Language Learning

Right around the one-month mark, I finally got an email indicating that our German lessons at CF's office would finally be starting! I was relieved and horrified at the same time. I was hoping to function a bit better while out and about in Zürich, maybe read menus better and be able to transition a conversation on the street into English a little more smoothly than, "Uhhhhhh, sorry." But I was worried because everyone always says German is so hard to learn, plus most of Zürich is actually speaking Swiss-German anyway, and really, I just don't enjoy language classes like some people I know. The first week I not only had nerves to deal with but a miserable cold. I was blown away on the first day when people seemed to pick the pronunciation in mere moments. Since then I've learned that many of these people have taken the class before and either dropped out or have come back down to the "Absolute Beginners" level. Plus the large majority of them are working on their third (at least) language, if they can learn English as a foreign language than German probably seems easier.

My pronunciation is awful, but I can already understand signs and announcements better. It's almost sort of annoying how many words I can pick up in public, but not quite enough to know what someone is saying. I took some shirts to be dry cleaned and ended up charging the 30chf the order was going to cost. As I was being rung up the woman behind the counter said something to the woman who had just come in the shop and was standing behind me, I heard the word "dreissig" and wondered if they were making fun of me. Very frustrating! But at the next shop I went into I recognized the word "fragen" when someone approached me, so I knew they were saying to let them know if they have any questions so I thanked them. Baby steps.

We have class twice a week, our teacher is great but the text book? Not so much. To avoid showing a preference for any native language, it teaches German in German, I'm constantly flipping around in my notebook looking up words. Our class is made up of people from all over. On the day we learned to say where we had come from she kept having to write different country names on the board. By the time we got around the whole room the board was full and half the world was represented there. People seem rather impressed that we've been showing up to class so regularly when we're only here for a year. I struggle a little bit with the amount of time it requires every week (trekking to the office, going to class, and all the workbook pages I have started doing just to be prepared to participate in class), but for right now it seems like the right thing to do. However, we'll be back in the States for two weeks, I'll be back for a week, then I'll be gone another week, and then we'll have house guests and holidays... hopefully I can keep up enough so I can jump back in full force when things blow over.

It gets all the more interesting when you look at the big picture. The week we started German class I was also trying to use some Italian over the phone making lodging reservations for the following week, and then we went out to a Spanish restaurant and were confronted with German speaking Spaniards... I can't tell you how confused I get sometimes! I end up wondering how well I know any language, even English. Well, we were going to speak some extra English that weekend; we had booked plane tickets to London!

You only live once! (Warning: Crazy tales of Intoxication)

We had been in Switzerland a month, though it felt like longer and what with the French and Italian we had encountered along with German and Swiss-German we felt like we had been more places as well. But after a month in this country it was finally time to see more of Europe... and what better place to start than Oktoberfest in Munich? The train ride wasn't too long but we had reserved seats just to be sure. We left early Thursday morning, and boy, could you tell we were on the Oktoberfest train! I felt like the only female in sight, and the few others I noticed departed long before Munich. Two guys are boarded with us, one of them in lederhosen, who were very excited about where we were headed. To celebrate they were drinking schnapps and taking pictures of the guy riding across from them who had fallen asleep, as well as with a slightly befuddled train conductor. I could tell this was going to be interesting.

We arrived in Munich, hit an ATM for our first euros, and hopped on a tram towards our hotel. Another very exciting thing about this trip was that we would be meeting up with friends from back home. They had already been planning this trip and we asked if we could join them. AR and ML had lodging booked already so we decided to stay at the same place. Hotel rates during Oktoberfest are so obscene it's best just not to think about it, but the worst part was they didn't have any double rooms left! So we ended up with two single rooms next door to each other. Together our rooms made up the size of one double room, and the narrow beds were really just separated by a wall. We didn't really think about who took which room, but I later realized that if you took away the wall I was still sleeping on "my" side of the bed! Too funny.

M&A were already in Munich, they had arrived the day before from Greece, they were on a bit of an extended vacation. They had already gone to the fest to look for seats in a beer hall, so we hustled as much as possible to meet up with them. We got a text message that they were in the Paulaner tent at table 15, so that's where we headed. Hmmm, no sign of them. CF called A's cellphone. It was hilarious when they realized they were not in the same Paulaner tent because the brass band in our tent stopped playing while the music continued over the phone. We quickly found them once we were in the right structure. What fun to have company from California, well, actually they live in Oregon now, but still... They were only about half way through their first beer, which is plenty of course because we're talking liters! We toasted being at Oktoberfest together and all shared stories of recent travels. Weisswurst, Knödeln, Sauerkraut and one gigantic Brezel were all ordered and enjoyed while the beer seemed to just flow and flow. The beer hall was quite a sight to see, with the band was on a raised stage in the middle of the hall and hundreds of people crowded into tables like ours all around. The kitchen had dozens, if not hundreds, of chickens roasting. The large massen (the glasses that hold a liter of beer) were carried with ease by the bulking biceps and forearms of the servers (both male and female). Everyone was having a great time, there was singing, a little dancing on the table and we were happy to be with friends. At one point our waiter told CF to put out his hand and he tapped out a little snuff which CF was instructed to snort. He did it without hesitation, no surprise there, but what happened next thought was hilarious. We all did it, each of us later expressing shock and a little bit of dismay. M&A were particularly creeped out by the thought of it and CF just wonders why anyone would ever think that following his example was a good idea.

Usually when we reach a new city we're a bit lost and unfocused and end up dining somewhere not up to our expectations which leads to total and utter crankiness in this duo. A few hours into Munich we were quite satisfied and quite tipsy. CF decided he was done and wanted to go take a nap at the hotel, I got up and started walking out with him. That was when I made the enormous mistake of deciding that I'd actually like to stay and I sent him off to the tram and I tried to get back to M&A. First they didn't want to let me back in the hall. As the day wears on it gets harder and eventually impossible to gain entrance unless you have a table reserved (something that is not easy to achieve unless you've been going for years). To make a long story short, I wandered around a while, eventually got in through the side door but my friends were gone, and then decided to walk the long way back to the hotel since I didn't want to waste money on another tram pass (CF had carried away our double pass, A&M had a group pass so I could have gone with them). Well, remember I had just arrived in Munich and had gone straight to the hall, I had never seen a map. I didn't realize there were actually two ways out of the festival area, I followed the tram tracks but just couldn't seem to make any progress. This was because I was going the completely wrong direction! I stubbornly stuck it out for much longer than was reasonable and eventually the sun was going down and it was starting to rain, I swallowed my pride and caught a 20 euro cab ride home. Oktoberfest seems to ignite a fair bit of traffic! Remember when CF almost lost me at the station while we changed trains on our way to Cologne last year? Hmmm, he always trys to ditch me in Germany! The funny thing is because of the early start at Oktoberfest there was time for all this mayhem to go down and still go out to an 8pm dinner!

We agreed on an early start in the morning, it was the German reunification holiday, getting seats would not be easy. We decided to get to the Wiesn well before the doors opened at 10am... or so we thought that's what we were doing. I'm pretty sure you had to be there around 8am, and perhaps the doors opened around 9, by the time we arrived the halls were filled to maximum capacity and we stood outside in the crowds wondering what to try next. Of course this was when the pouring rain began and our little band of soggy "late" comers tried to stick it out for a while but eventually decided to cut our losses and try a beer hall elsewhere in Munich. We scored a table in Augustiner's hall, had some beers and a great lunch. I had venison, which was hearty and tasty and also added another point to my Omnivore's One Hundred score. The hall filled up, the line backed up outside, we were pleased with our decision to hit this place up when we did! We dried out, warmed up and everyone was happy again. The rain had pretty much stopped so we wandered Munich for a bit and somehow came to the conclusion that we should try our luck back at Oktoberfest, hoping to catch a break between the afternoon and evening crowds somehow.

The crowds were huge, there was an amazing amount of people watching opportunities. Some of the best was watching the amusement park rides, I just can't imagine those are a good idea with a belly full of beer! It is slightly easier to find seats in the beer gardens surrounding the halls, you just lose out on a bit of the atmosphere and have much less protection from the elements. When we saw an empty table we decided to make the most of it and have some dessert... an a beer. The sweets were delicious, but damn it was cold. AR was freezing and the cold beverage didn't help. He fell behind the rest of us and when a waiter came to collect our empties he decided to give the straggler a hard time and pounded the empty massen on the table while A chugged as best he could. I tried not to laugh. And A, I'm sorry for telling the story! It was too cold to sit still so we came up with the idea to see how many different gardens we could have a beer in. We moved on to a nearby garden and were looking for seats when I felt the increasingly unfamiliar feeling of warmth start seeping into my blood. Space heaters over head! My eyes went to the people at the table next to me at the moment, there was room for us if they were willing to accept us. The guys I had pegged to share some elbow room with shrugged and I corralled my shivering friends. Our frozen fingers had a hard time holding up the number "four" to show the waiter how many beers to bring. Our table mates laughed a little. But this is Oktoberfest, it wasn't long before we were all chatting and that was how I met David, Phillip, Phil and Chris. All about twenty years old, from a town near Frankfurt, and here they were enjoying their first Oktoberfest as well. New found friends and delicious heating? We settled in for the night.

The conversations had at that table were great. They taught us how to toast properly and shared their thoughts on American politics. The Germans were extremely pro-Obama ever since he spoke in Berlin back in July. "McCain is an asshole!" one of them exclaimed to my surprised and they all cheered and clinked glasses and laughed. I think there was a bit of beer talking. Speaking of beer, this is where the evening becomes fuzzy. M and I took a couple of trips to the ladies room (after being lost alone in Munich the day before I was determined to not be alone for the rest of my time there), the shock of the cold as soon as we left the proximity of our heated haven was incredible, but the wait was amazingly never bad at the restroom. Oktoberfest is clearly dominated by men, and the women who participate are appreciated, and respected, for the most part. We were flirted with in many different languages throughout the night. I was shocked to hear my name being shouted at one point and laughed when it turned out to be Chris from our table who had wandered off for a while. And on another trip back from the restroom, when my brain was particularly foggy, M grabbed my arm and leaned in and said, "You only live once." And she pulled. Later I would piece together that she had somehow tagged along with someone into the tent. We were in! But our husbands were not. Oh dear. We stayed a while, boldly joining someone's table and standing on the benches with them, beers were somehow put in our hands, we tried to sing along with the songs being played. It was almost too crazy to accept it was actually happening, "I've lost my head and it's all because M only lives once!" I thought. Eventually I wimped out and dragged the party queen back outside into the cold with me and we rejoined our guys. I think I was a bit relieved to have the group reunited, and I celebrated with a little more beer. Which is just about where my clear recollection of the night ends!

The next morning I woke up in my silly single bedroom barely remembering how the heck I had even gotten back there. I picked up my camera and looked at the last photo taken. Suddenly I remembered seeing CF taking my picture, and I remembered wondering why he had moved to the next table over. Well, it turns out that it was I who had moved. I had decided to make even more new friends, the young ones were falling asleep at our original table, and I had joined a group of guys who today I could not tell you where they were from or what language they spoke. I couldn't even tell you what they looked like if I hadn't seen their photo on my camera, with me blowing kisses at CF in the middle. Oh my.

Eventually we all rallied and made it out the door. Mercifully, since I couldn't stomach the thought of beer, we decided to see more of Munich and not try to fight for seats on the last Saturday of the Fest. We saw Nymphenburg Castle, had some lunch, and wandered through Munich's fantastic outdoor market. One booth had intriguing bottles of schnapps of different kinds, each one displaying a picture of whatever fruit or plant gave the liquor its essence. CF fixated on one bottle, it had a picture of a bear. "Woah, what is it?" He said, like we would know. He was obviously curious but started to walk away. Then he asked if we could go back, he picked it up again, talked himself out of buying it again and then walked away dismayed, "I'm going to regret not buying that bear liquor for the rest of my life." Were more ridiculous words ever spoken? "Then go get it!" I instructed and realized that A and M were both saying the same thing with me. And so, the bottle was purchased and was carried for the rest of the day. We huddled into a stand selling some tasty cappuccinos and cookies and then took a little subway ride out to the huge and beautiful English Gardens. We had a lovely stroll through the park. At one point the sun was starting to set and the autumn colors were lit gorgeously and a group of ducks had somehow decided to march single file over to the stream and go for a single file swim. So cute! We were all very happy to have covered some great ground in Munich. And now, what to do for our last night? No one could even pretend that they thought we could get in to a beer hall, but we decided to go back over there and check out the food stands that we had mostly been ignoring since arriving.

We ended up having a great meal patched together at different stands. I enjoyed some of my favorite tastes from traveling last year: frites with mayo and apple slices dipped in batter and fried. We all agreed that Oktoberfest was an amazing event. It could never happen like this in the US. Everyone would be drinking out of tiny plastic cups, there would be fights and yet also police force everywhere. I'm not saying that craziness wasn't the overarching impression here, but it somehow was all happening without much of anyone getting hurt and/or angry. A&M's flight home to the States was quite early the next morning so we headed back to the hotel. CF and I had a great time with them in Munich, we hadn't traveled with them before and we definitely found them to be kindred travel spirits. We said our goodbyes that night, by the time we woke up in the morning they were gone.

We packed up our suitcase and headed to the train station. We wanted to do something with our last couple of hours in Munich but didn't want to have to return to the hotel so we left our stuff in a locker. CF was torn between returning to the Wiesn for one last shot at a moment in the halls or going back to the market we had seen the day before. I said I thought I had done Oktoberfest right (in large part due to Ms. M) and didn't need to go back but I was up for anything. Would you believe he actually picked the market? And would you believe we actually didn't think about the fact that it would probably be closed? We wandered a bit more through Old Town Munich and realized it just might be time to visit the Hofbräuhaus. It's packed with tourists, it's what Sudwerk could have been like before the booted everything German from their menu, but everyone knows it and we had been told it was worth seeing. We went in the door around 11 and sat right down at a table. The room smelled like stale beer and the guys at the table across from us had maybe been there all night, one of them was still asleep. We decided to move further into the restaurant and the crowd quickly filled in around us. We were joined by a mixed group of Germans and Americans, one of the German guys had been an exchange student with one of the Americans (also, one of the Germans confirmed my suspicion about the "bear liquor" that CF was cradling in his backpack with a disgusted face after being shown the bottle). There was a band playing songs herd at the tents, spirits were high, I wondered if the waitresses were relieved that Oktoberfest was coming to an end. Our meal was actually very tasty and one of the cheapest we had in Munich. I got into the setting enough to even have part of another beer (my first since Friday). CF had a great time and stated that this experience was great closure to his time here. And when I let him finish my beer he said it now could not be more complete. That sounds like our cue to go get on a train!

The train was absolutely packed, thank goodness we had those seats reserved. People looked tired, a long weekend in Munich had worn us all out. At one point during the ride home a man came down the aisle selling Heineken, the gruff looking German across from me looked and laughed a little, like the mere sight of it hurt him. Further down the car there were English speakers watching little movies taken on digital cameras and the familiar sounds of Oktoberfest filled the air one last time.

Wo Wohnen Sie?

Taking a break from the story telling for a second, I just have to get this out...

From my first experience with international travel (India) to moving here most of five years later I have pretty much always answered the question: "Where are you from?" with "I am from California." It started because the people in India usually wanted a specific answer, but I also knew it told people more about me than just saying that I was from the United States. I love California. While traveling the country with the band in college I saw plenty of nice places, but where was the variety? I even met some nice people, but I met many more of the unpleasant variety. While traveling in Ireland I saw many gorgeous hillsides, cliffs, beaches... they were on a grander scale than I was maybe used to, but I felt so spoiled when I realized that every place reminded me of Mendocino, Santa Barbara, Big Sur... and so on. I have fallen in love with spending time in New York City, but I've never seriously considered moving there because I couldn't really imagine leaving California for good.

The expats in Europe are all celebrating the end of having to be embarrassed of being from the US. And it's true, it's nice to be proud to say it! But the moment is a bittersweet one right now, as one friend put it on Facebook: "More proud to be an American than a Californian for, like, the first time ever." After this week I guess I'm going to have to practice how to say "the United States" because my heart has broken a little each time recently that I've given my usual answer. The Swiss are being their usual neutral selves and no one has really shared their thoughts on the matter of gay marriage. This struggle for civil rights is not over, but right now my sadness is the lost feeling of state pride, and it kills me. 52% of the people who voted in California have made it feel further away than ever. I can't believe I have friends whose own family would vote to remove their rights. I really thought we were more accepting and loving than this. I am ashamed.

I recently got back in touch with a friend from a show I did back in 1994 who started dating this great guy at the same time that I met my great guy. Even after all these years he was so genuine when he told me that they are still hoping to get married some day (this was about a month ago). This week he said that he thinks it's great that so many people would happily celebrate their, and that he believes the other people will come around. His optimism was one of the few comforting outcomes of this stupid vote.

I don't really have anything new to say on the actual issue so I won't really get into it. I just believe in love and that it's always the right answer, so there you go.

Alternative Setting

The funny thing about me blowing out my legs hiking down Monte Bré was that back in Zürich I had a meeting with a trainer at my new gym scheduled for the next day. Luckily it wasn't anything like I was expecting, I had been told it was a "fitness test" by whoever it was that scheduled it for me. Instead the trainer showed me around the gym and wrote down a strength training program for me to follow. I think he didn't quite believe me when I told him how strong I am, he kept telling me he didn't know any women who could lift what I said I could do easily. Near the beginning of our meeting I told him how much weight I've list in the past couple of years, it took a moment to sink in as I'm sure he sort of converted it to kilograms in his head. His eyes got really big, "Mamma mia!" he exclaimed, and please note: he is not Italian.

It turned out that he did want to do a bit of a fitness test, I think he just couldn't wrap his head around what I was telling him I could do. So the next day I came back and met with him again. I was set up with a heart rate monitor on a stationary bike. He had me start pedaling at a certain speed and told me he'd increase the resistance every three minutes until my heart rate got up to a certain point. I had to go twice as long as he was expecting before I was over 150bpm. He kept asking if I was all right, "Yep, I'm just fine!" I was so amused at how I was puzzling him so. He crunched some numbers afterwards and told me I rated in above average fitness level. I guess you can be super fit and still be overweight (according to so beloved BMI chart I am actually still just into the obese category). This did encourage me to start using my heart rate monitor more at the gym, I think I had been pushing my speed too hard with the running and I was over-stressing my legs.

Speaking of my poor legs... I was still hurting from our hike down the mountain! I thought a little extra heat might help so I decided to take my first visit to the hamam. I scraped together 5chf from the coins in my wallet, this pays for the extra stuff required to bathe (a towel to wear, the scrubbing mitt, the copper bowl for rinsing, the robe to wear after). They even had brand new directions in English! I was to sit in one steam room for 15 to 20 minutes, then go scrub and rinse, then soak in a medium temperature pool for a while, then a different steam room, then scrub again... I was glad to have instructions and a floor plan! I liked the experience. It felt very refreshing, which surprised me considering the trouble I've had in humidity before. It was a little odd getting into a pool wearing just a towel, I decided to just sit on a bench but a couple of people were managing to move around the pool just fine. The instruction card said very clearly to wear your towel at all times: no nude bathing. Imagine how startling it was then to be sitting in the next steam room and suddenly the guy who just entered the room with his girlfriend rips off his towel and slaps it down on a bench to lay on. Ummmm, okay, I think I'm going to move sort of around the corner so I don't have to look at that, thanks! I managed to mostly banish them from my awareness and enjoyed the rest of my Hamam experience. It looked like some people were going back for another round of soaking and/or steaming, I just followed the directions I was given but maybe the routine is a little more choose-your-own-adventure than I thought, the dress code obviously is! The hamam appears to be wildly popular, the locker room is always full of girls putting on red and white checked towels while the cardio room where I spend so much of my time is often quite and half empty. I'm looking forward to thawing out there this winter if I ever start to turn into an ice cube.

Not quite Italy... but we can see it from here!

Lugano was chosen as our rebound from so-so day tripping to Lucerne the previous weekend. Why was I so certain this was the place to help us bounce back? It's in Ticino, the Italian speaking part of Switzerland! Ticino is actually surrounded by Italy on three sides, it just dips down into "the boot" like a little peninsula into another world. Lugano is quite close to Milan and Lake Como. We reserved a hotel room with a few days notices as opposed to a few hours like our last weekend trip. The train ride was twice as far, three hours, so we figured we should be well prepared. We packed one suitcase with a change of clothes and after reading about the hiking found in the area we packed our newly arrived boots. They were too late for a Gruyeres cheese hike but we knew we could still put them to good use! The train ride was ridiculously pretty. It was like we had been sucked into someone's ideal model train setting. Hills and tunnels, bridges and meadows... CF said he expected to see Heidi running by any moment now.

We arrived in Lugano and wandered a bit before we figured out how to find our hotel. We got a peek at the Lake and I knew we were in for some lovely views! The last time we had been in an Italian speaking setting (besides the restaurant down the street from us) was my family's 2005 trip to Italy, only the second time that CF and I had traveled out of the country together. We had taken an Italian class before going, but it had been years with no brushing up. Like trying to remember some French in Fribourg, Lugano tripped us up with Italian. But it wasn't too long before we got a bit of it back, at least enough to be polite. We mostly just wandered that day and enjoyed feeling like we got our Weekend Travel Warrior groove back. For lunch we had a disappointing pizza and for dinner some bizarre Chinese food. Hmmm, I didn't think the food would be so bad when you can pretty much see Italy right across the water! What's going on here? We did have a good time getting reacquainted with Italian culture, you know, like gelato and prosecco happy hour drinking!

The next day we put on those hiking boots and took off in the direction of Monte Bré. We hadn't done a whole lot of reading but we knew the experience included taking a funicular up the mountain and then there was hiking to be done up on top. So when we got to the ticket booth and they asked if we wanted round trip fare for the funicular we both nodded and wondered if this guy was crazy... of course we were going to come back down! We got seats on the funicular as it was filling up and off we went, into the sky. There were a bunch of kids on some sort of excursion together in the different sections of the strange vehicle. It was the littlest one who noticed CF and I speaking English to each other though, I realized this when I heard her mother, or maybe teacher slowly whisper to her, "Where are you from?" She was prompting her! The little girl looked at me but shied away, I tried to think of a way to start talking to her but got distracted by the amazing view revealed as we came to the top of the mountain.

It was incredible. Perhaps the grandest view of my lifetime. And we both agreed that my mom would cry (this is our new way of judging the beautiful things we see). We meandered around a bit, I think the view had blown our minds. And then we saw the trails sign. Ohhhh. All of the sudden we realized we had overpaid our funicular fare; if we really wanted to hike, we were not leaving this mountain the way we came. We almost got a little overly ambitious and took off in the direction that would have actually brought us down into Italy. However that hike was pushing three hours in predicted duration and we weren't carrying any water or food. So instead we decided to descend towards the water, it was estimated to take about an hour and a half and the view appeared to be dazzling. So after soaking in just a bit more gloriousness we started downwards.

It started with 10 minutes of cement stairs and then we arrived in the small town of Bré. Then we found our trail and I quickly realized this was not going to be easy. The trail was almost entirely made up of steep, steep stairs. CF's long legs climbed down the path easily. My legs are quite short and it wasn't long before my quads were tingling. I wasn't sure at first if it was muscle fatigue or if I was shaking a bit from worrying I was going to fall and go tumbling down the hillside. Maybe it was a bit of both. CF was a great hiking partner, he had brought his backpack and when he realized I was nervous he took my heavy camera and carried it whole way. Halfway through I thought to myself, "I'm not having fun. But there's no way I'm going back up that hill so all I can do is keep going!" After a little while the drop off the side of trail wasn't quite so... severe and I relaxed and actually enjoyed the hike. I hadn't had a tough work out like this in quite some time!

Most of the way down we were actually enveloped by trees, so much for the great view! Eventually (closer to two hours later), the trees opened up and we were deposited into the small town of Gandria, right on the water. Hungry and thirsty from our adventure in funicular-fare-wasting we quickly spotted Ristorante Gandria and decided to have lunch. We were given a lovely table out on the terrace and had a great meal. It was the kind of meal I was expecting to have in Lugano, aha, maybe you need to get out of the more touristy city! Once we started to get into the right mindset CF thought to order a half-liter of house red wine, and we were happily accommodated. We had a nice caprese and a great polenta dish (which is the Ticino specialty) with braised beef goulash served over it. The bad side of the hike sort of faded away and I was just so pleased to be right where I was, somewhere I couldn't have planned to end up.

Gandria itself turned out to be teeny tiny and practically spilling into the lake. We figured out this was our chance to get out on the water and bought tickets for the next boat back to Lugano. There were two restaurants right by the boat dock, each with a large back patio filled with happy diners. There was a man playing accordion in one patio and a few people were dancing. Including the chef! It was all very charming. The small waiting area we had filled with people as we waited most of an hour for the next boat. Scoring seats on the outer deck or even by a window was out of the question, so it wasn't the best boat ride but it got us back to our luggage quickly. During the 20 minute boat ride I saw little hotels and restaurants along the water. I wouldn't actually recommend staying in Lugano, if I were going back I'd stay somewhere just out of town and on the lake. This was a happy little paradise.

We hadn't learned much from our wander the day before and getting back to the train station didn't go so well. The good part was getting another gelato, I tried to order two fruit flavors together: melon and strawberry. However, my pronunciation of "melone" sounded too much like "marroni" and we ended up with creamy chestnut! CF was a good sport and ate most of the erroneous cone while I had chocolate and hazelnut. We ended up climbing a terrible flight of stairs, between CF carrying our shared suitcase and my blown out legs we were very unhappy. We just caught a train though, so we didn't have to wait at the station once we were there. Maybe we should have waited, the timing of our departure meant that we were on a route that required a train change. And oh what a change it was. A whole slew of people ran from our train to our new one just across the platform and we found one very full train. The older gentleman who had crossed the platform found a seat and I was glad for him. We were not so lucky, so we started walking towards the other end of the train, one car at a time. There were no seats to be seen. We passed some open space where two people had settled on just standing, my gut told me this was the best we were going to do but for some reason we kept going. A bunch of people in front of us just gave up and decided to stand in an exit way, leaving us bottle-necked behind them in the aisle. The seated passengers were started to look up at us annoyed by our semi-hovering. There was an Indian family behind us who were budging when we turned around hoping to go back. I guess they thought they could somehow move forward? We squished through them and then found a man standing in the aisle holding a dog. And he wouldn't budged either. It was all very weird and suddenly the language barrier seemed worse than ever, when you find yourself in a bind and needing of some extra understanding it is best if you can at least ask for help nicely. CF lifted the suitcase up, trying to lift it over his head so he could get past this man with the dog. The train car rattled a bit, CF stumbled and BAM, went our suitcase into the face of a man in the seat next to this hot mess. I was horrified. CF, who had been insisting on using his Italian all day poured out apologies in English. What an awful moment. We mostly just kept walking, we needed out of that car. We got back to the open space and found a little corner to lean in. I found looking out the window of the exit door fascinating but riding while standing up was making CF motion-sick. I'm not quite sure how long we rode like this, but finally there was a stop that was fairly big and enough people left so we were able to snag seats. The train car was muggy and smelled awful. Why is Sunday travel always so miserable? We could not have been happier to arrive back in Zürich that evening. We take the good with the bad, and this trip included that incredible view, challenging hike and rewarding meal so we did our best to shake off the terrible train ride. However we did agree that we needed to reserve seats when traveling on Sundays whenever possible from here on out!

Small World

A long, long time ago I said I was going to tell you about the small number of degrees that seem to separate the people I meet here. Now, that's not too many people really, but it is clear to see that while a large percentage of Zürich are expats (I've heard anywhere from 20 to 30%), the overlap in social circles is huge. CF let me know a while back about the spouses group made up of people (I won't lie, it's all women) from around the world. I've met great ladies from England, Scotland, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Australia, and yes, even a few from the US. Sitting at my first coffee with them I realized that one of them knows some of the bloggers I had been following since learning we'd be coming here. Bloggers often reference other blogs with links, and clicking away from one I'm subscribed to I quickly came to a reference to one of the spouses I had met via email before moving here, but unfortunately for me she was moving back to California right around the same time. This spouse is also a blogger (are you confused yet?), and she told me I should meet up with yet another blogger who was moving back to Zürich, having lived her for a number of years not too long ago. She and I had coffee one day, she showed me where to get the best cappuccinos in town, and then it turns out that someone who works for the company from which I quit to come here was her college roommate. It almost seems silly sometimes how everyone knows everyone.

The catch is that the expat community is also likely to move on. People are more than courteous but real relationships are hard to establish when you know that chances are high that your new friend will move on. I've pretty much have come to see myself as a lousy candidate for "friend." I disappear almost every weekend and I know already that I'm only here a year. I have no expectations of anyone really reaching out to me. That being said, everyone is so nice. It's a great support system!

Even our friends from the great night out with Italian food and beer have moved back to California, they were here for two and a half years and were ready to go home. Luckily, another part of this small world theme is visits from friends from California. The internet seems to be keeping me connected with my friends and family via instant message chatting, Facebook status updates, and video conferencing (I can already see how my little niece has changed since I last saw her in person). Every so often I start to feel out of touch and somehow that ends up being the day I Skype with my mom or exchange snarky comments on Flickr with Mr. Bertha (FYI, he told me to call him this, long story involving a Lady) and then I feel okay with the world again.

And while we're on the topic of the world and whatever size it is. Here's a gorgeous sunset as seen from our balcony. The weather has gone colder and I miss eating dinner out there already! Wait until you compare the view we saw just a few weeks later!

Feeling at Home

After the late delivery of our air shipment our expectations were not too high for when we'd see our surface shipment. I'm happy to report it was delivered on the last day of the original window we were given, so it wasn't late! And on top of that nothing arrived damaged, broken, or even missing! We quickly unpacked as many boxes as possible as the movers assembled the guest bed, that way they could take away the cardboard boxes. Cardboard recycling only happens once a month here and we just didn't want to have to deal with it. I spent the entire day unwrapping paper and putting things away. CF helped with the kitchen in the evening. We were left with a fully stocked kitchen but we also brought quite a lot of our own favorites. We packed up a number of their things using the paper and boxes that had just brought our things to us, and those boxes are being carefully stored in the attic (and one in the basement) while we put our year of wear and tear onto our own pots and pans. The apartment took a huge step towards feeling like home with the addition of some of our things and furniture. It really is a great space, I love it here.

Invigorated by the completion of our "move" I went out to the market the next morning and came home with, along with produce for the week, a bundle of branches with two different kinds of berries and leaves. I noticed people leaving with these bundles before I even got to Bürkliplatz. This guy with a van full of the greenery was making arrangements on the fly. It seemed ever so shady, but lots of people were buying so why shouldn't I? I loved the look of them even more once they were displayed on my dining table. A much bigger arrangement than I could ever stomach if it were flowers, the branches reached up towards our ridiculously high ceilings. I was obsessed with them for days and started photographing them repeatedly. You'll be seeing a lot of them in this post as I have little else to illustrate it with!

Finally feeling at home in my apartment it was time to make the most important connection with my city. I had meant to join a gym the moment I touched down here but I got sick and then I visited the rather bare-bones gym just down the street and wasn't quite sure what to do. There was a sign up that appeared to outlaw shorts and tank-tops there! I finally heeded the advice of the many nice expats who had ALL recommended Fitness Park and went to check it out. The cardio equipment was all purchased this summer, no sign of an overly modest dress code, and a hamam downstairs! Haman is a Turkish bath, which sounds like heaven while anticipating the coldest winter of my life. Back in California this summer I was talking to my chiropractor about looking for familiar services over here. He suggested looking for a gym with lots of perks so people will be hanging around, since I wouldn't be working it might be a place to make some connections and friends. "Look for a place that has a juice bar, that's what you need!" So I suppose I should have just handed over my money when I came upon just that while I toured the gym. I tried to resist the pricier gym but in the end I signed up for their 12-month membership.

My first workout there was rather amusing. I somehow hadn't even thought about the fact that I could barely read a word of German and didn't know much about converting miles-per-hour to kilometers-per-hour, not to mention what my weight in kilograms would be or how many of them I could lift! I faked my way through cardio machine programming as best as I could and enjoyed sweating after being cold for what felt like a long time. I had to get used to the fact that here I am the exception to the rule, and the few "overly naked European women" encountered at the locker room back at Gold's are now the majority. I was so uncomfortable with locker rooms before, I used to borrow CF's cellphone so I could set an alarm earlier than everyone else's on band road trips so I could get up and use the showers before the other girls got up. I think I made it through my entire band career showering alone. Now, this is a fancy gym so there is just enough privacy, but with everyone else being so relaxed about it I guess it was hard not to follow suit. And I can't help but admit that with a body that I sometimes feel hangs off of me like a deflated balloon, it's been comforting to witness many different body types. Nobody's "perfect." After sweating and a nice warm shower the cold air outside feels refreshing instead of daunting. Sometimes I even walk home, or at least part of the way.

At the end of my first week at the gym I decided it was time to brave spin class. I introduced myself to the teacher, "Grüezi, hello, I'm new to the gym but I'm not new to spinning. So I'll watch you carefully and I should be able to follow the class just fine." I was met with a skeptical and slightly amused look. As nice as this gym is, it is located in a city so space is not totally unlimited. There is only one class room so the bikes are stored along one side of the room. I dragged my bike out and got ready to ride. I tried to ignore the couple other skeptical looks I was getting, I realized I was back to being the biggest person in class. Man, there are some skinny Swiss girls! Well, talk about feeling at home! It barely mattered one bit that I couldn't understand what he was saying. There are three hand positions in spinning, and I knew how to count from one to three, so I could follow that. I watched the person riding next to me for whether to turn the gear up or down and pretty soon I figured out what "lower" and "more" sounded like. The teacher kept a careful eye on me, but about 15 minutes in gave me a huge smile. I guess I had proved myself that quickly. When I couldn't understand what he was saying I would just smile and sort of imagine something DD would be saying in class back at home. The class was a breeze, and afterwards we all grabbed paper towels and spray bottles and cleaned off our bikes. This could never happen at home, the next class would be rushing in. In Zürich there are about as many spin classes in a week as Gold's would have in a day. As I waited for a chance to grab some paper towels the teacher came over and started grilling me about spin in California. Do they pay attention to heart rate zones? Do they just go crazy fast? What kind of music did we listen to? Any recommended music? Can you give me this recommended music? It felt great that I had disproved the assumptions I had encountered here. And I was yet again making friends with the spin teacher. Some things are just the same wherever you go!

Going back to Lucerne...

"Going back" because it happened over a month ago, and also because I had been there before...

Around the time of my distant-but-most-recent post I went to meet the spouses for coffee at Manora, the cafeteria in one of the department stores on Bahnhofstrasse. That was when I made a friend from the States, who blew me away by coming out on this cold day with her 11 day old baby! We were chatting and figured out that we were in the same neighborhood and decided to try to have dinner sometime. The very next morning she emailed me saying they had a babysitter (for their older two kids) lined up and could we go out that night! So that was how we ended up going out on a Friday night for some surprisingly good Italian food just a block and a half down from our apartment. Turns out her husband and CF had sort of known each other back in California before they moved to Switzerland. We had a nice time talking to them about their time living in Zürich and their advice to us was travel, travel, travel. "On the weekend you'll think it's time to sit back and relax, no! Get your butt to the train station early, Friday if possible and GO!" We shared some stories of our trip to Fribourg and Gruyeres and assured him that we had lots of trips planned. They were impressed with what we had planned! We were all booked to go to Oktoberfest in Munich, so the subject turned to beer. And that led to me going out with the two guys (mom had to go home when the babysitter was due to leave) to two interesting pubs. CF's pick was a place that makes their own beer. It was up the hill from us, closer to the University, and while the beer didn't blow me away it was at least more interesting than the Swiss brews I'd sampled before this. Then MM took us back down the hill to the Bonny Prince Pub. It's a long, skinny, smoky place boasting a jukebox full of heavy metal tunes and more Scottish beers than you've ever heard of. We were here to try Old Engine Oil. Dark and licoricey, I think it surprised MM that I liked it so much. Eventually we all stumbled back up our hill, and as I went to sleep I wondered what this late night would do to our weekend plans... wait, what were our plans again?

Oh, that's right... I wanted to take CF to Lucerne. You might recall I took a day trip here last fall but I thought CF should see it. When I visited alone it was a cold, misty and downright moody day. I thought it suited the setting, especially for viewing the Lion Monument, Löwendenkmal, which was the most moving part of my day. This time the sun was shining, the sky was blue, there was a wedding getting out of the church, the market looked splendid (okay fine, they were packing up around the time we got there, the late night led to a later train than planned)... and about a million other people had also decided it was a good day to visit Lucerne! Ugh. The streets were packed so wandering through the Medieval old town didn't have the same appeal. So we wandered over to the old city wall. You know, the one I climbed last year and was then scared out of my mind while trying to climb down? Well somehow I found myself up that stupid wall again, AND climbed that tower I avoided last time. Yes, the view was very nice, but I was practically shaking by the time I had slowly descended back down all those stupid stairs!

We had a nice lunch at a great place called Wirtshaus Taube. The main dish I ordered actually reminded me a lot of my lunch in the same city a year earlier. I remember being pleased with the appearance of vegetables at the time but then when we decided to come here for the year I remember thinking that if that tiny serving of starchy veggies was worth getting happy over that I was in for disaster. It certainly has been easier to eat healthy in this country while mainly shopping and cooking for myself. After lunch we took a nice stroll by the Lake; we saw plenty of boats out on the water, men playing bocce ball, locals encountering friends out enjoying a lovely Saturday. Lucerne is quite the living, breathing city, and I could barely tell last year. This visit was very different than the last! Eventually I made CF go up to the Lion Monument with me. The pond in front of it was drained for some repair work, gobs of people (most of them one large tour group) swarmed around the park... and I had already blown it and told him how this work of art had moved me to tears before so there were expectations in place. It just wasn't the same! (However, armed with my new telephoto lens I got some better shots of the haunting lion.)

I was mildly frustrated with the decision to come to Lucerne. It's close to Zürich so it will make a good day trip when we have visitors, but I myself would like to leave it misty and moody in my memories from last year. At the same time this is when I told myself that a lot of stuff is going to happen this year, and it can't all be perfect. I decided to be a little more mindful of planning weekends in the future but that this one was all right for now.

We wandered a bit longer, crossed the lovely wooden bridges and even did a little watch pricing for a friend. Eventually we called it a day and decided to catch a train home. We had to scramble a bit to find seats, and accidentally ended up in seats that were reserved for riders boarding in Bern. We rode a little ways not quite sure of what to do. Across the aisle from us two Spanish speaking girls were counting to ten in English for their father, over, and over, and over again. I think this was karma seeing how CF loves to count in languages he's learning and I'm sure he's inflicted native speakers with this annoyance at one point or another. Passengers started to prepare to exit as we approached Bern. We quickly swiped some forward-facing, un-reserved seats and the rest of the trip home was rather uneventful.

At this point I can't seem to remember what we did the next day. It was Sunday so everything around the city would have been pretty much closed. Hmmm. Well, anyway, I hope we rested up while we could, it was the last weekend day we would spend in Zürich for quite some time!

Experience now, write later.

I am so sorry for the silence, I'm embarrassed to admit that it's been a month and a half since my last blog post! Yikes! Luckily for you I am, as my husband calls me, the Human Video Camera, so there are still plenty of stories to tell. If you're really dying to know what I've been up to I hope your following along with my Flickr photostream because I've actually managed to keep up with that pretty well. I post photos on Mondays after returning to Zürich from a weekend (or more) of traveling. It's a nice way to easily revisit the adventures recently had and I'm basically I'm too worn out to achieve much else. Writing, on the other hand, requires a spark; I blog when I'm so revved up about a story I want to tell everyone. So when I'm useless on Mondays it doesn't happen. The rest of the week suddenly gets sucked up by German class (plus studying), going to the gym, or planning and preparing for the next adventure. It's amazing how quickly the hours and days fly by! And then almost every weekend we're off to another destination, seeing amazing new things, soaking up life in other places, and of course eating yummy food. But I write when I feel grounded and focused... and there's the rub, that feeling doesn't seem to happen very much right now. So forgive me for periods of non-blogging, and I thank you for your patience.

The Good, The Bad and The Lovely

The Good... I found CF's peanut butter! He insists on the kind that is only 100% peanuts (I agree that it's best). This earned him a PB related nickname from the hostess of our favorite NYC lodging two years ago when she asked what we'd like stocked for breakfast. She had to hunt it down at the health food store, and then got hooked on it herself. When we learned we'd be coming here he mentioned he was concerned there would be no peanut butter, but then he saw it at the office when he was here in July so he said he was no longer worried. Well, all the groceries stores have one of two brands that include added sugar, salt and oil. Even Jelmoli and Globus which are known for being good resources for expats to get food products they miss from home. So today I found myself face to face with a health good store and I have it a try. I quickly found a number of nut butters and was going to at least pick up some of that, but then I spotted the peanut butter. Mission accomplished!

The Bad... I stopped in front of said health food store because I needed to stop and sigh after walking out of Kiehl's. My skin is drying out from the sudden cold and I needed some extra exfoliation help so I went looking for a body scrub. I didn't know until the moment I was handing over my credit card that I was paying three times as much as it would have cost at home. Whoops! Tally Kiehl's up under "Things that are more expensive here," (believe it or not, there are some things that are less expensive here) and I'll enjoy my liquid gold.

And The Lovely... I went to meet CF for dinner at work tonight, I hadn't seen the office before now. It had started raining late in the afternoon so I didn't go out quite as early as I had planned, I was going to go on a bit of a photowalk since I haven't done much shooting in Zürich yet. But once it was time to head to dinner I slipped on my trench coat, newly arrived in the air shipment. I love this coat, it felt good to put it back on. I hopped on the shuttle bus that's running on our street while the tram line is all torn up, and switched to a tram at Bahnhofquai. It was one of the old cars, with little wooden seats. We rattled down the Bahnhofstrasse, with the sun going down, the lights coming on, city people out and about on their way home from work, meeting for drinks or stopping to shop. It was charming and I melted into the moment.... and I realized right then that I had just fallen for the city.