Cold Whooping Swiss

On New Year's Eve Day we went to Lucerne and it turned out to be one of our favorite cities. We took a short tour of the glacier garden. It was interesting, but not terribly well curated which is strange because it has been a museum for over 100 years.


We lunched on the banks of Lake Lucerne on food we had pilfered from breakfast. Especially creative, Jason made dessert of open-faced Nutella and banana on challah sandwiches.

We walked over the Kapellbrucke a 14th century wooden bridge and saw crazy swiss people jumping into frigid water austensibly to celebrate the new year. They were whooping and sharing champagne. We weren't sure if they were whooping in celebration or chill.


The city is ringed by a medieval wall with sporatic watchtowers. We walked along the wall, but the towers were closed for the winter. High on the top of the hill there was an amazing view of the city. I can't figure out how to post video so when we film one I'm going to upload it to YouTube.


Most of the stores were closed for New Year's Eve, but the window shopping was still good. People in Switzerland must have a lot of liquid capitol. There are more collectibles stores there than anywhere else that we've been. There were philatelist's shops, numismatist's shops (yeah, just wanted to use those words), art galleries, shops that sold music boxes, musical instruments, doll house furniture, antique maps...

I feel sorry for the bears

Berne is a lovely city, but whats up with the fat caged bears? It made me kind of sad to see the bears sitting in their little habitats catching carrots in thier mouths. I didn't want to take a picture because somehow that was, in itself, supporting this sad spectacle.

Mostly we walked around the city and along the river. We tried to see Einstein's House, but it was closed for the winter. For lunch we had the most expensive street tacos in the universe. I think three tacos were something like $10 or $12. Perhaps we hadn't dressed warmly enough, but by the midafternoon we were freezing, literally. I don't think either of us could feel our toes. At one point we stood in the foyer of a modern art exhibit just so we could defrost our feet on the baseboard heater.

On the train ride home, while reading all the tourist flyers, I realized we had missed what could have been the highlight of our trip. The Paul Klee Museum. Live and learn.

Zurich

We got to Zurich between noon and one, found our hotel and discovered the city. On the train to St. Anton we met a couple, Jeff and Claire, from Houston who lived in Zurich. They had just returned from skiing and gave us a bunch of great recommendations of places to eat and things to do. For dinner we found the brat stand they recommended across from the Bellevue tram station and it was awesome as advertised.

Jason was nervous the entire afternoon until we figured out the exchange rate. The dollar is very close to the Swiss frank, but things are insanely expensive. A soda is SFr 5. It seems as though there are sex shops everywhere. Maybe its just where Jason and I happen to hang out, but the posters are nasty and plentiful.


On top of the city, at Lindenhof on a site that used to be a Roman fort, are a bunch of chess boards and old guys playing chess.




a little Calatrava train station

The wonder of a good bubblebath....

our hotel with the mountains in the background.



Jason skied in the morning and in the afternoon we walked and took pictures. As I mentioned before there isn’t much snow. I can imagine how beautiful this place is when it is covered in a thick blanket of white. It would also be incredible in the summer. I think we will take a spring trip to the lake region. We’ll be able to see the Alps in green and the lakes on our way to Italy.

Shaken but not stirred

Jason and I went skiing in the morning to ascertain whether or not it would be prudent for me to get a lesson or if I was truly not as bad as I thought, and later turned out to be. I haven’t skied, I think, since my mother and I went to Whistler for a day in high school. Jason skied 5 years ago. Granted, it was in the Poconos, but he skied nonetheless. Due to an unusally mild winter here the slopes are icy and new snow is being made all the time. This snow is wet, compact, and it sticks to your glasses as you ski by.

There are three levels of sane skiing here and two levels of insane skiing. Blue is beginner, red is intermediate and black is black-diamond. These are ski runs. There are also ski routes, red-diamond and red-diamond with a black outline marked by a dotted rather than solid line. These trails are neither patrolled nor avalanche proof. There are also Alpine routes marked by a dashed dotted line on the map. They require an authorized guide. I believe there are also three helicopter drop places. Beginner doesn't necessarily mean easy. Nevertheless, lines of little kids in jumpers and vests slalom down the slope making long helmeted snakes, jumping over moguls and crashing into eachother. No fear.

The first time down the hill was fine. One section (blue run 4) was scary, because it was narrow, steep, and icy, but there were only a few people on it. The second time, people were perched at the top, afraid to go down. It was peppered with beginners who were sliding down sideways taking all the top man-made snow with them and leaving even more ice for those hesitating at the top. I am afraid of ice, but I am more afraid of people who stop for no reason right in front of me. I am no Pekabo and I can neither turn nor stop on a dime. But Jason, who (have I mentioned) is awesome, was waiting for me at the bottom of the narrow death trap so I tried actually skiing on my skis, instead of my butt, down the hill. That was my first mistake.

About half way down I hesitated (second mistake), slipped and fell- tips uphill ass downhill- and proceeded to slide. I threw out my hands like grappling hooks in an attempt to slow or even stop. Icy snow came away like nothing and I continued to slide over the edge, head first, into a snowy 15 foot ravine. Parts of the rocky side peeked out and in a moment of clarity I thrust my arm out in front of me figuring a broken arm would be far better than a broken head. Luckily, I hit neither arm nor head and came to a stop at the bottom. I had left only my pride and one pole on the hill above. A woman who had seen me fall brought my pole to Jason as she skied past. Shaken, but not stirred, I walked back to the run and we skied down the mountain. At the bottom we signed up for an afternoon lesson.

St. Anton

The village is concurrently quaint and kind of macho. The excitement of sweat and athleticism pervades the air as bands of fleece-clad people swagger past still in their boots carrying their skis or boards. Not only the ski instructors, but also all kinds of other people wear uniform-like outfits of bright colors and stripes that make them look fast even in clunky ski boots. Of course, I just looked out the window and a guy clicked by in a Packers jersey and yesterday there was a group of skiers in cow costumes. But, when we checked in Brigitte Falch, the owner of the hotel, was suggesting restaurants to us and, in response to my comment that we weren’t dressed for a fancy dinner, said that we were in a ‘sport resort’ and that it was generally come-as-you-are. Sport resort is a phase that captures the feeling of the place. Everyone is here to do something. It feels the way I might expect an Olympic village to feel only muted- and I don’t think there are little kids with tiny little skis and bright yellow vests making their serpentine way down those slopes
.
The hotel is gorgeous. It is all wood and glass and clean rectilinear surfaces with sliding walls and sliding glass doors and deep white bathtubs that slope on both sides and fill in the middle. The ceiling in the lobby is plywood and our beds are modern planes of goose-filled cream puffs. After all the problems and wasted money and self-deprecation about this trip, this particular waste of money was well worth it.

Nosebleed seats..still a good deal

The Opera House was premiering a ballet that night so we decided to go and check out the nosebleed seats. Not a bad view and we learned a new trick. I took the aisle space. I could sit down, as long as my feet weren't on the stairs, and watch down the aisle.

After the show we had Sacher Torte at the Sacher Hotel. Where else?