Eating and Rafting

this past week on wednesday we went out to zurich to this restaurant called The Blind Cow. it was really cool cause you ate in complete darkness, definitely an awesome experience and i think that everyone should do something like that sometime.

also went to the beer gardens here in baden for the first time this week, it's a cool place where basically drink beer outside, it's cool to see old people in suits and young people hanging out in the same place and having a good time.

last weekend i went to interlaken with a bunch of people from iaeste which is the organization that kind of puts together these internships, so met a few people from around the world which was good. went rafting in this river close to interlaken, in a valley beneath the eiger and such. the rafting itself was pretty fun, definitely gonna do some more when i get home. one time i fell out cause the guides smashed the rafts together on purpose which was great, i kinda wish i could do that, just travel around the world and be a guide for outdoor stuff. the river ended in the lake of brienz, which was actually warm enough to swim in. pretty much just wandered around interlaken that night, found a playground, it was good. saw a guy wearing a CFL t-shirt which i thought was hilarious.

the next day we took a hike up this mountain a little ways away from spiez, where there is a canadian bar, where i think i will return one day. the hike was good, a few sections with some fixed ropes, probably more for safety than for necessity but still good. got up to the top there and had a good view of the valleys and mountains and lakes. hiking so far in these mountains reminds me a lot of home, and what it's like to trek around those. in particular, the town of interlaken reminds me a lot of banff and how touristy it is. after the hike we went down to the lake of thun in which i swam, then proceeded to lay in the sun for awhile before going home, after 7 pm of course so i can ride the trains for free.

first hike

went hiking over the weekend, in the berner oberland about 1.5-2 hours away from here - that's where the eiger etc. is. started in kandersteg, climbed up over gemmipass and stayed at a mountain hut on the top there. it was a solid hike, about 1000 m or so elevation gain in maybe 10 k or so? the mountain hut was really good actually, more like a good hostel. lucky that the weather stayed nice until we got there, about an hour later the snow just came down. the hike there was really nice, passed through some alpine meadows and old glacier paths, a couple of lakes as well. the next morning we walked down the opposite side of the pass down into a small village called leukerbad, which is in the canton valais, the valley on the other side of these mountains. so i guess i crossed the alps on foot. the way down was quite steep, passed by some sheep that were apparently also crossing these mountains presumably in search of greener pastures.

since i have the train pass that lets me go on trains after 7 pm for free, i waited around from noon in this small town leuk. where i slept in a park like a vagrant. and then went to another town brig for a bit before taking the train home. it was quite a tiring weekend, but tremendously fun as well.

last two weekends- one close to home, one on the beach

can't believe that it's been ten days since i last put something up, this is gonna be a bit long i think.

last weekend we had a get-together on friday night, it was nice to have all the interns for this year in one place at one time. saturday was probably one of the strangest days of my life, it started with going to the europride parade in zurich in the afternoon, you know, just your typical saturday in zurich, complete with floats blasting music and all that. walked around zurich a bit as well, there's a lot of cool stuff in the city that's literally 15 minutes away but i haven't really explored yet. had some chocolate, it rained, but it was the nice warm rain that they have here, so i got soaked by the time i got home but it was great. that night, we continued back to zurich to find this particular dance club which in itself was a ridiculous process, ran for the train in baden, loitered in the train station in zurich, took the wrong train to wherever we were going. when we finally made it there, we promptly got "depeche mode-d"...so weird, everyone dressed in black, listening to some pretty depressing music, candles everywhere - so we took over the dance floor, just a really really strange situation. the way home was equivalently eventful, working out at the train station, on the train, took the train a few times before finally managing to get home. words don't do it justice right now, you'll just have to believe that it was one of the weirdest nights of my life. sunday was a schwimmbad day again, soccer, swimming, waterslide, volleyball, laying in the sun - just good times in general.

so thursday last week was a holiday from work, so of course i took wednesday and friday off and headed off to sardinia, an italian island in the mediterranean. the airport that has most of the cheap flights actually flies out of basel, which is about an hour train from here, meaning that somehow i woke up at 5 in the morning on wednesday. when we got to cagliari, we picked up the car rental that luke had set up, it was a very compact little fiat 500, but actually pretty spacious enough for 4 people and their stuff. every day that we were in sardinia it was at least +30 out and incredibly sunny - stores aren't open in the afternoon because people are taking a nap. the first thing to do was to get food and sunscreen, and get out of the city of cagliari where the airport was. found a grocery store and a park, enjoyed some bread and cheese and tomatoes, which is essentially the same meal that i would go on to have over the next few days as well, but delicious nonetheless. also, somewhat enjoyed the 90 eurocent carbonated one litre of wine that was in the grocery store as well - but not really because it was terrible. driving through the countryside, we made it to alghero on the west coast of the island where we were staying that night, but on the way hitting a couple beaches, just generally relaxing as much as possible. the drive there along the coast was incredible, just some beautiful scenery and also going through some of the small towns was neat as well.

the next day we spent the morning on a beach in alghero, pretty busy but we got there early and it was still very nice, there's not too much to complain about when there's sun, surf and sand aplenty. we then proceeded to make our way over the to east coast of the island, towards olbia, and to a small town where our hostel was on top of a hill, overlooking the beach and the sea. took awhile to find, so we just hung out on the beach again awhile - this one was particularly nice, white sand and blue water. spent the night watching the sun go down over the mountains next to the beach below, while listening to some of the great tunes of the 90s. the next morning we drove down the coast to a small coast town, cala gonone, probably one of the most beautiful places i have ever been to. we went snorkelling in a sea cave, but the boat ride out to the cave was worth the money in itself. no pictures to show it, but the cliffs on the sea were just incredible, the colour of the water was like nothing i've ever seen, the sun was shining, the sea was warm. the snorkelling itself was good, actually the first time i'd ever done it, caught on in 15 minutes or so, as soon as i stopped breathing out through my nose, just a habit that i had from swimming. there were lots of fish, starfish, anemones, cool stalactites and just in general a really awesome experience. the guides were really casual, basically ended up ditching the snorkelling gear after awhile and just jumping off the boat and swimming and laying in the sun. i love the smell of salt in the air, especially when you're on a small boat flying through the water. i'm pretty sure i'm going to try to get in to scuba diving now, another terribly expensive hobby i guess, but it would be a really cool thing to get started in i think. after the snorkelling, it was time for gelato, and an espresso for me as well. i love the coffee and the ice cream especially when it's +30 out. the roads in sardinia are all on the sides of mountains somehow, and would be a fun drive at some point in time. what i was really amazed by is how diverse the land is for being just an island - it looks like there are beaches, cliffs, mountains, forests, deserts, grassland - just incredible. the rest of the day, like most of the trip, was beach time, with pizza and beer for dinner. the sardinian beer was actually pretty good, but i'm pretty sure that it'll be impossible to ever find it again. last day, the main goal was to get back to the airport in cagliari in the south, but at the same time hitting every beach on the east coast on the way down. at one beach there was an ice cream truck, but in this case selling homemade gelato instead - definitely the best ice cream i've ever gotten out of a truck. getting back to cagliari, it was a bit of a mess trying to find the airport and to return the car again, but things worked out in the end. the flight back to basel was at 6:30 in the morning, so we decided to sleep at/around the airport to save the money on a hostel, which actually was a great decision. loitered around outside on the grass until about midnight, when it was still very warm, and then i basically slept on the floor of the airport which was perfectly comfortable as well. got home this morning, went home and had a shower to wash off all the sunscreen and salt everywhere, and then promptly went down to the river in baden to go lay in the sun and swim again. now, i am fairly tired, but i don't need to complain that i have relaxed too much in the past week.

zurich vitaparkour

there's this wicked running/exercise trail here in baden, and i ran it for the first time today, and it's awesome. turns out that it's literally a minute up the street behind my house, and it's like a 30 minute run with a bunch of exercise stations on the way: rings, pull up bars, stretching, step-ups, etc. thought i'd just share that bright point in my day.

i drank 2 1.5 L water bottles at work today, that kept me busy for awhile.

this weekend i'm not planning to go anywhere special, just into zurich to explore the city, and go swimming on sunday probably. the weather is still really nice here, sunny but not overwhelmingly hot, it's pretty close to perfect.

wine in france

after another week of work, so it is called anyway, i took a trip by train to the towns of strasbourg and colmar in the alsace region of france. by train, it took about 2 and a half hours or so to get to strasbourg, but it really was an enjoyable train ride there and back, it would be shorter if we had taken the TGV, train a grande vitesse, the very fast train. leaving on saturday morning and coming back in the early evening on monday, it was just beautiful weather, and the only time that it was overcast we were inside.

from the strasbourg train station, which itself was very cool, a giant glass and steel dome that was built to cover the outside of the existing old train station, went and dropped off stuff at the hostel, and went to go wander around the town. basically there is a giant island surrounded by a canal type thing, lots of old buildings, shops, restaurants, cobblestone streets, museums, churches and more all on it. the big notre dame cathedral is the main thing that people go to see i guess, the outside was certainly impressive, the "astronomical" clock inside was neat as well, climbed the stairs to the top, looked around and such. after the cathedral was some french coffee, and stumbled into this super cool store with awesome clothes and stuff, wish i had more money to have had bought some. there's this one cake/bread thing that they have in alsace, it's something like kugelhof, like a big upside down muffin with raisins and almonds and a big hole in it, but it was definitely tasty. it was really fun just wandering the streets and seeing what there is to see. there are canals and bridges all over the place, with lots of flowers everywhere too, it was a pretty town for sure...lots of tourists though, it was nice in the morning and at night when it quieted down some. stumbled upon a fete de jeux, aka game party, a bunch of games set up for kids to play in a courtyard, but definitely just took that over, there were some sweet games, in french of course but here is where the little bit of french language skills came in handy. i'm glad that i learned some french in school, and also that i remember quite a bit of it as well, it's a beautiful language and i'm going to try to learn more while i'm here...it sounds much better than german...

in one of the canals there were these people playing something like a cross between kayaking and water polo, it was cool really, basically water polo with kayaks and nets suspended several meters in the air, pretty ridiculous at first but then i kinda wanted to play. dinner was good, ate at table on the street, like everyone else does, except for nobody eats at 6, it's just way to early to start the night then, it's more like an apertif at 6, dinner at 8 or 9, then stay out all night - such is the life that i'd like to lead. alsace is supposedly known for it's white wine, riesling, pinot gris, some special ones like muscat as well, had some with dinner, it was very good.

the next morning we headed out to the modern art museum in strasbourg, which i was very pleasantly surprised with how it was. there was at first this really creepy "silences" exhibit with basically just really creepy and messed up stuff, but nonetheless interesting. next was this colours exhibit which was nice because it kinda gave a scientific explanation of colours and such, and then went through how they're interpreted and all that sort of thing, very cool actually. the contemporary art part of the museum i thought was great, although clearly i would say that a lot of "contemporary" art is funny because it's just straight up ridiculous, but there definitely is some really neat stuff that people do. the highlight of the museum for me was the statue of "the thinker", basically the really famous statue of the guy with his chin on his hand and sitting down and thinking, it' on the television and in popular culture and all that. also, this one artist gustave dore, who i had not heard about before, had a bunch of his paintings up in an exhibit, there was one that must have been at least 50x50 feet, just incredible how much detail was in it, just incredible. the rest of his paintings were also very nice. besides all of these exhibits, they had their permanent collection, you know, no big deal, just some picasso thrown in here and there. i'm really glad i went to this museum, until now i haven't seen anything like that before, and i'm looking forward to checking out some of the other great art museums in europe.

in the afternoon we took a short train to the town of colmar, about 50 minutes or so away from strasbourg. i really enjoyed this place, it was a sunday so most of the shops were closed but i really liked the small town atmosphere, it was quiet and it was cool to see some french people go about their everyday business. i love the old squares and the fountains and the people riding around on their scooters and motorcycles and bikes. wandered around a bit, found a beautiful rose garden, listened to some jazz on the street, and had supper, a tarte flambee - basically a really thin piece of dough with creme fraiche cheese and bacon on it, and of course the alsace wine again. also, went on the carousel that was there, made me feel like a child again.

train back to strasbourg, had a good sleep, went out in the morning to get some peaches, chocolate croissants, and coffee, one of the best breakfasts i've had in a while, i wish that cafes at home would have take out coffee as good as that. a little ways away from the train station there was the university campus, which itself was a very old and beautiful building, it's hard to believe that anybody actually goes to school there...i would love to do a semester abroad, anywhere besides calgary now, i think it'd be an amazing experience, it's definitely something i'll think about when i get back. behind some of the university buildings there was this big botanical garden, with just a ton of awesome stuff. a pond with lily pads and flowers, frogs, turtles, baby birds, olive trees, grapevines, bamboo, and definitely some canadian content with douglas firs and trees like that.

after a lot of walking the past few days, we just took the train back to basel, decided to walk around for a bit, went down to the rhine, a pretty big river in europe i guess, but after that i was pretty much done with walking and went home.

in other news, work and everyday life is good, i don't do too much at work, a lot of reading the globe and mail online, drink some terrible coffee from the machine, play with some excel worksheets once in awhile, go on wikipedia, it's all good stuff. but my boss is really cool, and such a good guy, i'm pretty happy with the whole situation really.