Lenzerheide aka why haven't i done this before?

Went skiing in Lenzerheide this weekend, and stayed in a chalet arranged by T. The chalet was great--nice view, great location, fireplace! Met lots of nice mostly-Americans and Canadians, sledded, hiked, and did a little bit of skiing. But I wondered, why haven't I done this before?

Ghost walking thru Zürich

So what does a Halloween baby do on her birthday in Züri?

She gets all her friends to come with her on the Ghost Walk of Zürich!

It wasn't quite as spine-tingling as the tour I took in Plymouth, Mass., but it was really hilarious!

Tour guide Whitter

Had a nice visit of my sister A and her friend B. They were in Züri for a couple of days and then we flew to Greece.

I would have to say one of the highlights was our day in Appenzellerland. We'd taken the train from Züri to Appenzell, where we had to get around by PubliCar, a kind of taxi service run by the PostBus service (there are, by the way, two 16-seat vans to service the whole area) since there is no bus connection from Appenzell town to the Appenzeller Schaukäserei, the cheese dairy where they make the famously tasty Appenzeller cheese. I can only recommend a PubliCar ride through the winding roads and hills of Appenzell--it's so green and beautiful!

Of course, Greece was great, but too short. The photos speak fro themselves.

Music, religious experiences, and wine near Heidi's valley

My friend D's boyfriend M comes from a small village in the canton of Graubünden, just a couple of villages away from where Heidi comes from. It's wine country there--his mother owns vineyards, and his brother is a vintner/winemaker. So, I was invited to the annual Malans Weinfest.

As we got there, the Salsizartchestra (a play on words--Salsiz is a salami-like sausage from the area, and the band played Latin/Salsa music) was in full swing. After checking them out along with a couple glasses of Malan's best, we went over to the bar that M's gymnastics club had organized. We stood around and D. explained to me all the local gossip (Malans is small enough that I knew it all after about a half an hour). But after a couple of glasses of wine, we were ready to sleep in M's mother's house.

In the morning, I met M's mother, who, in addition to owning vineyards, is a music therapist. She showed us her gardens, vineyards, and fruit trees (it reminded me of the tours my own mother gives me of her gardens). Afterwards, she showed us all her musical instruments she uses for therapy. She'd built a monotone herself--it's a wooden box with a couple dozen strings on one side, all tuned to the same pitch, producing overtones when played--it's very soothing. Since she'd been to Tibet, she had Tibetan gongs of several sizes so we all sat around and played these gongs.

Afterwards, we went to the official wine tasting. They were all very nice--it was difficult not to drink too much--although I like the white wines from that area much better.

Well, if you're ever in Heidi's neighborhood in September, I would definitely stop by....

Limmatschwimmen finally!!!

After a long wait, I finally got to do the Limmat Swim! K, KC, B, and I all got to swim about 1,333 meters in the Limmat, right through the middle of the city. It took us about 40 minutes. Fortunately, Ciccio made some photos for us.

Beatenberg--where the sun always shines

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Originally uploaded by wahartung

So my friend E was telling me about her trip to Beatenberg, which is somewhere on the Lake Thun near Interlaken. She said, it's always sunny and above the fog and there are some great views of the Jungfrau, Eiger, and Mönch. So we, (KK, a Singaporean guy from work, KC, an American who's visiting work for a month, and I) decided to go Sunday for the day.

Well, E was half right. Although the weather was gorgeous as we reached Beatenberg, but as we took the funicular up to the highest point, Niederhorn, huge clouds began to roll through the area. We sat for a while, hoping it would blow over, but although it cleared up slightly at the Niederhorn, there were too many clouds over on the Jungfrau side to see the mountains.

Still, this did not spoil the fun. We impatiently watched a paraglider wait ages for the right "thermal" and finally throw himself off the mountain, and we had a nice walk down to Vorsass through a very interesting part of the forest. We eventually took the boat on the Thunersee all the way to Interlaken, watched the paragliders land, eat some pizza, and go back to Züri. It was a very, very nice day.


For some more pics, check out KC's Picasa pages or my flickr page.

Cupcake Extravaganza!!!

A while back, I'd made some cupcakes (using a vegan recipe published a while back in the New York Times), and she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. More recently, D. passed her Cambridge English Proficiency Exam, and when I asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate, she said, "Cupcakes!!"

So last Thursday she, E, the newly-moved-in K, and I all set out to make three types of cupcakes: Vanilla Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream Icing, Vegan Cream-filled Devil's Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache, and Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing. Five hours (and three bottles of champagne later) we had made and iced about 40 cupcakes, the only problem being that the red velvet recipe made about twice as many cupcakes as it should have, and I only have 12 silicone cupcake holders (I'm pathetic, I don't even have a muffin tin!!). We poured them into three or four of the paper liners, but they still flooded all over the place, so we had a few very ugly holders. But anyway, we had a great time, and we fed them to the people at work the next day.

S comes to Switzerland

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Originally uploaded by wahartung

My long lost friend S somehow found me and came for a visit. Fortunately for her, it was the week of the national holiday, August 1. We spent the first day of her visit eating Gipfelis, seeing all the sights in the old town, and doing some seriously needed catching-up, since we hadn't seen each other for about seven years. August 1 we spent a couple of hours walking from the Üetliberg to Felsenegg, on the way finding an incredibly charming tea hut with traditional Swiss sausages, apple juice, and tea. That evening, to celebrate August 1, we went all the way to Fallanden to see A, her Musikverein (as S and I were also musicians in another life) and enjoyed the traditional bonfires that dot the landscape. Of course, we couldn't believe all the children we saw playing with fireworks, nor the fact that the only safety measures taken for the big fire were just a couple of firemen with a small bucket of water. Finally, on her last day, we watched the Simpsons movie and eventually met up with J and Notorius Dorius for a chat. It was a great visit and great to finally see S again!

Ah, the market!!

The farmer's market--a feast for the eyes and the palate. And yet, a danger to the wallet...

This is one of the best things about living in the 'Kon--I mean, practically at my doorstep, twice a week, there's a big market selling fresh produce, meat, cheese, flowers and plants, simply gorgeous! The produce, especially in summer, is only a bit more expensive than in Migros or Coop (and you know that more of that money is going to the farmers, rather than the Swiss mini-corporate giants).

The problem is all the stands selling Greek and Italian specialties. I spent CHF 7.50 on 1/3 kg of tiny delicious Sicilian tomatoes. I spent CHF 20 on two different types of cheese, and another CHF 20 on some olives and hummus. It's all amazing, but what am I going to eat for the rest of the week?

Lesson of the Day: Never go to the market hungry, or with a CHF100 bill in your pocket.

Backpost--Pilgrimage to Trub!

This is the event that's inspired the blog...

Several months ago, a few friends of mine (all from Bern) and I went to see a Swiss movie called Die Herbstzeitlosen. It's about a couple of old ladies who live in a small town in the Emmental, a rather conservative area, and they start a lingerie shop. The townspeople are somehow in an uproar over this. Anyway, it's a very cute move, all in Bern dialect.

So they all decided that we should make a pilgrimage to Trub to check the place out. We took the train one sunny morning to Trubschachen, and had a nice hike to Trub. On the way, we met a real live Swiss Mountain Man, saw lots and lots of cows, and we even found a silo with K's namesake on it. Finally, we made it to Trub, where the actual store front is a furniture/kitchen shop instead of a lingerie shop. But there was still a small package in the window from "Petit Paris" (the fictional lingerie shop).

We had a couple of beers in Trub, as well as an amazing strawberry tart, and moved on to E's apartment in Bern for a really nice dinner.