Schluchsee Lauf : The race around Lake Schluch

This weekend I volunteered at the Aargauer Meisterschaft working at the Food stand, and learning just how many ways you can order food in swiss german, and how confusingly similar (or exactly the same) many of them are. Kalbs-bratwurst and Halbe bratwurst sound just about the same when a swiss person says it (one is with beef, the other means half of), and so on. Basically ever person chose to order a different way. I was also put in charge of making hotdogs because 'as an american, I was by birth a hotdog expert', which is, I guess, not the worst thing in the world.

But on to the schluchsee lauf. This was s run in the black forest in germany around the largest lake in that region. It was around 11.5 miles and was absolutely fantastic. A good amount of hills, trees, lakeside, and fans. I would do the run again tomorrow. Also the food was pretty good, and the scenery was of course fantastic.

Schluchsee Lauf : The race around Lake Schluch

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Zürich Marathon

So this sunday I ran my second marathon. Unfortunately my training was much much lighter this year, and the weather was a bit warm for me, so my time wasn't very good, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. The first 8km (5mi) of the course was through a tunnel (roundtrip), which while initially interesting, and undeniably swiss was certainly a far cry from the hills of Hopkinton. Additionally tunnels have very much their own climate and thus whilst it was still cold outside, the tunnel was very very warm, causing everyone to sweat profusely. I particularly noticed my heart rate being unusually high for the pace. After the tunnel the course went along Lake Zürich down to a small town called Meilen and then back to the city center. There were a number of bands and sources of entertainment along the way, and the support was excellent. Quite a bit sparser than boston, but probably a good thing so you weren't encouraged to overdrink or eat. Sadly no popsicles, wellselley girls, or beer, and a much smaller expo with no particulaly good deals besides finnish toe-socks.





And as always the free video of my finish (I get in the frame around second 24)

Prague

After erin had seen the gorgeous fiscal blackhole that is switzerland we traveled to Prague, to enjoy the legendary cheapness. We thus begun in an appropriate manner taking an overnight bus (cheaper than a train or plane). We soon learned that perhaps less toxic on the wallet, taking an overnight bus is not good for sleeping, being in a good mode, or even seeing much. After no less than 4 or 5 stops we arrived in a cold damp Prague at 5am. As I had told the hostel we would not arrive until around 8 we had 3 hours to kill. Using all of our muscles but the one that counts we ended up sitting/sleeping/dying on a bench in the main train station, after getting ripped by by over $6 on an already overpriced $3 pastry (czech crowns take some time to get used to). It was the least talkative I had seen erin in my life. Likely due to the fact that the intense negativity trapped inside her, could not be expressed with a classy vocabulary.

We arrived at the Lida Guest House met Jan and Jirka and immediately proceeded to go to our beds and pass out until past 11am. We then met with rebecca grabbed lunch at Josefina cafe and explored the area near our hostel and the lesser known castle in Prague. The weather was still a bit dismal, but pleasant enough. We also managed to see the Communism museum, which was interesting as my czech historical knowledge is non-existent, but could have done much better.

On saturday I woke up a bit early to do a morning run before beginning with the day. I ran south along the river, apparently pretty close to the actual marathon course. The views were nice, and I saw many of the lower price prague hostels (if being 8km from the city is still considered prague). Then rebecca and I headed out to see one of the several defenstrations sites where a wedding (?) was taking place, then to the park north of the city, where previously a stalin statue was placed, but it was rather quickly taken down after the velvet revolution. We then went through prague castle and the Charles bridge both fantastic sites that live up to the hype, but do not really bear repeating. Then, we stumbled upon the cheapest starbucks in europe. A fantastic suprise with a bagel and cream cheese for around $3.

We then ate at U Bubevincze (sp), a fantastic restaurant with wonderfully tasty dark beer, that reminded me a little bit of rootbeer (not in flavor as much as feel, aparently made with caramel). Our trip was topped off with a silent black light theater productions of alice from alice in wonderland growing up. None of us really could say that we understood the show with some of us having much stronger opinions on that topic than others. I would venture a guess that most audiences would probably be better off going to see an opera or a show at another theater. That being said, it was certainly very very different from anything I have seen before, so were that the only criterion, then it would be worth the visit. After asking my czech coworker about it, he said in his 6 years of living in prague he never once went, and was pretty sure czechs don't go, it is just something for tourists.

The last day we lounged around a bit in the morning and then went to the English bookstore (really nice, and had a great selection of cheap books) and to the easter markets and jewish quarter.

The train back was a bit of a mess since there was construction in Austria, so the normally direct night train was now a train, bus, and then another train. I walked into one of the first class compartments to find 3 quebeckers studying in lausanne and geneva speaking in french, and we all chatted for several hours until we arrived in Linz. Where despite incredible disorganization and confusion everyone seemed to manage to get on the correct train with a place to sleep. I was quite excited when I got on the train and into Austria since I could once again utilize my german and feel at least a little bit comfortable in the country. I found the Czech republic to be a little bit uncomfortable from my lack of language skills. When I can't read or even begin to communicate in the native tongue, I just don't feel quite right. I don't like being an ugly american tourist.

Prague Weekend

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Rome

This weekend, I went to rome utilizing the first actual night train of my life (high school doesn't count), I got a sleeper car and the top bunk. I was a bit terrified at the prospect of getting robbed or not sleeping or sleeping and falling out of my bunk and falling 7 feet or so. After two tylenol pm's my fears were settled and I slept soundly until Florence, where the first batch of riders got out. From that point on I was able to just enjoy the italian countryside until rome. To my suprise the trip came with a nice little breakfast of coffee and a muffin which made the trip a bit more pleasant.

After arriving in rome, I made my way over to the Santa Maria della Vittoria (sean's parish in Rome), a wonderfully beautiful church very close to the train station. I started heading towards my hotel looking for somewhere to eat by listening in to see how many foreigners were eating there until I heard none. There I was able to get a cappucino and delicious sandwich for 3.50eu, a steal for anyone who has ever resided in swiss.

Upon finding the hotel and meeting up with rebecca we were informed that the reservation I had made had been cancelled. The website Venere.com had cancelled it, but decided it was not worthwhile to inform me. According to my booking website, I am still staying there. Apparently it is not an entirely uncommon practice for hotels to get better offers and then give up your room, not cool. We were able to easily find another hotel, that was a bit more expensive but turned out to be quite nice

We then decided it would be best to try and get the Sunday mass tickets from the vatican which required waiting in numerous poorly labeled lines. We eventually got to the front and met the swiss guardmen (from St. Gallen) and were able to pick up the tickets. The group behind us had DRIVEN (with a car) from poland (~24 hours of driving), but had not reserved tickets so after waiting in the line for about an hour they were told tough luck.

The vatican day mass was beautiful with thousands or tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square enjoying it. Much of the ceremony was in italian, a language that despite my attempts over the last several days, I have been unable to master enough to comprehend what was going on. Apparently we even mad it onto swiss TV, twice; but til now I have been unable to find the clip.

We went out to several bars in rome, where I proceeded to do as I always do and horribly emasculate myself with Spritzes (white wine, aperol, spritzy stuff, delicious) and a number of milkshakish/pina colada combos, polished off with chasing rum with pear juice. I also managed to lose/misplace/have stolen 40eu, but my sugar high was too strong to truly miss it.

We ate at quite a few delicious restaurants, and saw many of the sights by wandering around on foot. The most notable to me at least was the little island in the river just south of the main city. Laying on it shores with an ice/cream/coffee beverage and just enjoying the sun without being hassled was delightful.

All in all a wonderful trip, I can't wait to get back, but there are many many places I need to see first.

Easter in Rome

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Vollmondwanderung (Full Moon Hike)

Tonight was the Full moon hike of the running group in Brugg. It was quite cold but luckily perfectly clear weather. The moon took awhile to come out, but we had brough plenty of lights so that was no problem. The hike lead up to Hapsburg with a couple of stops along the way for some swiss history learning. With fantastic tales about poisoning, and the like. Once we got to the top a big camp fire was waiting with plenty of cervelat (bratwurst), speckbrot (bacon bread, who thought that up), and gluhwein (hot spiced wine). Unfortunately we had to cook the cervelat ourselves over the fire using a wooden stick. I say unfortunately because everytime in my life I have tried to cook hotdogs on a stick, I have ended up with a black crusty shell, and a cold gross center. This time I was a bit luckier in getting a well cooked center, but the surface was definitely quite well burnt. With enough mustard any failures in cooking can, however, be corrected.
After eating and drinking we continued along our walk back to Hausen where we enjoyed a coffee and then took the bus back to Brugg. All in all a fantastic night with really friendly people. I also got a bit of education on the usage of the formal and informal 'you' in german. So in mountains or forests (while outdoors/adventuring), at certain restaurants, at certain festivals it is perfectly acceptable to speak with complete strangers using the informal. While not entirely that long ago people used to speak to their grandparents with the formal. I cannot even imagine.

Lenzerheide Redux

Today I went skiing at lenzerheide with a couple friends. We managed to catch the 630 train from zurich and were skiing by 930 or so. The weather was amazingly good as was the snow and temperature, consequently my face and especially my lips are throughly burned.
After the first run we managed to lose one of the guys who started with us. We had a series of (mis)communications, texts, and moving around before, evidently, he lost his phone and the lift-attendant found it. Needless to say we never saw him again, but did manage to get his phone.
We had lunch at the Alp Lavoz lodge and enjoyed the half-price food making it quite reasonable to eat but not drink on the mountain (Aelpermacaroni : macaroni with cheese, ham, potato, and apple sauce was only $8)
We set out in the afternoon and it was going well but the runs had become quite mogulled out. So we managed to ski from one side of the valley to the other using a nice ski-route going under the road. The other side was nearly empty and even more beautiful. The top gondola actually treks a little bit onto the other side of the mountain so you can see fantastic views of the alps without ski-lifts, tracks, and houses interrupting. There was also a 100m or so unlit tunnel you had to ski through which was really cool.
After skiing a few of us went to dinner at Papa Joe's. I ordered and split "The Big One" a 3/4 lb burger with coconut, bananas, cheedar cheese, and the usual fixings. One of the guys with us was from sweden and upon seeing it asked what size that would burger would be in america, a normal, a small? We do have a little bit of a bad rap with food.

All in all a fantastic day

Lenzerheide Skiing

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And the ski track
http://www.mountaindynamics.com/en/sdmap.php?tid=3173

Geneva Auto Show

Today I treked over to Geneva to see the Auto Show there. It was much much bigger than the portland autoshow, and tons of car companies I had never heard of before. Additionally they put almost all the non-car companies (oil, rims, tires, brakes, and other generally boring components) in one room so it could be avoided if one so wished.
One of the more surprising aspects was that many of the car companies hired students from the Geneva area to work the booths, which while good for the students wasn't so good for the car show goer as they didnt know much about the brand, the specs, or anything that couldn't be learned by reading a little pamphlet.
The most interesting exhibit I saw was the Tesla Motors display which fortunately was manned by actual employees who were quite knowledgable and clearly loved what they were doing and throughly believed they were going to change the world.
Seeing this company and speaking with them was really helpful in identifying one the elements that I think has caused so many american companies to be successful. The belief or in many cases the delusion that if one works hard enough they can change to world. I mean specifically with tech companies. The dream of Gates was to have a pc on every desk in the country which at the time was recklessly optimistic if not completely crazy. I am not sure, but I guess it seems that here people are much likely to opt for the well-thought out, predictable, safe business plan. In many cases I guess that is probably better, but not nearly as fun and very little chance of flipping the world on its head

Grimmialp Ski Touring Weekend

I signed up for a Skitour course as I had met a decent number of people who do it regularly and I knew nothing about the sport. The course was fantastic. Our guide had been a guide on an Antarctica expedition for the highest mountain there the week-before so by comparison ski touring here was rather simple. The people were great, the lodge was nice and comfortable (except for the beds), and the weather was fantastic. If only I weren't so burned.

Grimmialp Ski Touring Weekend

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