A Year in Review (2013 - 2014)

Can you believe that we have been in Switzerland for a year?  It feels like we just moved from the US a few months ago!  Time sure does fly.

We thought it would be fun to recap our year of Swiss domestic adventures.  We have a large backlog of posts, so this is also a sneak peak at posts to come.

March:

When I think back to a year ago when we first moved to Switzerland, I remember feeling very anxious.  Now, we feel more at home in Switzerland, and it could not have been possible without the many friends who have helped us in our transition.  

When we first arrived, we stayed with a fellow post-doc in Thalwil, and he and his wife were incredibly supportive.  My labmates were patient with all of my questions, and our administrative assistant did an amazing job ensuring our documents were in order.  The Swiss Ms. also found much support in the American Women's Club of Zurich.

My first bite of Switzerland, the Cervelat!  

April:

The excitement of being in Europe soon overtook our nervousness, and we eagerly explored Switzerland.  With the help of our Lonely Planet guide, we planned day trips to Lucerne, St. Gallen and Bern.

We visited the iconic "Lion of Lucerne" and took the gondola up Mt. Pilatus over Easter weekend.

The Abbey at St. Gallen, a Roman Catholic convent and UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Here, we feasted on the famous OLMA Bratwurst and visited one of earliest and most important monastic libraries in the world.

Who could forget the adorable bears at Bern?  The capital of Switzerland has a charming 15th century Old Town filled with medieval buildings along the Aare River.

The Burning of the Böögg, a towering wooden snowman, filled with firecrackers serves as an effigy of Winter.  The event typically takes place on the third Monday of every April, and the time it takes for the firecrackers to go off indicates how early summer will arrive.  For the year 2013, the burn time was a LOONG 35 minutes, indicating a late summer.

May:

I think the Boogg's prediction was correct, since the cold, cloudy weather of Winter seemed to drag on until late May to early June.  Occasionally, there were a couple days of sun, but those were few and far between.  Still, we managed to have fun, enjoy some Swiss holidays, take boat cruises and visit Appenzell and Basel.

 Swiss Labor Day (May 1st).  A rare day of sun, perfect for grilling.

Boat cruises along Lake Zurich (Note the cloudy, overcast sky).

Seeing how cheese is traditionally made in Appenzell.  The cheese is flavored with a brine of alpine herbs, giving it a unique spicy, pungent flavor.

The City Hall at Basel, where we saw the amazing accordion street performer.  We also visited the Kunstmuseum to see the Picasso exhibit and bought some Basler Läckerli to take home with us!

June:

For much of May and June, the Swiss Ms. was in the US attending meetings for work.  As such, we did not travel a great deal, but the weather did get significantly better and we took advantage of it with hikes up to Uetliberg and many picnic dinners.

We had previously visited Uetliberg in March, but it was cloudy and overcast.  In June, the weather was gorgeous and you could see the beautiful Swiss landscape.

Summer in Zurich!  Fresh vegetables in season and eating outside.

The eggs in Switzerland have such bright orange yolks.

July:

Our lab does fun group retreats twice a year, one in the summer and one in the winter.  This summer, we went to Appenzell for a full day hike up to Ebenalp.

Far removed from Zurich, we could enjoy the lush green fields and towering alps.

A view of Zurich and the Limmat River from the top of the Grossmunster.

August:

The end of an era.  Our time in Thalwil ended and we temporarily moved to our compact 13 square meter apartment.  This definitely motivated us to take more trips on the weekends to stretch our legs.

Swiss National Day (August 1st).  The Swiss celebrate this holiday with a bang and many folks purchase their own fireworks (sold from Migros and COOP) to set off just about anywhere. 

For about a month and a half, we lived in 13 square meters.  It was stressful, to say the least.

The Rhine Falls at Schaffausen, just a short hour train ride from Zurich.  The quaint medieval town has well preserved streets dating back to the 16th century, as well as the impressive fortress, Munot.

Flumserberg, a popular ski-resort in Winter, and a nice place for alpine hiking in the Summer.  We had great views and the trails were littered with wildflowers in bloom. 

September:

After many months of searching for an apartment (and being rejected close to fifty times), we finally secured a place of our own!  

The Rapperswil Beer Festival, where we tasted beers from a variety of Swiss microbreweries and had REALLY good pretzels.

 MOVING OUT OF 13 M^2.  Cue excitement.

Stein Am Rheine, another quaint Swiss town filled with cobblestone streets and houses covered in colorful frescos.

October:

In the blink of an eye, summer was over, but there was still plenty to do in the fall.  

Welcoming the cows back home after a long summer in the Alps at an Alpabfahrt festival in the small town of Elm.  Each cow wears a uniquely decorated headdress.

Konstanz, Germany, which is just across the Switzerland border and located on Lake Constance.

Celebrating the Fall Harvest with pumpkin sculptures at Jucker Farms, in Seegräben.

November:

Up until this point, many of our travels within Switzerland were limited to day trips.  For Lausanne, which was two and a half hours away, we decided we needed a full weekend.  

While in Lausanne, we visited Montreux and Château de Chillon (pictured above).  The Chateau proudly says it's the most visited historic monument in Switzerland.

Why doesn't the Schoggi Tram run year-round?

December:

Christmas is a BIG deal in Switzerland.  In fact, because Thanksgiving is not celebrated, Christmas decorations begin around mid-November and continue until December 25th.  For the Christmas lovers out there, if you need to get an early start on the holidays, think about coming to Switzerland!

The entire length of Bahnhofstrasse is covered in delicate, star-like Christmas lights.

Decorative Christmas pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide) stand selling Gluhwein (mulled wine), sausage and other hearty, warm treats.

In Zurich's main train station stands a large Swarovski crystal-covered Christmas tree.

January:

For my lab's Winter trip, we took an overnight to Riederalp, where we went snowshoeing.  I also ate fondue for the first time.  I can't believe it took me almost a year to try fondue!  The Swiss Ms. was jealous that I was having so many Swiss experiences without her.   

Pictured above is the small town of Riederalp up in the Swiss Alps, where we stayed in a rustic Swiss Chalet.

February/March:

We made sure to revisit both fondue and snow-shoeing before the end of Winter season and our first year in Switzerland came to a close.

Experiencing fondue for the first time.

Showshoeing at Melchsee-Frutt.  Feeling triumphant after we successfully hiked to the top of the mountain.

Here's to another year of adventures in Switzerland (minus looking for another apartment).

-Herr Cervelat & The Merry Swiss Ms.

Switz Bitz - Part 1

While the majority of our entries so far have focused on the places we have visited in Switzerland, we thought that it would be interesting to also talk about day-to-day life in a new country.  We present to you, the first in a series of entries describing some interesting bits of Swiss culture, or "Switz Bitz".  Yup, I'm proud of that one.

1)  Smoking

The Swiss are known for their love of the outdoors.  Swimming in the crystal clear lakes, hiking in the mountains, nordic walking (see below), and biking just about anywhere.  "Fitness" and "wellness" seem to be the national pastimes. 

This is a sign we saw during our Uteliburg trek.  In addition to showing the hiking trails, the figure on the right demonstrates proper Nordic walking technique.  Nordic walking = walking with sticks!

For such an active country, we were so surprised by how much smoking there is.  Young and old, men and women, everyone seems to smoke.  On our recent trip to Bern we boarded a train in Zurich that had already been in transit for a few hours.  When the train arrived at the station, a large number of passengers disembarked to take a smoke break for the 10 minutes or so before the train departed.  Walking down the platform was a challenge from the sheer quantity of people just standing in place smoking, not to mention the cloud of smoke.  Last September, Swiss voters rejected a total ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.  Only the canton of Geneva voted in favor (very slight) of the ban, while the other 25 voted strongly in opposition. Luckily, the interior of most restaurants are smoke-free.

2)  Noise and Sundays

Sunday in Switzerland is a "Family Day," and is how the country encourages its citizens to spend time at home.  We should clarify that they mean it should be "Quiet Family Time."  There are widespread restrictions on noise, dictating that people should keep noise at a minimum after the hours of 9PM and before 7AM.  These restrictions apply all day on Sundays and public holidays.  What's noisy?  Laundry, vacuuming, lawn-mowing, children running inside, parties, etc.  If it might be louder than a typical conversation, it's too loud.  The Swiss are not afraid to report your disruptive activities to the police, resulting in a stern talking to (and probably a fine) from the local authority.

Playing in gravel would be too noisy on Sunday. Sorry, bears. 

3)  Recycling

So, in a country as efficient as Switzerland, you would think waste disposal would be managed very effectively, right?  Yes and no.  Trash collection is financed by the purchase of special trash bags.  Trash can only be disposed of in these bags which differ by region.  Trash bags are available for purchase at grocery stores and the post office.  The more trash you create, the more you have to pay to bag your trash for collection.  Fair.  The trash bags we use in our apartment cost about 1.60 CHF per 35 liter bag.  Bags are placed in dumpsters located near our apartment complex and collected regularly.  Compost is collected just like trash, but is free!  For a country full of apartment dwellers, this is an excellent idea.  Kitchen scraps are placed in designated bins right next to the trash dumpsters.  Stacks of paper tied with twine are placed near the same dumpsters once a month for recycling.  Other recyclable items are all taken to public repositories frequently located near grocery stores.  When you go grocery shopping this is where you return your empty glass bottles and aluminum cans.

On the street off Bahnhofstrasse, recycling is encouraged.

Collecting the recyclables. Yup, those bins go deep underground.

Inside grocery stores is an area for recycling plastic milk bottles, PET drink bottles (from soda, bottled water, etc), and batteries.  What's that?  You still have plastic containers that once held your delicious yogurt, orange-yolked eggs, and himbeeren (raspberries)?  Sorry, if those containers aren't made of PET and didn't spend their life as a milk bottle you can't recycle them.  Why Swtizerland?!?  

More Bitz to come!

-Swiss Ms

Frolicking with the Bears at Bern

We finally had a nice day!  Therefore, we decided to go to the city of Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

Bern's coat of arms, symbolizing their mascot, the bear!

We took the the train to Zurich HB and, then took a special express IC to Bern with no stops.  Even though Bern is farther away than St. Gallen (114km vs 75 km), the IC to Bern is much faster.  If we continued on the IC it would take us across the country to Lausanne and Geneva (which we intend on visiting in the near future!) 

This is a special "Family car" on the trains with slides and entertainment for the little ones.  The Swiss think of everything!

When we arrived at Bern, we saw that the beautiful weather from Thalwil and Zurich had followed us.  Looks like Spring is finally starting!

At Bern's RailCity on a beautiful Saturday.

Arc covering the bus/tram stop in front of the Bern station.

Our first stop was the Kleine Schanze (translate to "Small Hill"), a beautiful park nearby Bern HB.  This park also featured its own cog-railway, called a Drahtseilbahn, that would take you up and down the steep slopes of Bern.  However, unlike Zurich and Lucerne, there are no towering Alps.  Just a beautiful river.

The Aar (a tributary of the High Rhine) is the longest river that begins and ends entirely in Switzerland.  (This photo was taken from Barenpark.)

ANOTHER POLYBAHN!  This one lives in modern glass and metal at the top of the hill rather than a mini-chalet like the one in Zurich.

Right on the perimeter of the park, we explored a cathedral and were not disappointed.  We viewed some absolutely stunning stain-glass windows.

Cathedral off the Klein Schanze.

Organ music filled the air!

These windows were everywhere!

We then wandered east from Kleine Schanze toward the "Old City" of Bern.  On the way, we passed by Bern's Parliament, several streets of shops on Marktgasse (market street) and a great deal of construction.  A labmate born and raised in Bern told me that a majority of Bern's buildings are made out of sandstone, and as a result, need constant maintenance.  

Farmer's market in front of the Federal Palace of Switzerland (Parliament)

Once we arrived at the Old City of Berne (a UNESCO World Heritage site), we were greeted by its cobblestone streets, 15th-century arcades and 16th-century fountains, which retain much of their original medieval character.  In fact, we had lunch right on Gerechtigkeitsgasse, one of the main streets.

Historic Old City of Bern.

The medieval town with its cobbled streets.

A perfect day to sit outside on the streets of Bern.

We've been finding that Italian food is very popular in Switzerland.  Due to my love of pizza, I find myself getting it very often.  Here, we have a prosciutto and champignon (mushroom in French).  Many food names are a mix of German, French and Italian.

Vegetable Lasagna with a white sauce, cooked in a similar manner to the Älplermagronen.  Swiss Ms: Holy moly that's a lot of cheese!  

We then visited the prime attraction, Bärenpark Bern!  For the past few hundred year, the bears were housed in various bear pits. Now, the bears dwell in a large natural enclosure.  There is the father bear, Björk (Swedish for birch) who is from Denmark, the mother bear Finn from Finland, and their twin daughters, Ursina and Berna.  Since it was spring, the bears were awake from their long winter's slumber and were frolicking around, as well as looking for food to eat (which the keepers hid!).

Original bear pit that was too small, especially for four bears.

Looking for the food that the keepers hid!

Playing in the water.

Seems a little aggressive to us, but they're bears.

We really could have watched the bears all day, but there was much more of Bern to see.  So we made our way to Bern Minster (German: Berner Münster), a gothic cathedral that is the tallest in Switzerland.  We were not allowed to take any pictures inside, but if you google or search for it on wikipedia, you can see how beautiful it is inside.  There were many stunning stained glass windows, and one of my favorites was the "Dance of Death".  

The towering Berner Münster.  Incidentally, the top is also under construction.

There are also eleven 16th-century fountains all over Bern that depict historic and folkloric characters, as well as the Zytglogge (clock tower) with revolving figures and chimes.

The clock tower supposedly helped Albert Einstein hone his theory of relativity.  While Einstein was travelling on the tram, he thought that if the tram were going at the speed of light, the clock tower time would remain constant, while his clock (on the tram) would continue to tick, proving that time was relative.

The most famous fountain, Kindlifresserbrunnen (Ogre Fountain) that lies in Kornhausplatz.  This fountain depicts an ogre snacking on children!

Since it was such a nice day, we had a great deal of trouble finding outdoor cafe space.  We finally found some space back at an outdoor cafe at Kleine Schanze, whilst sipping our espresso and coffee.

The Swiss Ms. with her cafe.

With my espresso.

Nothing like a trip to Bern to start off Spring!

Thanks for reading!  Our thoughts have been with our friends and family back home this week.

-Sir Cervelat