5 Months, 3 Cities, and 3 Apartments

So within the past 5 months I am able to say I have had apartments in 3 different European cities. Munich, Dublin, and how Zurich. I spent the past 2 weeks working from our Zurich office and will spend at least the next 2 weeks down there again. (All that's left is working from our Singapore office) It has been fun to spend that much time in Zurich. Unfortunately work is very busy so I don't get to see a lot of the city in the daylight, but the bit I've seen/done has been great.

The first weekend there I went to Bern (the capital of Switzerland) on Saturday and on Sunday got to meet a cousin I haven't seen since before the age at which you are able to remember things without being just told that you were there or did something.

Bern was nice. It wasn't the best weather, but I got to see the apartment where Einstein developed his Special Theory of Relativity. I have to admit it was pretty cool. Then I walked around a bit and saw the bear pits (the namesake of the city, Bern=bear). It is a city known for a lot of fountains and it was quite interesting.

On Sunday we drove around the area near Zurich and saw several of the smaller cities. We also stopped at a huge monastery in Einsiedeln which was actually quite beautiful and unique, and for once was not just another church to add to the list. Then we had lunch/dinner in Rapperswil which is on the south side of Lake Zurich and beautiful. Very nice views and a great garden/castle for walking.

Zurich is beautiful, but my heavens is it expensive. I find myself doing the exchange into euros instead of thinking about the fact that the Swiss Franc is equivalent to the dollar, because if I thought about the cost of things in dollars I would have lost my mind already. I just try to soften the blow by thinking about the amount in euros which makes the number smaller, but doesn't actually lower the price. I guess it is so insanely expensive there because the taxes are so low, but as someone not getting those kinds of tax benefits, it is a bit of a strain on the bank account. (Oh funny side story, I spent the last 2 weeks trying to survive in a foreign city with absolutely no cash. My EC card wouldn't work so I quickly had to learn which places accept credit cards. Dresdner bank has now officially joined the sh** list.)

I realize this post is a bit sporadic and random, but it is hard to summarize these past two weeks into anything I think someone might potentially be interested in. My apologies.

The Alps, A Snowstorm, And Kaiserschmarrn

Last weekend I went with a group of friends from work to Innsbruck for a skiing/snowboarding weekend in the Alps. Innsbruck is where parts of the 1964 and 1976 Olympics took place. It is a beautiful city (well at least the little bit of it that I actually saw was nice). The first day 2 friends and I took snowboarding lessons since we were the only ones who didn't already ski or snowboard. We met our instructor at the rental shop and, my hand to God, he was perfect. I thought it was just a myth that snowboarding instructors are attractive, but (at least in Innsbruck) it is true.

We headed up the mountain directly from the center of the city. There is an extensive gondola system that goes from city center to about 2000 meters up the mountain. When we got to the top we discovered ourselves in the midst of a snowstorm which lasted the entire day. Within minutes my hair had frozen into a giant icicle, but there was no consideration of turning back. By lunchtime we were pretty well soaked through. We went to the hut and had lunch in an almost empty restaurant. Just us and 3 other people.

After lunch it was back out to practice edging on the half pipe. That's right in the first day we were on the half pipe. (Ok, so we were just using the middle part, but that is just a minor detail.) Because of all the snow there were about 15 other people on the mountain that day. In fact I could tell you what every other person out there that day was wearing! At one point one of the snowboarders who was coming down the half pipe almost ran over me and had to take a fall to stop. He came to a snow spraying stop about 1 meter from me and left me completely covered in snow (which I preferred to being run over).

That night I had kaiserschmarrn for dinner because I discovered that it is actually Austrian and I figured that justified it. Man is that stuff good!

The second day we headed back to the same hill (by ourselves this time, unfortunately) to try to figure this whole snowboarding thing out. Plus I didn't really ever fall on Saturday, so I needed to get some bruises at some point (and boy did I!). Well, once we got to the top of the mountain we discovered just how lucky we had been on Saturday. The entire city and surrounding areas were all out for the day. There were people everywhere. There were even kids on skis who were under the age of 3. Likely they had taken their first steps that week so the parents decided it was time to strap on the skis. All these people made it harder to practice since I worry less about hurting myself than I do about hurting someone else. By the end of the day the guy from Venezuela ended up as the super star, showing up a girl from Slovakia and myself (I've lived near enough to snow most of my life that I shouldn't have done so poorly.) But aside from sore muscles no one was hurt by the end of the weekend and I can now officially say I've been snowboarding in the Alps!