When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

Eric posted about our trip to Lugano this past weekend, I think.  I LOVED Lugano - it’s Italy, but in Switzerland (the Italian border is on the other side of the lake from the town, it’s very close to Lake Como), and if you know me you know my feelings about Italian food and culture in general.  Gelato is definitely going to be in heaven, in my book.

Our day hiking in the sunshine on Friday was wonderful, especially in contrast to all the nasty weather we’d been having in Luzern, but my favorite was Friday evening, which officially was the best date night EVER.  I challenge any husband/boyfriend out there to top it for your lady, because it included:

1.  Risotto with fresh porcini mushrooms, with molten chocolate cake for dessert, outside on a beautiful piazza at dusk in perfect weather.

2.  A dancing brass band.

3.  A walk next to a lake in the Alps at sunset.

4.  A live jazz band.

5.  Giant boardgames.

6.  A live symphony orchestra.

7.  Everybody around us speaking Italian and making animated hand motions to go with their conversation, which is always really fun to be around and guess what they’re saying so passionately.

So Eric, well done sweet husband, I’m sure you personally arranged for there to be a music festival the night we were there... 

Lugano

So last weekend Melissa and I headed south to the Italian region of Switzerland, Ticino.  We pretty much hadn't seen the sun in Lucerne for two weeks (kind of like Seattle) and we'd heard rumors of cloudless skies to the south.  Melissa will post more details on the awesome evening we had the day we got there, but here are some pictures of the trip.  I should note that the city we went to is called Lugano.

See, good weather!  And of course, if you go to an Italian area, you must get gelato.

Here's some scenery and pictures from around the town

The cafe is fairly old and very delicious.  We just had to eat there.  And the frescos (paintings) are 'only' 400 years old.  Surprisingly, the church in which the paintings were located was literally empty.  It was hard to believe that people just don't care about these treasures.

Some Pictures

We've been inundated with requests to share more pictures.  I (Eric) am a populist blogger, I only want what the masses want.  So, here's some pictures from our trip to Lausanne and some pictures of our trip with the Swiss on the Surf excursion.

Lausanne Pictures

Surf Excursion Pictures


Have fun!

Bunch of Mountain Goats

Faithful blog readers...

Two weekends ago, Melissa and I were able to go on an 'excursion' with her work group, Surface Research.  So, for shorthand, the Swiss called it the 'Surf Excursion'.  I'm sure you can guess as some of the images that came to mind as we tried to figure out how we were going to surf in this country.

An excursion basically consists of the following: the group goes to some region in Switzerland.  They hike around some, get an expert to explain something scientific about that region, then they hike around some more the next day.

We went to the Wallis/Valais(German name vs. the French name) region of the country where they are famous for two things: speaking French and making wine.  While there, we learned about 'debris flows' (sort of a mixture between floods and rock slides) from an American (thus, spoke English and I understood what he said) geologist working in Switzerland.

And here we are walking through the channel that debris flows are funneled through. 

But hey, it's not like we were in any danger or anything.  Rocks weren't going to suddenly start flowing down.

We really were ok.  It hadn't rained in a while and rain is what triggers the flows.

We then hiked around some more and explored the geology.

 If you ever get the opportunity to go on an excursion with the Swiss that you definitely should.  However, please be warned that they are like a bunch of mountain goats.  There is a reason they get a reputation for being a hardy folk.  There was a woman there probably 7 months pregnant with all of her clothes, food and other gear on her back, hiking circles around Melissa and me.  I've never felt so inadequate in my life.  It was both awesome and embarrassing.

We then were shown an underground lake by a Swiss geologist that spoke French (thus, I had no clue what he was saying the whole time). 

The next day saw us hiking in the mountains around the town of Sion.  While up there, we saw one of the most unique things I've ever heard of - cow fights! 

So, what they do is stick a bunch of bulls into a fenced-in area and let them get all of the testosterone-filled aggression out of their systems by fighting it out.  Whichever one comes out as the alpha cow gets to lead the herd up to higher pastures.  It's kind of a big deal in this area.  We actually saw posters advertising the next cow-fight day.  (If the Swiss have rednecks, I'd say this is a redneck thing to do.  I saw many empty bottles of beer lying around the outside of the fence.)  Don't worry, animal lovers, the cows don't hurt each other - they just push against each other's heads until one of them yields his ground.

And of course, during the hike, we get the obligatory gorgeous scenery, which I must put on this blog to make all of you uber-jealous :)

Next blog post: Heading to Italy (sort of)

Culture Shock

Hello all, Melissa here.  Eric wanted me to write this one.

According to reputable sources*, there are several stages involved in culture shock.  Culture shock is what nearly everybody goes through when they move into an unfamiliar culture.  This may sound obvious, especially when the new culture is radically different.  Eric and I have found, however, that it also happens in a place like Switzerland.

The first stage is the Honeymoon.  This is what you (hopefully) never come out of on a short-term trip - you are amazed by the awesomeness of the new place.  In our case, awesomeness = incredible vistas, chocolate, and cheese, and the very friendly and polite Swiss people (and sheep).  Many blog posts have already been entered from this phase.

If your visit is longer-term, you will probably reach the second Hostile stage, which I did about a week and half ago.  I’m probably going to spend more time talking about this than the others because you’ve already read a lot of blog posts that are from the happy phases. 

The first straw** was the ridiculous laundry sign-up system in our building, which is DUMB but if you don’t follow it exactly people will GLARE AT YOU with SWISS HOSTILITY which is more intimidating than it sounds.  That culture of politeness goes along with a culture of lots of rules, and if you don’t follow the rules, WOE IS YOU.  Or however you say that in the second person.

Laundry sign-up list - when signed up, you monopolize 2 machines, 2 driers, and 2 clothesline rooms.  Can you see how long people have signed up to do this?  This is for the entire 4-story apartment building.  It does not make sense, and if you miss the list at midnight on Sunday night and it fills up, too bad for you.  AND if you use a machine while no one is using it, and you are not signed up, WOE IS YOU.

The second straw was a trip to the grocery store in which we realized that everything that is not cheese or chocolate (or beer/wine) is ridiculously expensive, e.g., $7 for one chicken breast.  Do they feed the chickens cheese and chocolate?  I paid $10 for a pretzel the other day and $5 for a small Coke.  I mean, no pretzel is that good, plus you get hungry like a half hour later if you try to make a pretzel your dinner, and then you have to buy gelato to make up for it (too bad), and then you’ve spent another $7 and there goes the point of eating the pretzel in the first place, which was that it was the only thing under $25 on the menu. 

The third straw was the weather.  It turns out that summer is the rainy season in Switzerland.  Keep this in mind if you ever plan a trip here - it rains about 5 out of every 6 or 7 days in our experience so far.  On rainy days, you can’t see Alps or anything else, and I still have to bike to work.

The last straw was a work day during which people constantly switched mid-conversation to German, and I could not understand anything being said around me.  It was the same day that I realized that along with the Swiss culture of being very pleasant, social, and polite comes a culture of being easily offended when foreigners don’t know the correct etiquette rules - apparently Americans are considered rude and too direct, and that's a bias that is terribly frustrating to deal with. 

So Hostile Stage was officially on, and I wanted to go home to Blacksburg where yummy farm-fresh food is available for non-millions of dollars and I have friends that speak my language and laundry systems are rational.

What I learned, though, is that this is a phase and it does pass.  A few days later, with lots of prayer and chocolate and support from sweet hubbie, I was fine again (and so was Eric, who was going through this in parallel).  We have figured out how to eat and function in a reasonable way (bratwursts here are cheap and delicious, for one thing), and Eric has mastered the laundry system, and the scenery really is breathtaking when the sun decides to come out.  The Alps are still gorgeous and the chocolate is still delicious, and there are still coffee breaks every couple of hours at my job, which is awesome.

I think the official name for the final, happy phase is “Home,” although there are other names depending on what source you use.  I don’t want to live here permanently, but I am really happy to be here, trying to get to know the great people that I work with.  It’s an incredible opportunity to experience life in another country, especially one this beautiful. 

 Happy in Switzerland!

* Wikipedia, which has been  found to be as accurate as research journals, albeit grammatically impaired, so don’t be snooty about it :)  Other source was Caroline Crouch, who knows everything.

** Does anybody know why the expression for degrees of stress involves straws? I have nothing against straws usually.

Lake Geneva

So last weekend, we decided to head west over to Lake Geneva. We decided this for two reasons: 1. We just wanted to see Lausanne and see large lake (24 miles long). 2. In our guide book, the sights in to see are all rated with triangles, 3 triangles means “YOU MUST SEE THIS!!!”, 2 triangles means “You must see this! (assuming you have sufficient means and time)”, 1 triangle means “meh”, and no triangles means “Who, in their right mind, would ever go to see such a thing?!”. The Chateau de Chillon (an old castle) was the only 3 triangle thing in the whole country that we had yet to see.

So here’s the castle. The view’s ok.

Apparently, it’s really old. The Dukes of Savoy built the Chateau in the 1200s. It’s still in good shape because it only went through one battle. That occurred in the 1500s when the Bernese (the rulers of Bern) basically snuck up on the castle in the night. In the morning, they started the attack, and by the end of the nextday, the Chateau had changed possession.

Here’ some pictures from inside the castle. See, it’s really tall!

Also, you can tell they were rich just by the opulence of the king’s room (sarcasm). Note that his bed is only five-and-a-half feet long. That imagery reminds me of Shrek – small king, big castle. Movie quote: “Do you think he’s compensating for something?”

Here’s a picture from the top of the keep (the tallest tower). Let me reiterate, I (Eric) have a slight case of acrophobia, at the time of taking this picture, I was just hoping that the tower didn’t suddenly fall over because of a strong wing :)

We then went into the city of Lausanne. The town is old. Thus, it has the requisite old church, and the same fancy shops that we saw in Bern. The most unique thing about this town, however, was that they LOVE Freddy Mercury! For those of you that neither grew up in the 70’s, nor love Queen (the band), Freddy Mercury is the lead sing of the band Queen. He opened a recording studio in the area, so they built a statue of him.

Ok, so the statue isn’t in Lausanne, it’s in the next town over. But the statue was the thing I was least expecting to see.

To conclude the day, we bought some of the best sandwiches either of us have ever had and sat in a park on the lake. See, here we are in the park with sandwiches.

And here’s the lake.

It was a pretty cool trip overall.  The lake is large, and that was neat.

Next Post: The stages of culture shock!!!

Melissa's Parents Come to Town

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to host Melissa's parents for a few days.  While they were here, we visited a few of the local sights we had been meaning to see and we even got to go to Bern (the capital).

In Lucerne, there aren't many famous sights, but one of the few is the Lion Monument.

The monument honors the Swiss mercenaries that died defending the French king during the French revolution.  The Latin inscription above reads "To the bravery and loyalty of the Swiss".  It is kind of sad, but mostly, it was much bigger than I thought it would be.  We also saw the town's Jesuit Church that's 'only' 350 years old.  Given the fairly young age, I was surprised at how cool it turned out to be.  The picture below is of the church's ceiling.

The next day we went to Bern.  Bern is known for a few things:
1. They like their bears.  Yes, I said 'bears'.  The animal was adopted as the towns logo/mascot a long time ago, so the image of a bear appears on flags, monuments, whatever.  The town has even gone so far as to keep a couple of bears in captivity at all times.  (While we were there, the bears even had cubs!)
2.  Einstein did all of his best work while working at the patent offfice in Bern.
3.  Having lots of money.

I have evidence of all three below.  The first picture is outside the Einstein museum. 

The museum was actually kind of a let down for us two engineering geeks.  A lot of the displays dealt with what life was like for Jews in southern Germany when Einstein was born or all of the cool modern inventions that made Swiss life easier in the early 1900's.  The museum was cool in that it did have some of his writings.  the most impressive to me was his letter to President Roosevelt urging more research to be put into the development of the atomic bomb!

Granted, Einstein believed that the Germans were close to getting their own version of the bomb, but it's still strange to think him as a catalyst for nukes.

As I said, the Bernese like their bears.  Well, here they are:

And finally, as I said, the people of the town have some cash to burn (pun intended), and given that the Swiss like their watches, why not drop a few bucks on a nice watch?

Finally, I leave this post with a fun and quirky picture of me playing Melissa's mom in a game of giant chess.  I won't say who won, but I will say that Melissa's mom needed to ask "How does this piece move?" :)