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.

Nikolaustag - Switzerland

Samichlaus leaves presents in Swiss children's shoes for them to find on the morning of December 6th. I forgot to leave my shoes out, but I did go to a get together with some Swiss friends where we drank glühwein, ate lebkuchen, an baked Grittibänz.

The table was set with clementines and chocolate coins.

 I was the glühwein cook; it turned out a little sour, but I was just working with the citrus I was given.

Lebkuchen is much more cake-like than the German versions I have tried.
Warm with a bit of butter, yum!

 Grittibänz or Stutenkerle (sweet-dough guy) are (possibly) meant to be in the form of a bishop and are similar to gingerbread men, in the sense that they are human shaped.


Stutenkerle (+belly dancer kerlette) before...

and after. Delish!

Since Samichlaus already made his rounds, I was wondering if the consumer-Christmasness that has engulfed the city would subside, but it looks like Züri is in it for the long haul. Three Santas tried to give me fliers on my way out of the train station this evening.

Store display on November 5th.

 Much of the city is done up quite tastefully with white lights, dangling, draped, stars, and icicles. But each evening I get a taste of tacky lights on my bus ride:


It isn't so clear, but there are white, purple, and green lights. Some of them are chasers.
The lit trees on the overhang are there all year.
I can only assume that the man reflected in the bus window is aghast at the sight!

 I think that those are the only colored lights I have seen, with the exception of my own balcony. There is a single strand of multi-colored lights running from the plug, up to the awning, down the edge of the building, around the corner and halfway along the length of the railing. This leaves it looking a little incomplete, if  you ask me. There is even cord to spare, so lights needn't be wasted on going up to the awning.

The main design flaw with the lights is that there is not a plug on the end to chain stands together!

 

Letzigrund, Zürich, CH

Some of my German friends have equated the Swiss soccer league with the German fourth division. While this may be a bit of an exaggeration the stadium was less than three-fourths full at the recent FC Zürich - FC Basel match, I expected it to be at capacity considering that those two teams top the Super League table, separated only by a few points. Basically, this was Switzerland's El Clásico, but whole sections of the stadium were covered in grocery store advertisements and a huge banner from the opposition. Granted, the stadium was built for the 2008 European Championship and there is at least one other first league team in Zürich, the Grasshoppers. Since the teams are temporarily sharing the stadium, I hope the derby matches are a bit fuller.

 

Outside of the stadium was probably the dirtiest part of Switzerland. There we also lots of police in riot gear.

Beside the stadium, before the match.

My friends and I had tickets in the FCZ supporters section. I stood on a seat and ended up with a great view, even though we arrived right at kickoff.

 

FCZ conceded a first half goal and the Baslers set off fireworks and flares. It was much more than I had expected. After halftime, suddenly our section was full of lit flares. I don't know why - there was nothing to celebrate, neither team was doing much of anything exciting. Thanks to a handball in the box very late in the game, FCZ was able to pull even, but an even later goal (in the 4th overtime minute) for Basel left Züri with a loss. 

My view of the field, empty seats, adverts, smoke and flares. The FCB fans turned that Lion sheet around 360⁰- I don't know what exactly that was about, but it might be a symbol Lions flank the Zürich coat of arms and there are ice hockey, ultimate, baseball, lacrosse, and ice skating clubs here that use a lion as their mascot.

I also found out that there is a highly recommended slaughter house near the stadium, an adventure for another day.

Driving

I can count the number of times I have been in a car in Switzerland on my fingers. A Mobility car to move apartments, a van to Italy, a station wagon back, and a few taxi to get to meetings for work when the Swiss trains were running late (it happens!). I was not driving any of these vehicles. Nevertheless, if you stay in Switzerland for more than a year, you are not supposed to drive with your foreign license any more. In the event that I event do need to drive here in the future, I went through the process of applying for one. Even if I don't drive, it helps me establish/demonstrate residency and will ease transactions where I have to show ID (I've been using my residency permit, which isn't actually a legal proof of identity).

I downloaded a form off the internet, filled most of it out, then took it to a optometrist where I paid to take an eye exam with my glasses on. Then I went to my Circle's office so they could verify that I was who I said I was and send it off with my North Carolina license and a passport photo. 

I got a call the next day and was informed that I had forgotten to answer a question, my license was too new (I had just renewed it in October and there is no date saying since when I had gotten my initial license), and my photo was too pale.

See 4b? It means there is no expiration date!

One check mark, one photo, a scan of my previous licence, and a copy of my diving record (just to be safe) were sent back to them and two days later I received my new license and the old one (in a separate envelope), with a nifty "Not valid in Switzerland" sticker, which does not look very durable or official.

The whole process took nine days, about the same amount of time it took to get my renewal license back home. The internet told me this could take up to three months, so this was a pleasant surprise. It was also a fairly inexpensive process, 20 CHF for getting proof I am a person from the Circle, 20 CHF for the eye test and 8 CHF for new passport photos, which I need for some upcoming visa applications anyway. A steal compared to what bureaucratic actions usually cost here. *EDIT 10 DEC 2014: just got a bill in the mail for 85 Francs for the transaction... that's the Switzerland I've grown accustomed to :)*

Luzern, Switzerland

I was hoping for some fanfare for
 completing all the levels, but it
just went back to the skills screen :(

First and slightly unrelated, I finished Duolingo's German program. Sounds like the perfect time to spend three and a half weeks not using any German (I head to the States on Friday)! Time to switch to French or Spanish before Swedish gets through beta.

I had been to Luzern/Lucerne thrice before. Once with my mom (where she was in awe of how expensive french fries were), once for the swiss national championship, and most recently just to the train station to get picked up to go to Lecco, but neither time was really about seeing the city. This trip was for my department's annual excursion. 

We took the train from Zürich and then a bus to the other office building of our research institute, which is outside of Luzern. Situated on the lake shore, it is where all of the fish researchers do their work. The office is at least a 10 minute walk from the nearest bus stop and the first floor smells like you would expect it to with dozens of aquariums around, but they have a really nice view and a cup of coffee costs less than half of what it does in our restaurant. The social scientists that I work with were pretty excited to see a "lab"! 

The warm fish room. They look into the rapid speciation occurring in some of
Africa's lakes from both ecosystem and genetic perspectives.

Fish boxes with a view (an a nice vineyard to the left). These are for studying
how certain fish modify their environment and how that affects their progeny. 

We then took a boat across the lake, back to the city center where our scavenger hunt began. We split up into four teams and followed different trails of clues. I was not looking forward to it, but it ended up being pretty neat. It took us through parts of the city that a tourist usually wouldn't see.

Hill top conservatory with real musicians...

and a great view.

Sad lion commemorating Swiss mercenaries who died while protecting Louis XVI during the French revolution.

Mark Twain was quite impressed with the monument as were the hundreds of tourists trying to take selfies with it. 

It wasn't totally un-touristy, concluding with a trip across the Chapel Bridge.

My team was the Siegergruppe, not that it was a competition or anything. The day around town was followed by an apero at the department leader's house and dinner at a nice restaurant (still thinking about that chocolate mousse) that was decorated with colorful circles strewn with googly-eyes.

Summer

I was gone for ultimate or work quite a bit over the summer. Between practices, tournaments, workshops and conferences I was at home for something like four weekends in four months, which provided content for the travel blog, but it is  really strange now to have some free time. I don't really know what to do (I spent this weekend in bed and on the porch with a nasty cold).

I did try to cultivate some hobbies while I was in Zürich. I had two such endeavors over the summer. A balcony tomato vine and my first continental foray into homebrew. While neither turn out perfect, the second way much closer to be considered a success.

I grew up in the garden. I am pretty sure I got into college because I wrote about playing in the compost pile. Growing a potted tomato vine on my balcony couldn't be that difficult, could it? I got three slightly larger than cherry-tomato sized tomatoes from my vine, but at one point I didn't think I would get any. By the time the last tomato was close enough to ripe to pick, there were no leaves left on the vine.

I guess I didn't realize the importance of tomato stakes.
(this was after I untangled it from the rosemary bush) 

So, I built my own, with special levels to accommodate the
existing vine branches. The poor vine had been through enough!

But soon the leaves yellowed and dropped:

A call to my dad diagnosed it with "the blight"
Plucking the bad leaves did not stem the spread.

Not all hope was lost, they continued to ripen:

48 hours difference.

In the end, they were eaten unceremoniously as a trio, with just a little salt and pepper. An afterthought, as I was rushing out the door to catch my flight to Stockholm.

Homebrewing was slightly more successful. It ate up a lot of refrigerator space and had my neighbors ask me to keep the noise down (bottling took much longer than expected), but it was fun + science-ish and now I have just over two Kiste-s of trinkbar beer (a Kiste is a plastic crate that Germans buy beer in, which makes it easier to transport and take back to the store to get your deposit back).

  

Part of the process. Yes that is pantyhose over a strainer.

Measuring the specific gravity (inverse of the density)

All set up to ferment in my room. Quickly moved
to the basement due to noise and temperature.

To keep the temperature down I filled discs with water, which was
pulled up into the towel and due to physics (chemistry?) lowered
the internal temperature by a few degrees Celsius.
Thanks Internet for the idea!

I waited some weeks, monitoring the specific gravity to see when fermentation changed, then bottled, put the bottles in the fridge and waited four more weeks and voila:

Pröschtli!

It is fine to drink and actually pretty tasty, just a little strange, because it isn't filtered, so there is some yeast in the bottles. It is also a little, ummm, unevenly carbonated, so it is best to open a new bottle over the sink :) My bottle caps are lime green - still working on a label. Stop by and test it out yourself!

Bike!

I recently bought a bike. This was motivated by a few factors:

• My recent trip to Freiburg, which is very much a cycling city
• My commute has gotten crazy - they just built a new tunnel, which reroutes all but one of the regional trains from going through the station nearest to my house, including the two that go to the suburb that my office is in, so it now takes about an hour and three modes of transport, to go on public transport
• I am traveling off and on during the summer, meaning that a monthly transit pass does not pay itself off. Buying daily tickets is annoying (it costs about 7 dollars a day to commute, so I have found myself to working more from home).

This sticker is a play on the Zurich Transport network's logo and motto...
"no ticket for everything" instead of "one ticket for everything")

About every six weeks in the warmer months, there is a Velobörse (bike market) in Zürich, where used bikes can be bought and sold. A seller can drop their bike (or bikes) off in the morning for a fee of 5 francs (10, if it costs more than 400 CHF) with a price set. Then people come to the market and can purchase a bike if they find one that they like. If the bike sells, the organizers get a cut of the sale price. It is organized by the cantonal bicycle advocacy group, who are on hand to check the bikes out, make minor adjustments and sell accessories.

The selling period is from 9AM-3PM and I had training on the morning of the most recent börse. I wouldn't be able to make it there until about 2, when I assumed all the good stuff would be gone. I had decided that it wasn't worth trying, until one of my teammates mentioned that she wanted to go, so I changed my mind. The thing is we both have similar taste in cycles and were both tempted by a beautiful Motobecane mixte, which was just past the upper end of my budget, but almost worth it. I talked myself away from the pretty and pricey bikes (three bikes have been recently stolen from my office or nearby).

For the past several years I have toyed with the idea of buying a Bianchi, partially because they are nice bikes, but mostly because they come in a color that I would call seafoam green, but they call Celeste. Well, my dream sort of came true, when I became the owner of a Bianchi Flash Delta! (Delta Flash?)

The sticker shown in the top left means that it has been in Zürich since at least 2004 (there used to be a mandatory cycle insurance program). I need to cover the other stickers up. Additionally, the bike has rad graphics and sweet purple bell. 

On its first outing to a school playground 300 meters from my house to do a work out.
Fun Fact: the helmet and lock cost almost as much as the bike.

I knew that the bike felt like what I needed (lady's frame, rides smooth, some style - but not pretty enough to steal), but I knew nothing about it,s so I tried to find out more about the bike, but info has been sparse so far.

This Flash Omega is/was for sale in Hungary.

As was this Delta, which describes it as a mountain bike,
 a statement with which I don't totally agree.

I found this blog, where a woman rode a flash delta on a ten day cycling trip in southern Africa, after owning it for over fifteen years (in 2009). Which puts my dating of the bike about right. (Hers has different colors, so it could be a slightly different model year). It also reminded me that I have been wanting to do a big cycle trip for quite some time. Not Africa big - I'm thinking more like Belgium.

An Austrian auction house sold several (or had several for sale) in 2012 as part of their lot of police bikes. They characterize it as a trekking bike, which I think is more accurate.

None of the images that I found have the purple/gray coloring of mine. They all have some purple/teal version, which would have also been cool, because then I could rep the Charlotte Hornets.

I may go to the next börse early to see if I can pick up something a little more stylish, for when I need to be seen about town, but this should do nicely for now.

Time to see if I can steady the front fender and figure out which route to take to work on Monday!

Secure in Switzerland

Just over five years ago, I visited Switzerland for the first time on a trip with my cousin, Timo. One evening as we were setting up camp near the glacier we had just mountaineered on (read: walked around with crampons on, then Tim hauling my no-upper-body-strength-having-self out of a crevasse that I climbed into), we made some jokes about how the doors on the side of a nearby mountain might be the entrance to a secret military bunker/ research facility. It turns out that we might not have been that far off.

ASIDE: I never blogged about that trip. I came back to Raleigh from my semester in Ghana for summer school and just really wanted to get back out in the world again - some combination of wanderlust or just the daydreaming that Mechanics of Solids will drive you to or the excitement of watching Euro 2008 on the television, which had taken place partially in Switzerland, led me to crash the end of a much larger climbing trip Tim was on with one of his buddies. I was pretty sick the whole time (leftover parasites), but still had a fantastic time. Here are some photos:

Clockwise from top left: Swiss cheese bike, my first (maybe) bunker sighting, the wundercousin,
and hanging out on the mountain.

BACK TO THE POST TOPIC: My team was in Basel this past weekend for the first round of the Swiss national ultimate championships and the accommodation that was offered was in bunkers. When I first heard this, I was quite confused. We will sleep in a Bunker? Like during an air raid? Several of my teammates opted to get a hotel because they had previously had bad bunker sleeping experiences, with offensive smells, humidity and noise.

I did not have any issues with the bunker-experience. It was very similar to a youth hostel. Or at least a youth hostel that is underground and has a doctor's office, pharmacy, and x-ray room (maybe more - there was a dark hallway that I did not dare to venture down). This bunker had four to five rooms with sleeping places for maybe 40 people in each (the one I was in had 20 bunk-beds).

The heavy outer door, x-ray room, beds, and some provisions.

Switzerland has space for its entire population (and then some) in underground pretty-nuclear-proof bunkers, split between private and public bunkers. If you build a dwelling with a certain capacity and you do not include a bunker, you have to pay a fine to the municipality. This money is then used for the construction and maintenance of the public bunkers. Since these bunkers are generally not needed for their intended purpose, they can sometimes be rented out to house people for events, like ultimate tournaments and field trips (I am not sure of the exact conditions).

The bunkers in the mountains look much more epic (my entrance pretty much looked like an underground parking garage, but with out any streets nearby):

(Source: Polar Inertia)

I suppose I should find where my bunker in Züri is... assuming they let foreigners in :)

Switzerland - Month Four

I spent most of the first half of April preparing for, thinking about, and traveling to Spain. At work I was mostly focusing on preparing for a workshop we are offering in May to practitioners in the water and sanitation sectors. We initially thought that we would have about 20 participants, but now we have almost 50 signed up and had to ask for new rooms!

It hasn't all been vacation and work! In Zürich, the third Monday in March is Sechseläuten.  This was very confusing to me when I first heard co-worker talking about it because it is pronounced "sexy-loy-ten" and "loy-ten" sounds a bit like Leute, which means people. So it sounded to me like they were asking, "Are you going to look at the sexy people after work today?" ( It really means something about ringing the bells at six.) Also called "Böögg" (no idea how to pronounce that- I live in Höngg, which sounds kind of like "h -the u sound from murder- rnk", if that helps), this holiday involves a half day off from work and burning a snowman figure (the Böögg) on top of a huge bonfire. The amount time it takes from when the fire is lit until the head of the Böögg explodes, is supposed to somehow predict the duration (and perhaps quality) of the summer. So it is kind of like groundhog day, except with fireworks, costumes and class tension. Did I mention that the snowman is full of fireworks? Or that before the fire, there is parade of the guilds with men dressed in traditional garb? Or that the whole thing happens on what is essentially the Zürich town square, but is fenced off and (from my understanding) you have to invited to attend?

I took some shaky photos and videos of the event with my phone and google stitched them together and added music and a title, without me even asking. So, I present Sechseläuten from outside the fence (and behind some umbrellas) (there are actually a few decent shots in there, you can see the whole base of the first for a few seconds + some explosions, but it is really just for the creepiness/coolness(?) factor of google doing this all on its own):

I really like the premise that tradespeople are celebrating the beginning of the time of year when there is still light out when they are done working and of course the bit about burning a snowman with accelerants and fireworks, but the exclusivity gets to me (especially when quite a few of the people wearing old-timey clothes were speaking English with American or British accents). Apparently, after a certain amount of time the common folk are allowed to roast sausages over the coals of the fire.

The women's team that I am playing with won Sky Bowl, a tournament in Winterthur, just outside of Zürich. This is the first of five tournaments we are attending to prepare for the World Championships this summer. We lost a pool play game to MICZ, our cross-town rivals and the team for which most of the women on Headless play, but we beat them on day two in the elite pool and because of how that pool shook out, we played FABulous, of Bern, in the finals.

A teammate tasting gold!

The chocolate trophy, mid-demolishment

We will meet many of the teams from this tournament during the Swiss Meisterschaft, which begins this weekend in France (the fields are literally just over the border). This eight team tournament (on the women's side) gets stretched out over two weekends! 

Swiss Sweets

I have been thoroughly impressed with the desserts here in Switzerland. I had expected their cakes to be like German cakes, which can be pretty dry and rely on Schlagahne (whipped cream) for moisture. A co-worker brought in "cake" for his birthday yesterday, but it was more like a super dessert, drawing from many dessert categories.

Starting at the bottom there is a nice layer of flaky crust, as if the baker started out making a pie. This is covered in a generous layer of  dense vanilla pudding, which seems to be a fairly common cake component here. Next comes a thin layer of cake, strewn with strawberries and encased in jello.

Essentially this cake is the union of 5 other dessert categories. It reminds me of the time I tried to bake an apple pie into a maple cake, except this was successful, simple and delicious, and my attempt just turned out to be a big, tasty, mess.

Have you had any interesting sweets lately?

Switzerland - Two and a third months in

Longtime, no blog. My flat does not have internet and it feels strange staying late at work to do too much internet stuff. I move into a new flat this weekend, so dear readers, I should update more frequently (I know you have read that here before)! In other exciting news, I have been at my job for 3 months, and have passed my "trial period." In April I will go to Spain (twice!) and play my first team tournament in Switzerland.

The Blue Diversion Toilet, developed by an interdisciplinary team at my workplace was in an art exhibit about re-designing slums. The exhibition was at the Löwenbräu-Areal, an historical industrial building that now houses several galleries. This was really neat because there were so many types of art on display. It was also cool to meet colleagues from other departments. The exhibition was curated to from work out of the engineering/architecture school – conceptualizing an ideal shack and contemplating how to get folks to agree to realign their dwellings, so that roads and pipes could be installed (highly unlikely, in my opinion). The toilet was not the focus (in some ways it seemed like an afterthought) and a lot of people were confused about what it was, one woman said, “Look, a shower!” (It was designed for washers and wipers.)

The trail.

We’ve had a warm winter here in the city, but just outside there is plenty of snow! I went with some ladies from ultimate to Studen for some cross-country skiing (skate style). During our introductory lesson, everyone went around and explained their skiing background; almost everyone had downhill skied before. I was the only one with just waterskiing on my resume  The lesson was okay, but the instructor stressed to me that I needed to start slowly in this sport since everyone else had some knowledge of how to get around/balance on skis.  I am not a natural, but got into a pretty good groove. Or so I thought… I got to a little hill, fell over (well, not over… my legs started drifting apart), and had an elderly woman tell me that, “Maybe you should just get into the classic tracks.” I told here that I has no idea how that was supposed to work and could not handle anything else new right then.

I'm always on the lookout for toilets these days!

A well earned bowl of Gerstensuppe after a long day in the snow.

Yum! I ate this in a most unladylike fashion.
In public.

I went to Sweden on my second business to trip. It was great to catch up with my buddies and see my new university and visit my old one. Bonus: it was Semla-time! (part of the feasting season before Lent) A semla is a little bit like a dens doughnut, filled with almond goop and topped off with whipped cream. I also went to the doctoral defense of my master thesis adviser. This was important so that I could get a sense of how a Swedish defense flows (there is an actual opponent!) and it was nice to see other aspects of my adviser’s work.

Answering tough questions.

Controversial art on the library at Karlstad Uni.

I also went to Bern for Bundesbeach, an indoor beach ultimate hat tournament. This was a great introduction to the broader Swiss ultimate scene. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. I signed up (by mailing in a postcard) while I was still in the US this past autumn and while I know people who play with both of the clubs in Zurich, I didn't know if anyone I knew was going. As I asked in the first empty seat I saw on the train was free I looked up and found that I was talking to two of the guys who run one of the practices in the city. As we got off the train in Bern, we ran into friends from the other Züri club. So I would not be totally socially without bearings for the weekend. My team meshed together really well and didn't lose until the semi-finals, where we blew a 3 point lead :), but we won the 3rd place game. The party was in a cool student-ish house with a shiny DJ. I left in the middle, because it was Karneval and my officemate’s band was playing at a bar downtown. There was quite a line, so I couldn't get in, but it was cool to see all of the festivities, confetti, costumes, marching bands, and the capitol lit up at night.

The streets and trains were covered.

One of the tamer band costumes.

The DJ/band at the tournament party was an entertaining
enough alternative to seeing my co-worker's band.

One of the prettiest places I have worked out!

The next weekend, I went with the women’s team I will be playing with for a pre-season team bonding retreat. We took a cable-car up a mountain, ate some traditional Swiss food, were awoken by a kids’ slalom race, played tons of cheesy team building games, hiked to a beautiful, tiny chapel, and did an intense workout on Sunday morning (at my other training on Monday, I couldn't do proper sit-ups, not because I was tired, but because my muscles ached so much).

Älplermagronen: Pasta, potatoes, onions, cheese and
cream, topped off with applesauce! SO GOOD!
This is what maccaroni and chees aspires to be.

View from the Chapel. There might be some famous
mountains in sight, but my Swiss-German isn't quite up to
scratch, yet!

Birchermüesli: let raw oatmeal, fruit and nuts soak
 in milk and/or yogurt for at least a half hour and enjoy!

The grayness of Züri has finally broken… it was broken, it put itself back together for two days of rain and hail, but the few days of sun make me really excited for summer and being in the city to relax on the weekends, which I may not be doing very much, because I just got our training/tournament schedule. When put together with my work calendar, I only have 5 free weekends from now until mid-August.