seattle) invited me to go swimming in the lake. I have been wanting to do that since we got here so I weighed my options and went swimming.  It was at least 32 C and muggy today...not good for studying anyway. Very fun and now I am relaxed and ready to study German.
   

A Not so Free Free Freezer

We have a little catching up to do on our blog. I will make a few short blog posts over the next couple days. Two Thursdays ago, Torrey picked up a small freezer from a coworkers who was moving. I didn't go with him because I had already made plans to check out a running group. When I arrived home he was putting away the hand cart.  With a big smile he says "Don't worry but I think I need to go to the hospital...".  As he had been pulling the freezer onto the bus, he scraped the metal part which is on the back of the freezer on his shin.  It bled profusely, to the alarm of the other passengers on the bus who provided him with paper-towels and a scarf to stop the bleeding. After he got home and he realized how deep and long it was.  (We have pictures for those that are not faint of heart!)  So off to Notfall (emergency was the new word for the day) at Stadtspital Triemli.  To make a long story short, after 5 hours (mostly waiting) at the hospital, he had a tetanus shot, X-ray, 7 or 8 stitches, a cast, crutches, and prescriptions for painkillers and heparin!  They insisted he needed the cast because the cut was on the front of the shin and walking might prevent it from healing properly.  The heparin was to prevent deep vein thrombosis.  Torrey was not happy about the cast and thought it was overly pre cautious (which it probably was).  Fortunately is was a 1/2 cast, around the back of his foot and leg so he could take it off. They let him ditch the crutches and cast four days later, after two check-ups.  The crutches made is injury seem significantly worse than it was. I am thankful that he is OK and all he will end up with is a scar.

Torrey getting the cast put on his leg.

The hospital seemed like any other hospital, a bit nicer than a Canadian hospital and but not as fancy as Evergreen or Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.  We still hadn't gotten around to getting medical insurance.  In Switzerland, everyone is required to get basic medical (private insurance), but you have 3 months to do so.  When you get insurance it is supposed to be back dated to the time you arrive in Switzerland, so theoretically we will be able to get back what we had to pay for. The trip to the Notall was covered under Torrey's work emergency insurance, so we didn't pay anything for that. All we paid for was his prescriptions, which weren't very expensive. As Torrey couldn't do much physcical activity he spent the following weekend sorting through the medical insurance options. We now are in the process of getting insurance.

Waiting for the taxi home at 2:30am.

Schweizer Bundesfeier - Swiss National Day

Monday was Schweizer Bundesfeier (Swiss National Day) to celebrate Swiss Confederacy.  According to Wikipedia:
The date is inspired by the date of the Federal Charter of 1291, placed in "early August" (primo incipiente mense Augusto). The document is one of several dozen pacts attested for the territory of Switzerland in the period of the mid 13th to mid 14th century. The foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy had been mostly associated with the Bund of Brunnen of 1315, or with the Rütlischwur, dated to 1307 by Aegidius Tschudi.


As the holiday fell on a Monday Torrey had the day off, if it had fallen on Sunday he would not get a day off in lieu.  Celebrations consist primarily of private BBQs and picnics at the lake, park, or backyard as well as fireworks. No big fireworks display, just people setting them off wherever they please.  Monday morning there was a parade, speeches and folk dancing, and of course beer and sausages.  We missed most of these events, but was fun to wander around as many people were dressed traditionally.  

 We also went to two BBQs.  The crossfit gym we joined had a BBQ on Sunday afternoon. We had brought and eaten our own meat but they had spare sausages.  I have been wanting to try the sausages here, but I haven't been able to bring myself to buy them, only being able to guess what is in them!  However, something cooked and given to you for free at a BBQ is an easy way to sample.  There are two kinds that are common here, one is a large veal sausage and the other is a small fat beef, pork,  sausage, called Cervelas.  Both tasted like very ordinary sausage, with little flavour, but they were much improved by a large quantity of Snef (mustard).  There was approximately 20 people at the BBQ, a mix of Swiss and Expats with many nations represented Switzerland, Germany, Serbia, USA, Nigeria, and Argentina.  The most interesting was an Asian guy from Austria, who went to grad school in Australia and has a girlfriend in Singapore.

Our second BBQ was on Monday afternoon with the "Nexus" group at the IPC church that we have been attending.  The Nexus group is for 18-35 (but they let us come even though we are too old), it seems more to be the group for the singles and married with no kids. That was also fun to get to know a few of those people a bit better. We hope to build deeper relationships here and so far it is much better than we have expected.  A group from church almost always goes out for dinner after the Sunday evening service, we went once, and plan on making that part of or routine. 

Flag from one of the Cantons around Zurich, which one I don't know as a I couldn't find it in a quick Google search. 

We had also planned on going hiking on Saturday with another group from church but it was postponed due to bad weather.  This was rather disapointing as we have been wanting to hike and haven't really done much so far. We have been spending most of our time setting up our household.  So we decided to buy something fun (and useful).  We bought bikes.

My bike is mountain bike style but better for riding in the city

Torrey's is a mountain bike

The end of our bike ride in Horgen.

 It took quite a while to shop for them and then when we went to pay we found out that not only do we have a daily limit on our debit card (they don't take credit card) but we also have a monthly limit (it was July 30th).  The very helpful and patient clerk at the bike store (who was born in Vancouver) was able to tell us that if we went into the bank the limited doesn't apply and we could just withdrawal cash.  He looked rather surprised that we had reached the monthly limit on our card, I felt rather sheepish and needed to explain that we just moved here and have been spending much more money than normal getting our house set up.  As it was already Saturday afternoon, the only bank open was the one at the main train station.  After a tram to the bank and a wait in line and tram back to the bike store we were able to leave with our bikes.  We then went for a bike ride along the lake. Sunday morning we went for another bike ride up the Uetliburg and of course Torrey got a flat on the way back, but we were almost home so I rode and he took the tram. 

Dinner on our patio

We also spent a large amount of time this weekend putting together an Ikea wardrobe we bought from one of Torrey's coworkers. It almost reaches the ceiling so we had to build it standing up. It was by far the most complicated Ikea furniture we have ever assembled.  Our place is beginning to come together but we still have a large amount of  cardboard (collection is once a month) and lack places to put things. Today I bought more hangers at Coop, after clearing out the cheap hangers at a different Coop yesterday. I seem to spend larger amounts of time wandering department stores looking for simple items such as the little plastic thing that goes in the soap dish to prevent it from turning to mush. The soap dish is built in, otherwise I'd buy a new soap dish.  


I have to admit I'm feeling a bit homesick today, maybe its the rain as it reminds me of home.