Spargelzeit!

... That means it is ASPARAGUS TIME! in Switzerland and Germany, but I will use it to refer to what I've been up to recently on the continent since returning from Tanzania, Haiti, and the USA. 

The restaurant we went to for a team dinner during Skybowl
(a local tournament) had an entire separate menu for items containing Spargel.

Spring has arrived in Züri and it is marvelous! My balcony garden has begun: a tomato plant, a pepper plant and some dill (so far). I'm back to riding my bike a little more and enjoying being out in about in the city; however, this sign was a little unsettling:

My new homebrew is ready. I tried to clone a Magic Hat #9 to no success. When I opened the first bottle over half of it spewed out as carbonation. It was drinkable, but sour and had much heavier apricot scent than what I was hoping.

Disappointing beer. Also in this photo: FC Bayern marvelously losing to BVB!

ZUF won Skybowl! Probably thanks to all the Spargel available on the menu the night before the upper pool games. Like last year, the chocolate trophy did not last long. 

Gewonnen!

Over the long May 1st weekend (it is labor day over here), I joined some friends from Munich (with whom I played in February in Stockholm) for the Bibione Beach Co-Ed Challenge. Their club sent three teams. The one I was on didn't do so hot on the field, but won both the spirit and party prizes. I tweaked something in my quad while throwing before warming up on the first of three days of playing, so was not very effective that day and was still working it out through the second day. By the last game on Saturday, I was feeling like I could almost go full speed and the woman who was marking me totally smashed my toe - it is still colorful and not totally bendable. Basically, I am getting old and need to remember that warming up is important (can't do much about preventing the toe issue though).

Most people on the team have red hats like the folks in film The Life Aquatic, the team's German namesake - Tiefseetaucher.

I recorded part of a module for a Massive Open Online Course for work.
It really could have gone better, but if you want to see it you can register here.

Switzerland with mommy

In two days I will have been in Madrid for almost a month, so now is obviously the perfect time to recount the vacay that I took with my mom between working in Germany and starting school in Madrid. Ten days, just me mom and the Alps... sounds dangerous, right? Well, we survived and hit most of the categories of Swiss sterotypes: mountains/cows, chocolate, trains and I even bought a knife (also wine, which they are trying to push as the 'next Swiss thing'). Okay, almost all of them... I guess we forgot cheese and cuckoo clocks.

Mountains

They are tall, windy and beautiful. We went up Mt. Pilatus where we explored some dragon caves. There was also this cute white church halfway down that mom wouldn't hike to, despite her trip goal of wanting to go to "a cute little church." The doors/doorhandles were particularly nice in this area.

From there we moved onto the Berner Oberland, which was even prettier. We did a bunch of hiking and got some great views of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch, saw some crazy paragliders (I want to try! well, I guess that isn't something you 'try,' but you know what I mean) and cheered on the poor souls running in the Jungfrau Marathon. We stayed in Grindelwald and Wengen, both of which were much nicer than Interlaken (where I had camped the last time I was in der Schweitz). There was compulsory frolicking. Another of mom's goals was to see some cows on a mountain side. This lil guy joined our picnic on one of our hikes!

Chocolate

I think that any of you who have met my mother can probably guess the sort of role chocolate played in our trip. We went into so many chocolate shops and even went to chocolate school! The lesson was on filled chocolates and then we toured the factory (and bought a bunch of chocolate). My pralines were dark chocolate with a chocolate and port ganache (mom was supposed to share them around NC, let me know if she didn't) and mom's were dark chocolate with dark chocolate ganache. The playground at the factory had huge chocolate bars to climb (or in my case lean) on.

Trains

We had SwissPasses so we rode them (a lot). The SwissPasses were really nice and allowed for flexibility. For example, on the way up to the Pilatus Base Station, we saw an advert for a Glass Blowing Museum with FREE ENTRY. So we just hopped of at that station did the tour, bought some glass accouterments (i got a hippo), then got on the next train heading our way! Also they have trains just for Chocolate tourists (we did not ride those).

Knives

I got the most adorable victorinox ever! Mom gave me some crap about buying a Swiss Army knife, given the selection we have at home from my Granddad, but I like to think of it as carrying on the tradition (plus we had leftover CHF). Guess which color I picked out!

Wine

After mountain-time we headed to the wine region in the French speaking part of the country around Lake Geneva. The lake and the vineyards are so pretty! Honestly, the wine was a little boring, but a nice grape farmer's wife gave us a bunch to try.

I think that's all for Switzerland (for now)! I'll start working on some Spain stuff, but between classes, a new ultimate community and cervesas with the classmates I've really been going pretty non-stop since I've arrived. I really like it here!!!

PS: ENE geeks don't worry. I documented the MSW and water distribution systems while I was there.