Month: October 2016

Ali –  I know what you are thinking. Do the Swiss celebrate Halloween? Absolutely not! That goes against every orderly Swiss fiber in their bodies. However when you are a country infested with ex-pats, Halloween parties happen despite your best efforts to maintain decorum. 

So Maya was invited to join the British girls at a Halloween party on the 30th. Usually she would be in a state of frenetic excitement over this invite but instead she entered into a Halloween costume manic depression – listed in the Diagnostic  and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a state of  cycling angst and demoralization over a lack of an appropriately awesome Halloween costume. So off we went to Bahnhoff Strasse to Claire’s, where for only 62 CHF we purchased a blue wig, makeup and some accessories. We found a sparkly top at H&M for only 40 CHF. Thus for a mere 100 CHF Maya was transformed into…..errrr…..well we still aren’t sure but she looks pretty cool.

Joe and I are just waiting for November 1 so we can try to return everything. Well everything but the blue wig, which I may have to borrow. 

Joe: Happy Halloween! Maya actually went trick-or-treating this evening. This is not so easy to do, since children are more likely to be greeted by a befuddled Swiss Großvater as a cheery expat. There is strength in numbers, so Maya met up with some friends,  and their  friends for a costumed night on the town. And they had some success to boot. The offerings of dried figs were offset by whole chocolate bar winners (the Swiss were digging deep in their cupboards, apparently), and after a couple of hours on the streets, Maya has a Tasche of sugary loot that should last at least the week.

Although Maya wins the too-cool-for-school prize, my favorite costume was a Swiss Army Knife. Brilliant.

Happy Halloween, and Happy Birthday to Cousin Jake! 14! Holy cow.

Ali – Many folk describe Ireland as their favorite trip. So we were pretty excited to see what was so darn great about it, outside of the famous beer and whiskey, delightful accents and verdant green hills. Unlike Switzerland, you really can’t get anywhere without a car. My carefully crafted itinerary had us meandering down the western coast but I admit I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the exact travel time or road conditions that we would face. I did make several frantic pleas to Joe to make sure his parents got a big enough car…and when they told us we would have to limit our luggage, the reality of a long Irish car trip did start to press on my brain. But I remained optimistic and trusted to frequent whisky distillery stops to -shall we say- lubricate the situation. 

So Wednesday afternoon found the 5 of us headed out of Dublin in a BMW 319D hatchback, with Maya, Judy and me all pressed together in the back like conjoined triplets. I should also mention that two out  of the set get carsick. 

But I tried to maintain my optimism and sense of adventure, while doling out the chewable Dramamine like candy. About 4 hours later we arrived in Connemara just in time to prevent the decubitus ulcers from forming on my hips. We were staying at a lovely B&B that overlooked the picturesque Connemara National Park. Out on a much needed walk we saw a rare hornless Connemara unicorn, proving that Ireland is magical. 

The next day, after a delightful Irish breakfast, we went to visit Kylemore Abbey, a famous castle with Victorian gardens and a big stone middle finger greeting guests in what I assume is a traditional Irish salute.  

We hiked the Connemara National Park next, which is a bit like the desolate beauty of California’s southern dessert sections. Note that clothing is recommended but not required in Connemara. 

Other top hits here were the Sky Road and the ubiquitous horseback riding tours, which was great until my ‘automatic drive’ horse, Tom, drove me right into a briar bush. 

Back in the car, we headed southeast to Kilcolgan, where I had booked us one night in a castle (because clearly that had to be done and they are actually bookable on AirBnB). Except for the castle and a famous eatery called Moran’s Oyster Cottage on the Wyre, there is nothing to do in Kilcolgan, which gave us more time to wander the castle saying things like I’ll be in the armory polishing my shield if anyone needs me. Maya spent a good amount of time in the Drawing Room…. guess what she was doing? 

The next morning we headed towards County Clare, stopping along the way to do some Falconry, as it is the sport of kings and queens. We sprang for the Hawk Walk, which was a nice hike through the woods with a Harris’s Hawk. Maya was our designated hawk holder.

We also did the falconry show and had a couple other feathery companions briefly lured to us with raw meat.

Next onto County Clare of Cliffs of Moher fame. You might better know these as the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride, one of my all-time favorite movies. Rich mentioned these were a near miss for making the Natural Wonders List.  

Our AirBnB was about a 30 minute walk from the cliffs, but I found out the exact definition of an Irish wetland trying to get there one morning. 

The famous Doolin Caves are also here, which boast the largest stalactite in Europe and third largest in the world. Apparently it was discovered by two students who thought it would be a good idea to follow a disappearing stream for two hours on their bellies through pitch black. I suspect they were looking for the legendary Spring of Guinness. 

Also of note: 1) we picked up our key to the house at a bar, which has to be the essence of Irish AirBnB; 2) the incredibly small town, Liscannor, where we picked up said key also had an amazing restaurant called Vaughan’s Anchor Inn and an artisan bakery called Sea Salt. In general, the food in Ireland was shockingly good and flavorful. 

Back in the car, we headed to Bunratty Castle, which is exactly what one thinks of when they think Irish castle. It was restored by a passionate aristocrat to prime midevil condition, complete with small dungeon pit off the dining hall and hole-in-the-castle toilet that unloaded over the moat. The authentic village scene around the castle was equally fun and this is a full day of activities if you don’t have miles of Irish road yet ahead before reaching the next AirBnB stop. 

The next stop was the Dingle Peninsula, which was probably the most scenic of the trip. Miles of beaches and cliffs. 

We also toured the Celtic History Museum, which had an intact mammoth skull, cave bear skeleton, ancient gender-specific Celtic bathroom symbols, and the best description ever of what Celtic warriors looked like going into battle

In the area, one can also visit 5000 year-old beehive stone huts. Turns out stone houses offer few amenities but they are very durable. As you can read below, the style of building is called corbelling and shows that all you really need is an endless supply of stone to build a structure. These structures also confirmed my growing suspicion that the early Irish were actually Dwarves. As we all know from the historically accurate Lord of the Rings tale, Dwarves are stone crafters, which would explain all the random stone walls throughout the country as well as these stone huts.  

 The Glarius Oratory is another example of fine Dwarvish craftery. However note the slightly judgemental tone on the visitor ticket, which was shocking to hear coming from Dwarves. I’ll have them know that I felt very close to God on every cliffside road and called to him frequently from my corner of the back seat. 

Finally my trip was made complete by a glimpse of the elusive Dingle Berry

Our last stop of Irish CarSquish 2016 was the Ring of Kerry. We had our final AirBnB in Castlecove, a stone’s throw from the beach. The Ring is another scenic road tour, which Maya and I couldn’t stomach (literally) . So we saw local sites instead, including the Staigue Fort and the home of Daniel O’Conner, the liberator and emancipator of Ireland. We actually met the great great great great great grandson of Daniel in a pub called the Blind Piper near Castlecove. He likened Daniel to Fredrick Douglas when asked for an American historical equivalent but many would probably name Abraham Lincoln. 

Well that about wrapped it up. I don’t think I need to give you the blow by blow on the 5 hour road trip back to Dublin, which was about as uncomfortable and squished as I imagine birth is for a baby, and I’m hoping to forget it similarly. I would like to end with providing a useful bit of Gaelic vocabulary I picked up in Kilarney:

Ali – We arrived in Paris after 2.5 hours on a high speed train from Colmar. For those who love stats, our top speed clocked in at 314 km/hour, which is somewhere north of 190 miles per hour. According to Wikipedia, the US, which was the first country to get high speed rail, is now lame. 

The switch from German to French has been interesting. My high school French continues to trickle to the surface of my brain, with translations of signs and phrases coming out of the blue like I’m a psychic channeling the ghost of a Rick Steves’ French phrase book. Joe on the other hand is suddenly completely language incapable; he learned Bon soir on our first evening and then proceeded to use it the next morning, until I broke it to him that he was wishing everyone a good evening at 10 am. It’s given him new found sympathy for Maya getting plopped in the middle of a foreign country with no language skills. 

We have been staying at an airBnB on the edge of the Jardin du Luxenbourg, which is pretty ideal for seeing the sights. We got the place fairly cheaply because of the totally spooky 4 story walk-up that’s under renovation. .

Knowing we were only here for 2 full days, I made the smart move to just book us some tours. Paris is overwhelming and filled with tourists so trying to figure out what to see and then standing in a line to see it seemed less fun than getting kicked in the shin. So Monday morning I booked us on a chocolate and pastry tasting tour.  This was my first ever food tasting tour and it could have been lame. But Maya was way on board with tasting chocolate and a blind Parisian could manage to find chocolate and pastries for us to taste in Paris so seemed like a safe bet. Well I’m happy to report it was a complete success. We had a young French professional sommelier and self-professed food junkie as a tour guide- she runs a one woman tour company that I found on Get Your Guide. Lots of fun history about French food (e.g. Did you know the croissant is crescent shape because it celebrates the defeat of an Islamic horde of some sort by some group of Europeans?? – legends vary so details are a bit murky) and lots of great tasting. Another couple with us from Oklahoma said they always do food tours whenever they go anywhere because it’s such a great way to get to know the place and history.  

Maya proclaimed, ‘best tour ever!’ so we chalked that up as a win. 

Monday evening we headed to our Fat Tire night ride through Paris. Fat Tire tours get pretty good reviews in general as a kid friendly activity and great way to see a city. This was a 4 hour tour starting at  6:30pm and Maya was understandably concerned about the level of difficulty of the bike riding.  I can now report the pace is quite leisurely but the Paris street riding at night is a bit of an exhilarating adrenaline rush. Now I don’t mean to say it compares in any way to putting on a wingsuit and jumping off a mountain. But one does feel a bit more alive in the middle of Paris putting out a policemen stop hand to an oncoming bus as the tour guide yells insults in French at a taxi driver blocking the road. Maya navigated all this at Defcon 5 alert, hurtling a steady stream of panicked acusations of parental incompetence at us but was like the young zebra in the pack and thus actually quite protected. Plus doing Paris at night is really the best way to see it. Nothing can compare to careening around the plaza of the Louvre with all of that monstrosity lit up or riding triumphantly through the Arc de Triomph. All my pictures are dark and crappy but trust me, it was awesome.

Tuesday morning we headed to the catecombs. I had purchased the ‘skip the line’ tickets with included audio guide. Now this is one solid piece of advice for Paris: if there is something you really want to see, pay the extra and book a skip the line tour or pass. We arrived to a line wrapped around the block. The directions were to head to a neighboring tobacco shop and pick up our tickets, which seemed a bit scamish and shady but ended up working out as we were ushered in past the line upon our return with tickets in hand. I tried not to look at the pist-off faces. We got our audio guides and headed down to what is the largest ossuarium (a.k.a charnel house) in the world. 

The brief history goes like this: the catecombs started out as limestone quarries to build all the huge building in Paris. But they built the huge buildings on top of the land that they were hollowing out. Land begins to sink into hollow ground. King takes note. King orders repairs. Meanwhile dead start pilling up in the city. Someone has the bright idea to put all the dead in the now structurally sound catecombs and make morbid art out of the bones. Millions flock to see morbid art under Paris. 

I have a soft spot for morbid stuff so I really enjoyed trying to read all the death poetry in French, which definitely went better than reading it in Latin. Joe played forensic pathologist, trying to deduce whether large skull holes were pre or post mortem and show Maya what the inside of an eye socket looks like. 

Now lest you think that all our adventures are wild successes due to my detailed planning skills, I should note that our last trek of the day to watch sunset from the Eiffel tower was a total bust. It did re-enforce my previously stated conviction that anything you really want to see in Paris, pre book and pay for line skipping. We went on a lark and found the stairs closed (which was our rough plan for avoiding the line), the elevator to the top closed and a long line to get to the elevator that goes to the second floor. This was after waiting in line for the security strip search just to get near the tower. So we ate quiche in the freezing park and went home. 

Tomorrow off to Dublin. I hope we didn’t need to prebook our Guinness  drinking. 

Ali – Alsace is the regional equivalent of the high school flirt, having been fought over for hundreds of years by France and Germany. Alsace is currently dating France but you never know when Germany will give up austerity and lederhosen and start to look attractive again. Since Alsace has been around a bit, it boasts a wonderful blending of French and German culture. 

Maya is off for Herbstferien (fall break) and we are fulfilling our oath to spend every school holiday travelling. The plan is to meet Joe’s parents in Ireland but I couldn’t resist finding a few waypoints to add to the itinerary. When several friends mentioned Alsace as must-see and I noted it was a couple hours north in the general direction of Ireland, I knew destiny was calling. A quick google of Rick Steves Alsace led me to pick Colmar as the destination as Maya had said she wanted to see Venice and I figured Little Venice was close enough to say I’d fulfilled her request. 

Our friend Gary – back from the Mühlehorn post (AirBnB hosts from the ship Maya!) –  decided to join us on Saturday as a surprise for Miriam’s 50th birthday so we rented a lovely 3 bedroom airBnB right in the heart of Little Venice.  We arrived on Friday at 6:30 pm in Colmar, having raced after school got out to make our 4pm train out of Zurich. Our host, Patrick, met us at the apartment in a classic Tudor style Alsacian building and got us dinner reservations at an Alsacian joint across the street where we experienced what food from a country named Germance or Framany would taste like. 

Think meat and potatoes wrapped in a delicate pastry and you are there. Joe ordered escargot because we had to go all in and Maya bravely slapped a snail on some French bread (didn’t manage to capture the expression on her face but it was somewhere between someone enjoying a meal and someone about to be sick).

The next morning after eating Pain Au Chocolate from the neighborhood backery, I force marched the family to the Unterlinden Museum because I read it was famous and anyone who knows us would agree we could use some culture. This turned out to be a challenge because the town was so stinkin cute we couldn’t go 10 feet without stoping to go in a shop or absorb some history. Joe was sucked in past the event horizon of a knife store and we feared him lost. I dragged Maya kicking and screaming into Saint Martin’s Church, which is a big gargoyle bedecked gothic church that says ‘tortured souls welcome!’ … And I think at that moment I felt I belonged. See Joe below playing the part of a gargoyle and Maya playing the part of…well herself. Finally we made it to Unterlinden, which is housed partly in an old convent and has a collection of art that spans the ages. For an art ignoramous such as myself it was spectacular to see the changing styles of painting and say things like, “you know I hardly think this is Renoir’s best work”.

The Unterlinden also has a fun collection of artifacts including the world’s largest house key and the very first water bong. 

After the museum we hurried back to meet Gary, Miriam and Eileen. Apparently Miriam was onto the surprise when Gary packed the car with all the ingredients for an authentic home cooked Thai dinner, as he had been promising to cook for us. Gary and Miriam lived in Thailand for years and Gary still whips up Thai feasts for festive occasions. Gary cooked up a spectacular spicy Thai dinner and sarenaded us that evening, and it was marvelous until we realized we were all sharing one bathroom that night. 

Well what’s a little Thai colon bomb among friends?

Ali – This past weekend we had our first American houseguest. Our good friend, Flo, was a poor postdoc in Boston when we met her slaving away in a Harvard lab. She married an Italien guy with a Harvard MBA and moved to California where she is now a highly paid big pharma regulatory wiz. Her husband’s job involves looking good in skinny suits I think but I’m not totally sure. Anyway her company, Roche, flew her business class from California to Zurich for management training. At first blush this seems sort of ridiculous but I figure with all the rich bankers here, Zurich probably knows a thing or two about bossing people around. 

Gustav! Dummkopf! Is my Lamborghini ready? Schnell, schnell!

Flo arrived Saturday morning fully rested and sponge-bathed from her business class overnight flight. Saturday we toured the city, which she confirmed looked like an old European city, and visited FIFA house, as it was open to the public for the Open House Zurich Day. I didn’t get a good picture of the corruption but here is Maya kicking a soccer ball. Sunday, however, we decided Flo needed to experience some Swiss hiking. Maya had a play date so just the adults headed to Utliberg – which you will recall from an earlier post about the Swiss conspiracy to get rid of the world’s idiots – to find the mythical Utliberg tea Hütte. 

We had been hearing about these tea Hüttes, which supposedly lay at various points off the trail.  They offer local delicacies – soups, küchen, tarts, etc – made from ingredients that are brought up the mountain on the backs of hardy Swiss volunteers, or so the legend went. Our Google search for directions to one of these babies was relatively unproductive so we decided to just catch the Utliberg express with the other lame tourists and figured all would become clear. How hard could it be to find a hut on a mountain??

We hopped off a couple stops from the top and headed over to the trail map. There, alongside several trails, were symbols I have never before seen on a trail map: tea cups! Either Disney had opened several Mad Hatter spinning tea cup rides on Utleiberg (in which case we were going!) or we had found the tea Hüttes (in which case we were going!). So we took off along the trail with Flo using some borrowed trekking poles because we told her they were like crack for hikers. We hiked along for a while using the Force to feel our way there. But finally we started to doubt our Jedi skills and decided to ask the next 70 year old Swiss hiker who came our way. Of course we found one -70 year old Swiss hiker that is – within 10 minutes and asked auf Deutsch for directions. He did what most of the Swiss do when we speak to them in German – asked us if we would like to have the information in English or in German. Then he walked us back down the trail to the turn we missed (probably not convinced we could handle the directions in either language). 

Shortly after, we arrived at the Jurablick tea hütte, which was tucked back in the woods at the end of a side trail. Walking up I had a brief thought that many fairytales involve unfortunate things happening in huts in the woods. ….but I really wanted a beer so….

Now blick means view in German and indeed this little Hütte was perched on the edge of an overlook that provided postcard panoramas 

We went inside and looked at the menu all in Swiss German, which meant that we have no idea if stewed lost hiker or foreign tourist soup were listed. I opted for a beer and chestnut cake with whipped cream. Joe and Flo went with the apple tart. 

We all agreed that this was the way to do hiking. The tea Hütte even offered the most luxurious outhouse I’ve ever seen

 Back on the trail we hiked to the peak to get Flo a good view of Zurich and then headed back down. 

That night Flo treated us to dinner at the oldest continuously running vegetarian restaurant in the world, which is hard to believe given that Indians have been eating vegetarian food for quite a while and Swiss are sort of sausage and cheese people.