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?

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.

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.

Independence Day!!!

My friend T had a really amazing 4th of July party yesterday. Even though it was raining and cold, but it didn't matter--it was the first 4th of July party I'd been to since 2001! Chicken wings, margaritas, brownies, an amazing pecan pie (actually, it was Kentucky Derby pie, which is of course all the better)...it was as much like home as a cold rainy Zurich day could be!

I brought along, of course, my (Swiss) friend D, along with her good friend (and my future roommate) K. D was impressed how un-patriotic we all were--complaining about the government, the war. And they both had a great time. E raved about how cool D is and asked if it would be possible to have two favorite Swiss people, D and K!