Les Diablarets and the last week or so

The IAESTE ski weekend took place over the first weekend in December in Les Diablerets. They rented out a fairly large chalet for the 77 of us that featured bunk beds, a big kitchen, a dance hall, a dining hall and a game room.Unfortunately there was an irreconcilable rift between the Calgarians and the other IAESTE people from the get go. The first night, us wanting to party and thus dancing (how could we) led to the others bitching about us. The second night some of the Calgarians (ok, dave, bruce, chris and pat) got too drunk and were obnoxious and rude and provoked some conflict. Then, completely hypocritically, the other IAESTE people got way to drunk, were obnoxious and rude and provoked some more conflict. That was all bullshit though. In the end the weekend was a good way to catch up with the other Canadians, get back into the swing of winter sport, and have some fun.

The hill was, in fact, a glacier perched at the summit of a mountain. When we first arrived the conditions were prime. It was sunny, the snow was soft and it was great. The hill was less than challenging and didn't feature too much terrain or gradient. In fact, all of the runs but one were accessible solely by T-bar. We managed to find some untracked powder, though, and even a lip or two we could jump off. Sondy and I, happened to pair up upon arriving at the hill and it worked out well. I think she's at more or less the ski equivalent of my snowboarding level so we kept up a pretty good pace. We later ran into Miller and Pat and we spend the rest of the morning all together. Unfortunately, by the time we'd eaten lunch a big stupid cloud came in and robbed us of all visibility. What's more, my bindings kept failing and coming loose at the base so I was having a hard time.

The second day of boarding was also not great. A strong wind blew all day and razor sharp ice bits devastated exposed skin. We made it to lunch and then went for only one or two more runs after that because we felt it wasn't worth it. Overall though, we all had a lot of fun both at the hill and at the lodge despite the extraneous conflicts.

Last friday was the Alstom Volleyball Night. I wasn't playing but some friends were so I decided to take my camera and do some practise. Unfortunately the light was shit and my lenses aren't that fast so I had to do all my shooting at an unfortunately high ISO but I still got some good practise in. Bianca, unfortunately, had a bad landing and badly sprained her ankle. What's more, not a single team that consisted of friends had any success whatsoever. Still, had a good time watching and being a spectator with Chris, Mike and Dave. Afterwards, met up with Rachel who was finishing up with her work's christmas dinner and headed back to Baden.

The rest of the weekend was pretty lazy. Went shopping for a bit on saturday, saturday night met one of Rachel's friends for a drink, went for McDonalds afterward and subsequently threw all of it up at 3 in the morning... Not sure what happened there... Sunday was another lazy day, did some laundry and cooked a turkey curry - not bad btw.

Yesterday (monday) the interns had a christmas party of sorts. It began with a round robin of beer pong. This was followed by the results of the intern photo contest being announced (first place in the category of 'best photo of drunkeness' for which I won a nice bottle of wine - thanks Celia!). This was followed by Secret Santa (i got a big glass jar full of ingredients for making oatmeal cookies). Finally, the finals for Beer Pong took place and Pat and Bianca inevitably won.

Still going good - looking forward to going to the UK next week!

American Thanksgiving and So On...

Last Thursday was Rachel's last day of work at Alstom and as such was capped by a goodbye drink at Mojo's, a bar close to Alstom and a haunt for all of its full timers. We arrived at about 5:15, without having had dinner and consumed drinks at a steady pace until we left at around 10 because we were hungry. In this time I met a lot of her friends from Alstom including, fortunately, a good few that spoke English and even one with whom I practiced some Spanish! After leaving the bar we went and got a doner kebap and walked home in the freezing cold.

Friday night I went out with Rachel and her (former) boss for drinks in Zurich. It was kinda awkward at first as many of her bosses friends didn't speak english (or chose not to) so I spent a lot of time sitting quietly. With time (and drinks) however, they seemed to warm to me and we made our way to a club where we danced and my girlfriend got a little drunk ;)

Saturday we had to prepare for thanksgiving dinner at Duane's (had to buy pie and ice cream). Got up without showering, grabbed a chocolate croissant on the way to town and did some shopping before rushing home for a shower. Got to Duane's at around 2-2:30 and enjoyed some great thanksgiving food - a welcome treat considering I had missed Canadian thanksgiving! Ate waaay to much and drank too much wine too fast so didn't feel so awesome that evening but still managed to watch a movie.

Sunday, despite noble intentions of getting up, doing laundry and cleaning before going to play badminton in the afternoon, got distracted by a certain someone and ended up not being particularly productive until about 3.. Went and played badminton from 4-5, ate dinner, did laundry and watched another movie.

The rest of this week has been more or less uneventful, surviving work mostly. Going on a skitrip this weekend - will report back soon!

Time for an update, perhaps?

Well would you look at that. November came and it left just as quickly (well, almost). Lets try and think what I've been up to the last few weeks...

On the first of November, Rachel and I took a drive to Baldegg. Its basically a high point that overlooks Baden and the other neighboring towns. Was quite a pretty sight with all of the autumn leaves changing! We climbed the lookout tower for a few pics, decended, walked around, found a farm, took pictures of a llama, then went up to the restaurant for some ice cream. I had a banana split :)

The first full weekend in November, beginning with the 6th, a bunch of us dressed up and headed to Zurich for a special event involving wine tasting in the Zurich harbor. 12 boats were docked and lashed together and then filled with hundreds of vendors giving samples of wine. We paid 20CHF each to get in and then had as much wine as we could drink. This was followed by a rendezvous with Claire and Honza at a small bar in Zurich. I met up with Rachel at the Zurich HB and brought her back there. After a drink we left to meet up with Rachel's friend Anna who was celebrating her last night in Switzerland. This led us to a bar that we stayed to until just after 2 in the morning which of course meant we missed the only train for an hour. Celia, it turned out, was in a similar situation though for different reasons so we hung out with her at the HB. We also met some very eccentric, very friendly, very funny swiss people while we were waiting....

That saturday I did some shopping with Rachel and that evening went to dinner with her Mom, mom's boyfriend, siblings and brother's girlfriend. It was fun (but interesting given language barriers..haha). Sunday was a lazy day. A lazy day indeed.

Weekend before last began with a bang. To celebrate the large number of birthdays among the canadians in November, the girls in Mellingerstrasse hosted an 'accesory' themed party. I wore a clock around my neck a la Flava Flav... Inevitably everyone got mega drunk and belligerence ran riot. The following day went into town for a few things and in the evening went to Rachel's to play poker with her, her sister Debi and her sister's boyfriend. I was WAY out of my league; fortunately we weren't playing for cash!

This past Friday, our Swiss friend Sam was kind enough to cook 10 of us a traditional wild Swiss meal. It featured venison (very tasty), red cabbage, brussel sprouts (not as bad as I've been leading myself to believe), Späetzle, chestnuts and baked apple with cranberry sauce. Very good and VERY filling. Saturday was spent more or less relaxing. Took care of some business and ended up spending the evening in with Rachel. Sunday, she and I decided to get out of the house to relax and went to one of Switzerland's many thermal baths, this one near Brugg. Despite how busy it was there and the fact that it was raining at times, it was both relaxing and a lot of fun!

This week has been uneventful so far. Today is Fellipe's apero as he will be enjoying his final day of work this friday. Rachel has also gotten herself a new job so this is her last week too! Tomorrow we'll be at Mojo's, a local bar, to celebrate.

That's it for now, the next few weekends promise to be eventful so I'll save those for next time!

Announcement

Today I ate horse. That is all.

The Last of the October Beer

October was a fun month. It kicked off with oktoberfest in Munich, continued with my birthday in Istanbul, and ended with oktoberfest in Baden.

This past wednesday, Celia was kind enough to organize a pumpkin carving night at Ziegel-D. There were some pretty impressive carvings! Rachel came and together we carved her first ever (and, thinking about it, probably my second ever) halloween pumkin (the swiss don't do it). The night continued with a pretty good consumption of beer and wine by the interns of whom a pretty good number showed up.

Thursday, went to Nouba the local shisha bar and had a couple of beers and some good (tunisian?) food.

Friday, Rachel and I planned on just going out for a drink with one of her friends who was celebrating his last day at alstom. We ended up being invited to the Baden Oktoberfest. Normally, it is required to reserve a seat months in advance and pay quite a fee to get in. As it happened, Rachel's friend had a friend inside who was able to convince the security at the entrance that there was room for us. We paid a measly 10CHF cover and proceeded to get royally drunk! There was live music, good beer, lots of drunk alstom employees, dancing on the table, funny hats - more or less just like the real octoberfest with less rules, more flashing lights, and less food. Afterwards, for some reason, we went to a bar called Lemon and had a completely unnecessary glass of wine. Then bed.

Halloween was quite modest. We had some people over for wine and shisha and some pleasant conversation and that was more or less it. I was knackered from the previous night and not many people actually wanted to go out so it ended up a fairly uneventful evening.

And thus ended October and, with it, the first 6 months of my Swiss Experience. Lets hope the next 6 are half as good!

Update for those on their seat's edge waiting for it..

Haven't been up to a whole lot since getting back from Istanbul. In fact the last three weeks have been more or less a blur. I've been spending a lot of time with Rachel, watched a lot of movies and TV, have been pretty lazy. Haven't even taken the camera out since I got back I don't think... I resolve to change that in the next few days though.

This past weekend was moderately eventful. On friday night, Rachel and I went to her friends place for a goodbye party. I got to drive Rachel's car there so that was very exciting for me! This party turned into a Zurich excursion that got messy pretty quickly. Ended up with the friend's camera getting lost and us leaving zurich at about 5AM. We crashed on an air mattress and made it home at about 2PM on saturday. That night, I had my first fondue with Dave and Olivia. It was pretty good but I was absolutely dead from the night before so I took a nap. That evening Rachel and I went to a really cool circus in Wettingen (just across the Limmat from Baden). Not an animal circus mind you, more of an acrobatics thing like Cirque du Soleil (on an admittedly lower budget). Sunday, we all went over to the Berg and hung out with Rachel Sondergaard and Olivia and Chris and Rachel Wong (too many Rachels) and Dave and Bruce. That was fun. Olivia cooked us a nice vegetarian stir-fry and we played what is quite possibly the funniest game in the world: telephone pictionary!

This week we have some halloween activities arranged but I'll comment on them once they've happened in a future post.

Isanbul: Europe and Asia (Like Europe, only Asianyer...)

This past weekend, that of both my birthday and Canadian Thanksgiving, I ventured to Istanbul with Dave, Rachel, Olivia, Shannon, Bianca, Steve and Caitlin. This was my first time travelling to a (predominantly) Muslim country and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Going in I was sure that I would be forced to have a 'dry' birthday because of Muslim laws against drinking. Of course, it turns out that Turkey is a quite secular country and getting a beer or wine wasn't difficult outside of a few restaurants. Not that we abused this. I think I had 3 beers all weekend...

Some other things that made Istanbul a lot different than anywhere else I've been include the frequent call to prayer blasted from each of the numerous mosques in the city (which took turns singing verses of prayer resulting in an experience reminiscent of a singing duel but was more likely out of respect...) , the predominance of muslim dress (particularly for the women), the ability to haggle, and the sheer number of doner places (I didn't realize how prevelant this type of cuisine really was!).

We arrived at the early hour of about 02:30 and, after paying an extortionate 45Eur for a visa (thank YOU Canada for that one..) we made it though passport control and onto our hostel shuttle by about 03:30 and to the hostel by 04:00.

Got a good 5hrs of sleep and then crawled to the roof of our hostel for a nice Turkish breakfast of bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, cereal and condiments (this would be further expanded to include hard-boiled eggs and yoghurt in the following days). The roof afforded a nice view of the Golden horn and, in the distance, the Bosphorus Strait. We could also see the minarets of the Hagia Sofia mosque. After breakfast, we rendezvoused (Sp?) with the 3 who had been staying elsewhere and walked down to the water's edge. Here we admired the water, marvelled at the number of ships going by, watched men fish, and Steve stuck his head in a hole. We walked along the water and eventually headed inland to explore some Palacial Tea Gardens. At the entrance to these gardens, we were stopped by a police car full of officers who rolled down their window and proceeded to shake our hands and say "Salam" or some such thing. I'm fairly certain they only shook Dave and my hands because we happened to be bordering a group of girls.. Anyway, turns out this tea garden happened to flank Topkapi Palace which, I guess, is pretty signifcant. We paid some money to go in and it was actually pretty cool. Lots of neat muslim architecture and a good bit of history as well. Notable points include the large Harem and a museum featuring Moses' (the Moses') staff (with which he led the jews out of egypt) and other various religious artifacts.

After walking around the palace for a few hours we got pretty hungry and decided to leg it to the nearest Kebap place. We ended up being enticed to enter the sit-down portion of a fast food place and ended up pretty disappointed with our small meals. Also, turns out that Ayran, turkish yoghurt drink, isn't very good. From here we decided to check out the famous Grand Bazaar. It is an extraordinarily huge place in which it is almost impossible to not get lost because all of the winding, crisscrossing roads look exactly the same, full of touristy merch and crap you wouldn't give to your worst enemy. Inevitably, we all got split up and elected to meet in a specified location an hour and a half later. This was far too much time for Dave and I as we spent the entire time not buying anything and mostly just trying to find the exit. A cool experience though, certainly. We left the bazaar and, on our way to finding dinner, decided to check out the famous Blue Mosque. It was my first time going inside a mosque and to be honest I thought it was pretty cool (compared to churches anyway). The first thing one notices - after they get over having to remove their footwear and, if they are female, covering their head - is the distinct lack of stuff in there. There is a far wall with, for lack of knowing the proper word, an altar of sorts towards which prayer is done. Other than that, the decorated ceiling and the columns that supported the roof, there was a carpeted floor and that was it. Certainly a much different experience from churches that tend to be adorned with chairs, booths, ornaments, statues and so on. I quite liked it. It was very peaceful and, despite the sheer magnitude and impressiveness of the place, seemingly humble in a way.. I can't really explain.. Anyway, we had to go grab some eats afterwards and we went to a place recommended by Caitlin's guide book: Doy Doy. Had a great chicken kebap. Its kind of strange eating what you'd usually have as fast food in a sit-down restaurant arranged more like a meal than like a convenient snack.

Day 2 we elected to get on a boat and have a quick tour of the bosphorus. This was pretty neat. After being haggled with to convince us to choose his tour, the operator crammed us onto his already completely full van giving us need to stand (and in my case fall all over the place) for the short but uncomfortable ride to the boat. We snagged some dope seats at the bow though so we had a good spot for taking pics. The boat cruised us on over to the Asian side of Istanbul (I've been to Asia - woo!) where we had a whopping 30 minutes to explore. A good 10 of that was used to get out money.. We then hopped back on the boat and headed back to Europe. Tim, an Australian guy sharing our room at the hostel, then led us to the famous Spice market where, once again we all got split up. I stuck with Tim and we ended up getting some great Lamb kebaps, some great baklava, we found an exotic pet section of the bazaar featuring a toucan, turtles, peacocks, lizards and leaches, I bought a Kilo of turkish delight and we wandered into some sketchy back alleys. We regrouped with the rest an hour or so later at which point Tim took off. The rest of us headed back to the hostel for a bit of a rest and to strategize for the following day. This was followed by dinner at a charming restaurant, again recommended by the guide book, in which the waiters all wore brightly colored bowling shirts and tried to teach us Turkish. After this we ended up heading up to the roof, getting some drinks, playing some games and enjoying some Narghile.

Sunday was my birthday! However, I can honestly say it was the least birthday like birthday I've ever had for a variety of reasons. First, clearly my family was nowhere to be seen. Second, I was in Turkey. Then of course, no presents (while I was there)! Ok, that sounds kinda like something a spoiled kid would say but come on, who doesn't like to open presents on their birthday? Of course, my friends acknowledged the occasion and gave me a hushed "happy birthday" in unison during breakfast. They also let me choose the restaurant for dinner (as long as it was Doy Doy haha) and Dave bought me a beer at the end of the day.

For the course of the day, though, we had decided to take a ferry to the Prince's Island. Here we rented some bikes and rode around the entire thing in the course of a few hours. The island is supposed to be free of motorized vehicles (though we definately saw a big truck and at least one motorcycle) and as such the main forms of locomotion are shoddy, falling apart bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. The latter was somewhat perplexing as the horses were clearly malnourished and overworked but there was an abundance of faeces everywhere... We had hoped that being on an island we'd be able to locate and enjoy a beach. Unfortunately that was not the case. Instead we found a pile of garbage and a concrete pad that some fat guy was lazing around on by the water that one was expected to pay 20YTL to enjoy... We ended up sitting on some rocks near the harbor and lazing away some time instead.. Our boat back to the mainland came at around 6PM and I slept the entire way back. I would not be in the least surprised if there were some embarassing photos of me doing just that floating around somewhere... Upon return to Istanbul we, as I mentioned earlier, went back to Doy Doy and had a huge meal followed by dessert and tea in their cushion room. Soo comfy! Oh, and I had these Rum Baba thingies for dessert which were essentially turkish Galub jamun! mmmm! Went back to the hostel to hang out before everyone except Dave and I had to head to the airport to go home.

Dave and I had booked another room for our last stay and it ended up being one in which we had to share a double bed. This wasn't bad at all, turns out we're both very good at avoiding uncomfortable contact. We checked out the next morning, grabbed breakfast, left our luggage there and headed out to do some more exploring. We went into the Basilica Cistern, a big underground water storage facility, and that was pretty cool. There was a column that was different than all the others for some reason and had a hole into which tourists would insert their thumb and rotate their hands around. There was no description or explanation of why this was being done so, naturally, Dave and I both did it as well. There were also two columns propped up by rocks in the shape of Medusa's head. That was neat. I was glad I didn't turn to stone though.

The order of events in my mind for the rest of the day is a bit shaky (we did a lot of aimless wandering) so I'll just list of the things we did. We wandered really far out of the tourist area and found a restaurant catering purely to locals where we got an ENOURMOUS meal for just 7YTL each that was probably the best we'd had the entire trip. We went to the spice market again and I got some stringy turkish ice cream. We went to a turkish barber, got a shave, a trim, an ear cleaning and had my ear set on fire. We went back to the spice market for dinner. We sat on some benches between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia and listened to the call to prayer and an arabic guy with a guitar singing english and french pop songs while a 6 year old girl tried to sell me water. We had some shisha. We talked for a long time with an american guy at our hostel named Ryan. I ate waaay to many nuts. We took a shuttle to the airport at 00:20 and fell asleep despite nearly dying several times. We slept in several parks. We slept in the airport. We fought our way onto the plane past a bunch of impatient, selfish, arrogant turks. We slept on the plane. We got back to Switzerland at 5:30. We got back to baden at 7:30. I went to bed. I went to work at 10:00. I had a terrible day at work I was so tired. Dave worked the whole day then went home and was sick the next day and the day after that and the day after that.

So yeah, that pretty much summarizes my Turkey trip. I had a really good time and it was definately one of the more unique places I've been!

Munich Oktoberfest: Day Man, Fighter of the Night Man, Champion of the Sun, Master of Karate and Friendship for Everyone

What a weekend. So much fun.

We took the train to Munich on Thursday night. Everyone stocked up on some 'rail beers' before we left and we enjoyed those over the course of the ride. Some people (Bruce and Mike) got waaay too drunk. We arrived in Munich and took a tram to our campground. After checking in, we set up our 3 tents and chilled out for a bit before hitting the hay. Ohh yeah, and Holly showed up!

We got up at around 8 on friday. By the time everyone had gotten organized and we managed to leave and take a tram and figure out how to get to the grounds, we arrived at Oktoberfest 2009 at around 10. First order of business was to grab some breakfast, which, being at Oktoberfest, was inevitably a giant Pretzel. We then headed into the Hofbrau tent and found a table. We had to wait a little while before the beer service began, but when it did it was greeted by enthusiastic applause from the entire tent. By the way, these tents are huge. Each one probably holds over 1000 people.

 

 

So, we began drinking at around 10. We spent our time in the tent singing, playing cards, talking, eating laughing - it was great. 4 and a half hours and 4L of (7%) beer later, we made our way out of the tent. Chris and I went to get bratwurst. I dropped mine on the floor (and followed this with a few expletives), picked it up and put it back on my bun, disappointed but committed to this sausage. The cook at the stall, seeing this, promptly stole back my sausage, said something along the lines of "NOT IN DEUTCHLAND" and game me another one free of charge. Good guy, always liked him.

Upon finishing my food, Miller and I made a mad dash for a ride. We bought tickets, strapped ourselves in, and started spinning rapidly. The only other people on the ride were a grandpa and his two grandkids as well as two 14year old looking girls. All of them were quite amused by me and Mike as we laughed our heads off the entire time. Interestingly, Mike's iPhone flew out of his pocket, off the ride and across the cement ground. Fortunately it was picked up by a carny and it wasn't even damaged! Next stop was a rollercoaster. Mike has a hillarious video of it in which all you can here is our histerical screaming. This is made funnier by the fact that it was possibly the most tame rollercoaster ever....

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the fairgrounds (very comparable to the stampede grounds). We eventually had enough and decided to head back to camp. It was about 5 when we got there and I decided to take a little nap. I woke up from that nap 3 hours later! We spent the rest of the evening playing some board games and hanging out by the fire. Eventually went to bed again.

Saturday, again woke up around 8 and took our time getting to the festival. Decided to visit another beer tent, not as good beer as the first one, but interstingly decorated. The highlight of this tent was when the polka band marched (yes marched) onto their stage each with a litre of beer in their hand. They then proceeded to chug the entire thing in synchrony. Pretty impressive! We also got some tasty food at that tent.. We were forced to leave because the reservations began at noon (and clearly we didn't have one) so we wandered around, did some more rides, got some more food (ate half a duck with Steve Paige - soo good) and eventually got tired around 2PM. This was about the same time Bianca decided to show up. Holly stayed with her and we didn't see them again until that night (more on that later). The rest of us headed to Munich's english gardens where we chilled out and napped for a bit. We then attempted to visit the famous Hofbrau Haus (a beer hall) but it was too busy so we went to a traditional Bavarian restaurant across the street.

 

Had delicious roast pork and delicious Augustina beer. MMM. Headed back to the tent and we proceeded to play a hillarious game called telephone pictionary. I believe Steve Paige's blog'll have some evidence of what that turned into so feel free to link there (he's under followers). Eventually got tired and went to bed. I made the terrific decision of buying earplugs but it didn't stop me from hearing Bianca shout "I'M SOOO DRUNK! WHO WANTS TO SLEEP WITH BIANCA?" when she arrived back. She proceeded to fall into our tent, taking out the fly and leaving the door open ALL NIGHT. So cold!

The next day we had to check out of the campground, pack up and move along. We decided to do a free walking tour of Munich so went looking for that. It was pretty cool, very informative but we'd just walked pretty much the entire thing the previous night (albeit drunk). This tour was followed by cheap delicious beer and bottomless Bavarian stew. This, believe it or not, was then followed by another (successful) attempt at entering the Hofbrau Haus.

I got their dark beer. It was glorious. Very very tasty. We killed the rest of the day here, singing lots of drinking songs very enthusiastically. Apparently some Asian tourists were impressed enough to snap some pictures! After this we had to head to our train home. Along the way, Steve Paige fell flat on his face walking down the street and Bruce crushed a lady falling down the escalator. On the train, Steve puked everywhere too. Messy, messy, messy! Still, totally worth it! A great trip!

I Think I've Seen Petrol-head Heaven

Last weekend Steve Paige and I caught the last weekend of the Frankfurt International Auto Show (IAA). Unbelieveable. Never have I seen so many cars in one place. Never have I seen so many people trying to see so many cars in one place. We easily spent 7 hours walking around and between exhibit halls with no more than 30 minutes of that to grab a couple of beers, a pretzel and some kind of meat lump in a bun. To give you some idea, One hall that had maybe 3 or 4 big car manufacturers and then a few smaller Customization and parts companies was easily BIGGER than the ENTIRE Calgary Auto Show. And that was one hall of about 8! I could talk for hours about what we saw and what was cool but instead I'll throw down some pics and give you a top 3:

1. Audi R8 - Completely chrome finish. Spectacular.
2. Lamborghini Reventon (Drop-top) - Waited about 15 minutes to get close to the bloody thing but it was worth it. One heck of a sexy machine.
3. Everything else! Kind of a cop-out but damn it if I don't just love all cars! I'll say this though, the exhibition itself was quite impressive. Car companies displays were as creative as they were stunning and they definately left an impression!







When we had finaly gotten through everything, Steve and I headed to our hostel - situated, it turns out, in the middle of Frankfurt's Red Light District. But, while in a shady neck of the woods, it was one of the better hostels I've been to. Only about a year old it had a full bar, clean sheets and a free breakfast (because the elevator wasn't working) - pretty much all you need! After getting there we settled in for a recooperative 45minute nap then grabbed some dinner and some Caiparihnas from the bar. We met a guy from Toronto and went on a Pubcrawl the hostel suggested.

It took us a while to find the meeting spot of the pubcrawl (outside the Haupfbahnhof), paid 10euros for our participation, were given a shot bottle of Jaggermeister and a wristband. We were also accosted by a bachelorette party. I bought a shot bottle of Schnapps from her because I thought she was funny... The pub crawl led us, unfortunately to 2 latin bars and a very expensive basement (I ended up speaking more spanish than german that night) and the drinks were so pricey and the crawl progressed at such a slow rate that we soon got bored and hungry and went venturing for food as well. After getting some shitty pizza, we stumbled back to our hostel past all the peep shows and strip clubs, brushing past a couple of what I'm pretty sure were hookers - one in a tight red leather dress and the other who was quite literally wearing nothing but string.. funny...

Next day, we capitalized on the free breakfast and had a remarkably chill day by the river. We walked around for a bit, napped on a bench, walked around some more, grabbed a beer from a biergarten, walked around some more, grabbed a kebap, walked around some more, slept for 3 HOURS in a park by the riveredge, headed to the HBF, grabbed some supplies and took our train home.



An equally awesome and relaxing trip that i'm glad we took!

Ich bin das Walross

This past weekend, Dave, Steve Paige and I journeyed to Stuttgart. I had wanted to go there for some time as it is the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche and as such has two museums in their respective honors.

We went to Stuttgart in a somewhat unconventional way: carpooling with a total stranger named David (pronounced Da-fid because he's a German). We had to meet him at a trainstation just outside of Zurich. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this and thought we were just meeting him in Zurich. When we got to Zurich and I was informed that we had to take another train to get to him, we were in such a hurry that I forgot to buy another train ticket. Fortunately, we made it there without anyone checking (a rarity on Swiss trains) and this marked the beginning of the unprecedented chain of luck that would continue for the next day or so.

It turns out that Steve Paige and I both managed to forget our passports and it worried our driver slightly when we told him this. We carried on regardless and fortunately it was never an issue. We arrived in Stuttgart after about two hours of driving the Autobahns (which, incidently, I can't wait to drive myself) and began to search for our accomodation. Steve Paige had lived in Stuttgart for 6 weeks some years prior and as such was able to get us a place to stay with the family he stayed with then. It took him a little while to remember the neighborhood but he eventually figured out which direction we should go. On our way, realizing we were quite hungry, we happened upon a Burger King and stopped in for some quick eats.

We eventually arrived at the house, chucked our stuff down, got acquinted with our host and decided to go out for "a few drinks and a chill night". Our host was kind enough to drive us to a bar whose name I can't remember but was adorned with lots of fluorescent paint and lights. It just so happened that it was reggae night and I must say that the music fit the atmosphere quite well. Another important thing to point out is that we were officially the first 3 people in the bar at around 9:45PM.

Not minding this - it was going to be a quiet night after all - we ordered some Jaggerbombs(!) as we'd been talking about them earlier, pounded those back and had beers. And some more Jaggerbombs(!). And some more beers. Basically we just got far more drunk than we intended to. People started to arrive at the bar quite a bit later and we were approached by some 18yr old german kids who invited us to come to their table. Flo-rida, TIMMY, Mo and Katie (these were their names. Well, close enough anyway) had never heard of Jaggerbombs and had the absolute worst choice in drinks - Caiparihnas & Baileys on the rocks to chase? Come on kids! Eventually, we were asked to pay and were ushered out of the bar - opened it AND closed it, right on! Fortunately there was a club downstairs where we drank a little more and danced like idiots to some reggae music. Dave and Steve Paige went of and hit on some gay guys for a while, not sure what that was about...

We left the bar and as we were walking away found that TIMMY, who had gotten waaay too drunk had been kicked out of the bar and accompanied by Mo, was wandering around like an idiot. We wished them our best and started our walk home. But we were hungry. We sought out food trying two gas stations to no avail. Then we saw it. The blue, white red and gold beacon of hope: BK. Yup. We ate at BK twice in one day. Three times if you count the fact that after we had sat down and eaten our meals, we were given 3 more free burgers by staff that couldn't finish them - Luck strikes again.. kind of..

Having gotten home after 4AM, we had a pretty slow start to the next day. After having breakfast, though, we got our asses out the door and headed to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Only had mild trouble finding it as well. Probably one of the more spectacular museums I've seen. Granted, I'm biased towards it because it's full of cars, but it was really well done (and a good deal at that!) Free audioguides that automatically activate in certain areas of the museum were very informative. I had no idea how much Karl Benz and his company contributed to motoring. I particularly liked all the relics, the first cars, engines, etc. That old technology is simply beautiful.


The museum itself was inside a gorgeous building. A really cool elevator takes you to the top to start, speakers inside it play the sound to a movie that you can view outside the elevator as it rises with you. From the top, you make your way down the building and the exhibits take you chronologically through the history of the car, the engine, the company, motorsports, and even some german history. It was really cool to see where all the product names came from (ie. Mercedes was the name of a client's daughter - the car that was named after here was a phenomenal success) and what the symbology on the cars represents (the 3 pronged star represents their 3 pursuits: Land, sea and sky). They even had special sections dedicated to famous people's cars, service vehicles and buses!




Immediately following the Mercedes museum we decided to check out the Champion's League game between Stuttgart and Koeln happening more or less right next door. We missed about half the game trying to buy tickets and food but we did see the second half and witnessed Stuttgart lose 2:0. Oh well, good try..


That night we were knackered, went to bed early despite intending to party in Stuttgart, and got up early on Sunday. After a nice breakfast we set out for the Porsche Museum. In an equally spectacular building to that of the Mercedes Museum, the Porsche Museum was also very nice. Porsche got into the game quite a bit later than Karl Benz but there was still a lot of history and technological evolution evident. Porsche seems to have a very strong identity and it was cool to see the evolution of their cars as they stayed true to the original designs.






After this museum we were hungry and only had about 3 hours before our train home. We sought out pretzels to tide us over and then headed to the biergarten for a schnitzel and some beers. Walked down Koenigstrasse and saw some of Stuttgart as opposed to the outlying industrial areas. Then, grabbed some more pretzels and went home!

A good first foray into Germany - I'm excited to go back next week!

Quite an Acheivement

Today I completed reading the last of all 7378 Dilbert comics to date. So that's how work is going...

Haven' t been up to much since spain but I have 4 weekends of travel in a row now so stay tuned.

Spain Again

I love Spain. I don't even really know why but I do. That's why I was super excited for this last week, why I enjoyed it the whole time I was there, and why I will now recall what transpired fondly.

We left from Zurich airport on tuesday night on a flight that happened to also be transporting some sort of elderly spanish tour group. Los abuelitos couldn't figure out how to read their tickets so boarding took a really long time, further delaying an already late flight. This concerned me because, for some reason, I though we were heading into another time zone and losing an hour - God knows what I was thinking! Anyway, we eventually arrived in Madrid and, after what seemed like a good 30 minutes of taxi-ing, we entered the terminal and headed for our gate. We were on one of the moving walkways behind a guy in a wheelchair and who we presumed was taking care of him. However, she did not and when he reached the end of the walkway he kinda just came to a complete stop, blocking the path. This could have caused a disasterous pile up but, due to my quick thinking, I grabbed his wheelchair handles and moved him out of the way thus averting disaster.

The next leg of the flight to Valencia was more uneventful. We arrived a little before midnight and took taxis to our (4-star) hotel. We made plans to meet the next morning at 5:15AM to go to La Tomatina and promptly went to bed to get our 4 hours sleep. We got up, took taxis to the train station and, to our surprise, were not the first ones there. A bunch of Brits, Americans and Aussies had a similar plan it seemed.

We took the train to Buñol - the scene of La Tomatina - and began our day with ham sandwiches and a good litre of Sangria. We then stumbled upon the site of the - at the time ungreased - greased pole. We hung out there for a while, waiting for stuff to get going. Rachel spotted a presenter from MTV or Much or something and we proceded to shout and wave at him. We also ran into Chris, Steve and Phil which was good. When 9AM rolled around, men started to lather up the pole with some fat/soap - we're not 100% sure which. They then tied a massive leg of smoked ham to the top of it and hoisted it up, planting its base in a manhole and wedging it in place to prevent it from wobbling.

At this point, riduculousness began and would only continue to escalate for the rest of the day. You see, traditionally, in order for the tomato fight to start (something that everyone is obviously keen for), someone has to make it to the top of this pole and cut down the ham. I neglected to mention that the pole is about 3 stories high and very, very smooth and slippery. As you can imagine, getting the ham is a very difficult thing to do. Add in the fact that 50% of everyone there was already drunk at 9AM and, well, you get the idea. People were clambering over eachother, standing on top of eachother, falling off and landing on the road, groping, grabbing, being violated, kicking, pulling etc all around this pole. I'm certain that good teamwork could have done the trick but, alas, it was not so. The pole climbing took so long in fact that people started getting antsy and fighting in the street. People would soak their shirts, ball them up and throw them at eachother. As, Steve can tell you, it hurt!

By about 11AM, the organizers must have lost faith in the ability of the hoard to climb the pole and decided to unleash the tomatoes despite the ham maintaining its greasy throne. Trucks of tomatoes were distpatched down the main road with people atop them, throwing tomatoes at the crowd below. After the first truck went by, you were lucky to see maybe one tomato - my first thought was that it was rather disappointing. However, when another 5 trucks went by and dumped their entire loads on the street, it was actually pretty amazing. At one point i was up to my knees in tomatoes. I actually saved a girl from drowning when she fell over and no one else noticed. Tomatoes flew everywhere from everywhere. The crowd was so thick that the only part of you that was exposed was your head. I took a bunch in the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and throat. What's more, the tomatoes tasted and smelled absolutely disgusting. Despite this though, it was unimaginably fun. It was good to just go in and get stupid messy!.

When the fight was over, the participants were quickly herded out of town (presumably so it could be cleaned up). Locals would hose you down as you went past, a welcome relief from the heat, smell and mess. It was also good because you had to satisfy a certain level of cleanliness to board the train back to valencia. You also had to have a shirt which, frankly, was nearly a problem as mine had been ripped in half. I ended up wearing it like a vest - I hope someone has a picture!

We returned to our Hotels and showered and then headed to the beach where we'd arranged to meet Chris, Pat and Phil. Took a dip in the gloriously warm mediterranean and then sought out dinner. No one else had been to spain before so I suggested they go for paella. I managed to get Valencian style meat paella that supposedly had chicken and rabbit in it. I couldn't tell the difference between the meat in it so we'll say there's a pretty good possibility that I ate and enjoyed rabbit! That night everyone was knackered and, despite an expressed intention to go out, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

The next day we checked out of our luxurious digs after taking advantage of the free breakfast and took a taxi to La Ciudad de Las Artes y Sciencias (Its official name is in Valencian but I don't know that...). Basically its a massive park that has an opera house, science museum, IMAX theatre and aquarium all housed in some of the most modern and progressive architecture I've seen (in person). We went to the aquarium first, saw a dolphin show, took some pictures. I've always loved aquariums. We then went to the Science Museum which was in a really cool building and had some less conventional exhibits. I thought it was pretty cool. I'd like to go back there and maybe spend some more time perhaps...

That took us through till the time we had to leave to catch our bus to Madrid. Easily the most comfortable 4 hours I've ever spent in a vehicle, not entirely sure why...

When we got to Madrid I navigated us through the metro and got us to the hostel. We checked in and while doing so were invited to join a pubcrawl. So we did. It was fun. We got early morning doners. Yum.

So, on Friday we took a trip to el Palacio Real, the Royal Palace. I was happy about this because it was one of the few places i didn't make it to on my last trip to Madrid. I got in trouble a couple of times for not reading signs. One of them was for going through a door that took me to the exact same place going through another door I was allowed to go through took me to. Dumb. Its a pretty cool palace, the decorations are rediculous. I also loved the armoury there. Medievil weapons are cool and I especially liked the old rifles and pistolas. The mechanisms are fascinating and the scale of some of the guns is pretty impressive too!

We then headed to el Retiro, A big park in Madrid's center. We hung out here for a while, some people caught up on sleep, Rachel and I chatted and I got a sandwhich. We then decided to visit La Reina Sofía Museum. I'd been there before but didn't mind because it's huge, has a load of temporary exhibits and I'm a big fan of the artists in the permanent collections. However, this did tire me out and I was in desperate need of food after.

We found some yummy tapas for dinner and then booked it to a place where some people wanted to watch flamenco dancing. I'd seen it twice before, both times for free, and didn't feel like paying 25EUR this time around. Instead, Bianca, Shannon and I went and got some beers and hung out in a park. When the Flamenco finished, we went to a churro place I'd been to last time I was in Madrid. We got 12 Churros and a litre of chocolate and were told that because it was para llevar (take out) only we weren't allowed to eat at any of their otherwise empty tables. So, we walked into the middle of a plaza 10m away and ate it there instead. The girls then found a store that was open late, did some shopping, and we headed back to the hostel.

We awoke early saturday to attempt to get to San Sebastian for some bull running. We ended up missing it but bought tickets for that nights bullfight. Upon realizing there was nothing worth seeing in San Sebastian, we headed back into central Madrid and ended up in Plaza Mayor. We checked out a cool market there, bought some beers and then headed to the park behind the royal palace for a good nap. I woke up to having been pooped on by a bird. On my wrist, the same place I had been pooped on some months prior in Marseille. Gah. And it got on my camera strap. After resting, we swung by the hostel and headed back to San Sebastian for the bullfight. It was interesting to see again as I'd forgotten all of the ritual and ceremony that is involved. I hadn't, however, forgotten the blood. That sort of thing tends to stay with you. Perhaps ironically, went for dinner afterwards and I got a beef burger. Yum.

Next morning we took a bus back to Valencia (so we could fly back to Madrid to fly back to Zurich - don't get me started). Rachel, Shannon and Steph had managed to get on an earlier bus so Bianca, Olivia and I met them at the Valencia bus station an hour later. Olivia and Bianca grabbed some lunch and we went to relax in Turia Park - used to be a river until it was diverted back in the '60s. Shannon and Olivia napped while Rachel, Bianca and I went for a walk and an ice cream. Saw some graffiti on an old building that we had seen an exhibit about in Madrid - was pretty stoked about that. Took a taxi to the airport and had a fairly uneventful flight home.

However, when we got the to the Zurich HBF there was some sort of Indian festival on (well, being taken down) and they were still serving curry! Had some dahl and some korma and a samosa. Had been missing the Indian food!

So yeah, a great trip overall! I look forward to my next trip to Spain!

New Bike

So, yesterday a bunch of us, tired of how long walking takes, went to Zurich to take advantage of the monthly bike sale. This sale is quite an impressive event with more or less an entire parking lot full of bikes of all sizes, colors, types, and prices (I saw as low as 70CHF and as high as 7900CHF!). Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are second hand and, as such, are often not in the greatest condition. Some people, Chan in particular, were lucky enough to find a great bike within their price range right away. Others - ok me - failed at finding what they wanted and ended up wandering around and vastly changing their priorities...

Basically, what I was going for when I got there was a bike that was big enough for me, had wheels, a seat, handlebars, functioning brakes and gears and, as a luxury, front suspension. Unfortunately I could only seem to find bikes that had just one of these qualities at a time.

Very long story short, in desperation I started looking into road bikes and eventually found this beauty (within my original budget!). Sure, the lowest gear consistently disengages and the back light is burned out and my balance is shit from riding mountain bikes all these years but overall its a fast bike, its red and its quickly winning me over! Here are some pics:



On another note, not everyone's luck continued. Within about 5 minutes of leaving the sale, Dave, doing bunny-hops, broke his back derailleur bracket right off. Now his bike is in Zurich, hopefully being repaired within the week. Funny thing is, he was all psyched about being charged 100CHF less than was on the price tag of his bike. Just goes to show that my theory is true: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DEAL IN SWITZERLAND!