Tam Cốc

Photosphere of the sun setting behind karst hills. No promises that the embedding will work (click on the image)! Off to an alleged rainforest situation tomorrow!

Singapore Changi Airport

I am writing this on my phone from one of the many calf/foot massager chairs that are in the terminals using the free (and slightly slow WiFi).

I wish they had one for thighs...
My hammies get really tight from
sitting for so long on the plane

I don't know if this is a translation error or not!

I have been curious about this airport since I first visited the site sleepinginairports.net several years ago, since it usually tops the rankings of the best airports to sleep in. My flight arrived at 5:10 and my connection departs at 9:25, so I didn't need to sleep, but I can see the potential. It was pretty quiet until 6 when the shops opened and there are lounge chairs in a rainforest like sanctuary especially set aside for nappers.

Koi pond.

Soothing features.

It is also known for its shopping, but aside from the stores that only sell chocolate, I don't really notice anything special. Although I did find the craft ingredients for something I've been eyeing on etsy at a toy store, so I may pick that up on my return journey.

The first leg of my Asian journey is off to a great start!

Home

The ust a little update on recent and upcomong travel.

I flew home for Christmas (arriving Christmas day). The transatlantic flight was not the most comfortable. There were only TVs that dropped down in the isle, not individual ones at each seat and the audio was pretty poor (using both the headphones they handed out and my own)... I know, I know first world problems! They also didn't have extra blankets. My neighbors didn't get the vegan meals they had ordered.

 

For some reason, I got bumped up to first class for my JFK-CLT flight. I still don't think it is worth it for an hour long flight, but I can see how it would be worthwhile for an oversees jaunt. The name-brand dark chocolate cookies and GiGis were a nice touch.

 

 



Look at that leg room! (Full extension)

This stylin' pup picked me up at the airport!

Overall, the trip back was rushed. I loved the routine of running errands with my family and working last minute to get my extended family gift made. Extended family Christmas was bananas; we drove over to Raleigh for 24 hours. There were so many people (whom I love dearly)!

Upcoming schedule for my mother's sanity:

Friday I am heading to Vietnam for an international fecal sludge management conference - including a tour of a sludge treatment plant near Halong Bay! This will be followed by a few days with colleagues in either the northern part of the country or around Ninh Binh.
 

On the 28th, I will fly to the Philippines to play beach ultimate with some friends of friends, hopefully (kite)surf or dive, and relax on the beach. On the Monday after the tournament I fly back to Manila and then Zürich via Singapore.

10 days in Switzerland, then I am off to Sweden for more Frisbee and a visit to my university.

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 :)*

Thanksgiving (early)

Well confiscate my passport, I thought Thanksgiving was the third Thursday of November. This is a notion that I was dispossessed of after sending an email around, which invited several friends/colleagues over to my house on the 20th for turkey and pumpkin pie. I decided to stick with the false date, since I will be giving my first university lecture on "real" Thanksgiving (45 minutes on market based approaches for environmental services to engineering students at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, one of two federal engineering schools in Switzerland - the other is here in Züri) and will not have time to tend a turkey. (O/T: Any teaching/lecturing tips!?!)

In preparation, I collected recipes and put them into a spreadsheet to figure out my shopping list. I also went to one of the big grocery stores, on the outskirts of town, to buy a frozen turkey. On the big day, I went to my kreisbüro (city office for my area) to apply for an extension to stay in Switzerland and for a Swiss drivers licence. Then I went to the local supermarket to get all the ingredients, except for the parts of the pumpkin pie, which I had bought the previous afternoon because I thought I would have time after practice and World Toilet Day to bake, and the ingredients I had brought form the USA (brown sugar, canned pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice, which I didn't end up using).

First off I baked the pumpkin pie, so it could cool. I followed a recipe for the Ultimate Pumpkin Pie (I used actual spices instead of "pumpkin pie spice"), which turned out quite well. I did not notice a big effect from the apricot preserves, but they certainly did not hurt. If I make it again, I will use a thicker layer. Luckily, I grabbed an extra crust at the store (thinking I'd have time to whip up a second pie), since the one I bought the day before was not big enough. I bought the smallest pie tin at the store, so why they sell pie crusts that are smaller I do not know!

One of my guests brought an apple pie, so my lack of baking a second pie was a-o-k!

Next came the things that needed to be baked, but could be reheated after the turkey was done: stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. I prepared the stuffing according to a recipe my dad had sent when I was living in Germany the first time, back in 2005, and  there were some issues with how it turned out the first time: my LJ (blog) from that time attests to me telling the Germans that it was a "Bread Salad"! Well, after being in the oven for 20 minutes, it was starting to have that sort of bread salad feel, so I looked up other recipes... most of which involved adding broth to the mixture of butter, bread, onions, celery and herbs, so I poured some stock and a whisked egg over the salad, re-stirred, and re-baked at the same time as the sweet potatoes. The outcome was fantastic - it kept it's shape even when the walls of the spring-form pan that I baked it in were taken away!

While the stuffing was in the oven the first time, I was trying to make something that could act as cranberry sauce. You can't get fresh cranberries here (not that I looked very hard), so I got some dried ones and simmered them in orange juice and zest, sugar, and water. After they had plumped up and cooked down, I added a bit of corn starch to thicken it. Unfortunately, in the chaos of setting the food out on the table, this got left in the fridge.

The sweet potatoes were easy an delicious. Everyone was really excited about how good the tasted -multiple guests added "especially for being so healthy." It was rather difficult to explain the massive amount of butter and brown sugar involved. (I easily used over a pound of butter across all the recipes).

Now it was turkey time. This was my first time cooking a full bird (I had steamed turkey parts for Thanksgiving in my oven-less apartment in Madrid and have avoided hosting duties in the interim), but this lil'guy didn't come with gizzards. Cradling the full bird in order to rinse out the cavity was a strange sensation. I plopped it onto the rack in the roasting pan over veggies, then spread herbs around the insides, added some additional sprigs, and tucked the legs through a whole in skin. Then I doused the outside in butter and massaged salt, pepper and herbs into the skin. I then surrounded the bird with some more veggies and put it the oven.

Pretty textbook... 

The turkey was doing its thing, I made deviled eggs and Brussels sprouts.

You know it is a promising recipe when you have to add
butter to the bacon grease you have already collected.
Oh, and brown sugar!

Once the turkey was done, I made gravy, while the stuffing, sweet potatoes, and green been casserole (which someone had brought) were reheated.

There was another american on hand to assist with the slicing (the apple pie provider).
Also in this photo: the pink-ish soup in the upper left-hand corner is chesnut-red wine soup
a solid and genuine effort from my flatmate, but I would not recommend it! 

How many people does it take to slice a turkey?
There is one good to great knife in my flat and I coudl not find it for this...
I suppose it was napping after working on all veggies all afternoon!

So good!

And there were leftovers! (It may be bad to say, but the leftovers are my favorite part...) I made soup, but set aside enough so that I can take a few turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce for lunch this week.

Thanks to all of my guests for providing me with an excuse to cook this much food and to my parents who gave me recipe guidance (Dad's turkey advice makes up for the (nine year old!) incomplete stuffing procedure).