Farewell Switzerland ...

I just wanted to take a minute to post some of my favorite pictures and memories from Switzerland as a final farewell. Of course we will be back there at least once this summer so expect the blogs from Switzerland to continue indefinitely along with our many blogs that will start coming out from our adventures in Germany.

Lake Maggiore, Locarno:

Sunset over Lake Geneva, Montreux:

The Matterhorn, Zermatt:

Getting above the clouds on our hike to Wasserauen:

Almost dying on the group outing:

Cows and mountains:

Good friends, good hikes, good food, and great views:

The best bratwurst in Zürich:

The chocolate:

And who could forget our games of nailing (I think that's what it was called):

Martin's Apero

Friday evening was Martin's apero. His whole lab group came (plus some of their partners) and we had a little barbecue on the top floor of the chemistry building. Of course most of it was indoors because it was quite chilly out with occasional rain showers. Thomas (he's french so his name is pronounced Toe-mah with the stress on the mah part) gave Martin a 3-liter bottle of champagne so we started off all sharing that. Thomas was born and raised in the champagne fields so he knows his champagne.

Julian presented Martin with a farewell gift from the group which is a night with dinner at a nice hotel somewhere in Germany. They decided since we like to explore new places that this will help us start exploring Germany. The hotel has a spa so I'm all set! It's also surrounded by vineyards, biking/hiking trails, etc so it will be a good time.

Here is David, lighting the grill with various flammable chemicals. You'd never guess he's one of the most brilliant chemists, would you?

Here's a little rain cloud, doing his thing:

Here are a few of the nicer group photos. This is us posing with most of what is called the "French Connection" - there are a lot of french speaking people in Martin's lab. Martin is actually the only native English speaker in the lab right now. I'm not sure who will proof read all of their papers after he leaves.

People stayed out and partied until 3am so Martin had himself a good sendoff.

Bad Dürkheim: First Impressions

We drove to Bad Dürkheim yesterday and stayed overnight in order to have extra time to get a lot of paperwork done for our move there. Since we had a little extra time to wander around I actually took a few pictures. But only a few.

Bad Dürikheim is a spa town and there's this huge building in it the purpose of which we've been trying to determine since our first visit:



Turns out it's an inhalatorium. The dark sides of it are covered with something that looks like vines or maybe even grapes and water runs through them constantly and I guess you can go inside and just ... inhale? It costs money to go inside and we didn't feel the need to do it on this trip but we'll go after we move there and will hopefully have all of our ailments cured. We don't know the full purpose of this building yet because the sign on the outside was in German and while we're usually pretty good at German we didn't understand most of the words on the sign so we walked away still curious. It's part of the spa so it must be good for you somehow.

Anyway, here are some shots from the little pedestrian area downtown:





We ate dinner at this restaurant last night and the food was pretty good:



The search for our new favorite restaurant will be underway as soon as we move there.

There are also some churches that we will have to explore (spire of a big one in the background of this shot):



So ... more to come after our move!

Hiking in the Jura

The Jura mountain range is in western Switzerland and is not as high or as steep as the Alps. They're really more like big hills. And since they are so low it means they don't get nearly as much snow as the Alps. Which means you can hike there in March! At least you could this year. We had a gorgeous 60-degree day and Nico wanted to do a specific hike that leads you by a restaurant with excellent food and we couldn't argue with that. Actually, the hike led us by 4 different restaurants and we stopped at the first two for a drink and the last one for a full meal. Not a bad day!

There actually was a little bit of snow. Which led to a little snowball fight:



A pretty view:



The sweetest dog ever at the second restaurant:



Drinks at the second restaurant (that's coffee schnapps for Nico):



The second restaurant was actually a farmhouse more than a restaurant. Here's what was being done in the fields around the restaurant (thankfully we were upwind where we were sitting):



And, finally, dinner at the fourth restaurant. The guys all ordered foal steak (baby horse). The portions were enormous yet much cheaper than what you'd pay in Zürich:



Doesn't look like we did much hiking, does it? The hike itself was about 6 miles and the first hour was a steep uphill but after that it was pretty easygoing. It wasn't as picturesque as hiking in the Alps but for a March hike I'd highly recommend it.

Öpfelchammer

Last night we had dinner at a restaurant called Öpfelchammer (roughly translates to apple room in English). This restaurant serves traditional Swiss food that is very tasty (and expensive). Martin and I have wanted to go to this restaurant for the past year and a half so we were happy to finally get there before we left for Germany. What makes Öpfelchammer unique is that there is a big wooden beam that goes across the ceiling and each customer is challenged to jump up and over it, squiggle across the beam next to it, and then hang upside down while drinking a glass of white wine. If you can do that, you get to write your name on the wall.

This all takes place in the Weinstübe which is a small cozy room where the only beverages served are wine, water, grape juice, and port. Here's a picture of the beams that you have to get yourself up and over. The space at the top is very small so it's a lot harder to do than it looks. A lot of people hit their heads on the ceiling pretty hard while trying to jump through:



Writing on the walls from people who have made it over the beams:



Here's one guy trying to do it ... there was a bachelor party there and they were all wearing shirts that said "Letzter Tag in Freiheit", or, "last day of freedom". This guy is failing miserably and he actually hit his head pretty hard several times. I think he was the groom so he was probably already three sheets to the wind and didn't feel it anyway:



Here's one of the guys that was successful, drinking the wine while upside down. I think he must have been some sort of gymnast though because he did it right away and made it look easy:

Mmmmmmmm ... chocolate.

I took a few pictures of the chocolate selection in our local grocery store here in Zürich. 100% swiss chocolate ... I will miss it when we move to Germany.





Easter is the biggest holiday of the year in Switzerland. The candy has been out in the grocery stores for weeks already. So many chocolate bunnies to choose from, so little time. Here are some neon colored chocolate bunnies by the checkout counters:



I've held back from buying any chocolate bunnies yet this year. I will likely buy a little golden Lindt chocolate bunny at some point though ... they're too good to resist.

Cross-country Skiing in Davos

This past weekend we went to Davos for a little fun in the snow. I really like Davos because there is a lot to do there. There's a huge swimming/spa center, a sport center, 50 miles of cross-country skiing trails, downhill resorts, winter walking trails, shopping, etc. It's definitely a possible location for a second home, once we figure out where our first home will be!

I took a few pictures while I was xc skiing on Saturday. I didn't take any on Sunday because it was a blizzard and it wasn't worth bringing the camera out just to take pictures of white on white. So here are some of my views on Saturday.