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Ali- As Maya’s spring break was approaching, I applied my usual method to travel planning: I waited for the travel gods to send me signs. First there was the New York Times article on a place called Cinque Terre! and then Joe’s sister told us they had loved Pompeii!! and then my sister in law said they had an amazing time in Rome on a private tour!!! and then Rick Steves (that travel blog dude) said the hill towns of Italy were awesome!!!! Done. Trip planned. Thank you travel gods. 

So we started out Saturday at 5:30 am heading to a 7:20 am flight (curse you travel gods!) that I booked in Business class because it was the same price as economy (bless you travel gods, you rock!). Our first stop was the Swiss Air Business Class Lounge at Zurich Flughafen. We found out that in a 45 minute stay in said lounge given Zurich food prices, it is almost possible to eat an amount of free food equivalent to the ticket price of a flight to Rome. If you include the free booze available at 6:30 am in the lounge, the game is almost too easy. 

After the lounge we waddled to our flight, arrogantly cut in front of the economy plebes and sat down to another full breakfast during the flight. It was good to see we were getting into the swing of Roman gluttony. The flight attendant looked at me funny when I asked where the  vomitorium was. 

From Rome we took a TrenItalia train to Naples and then hopped on the Circumvesuviana train – a train system that Google navigation can’t even find – to Sorento. This train, which looks about as local as you can get, was full to the brim with tourists in their pastel loafered best. 

We arrive in Sorento and wade through the miasma of lemon tree scent to our swanky overpriced hotel The Grand Hotel De La Ville. For the one person out there who reads this blog, you (yea you) know I’m an AirBnB fan. However, Maya and I both have a soft spot for swanky hotels so I sprang for one when the AirBnB options seemed slim and pricey. It was a good call as we had a balcony that looked right onto Mount Vesuvius… yea that Vesuvius. The somma-stratovolcano that blew its top (literally! It used to be bigger!) in AD 79 burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  

Besides stare at Vesuvius, the other thing to do in Sorento is consume products made with lemons and seafood, which we did while fighting through the crowds of tourists. The secret is definitely out on this place

My vague plan for day two was to head to the Amalfi coast, which is just across from Sorento on the south side of the peninsula. I didn’t know anything about it except that when you mention it to any random travel bug, you get the appreciative head nod that indicates approval of your destination choice. Now I had foolishly assumed there would be some kind of train over there but the Circumvesuviana ends at Sorento. Luckily Joe took charge and marched us to a scooter rental shop Saturday evening where Sergio rented us scooters for the next day without a second glance at my expired drivers license. 

Here is where we made a strategic blunder. Sergio sang his scooter siren song so well that we didn’t think about the fact that the next day was Easter Sunday and this was Italy, not Switzerland. What Italian is showing up for work on time on Easter Sunday? Well certainly not Sergio’s co-worker, who wasn’t there at 9:00 am on Sunday morning and also wasn’t there at 10:00 am on Sunday morning. Joe was very brave and only cried a little bit, and after accosting the parking attendant in the garage where the scooters were all sitting unriden, we headed for plan B, which was the rooftop pool of our hotel. We were just getting our burn on when Sergio called, having been notified by the alarmed parking attendant that crazy Americans were slobbering on the scooters. He was very apologetic and quickly got us geared up. He was also so chivalrous as to warn me about the awesome thrusting power of my 125 cc two wheeled beast. 

Senora, slowly on the throttle. Very powerful. Slowly twist, ok?

Let’s just say there are plenty of riding lawnmowers out there with more thrust. Nevertheless, it was a thrilling ride, as a total lack of passing thrust heightened the thrill of Italian free-for-all driving on a single lane, twisty cliff side road.

We hit a seafood restaurant along the way that Sergio had recommended, which perched on the cliff and stopped at several of the lemon ice stands that sat like Antlions on the side of the road waiting for tourists. 

We returned to Sorento just in time to experience scooter driving in the rain in Italy, about as dangerous and wet as swimming in a shark infested pool wearing a tuna fish suit. 

We finished up our day with a sunset and made plans for our next stop: Rome by way of Pompeii.

Ali- When Maya was 3 years old, I had a conference in Lisbon, Portugal and the whole family trucked over to see the sights. Maya was going through a phase where, for various reasons, she had decided walking was not her thing, and so we spent a fair amount of that trip hauling a 40 pound kid around on our backs. I would also like to note that Lisbon is damn hilly and by the end of our stay we were self medicating with Ginja, the Portuguese sour cherry liquor sold out of shacks as a digestive and all purpose pain killer. 

Flash forward 7 years and the same conference was back in Lisbon. With visiting family obligations, Joe and Maya couldn’t arrive until Saturday afternoon and we all had to be back Monday giving us roughly 26 hours to revisit the city, unburdened as it were compared to the last time.

Now before heading to Lisbon I had a colleague at University of Zurich show me pictures of this ridiculous looking Disney castle on a hill in some town outside Lisbon called Sintra. So it seemed like this was the thing to see given that we had previously seen many of the Lisbon sights. 

Ok so first let me mention that this conference is a bit unusual in that it brings out the unknown wild side of statisticians, and this was the Friday night conference dinner scene (those are actual professional statisticians playing instruments), which greatly increased my risk of self-ass-making during my Saturday morning talk. Saturday morning comes and I give my talk at the conference, managing to sound tollerably competent (total coup!). Then I headed into the city center to check into our Airbnb and wait for Joe and Maya. Tiff, the very nice Australian massage therapist who owned the place, was kind enough to say I wasn’t completely nuts to try to head out to Sintra that afternoon. She gave the key tip to take an Uber there rather than haul out by train. 

Joe and Maya finally stumble in around 2:30 pm and by 3pm we are on the road, tucked into our Uber. An hour later, the Uber driver drops us off at the castle front door, saving us the uphill schlepp from the train station for the ridiculously reasonable price of 30 Euros. 

The Pena Palace is actually only one of the castles that sit majestically in the Sintra Mountains but it’s the only one to make the 7 wonders of Portugal list, which shockingly doesn’t include the Ginja shacks. The castle owes its marvelousness to king consort Ferdinand II, who got tired of just sitting around looking pretty as consort to Queen Maria II, and decided to take on a castle as a hobby. He hired a mining engineer/landscaper/amateur architect named Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege to design the place. Right now you may be puzzling over the choice of a mining engineer but the whole bloody castle is fused into the mountain making it clear that someone who knows how to burrow into rock was essential. After getting our fill of the castle, we decided to hike back down to Sintra to catch another Uber back to Lisbon and experienced the wonders of the surrounding grounds along the way. You could spend about a week just wandering the hills that are part of the estate. 

Back in Lisbon on Sunday morning we had three hours to eat famous Portuguese pastries, tour St George’s castle and acquire several bottles of Port before heading to the airport. However, the proprietor of Pasteleria Saga was very firm that Patel de nata can only be eaten after a proper breakfast. So we ate a Portuguese version of croissant instead and promised to return to grab a box before our flight.

Next we marched over to St. George’s castle, which is indeed dedicated to the popular warrior Saint who somehow found the time to terrorized dragons while being martyred for his Christian faith. 

The same peacocks were there that Maya terrorized in tribute to Saint George 7 years ago. 

Lastly we hightailed it over across town to the only open booze shop to get Port and Ginja to take back to Zurich. A week later I can report that one large bottle of Ginja is not nearly enough; bring an extra suitcase. 

Ali- If you had a chance to watch the Switzerland Second promotional video, then you know that Saint Moritz is the picturesque ski town that Switzerland built for rich Russians. We are not rich Russians, but had visitors – Joe’s parents and Maya’s cousins – who wanted to see what unaffordable Swiss skiing looked like. So we did a quick survey of the weather in Davos, Zermatt and Saint Moritz, with the latter promising to supply several days of sunshine (because Russian fur coats look best in the winter sunshine). 

After a quick perusal at AirBnB options, we decided that the neighboring town of Celerina was close enough to Saint Moritz, allowing the 7 of us to stay for only $600/night instead of $2000/night. I had trouble picturing rich Russians opting for AirBnB; I mean can you imagine what that post-stay review would look like:

Most not so terrible stay. Caviar left by hosts was not at precisely 18 degrees Celsius but place conveniently located next to wodka bar. 

Anyway we arrived by train on Saturday and, after a brief and highly unproductive phone conversation with the Italian speaking host, managed to connect to get keys. We wandered around the town marveling at the sad lack of snow but basking in the warm weather.

 The cousins were game for rolling the intestinal distress dice with a traditional Swiss cheese fondue dinner so after getting our rental ski gear and lift tickets sorted out for Sunday and Monday, we headed out for dinner. I can no longer do cheese fondue after the 3 hour fondue gondola described several posts ago – something about being trapped freezing cold and hung-over in a small metal box stewing in cheese miasma has ruined me for fondue. But I shared a Raclette dinner with Joe and Grandpa Rich, which also involves melted cheese and cardiovascular risk. 

Sunday morning Joe, Maya, the cousins Jake and Liam, and I headed across a parking lot to the Celerina gondola, which carried us up the hill into the Corviglia area of the Swiss Alps. After a couple gondolas and a chair lift,  we were on the slopes. The slopes in the Alps are notable for the fact that what’s considered on-piste and what’s considered off-piste is completely arbitrary, as there are no trees at that elevation and so boundless options for plowing a route. There are just these huge expanses of snow with a LosAngeles highway sized ski run randomly plopped down. Drunk monkeys could be driving the piste- making equipment at night and it would still work out ok, though I’m pretty sure the Swiss government would require the monkeys to undergo proper training,  certification and monkey plow driver guild registration prior to hire. 

Now all kids were warned about the high probability for sunburn and told to put on sunscreen but here was what we found at the end of the day:

For day 2 we headed over to Corvatsch, the glacier area at some 11,000 feet above sea level. We couldn’t fit all the kids and skis in the Maserati so we were forced to take the local bus, which was packed with similarly sports car bereft skiers.The most notable part of the Corvatsch ski area turned out to be the terrain park; I’m generally a giant chicken when it comes to terrain parks but this one had a small ski jump that ended in a giant airbag. Foolishness with zero consequences!!! So of course I had to do it. Even knowing that there was zero danger of bodily harm I admit to a high level of anxiety as I raced down the hill and launched off the ramp. I didn’t actually pee my ski pants, but there was a non-zero probability of wet longjohns that first run. I’m happy to report that everyone in our little group launched themselves into the airbag, many of us repeatedly. 

Afterwards we headed to the top for lunch and a view. Both were excellent. At that point I had to say auf wiedersehen to the crew and head back to Zurich to get ready for my trip to Lisbon for the International Workshop on HIV and HCV Observational Databases meeting (affectionately called IWHOD [i-wod]).  I’ll let Joe pick up the story from here.  

Ali – Last weekend Zurich finally got around to holding a women’s march.  They are a good three months behind the rest of the world but the Swiss Germans feel that these things require careful planning to make sure they don’t have a women’s march that goes off half-cocked….errrr….so to speak…..

Anyway, the forecast called for rather rainy craptacular weather for the event, and many of our ex-pat friends were less than motivated. Fearing that there would be all of 3 women showing up, I thought I should make an appearance (because 4 protestors is obviously the critical threshold for making a political statement). I was also determined to drag Maya along, as I felt a solemn duty to baptize her in the pool of feminist activism. Her last and only protest march was the Human Rights March in Vienna, Austria when she was around 4 years old and at the time she felt very strongly that access to icecream was a basic human right. Luckily I managed to borrow another kid – Maya’s friend Lil – so I could pass the whole thing off as a play date. Bonus: because it was labeled a play date, Joe tagged along as well, as he could pass his flaming feminism off as parental responsibility. 

So the four of us headed towards the staging area at Heveltiaplatz, apparently a standard place for Zürich residents to demonstrate. We were a wee bit late and I was a bit concerned we would miss the 4 women in Pussy hats who composed the sum total of the march. However , we walked straight into a massive wall of estrogen. We were swallowed by the wave and floated along in a sea of pink hats and umbrellas. Maya and Lil seemed a bit shy about jumping on board at first but then started breathing in the hormones and sped through three Tanner stages of pre-puberty as they settled in. My bag of ‘protest cookies’ also helped. 

The March headed across the Bahnhoff Strasse stopping a number of trams, in a shockingly unSwiss way, and then headed over the Limmat. At that point we got a small glimpse of how big the march was as it stretched along the river. We finally left the march at the Rathaus to head in for hot chocolate. 

The news reported later that there were 17,000 attendees, which was impressive for a rainy day in a country with a lot of reserved, unemotional people. Funny to think that Switzerland didn’t even give women the vote until 1971. Perhaps that is why the march was so well attended: a clear statement that women aren’t giving up any hard won rights and freedoms.

Ali- A couple months ago I was hunting around for ski destinations for Maya’s Sportferien school holiday- the break from school whose soul purpose is to give Swiss kids uninterrupted ski time. I happened upon a notice for a fondue gondola ride in one of my favorite Zurich newbie blogs: New in Zurich. The event was celebrating the 150 year anniversary of some place called Villars, which I had never heard of, and the date happened to coincide with the last weekend of Maya’s break. So, in a moment of spontaneaous budgetary abandon, I coughed up the 250 CHF price for 3 of the coveted slots out of the 60 gondola cabs X 6 person capacity total. 

Only after this impulsive purchase did I begin to contemplate exactly where Villars might be and what the heck else we would do there. Now given that the event was happening in a gondola, the town name sounded French and it is Switzerland after all, its probably not surprising that Villars turned out to be a ski town nestled in the Alps just east and south of Lake Geneva. I guess the only other option would have been a Gondola manufacturing town near Montreal. 

So now we needed ski passes, transportation and a place to stay. Again, being Switzerland, the Swiss rail system offers combined ski and rail passes to most of the ski areas and so I got us all 2 day lift tickets and round trip tickets for the 3.5 hour excursion- train to train to train to bus- to get from Zurich to Villars Sur Ollon.  I also booked us in one of the few remaining hotel options for an ungodly sum for three nights, consoling myself that at least the place boasted a hot tub and close proximity to the gondola. 

So Thursday afternoon departure time arrived and I hurried home from my German conversation course so we could boogie to the train station to head to this magical winter wonderland, packing near-zero French language skills and Joe’s overpriced rented ski gear. After several very rushed transfers and a couple renditions of ‘Je ne parle pas français’ we arrived in Villars and found our hotel, which turned out to be a bit more like a rented lodge in a wellness center. We had a great view of both the mountains and the hot tub, which was housed in a glass fronted building about 20 steps from our door and open for apres- ski soaking. 

Friday morning our breakfast basket arrived and we munched while layering on the ski gear. The day was less than ideal, being almost completely socked in with fog and wintery mix falling out of the sky. After stoping to rent equipment for Maya and me, and being informed that Joe could have paid about 150 CHF less for the season ski rental had he rented in Villars, we headed for the ski train. This super fun train travels between the villages/ski areas of which there are about 4 or so sprinkled across the surrounding mountains. Actually we found out that the easiest way to go between all these areas was on skis, which will play a prominent role in our story in a bit (teaser to keep you reading). We were told to start in Bretaye one town over, as this area provided a nice easy start for our not yet broken-in ski legs. Once off the train and clipped into skis, we discovered how limited the visability was. Despite my deep knee bend, I was surprised numerous times by sudden drops and fell into and subsequently launched out of at least one deep pit, which left me in a tangled giggling heep right next to the pommel lift as exhibit A for the young Swiss children on how not to ski. 

We called it quits fairly early having skied only a limited number of runs that we had memorized enough to not ski off the edge. The best part was the ride back, which was a long narrow trail that led all the way back to Villars. This was our first hint that the main routes between all the towns were ski trails. We finished the day in the hot tub and then found some food and a beer at a local eatery.

Saturday promised to be a glorious day and we decided to head to an area called Glacier 3000, which, as you might guess, is a ski area at 3000 meters on top of a glacier. To get there, one must ski up and over several mountains and then take a short bus ride to two very large gondolas that lift you to the top. 

There is something really really cool about down hill skiing to a destination along mountain trails that literally hang off the side of a mountain. Every 2 minutes a voice in my head said, “oh my gosh! Get your camera out! This is amazing!” , at which point another voice said, “Are you freaking nuts? There’s a cliff three feet to your left and you are thinking of digging for your camera while skiing???” Needless to say voice two won out, though I did get some good pics when we were on the lifts. 

After perhaps an hour of traversing the mountain range and our short bus ride from Les Diableretes to the base of Glacier 3000, we arrived at the gondola and headed up. Reaching the top, we discovered that the advertisement matched the reality. Huge expanse of beautiful glimmering snow fields surrounded by snow capped peaks. The less expected sites were BMW sport utility vehicles being helicoptered in and dog sleds. I think I can say with a high degree of certainty that we spent one of the most memorable afternoons of skiing of our lives on Glacier 3000. 

Maya was in particularly high spirits as she had her first “off piste” experience, skiing across ungroomed terrain and clearly feeling certain she had now entirely mastered the art of skiing with nothing left to accomplish. 
Ok flash forward and it’s nearing the end of the ski day. We need to get back to Villars for our fondue gondola by 6:30 pm and we need to make the last ski lift out of Les Diableretes by 4:15pm. 

At this point I would like to say that we have always tried to tell Maya and ourselves that even misadventure counts as adventure. So to continue the tale we head down the gondolas and proceed to the bus stop, hoping on the first bus that comes our way, only to discover we are headed in the wrong direction. We decide to hop off the bus and find out that there is an hour wait for the next one, which would put us back at Les Diableretes way past 4:15pm. A quick google search tells us that if one cannot ski back to Villars, one is in for a 2 hour bus to train to bus excursion to get there. At this point, all three of us are using various inappropriate language to describe the situation and feeling fairly despondent. We finally opt for a taxi and pay 250 CHF to get back to Villars. After an hour of twisty mountain roads and a stop at the bank to withdrawal cash, we made it back in time for a quick dip in the heated pool. 

We arrive at the bottom of the Roc d’Orsay gondola lift to a scene of high spirits and pumping DJ music. I pretend to understand what the lady taking tickets tells me, catching just enough to know there is wine and we should get some. With glasses in hand we wandered over and checked out the gondola cab, which is decked out with a table and all the fondue accoutrements. We met the folk in cabine 1, who were clearly friends of the Burgermeister (aka mayor), who posed with them for photos as the press seemed to have turned out for the event.About 40 minutes later our number is called and we are joined by a solitary Swiss guy for what turned out to be a 2 hour ride in an unheated gondola eating way way way WAY too much cheese. The first loop up and down was quite fun but the second loop was a freezing slow slog with congealing cheese and a rapid onset cheese-wine hangover. When we emerged from hibernation at the bottom, we chattered and shivered our way back to the hotel, falling asleep as soon as we got home and then medicating and rehydrating at 3am  when the hangover peeked. 

Sunday morning we headed home, feeling rather worn out from skiing and over-cheesing. Word of advice for any future Villars ski fondue gondola adventures: check bus directions and exit after the first loop. 

Ali- It all began on Thursday evening when we went to dinner at my Collegue’s house. Andreas Serra is the nephrologist who pays most of my salary here and runs a boutique clinic for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease patients. We were chatting over dinner about Sportferien plans (Sportferien being the 2 week school holiday in Feb whose sole purpose is to assure Swiss kids get in a decent amount of skiing) and I mentioned that I had an interest in checking out the White Turf races in St. Moritz. I had read about these crazy horse races on a frozen lake including the unbelievable skijoring event where people actually ski behind running horses and said to myself, “well how the heck could we not go see that???” Next thing we know, Andreas is slapping keys down on the table and saying we should stay at his house in Latsch, as it is a mere 45 minutes from St Moritz. A computer comes out and he shows me several pictures of a nondescript Swiss chalet covered in snow and wrote down a bunch of vague instructions about going to Bergün and calling for a bus.

 

Realizing the supplied information was going to be woefully insufficient, I asked for an address. Andreas looked at me and said, “Oh there are no addresses; just ask for House Serra!”  Err ok. I looked down at the keyring, which held about 10 keys and asked which one we needed and he said,”I’m not really sure;try them all!” Err ok.

Any further querries or second thoughts were cut short as we realized we had to make haste to catch the train back to our place as Maya had her last day of school before Sportferien in the morning. So with keys and vague instructions in hand, we were committed to a weekend adventure. 

Saturday morning we headed for the train to Bergün. Andreas had emailed that morning to make sure we made the 9:37 train so we could catch the bus to Latsch. It was now 10:30 and we were clearly not catching that bus. We arrive in Bergün, a cute winter wonderland, to the scene of children and adults hauling sleds and skis all over town. A quick google mapping told us that Latsch was straight up at the top of a 45 minute switchback trail looking down on Bergün. We were willing to make the hike but realized we had zero idea where we were going and decided to trust to the local knowledge of a taxi driver. After a 10 minute race up a snow covered mountain road we reached Latsch. Our driver, who didn’t know House Serra, was surprisingly game to play help the tourists break into a random house in Latsch. He proceeded to take us by several potentials and played lookout and get-away driver while I nervously tried all 10 keys. Finally a local Latschian apparently gave him some directions and we found ourselves in front of a house …house 18 to be exact, which seems a heck of a lot like a house with an address. 

The second key worked and we were in. We paid our taxi driver his 30 CHF fare, which frankly seemed appropriate for the ride and the assisted break-ins. The Chalet was fantastic, with at least a 10 degree slope to the floors and ponderously huge pieces of ancient furniture. We settled in for a moment and then headed back off to find the foot trail back down to Bergün to check out options for winter activities. 

The foot path was a snow and ice covered trail about 2 feet wide that hung on the side of the mountain. It provided spectacular views of the town and surroundings alps. After about 20 minutes we had slid and stumbled back into Bergün and found one of the local sport rental shops. After we butchered the German language a bit telling the rental folk about our interests in activities, a delightful British lady switched into English to provide a detailed itinerary for our weekend: Sunday morning at 9 am we would go Langlaufen (cross country skiing); then we would catch the 12:15 train to St Moritz to catch the Skijoring; then take the train back to the next town up- Preda- and rent schlitten (sleds) that we would ride back to Bergün. Boom. Done. 

Sunday morning we take off from the rental place, cross country skis in hand to find the local track. It was Maya’s first time on cross country skis and she exhibited some nervousness. Joe and I hadn’t been on cross country skis in about 10 years either but I had yet to hear of tragic cross country skiing accident so had high confidence that we would all survive. The Swiss are pretty serious about their Langlaufen and have some pretty well groomed tracks. Maya picked it up remarkably fast though of course I took pictures mostly during the moments when she was stuck like an upside down turtle in the snow.

Cross country skiing is apparently the perfect cardiovascular activity and we had stripped down to minimal gear by the time we called it quits but ordered hot drinks anyway at the local bakery to go with our well-deserved pastries.

We arrived in St Moritz, having spent the whole ride joking about all the Russians in fur we were going to be hanging out with. After all, according to the Switzerland Second promotional video, St. Moritz is a town built entirely for Russians. I have to say we weren’t disappointed. Here is a picture of Joe pointing at the guy with ‘Russia’ written across his back, as if the fur covered woman and the small dog in the bag weren’t enough to clue people in. I had to take a picture of the James Bond From Russia with Love bad guy stand in as well. 

So I’m not much for horse racing in general but I was super excited to see someone try to ski behind a racing horse. But alas we arrived just as the race was starting and missed the action. Here you can just see one of the racers in the background probably trying to scrape the horse poo off his skis. 

We stayed to watch a couple other less Swiss type events and enjoyed the amazing scenery as well as the interesting experience of knowing we were in the bottom 1% of the income distribution of everyone within 100 meters. Luckily being Switzerland there was still a Wurst stand within sight despite more of a caviar ambiance. 

Maya was soon bored of horses and Russians and we headed back to Preda. Sure enough, a sled rental place was located right at the train station and we got three very traditional looking sleds. This was my first Swiss sledding experience, though Maya had already had a sledding ausflug (all purpose Swiss term for a team outing) with her class so knew the basics of steering. However after careening down an icy sled route for 20 minutes I got the hang of it. Its all about hovering your feet out in front of you above the ground as you plummet down the hill and then applying gentle dragging of a foot on the side to which you want to turn when the need arises. 

For me this was the highlight (sorry Russians). There are no brakes on the sled and you can attain impressive speed. The trail, which goes between towns, takes about 40 minutes or so, which is more durable fun than a lot of activities and something you just wouldn’t find in the States. 

So we got back to Zurich around 7pm and declared the whole seat-of-our-pants weekend a success. If nothing else, Switzerland has taught us that firm plans and addresses are hardly needed to find fun. 

Ali- America has often exported ideas and movements. Now, as Trump assumes power in the US, America appears to be exporting a healthy dose of female outrage. My unverified statistic is that there are womens’ marches in 600 some cities around the world, but that may be fake news from my clearly biased liberal source. 

Switzerland had one organized march in Geneva on Saturday, which I only knew about because a friend is a lawyer working on immigration issues and actually really really cares enough about human rights to 1) find out about protests and 2) make an effort to go and drag along well-meaning but blissfully ignorant friends. She gave me my marching orders on Friday: make signs. 

So, after a quick google search of protest signs, I sat down and created 4. Now I only have 2 hands, so that is clearly 2 too many. But I couldn’t choose between several sign creations and figured maybe there would be poor signless folk in need. 

I was particularly proud of my Electile Dysfunction sign, as there was some innovative alteration of a large Viagra pill to create the final product. 

So 7am Saturday morning I head to the Bahnhof to meet the group. While there were around 10 of us -mostly from the Zurich chapter of the American Women’s Club- we were far outnumbered by dedicated skiers on the train platform. We tried to guilt a couple skiers into coming, as climate change is clearly their issue and needed some voices, but alas they chose skiing and we got to feel superior. Ok flash forward 3 hours and we are in Geneva. My blue hat was deemed inappropriate and I was quickly sold a pink hat with a funny shape on top. Several of the women were wearing them and I wondered briefly what they could symbolize until someone drops the P word. Oh. Right. 

I find out later that this term has been quite elegantly co-opted by the women’s rights movement, and there were some signs to make that clear:

Anyway I became one of the pink-hatted masses as we streamed into the start. 

So the Women’s March in Geneva was classically Swiss. We went in organized  groups of 50 across a bridge taking care to stay on the sidewalk while following our designated group leader. We walked all of 1/4 mile and then there were some speaches. That was it except for the fun signs

All in all there were probably about 2000 of us-or at least that’s the official count as reported by Swissinfo.ch, which isn’t an epic number, but on the other hand we are in Switzerland, which will likely feel zero impact from Trump’s policies and rhetoric. So the fact that a march even happened is pretty stupendous. 

Now I have had photos coming in from friends heading to the DC march, which is estimated to far outpace attendance at the inauguration at around 500,000. I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise as Trump won the election with far fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. We may not be able to get good turnout for elections but good to see that folk are willing to show up to wear P*~~y hats at a protest. 

Ali- Several months ago, our friend Jeanie told us she was leading a group of students from Goucher College on a Spanish Immersion trip. Goucher requires all their students to spend time abroad, which I think is the coolest and probably most useful academic requirement a college student could have. I mean I was required to take a humanities course way back in college and can’t say the Drugs and Humanity course that fulfilled the requirement has done more beyond add minimally to my value on a trivia team and forever ingrain the words to Wasted Rock Ranger in my brain. In contrast, the Goucher students experience a cultural and communication challenge living with host families in a foreign country that might almost overcome their handicap of a sheltered and privileged  upbringing. 

The timing of this educational excursion happened to coincide with the second half of Maya’s winterbreak and our Italian farewells to the Kaufmans. The travel gods had spoken again! And we obeyed, hauling our butts first to Madrid where the students were due to arrive on the 2nd of January. We arrived on the 30th of December, to our micro-airBnB located right next to the Palacio Real. That was the good news. The bad news was that the one bathroom had a nonfunctional sliding glass door that rendered private pooping impossible, particularly since, by some architectural anomalie, the pooper could be seen from any spot in the entire apartment. Maya was particularly distressed by this state of affairs and managed to wrench the door shut, only to be trapped inside while Joe and I tried to refrain from laughing long enough to get her out. 

On the first night there, Maya was tired from the trip but Joe and I decided to venture out to get some food. We ended up in a Mexican place around the corner, where we managed to get food with my all-but-forgotten Spanish. Then we tried to order some take-out for Maya. Google translate was zero help with how to say ‘take out’. So I gave it a shot after waiving down our waiter:

Me: Quero tacos. Para mi hija. Para mi casa.

Waiter: Pollo?

Me: Si!

Waiter: Picante?

Me: No picante.

Waiter: Suave?

Me: Si!

The waiter seemed to get it but then he came back with a plate of tacos, at which point Joe jumped in with some really nice Germanish:

Joe: No! Zu casa!

Unfortunately the German zu meaning ‘to’ sounds a lot like the Spanish su meaning ‘your’. No! Your house! Needless to say the guy just smiled and took away the tacos and didn’t come back. In case this happens to you, para llevar is the correct expression, which I will now never ever forget. 

Our first full day in Madrid was New Years Eve, which meant that a lot of shops and restaurants were closed or had limited hours. This was only a problem when we realized that Madrid was colder than any other place we had thus far visited, including Swiss mountaintops, Italian Alps and rainy German cities. We wandered around on a walking tour until we found an open gastrobar just in time to prevent appendage loss. Gastrobars are great places to get some fun Spanish cuisine, and the steady flow of bonus unordered tapas was delightful. Maya had a classic Madrid bean stew that was very similar to the Cassoulet we had in Alsace. 

Totally stuffed, we waddled over to the Teleferico, which is a fairly old looking gondola system that takes you across the city into Casa de Campo, a giant park on one side of Madrid.  Supposedly there is an audio guide that tells you the sights you can see from the gondola but apparently asking for the English language version was code for ‘give them the silent treatment’. Afterwards I marched us by several Madrid hotspots: Teatro Real, Casa de la Ville, Plaza Mayor, Puerta de Alcalá, Palacio de Cibeles, etc. Along the way we hit the Mercado de San Miguel, which was in full party mode prepping for New Year’s Eve celebrations. There must be some tradition that called for wearing wigs and ridiculous hats as we spied quite a few examples of festive headgear. We also hit one of the many crowded Chocolaterías, and got churros and a bowl of melted chocolate for dipping. The Plaza Major was gearing up for a wild welcoming of the new year, but we are lame and headed back to the apartment, blaming Joe’s work terrorist training (which we both had to do before departing the States- go ahead and ask me which hotel room you want so as to avoid being a hostage victim in a hotel terrorist takeover!) for making us cautious of crowded places filled with people having fun. 

Ok, to summarize the next several days of delight and frostbite, the highlights of our stay in Madrid were the flamenco show, for which we acquired tickets in the Mercado de San Miguel from a lovely lady from New Jersey (a different lovely New Jersey lady than the afore mentioned Jeanie, who appears a little later in this episode) and the Palacio Real, for which we acquired tickets after waiting in a long outdoor line. The Prado also deserves an honorable mention because it’s famous for its painting masterpieces, which the Abrahams could only vaguely appreciate and comprehend, being total art philistines. However we appreciated the fact that we were surrounded by art that more worthy individuals really appreciated. 

But back to the flamenco and Palacio Real.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to see a flamenco show up close and personal, it is a powerful site. It’s all improvised and you can see that the music and movements are a combination of skill and wild abandon. Pictures can’t capture it so I put a video of my favorite performance on You-tube. My second favorite performance was Joe’s post show brilliant adaptation. Can you believe he has never taken a single lesson???

The Palacio was Madrid’s artisanal excellence and decorative flare on steroids. The whole city is bloody beautiful, with every building a work of stone carving, iron work and/or architectural mastery. Statuary is as ubiquitous as pigeon poop. So imagine the challenge of outdoing all that for a guy like George V? We weren’t allowed to take pictures through most of the palace so I can only give you a taste of the crazy opulence with a couple ceiling frescos. The ‘audio guides’ were full Samsung tablets complete with detailed pictures and videos of particularly interesting pieces (e.g.  atomiton clock carted by mule over the Pyrenees by a famous Swiss clock maker for George).

On the 3rd, we followed Jeanie and the students to Alicante, a 3 hour train ride away on a very nice Spanish train. In contrast to freezing Madrid, Alicante, located on the east coast of Spain, was warm and sunny with palm trees and beaches. Maya exclaimed numerous times that this was her kind of place. We met up with Jeanie and Maite, her co-Instructor and a native Spaniard, to head to the three bedroom place they had rented on the main drag. Their place was situated right next to the best bakery in Alicante (personal opinion that does not necessarily represent that of the Alicante Bakery Guild) and down the street from the Mercado Central. 

The main sight in Alicante is the Castell de la Santa Barbara, which is a giant fort on top of a small mountain right in the middle of town. There is apparently an elevator built in the middle of the mountain that can take you to the top but we chose to hike up and met Jeanie, Maite, and their 16 student charges at the fort, where we tagged along for the tour. The tour guide, Cristina, spoke the most clear, slow Spanish complete with hand gestures that a person with very modest Spanish skills could hope for. Her target audience were the 3rd semester Spanish students, but my superior adult attention span and apparent partial comprehension I’m sure made me a favorite tour participant. I usually gathered just enough to outline a credible but probably completely inaccurate translation for Joe.

You see Joe, this monument commemorates a guy who had something to do with Christianity and they gave him a key to the city and then he died and they buried him with the key and a sword. And over there is the holy face, which I think is supposed to be on Jesus’s death shroud, but I think there’s more than one and then there was something about parades.

If Jeanie reads this and emails what Cristina really said,  I’ll be sure to post it for hilarious conparison. 

We managed to lose the tour at the top but caught up with them back in town at the Concatedral de San Nicolàs de Bari, which we passed on the way to the self-proclaimed 3rd best gelato in Spain- a bold yet underwhelming claim. We followed along through the streets of the old city, which was a Moorish town before the reconquest (Alicante is actually Arabic for city of lights), to the Basilica de Santa Maria  d’Alacant, at which point I dumped my ice cream down my front trying to take a picture, entertaining the nearby students. 

That evening, after Jeanie and Maite had dealt with a student panic attack, we headed out for tapas at the usual Spanish dinner hour – 10:30 pm – to a fabulous place called El Cantó and then were in bed by the usual Spanish bed time – 1 am. Jeanie forced me to run the next morning and we hit the dead and empty streets by 8 am, well before Spanish wake up time. 

In our last day, we had the good fortune to witness the Three Kings Parade. Spain apparently celebrates the three wise kings that brought completely inappropriate baby gifts to baby Jesus, like choke-hazard gold pieces and whatever Myrrh is. This parade features a visual cacophony of biblical, Disney and star wars characters, most of whom launched handfuls of hard candy at the crowd. Jeanie and I tried catching the candy until enough pieces painfully cracked us in the head, at which point we actively ducked the candy bullet barrage. Maya was far braver and was rewarded with quite a candy haul. 

Today we sadly left Jeanie, Maite and Alicante to head back to Zurich. We are all a bit travel weary so probably time to call it quits. We just heard it’s -6 degrees Celsius in Zurich, with no chance of palm trees. But frankly the 10:30 pm Spanish dinner time was killing me; I’m looking forward to the excuse of dark, cold evenings so I can justify my 9 pm bed time. 

As a side note, Jeanie, who is a bonafida technophobe, moved into the modern world with the purchase of an iPhone. Maya and Joe took turns showing her the wonders of her new device during our stay and I captured the epic moment for posterity.

Ali – For winter break, we teamed up with the Kaufmans (Joe’s sister Paula, her husband Adam and their three kids age 4,7 and 8) to plan a European adventure. I was game for heading to any new foreign land. Paula had her sights on Italy, as the Abraham family lore had it that mom and pop Abraham had the best time of their lives in the Dolemites of Northern Italy (Side note: mom and pop Abraham left their 3 kids at home for that trip, which means they could have been in Northern Jersey and had the best time of their lives). So, after the Kaufmans hung out for a week in Zurich and Adam fixed all of our broken appliances, we hopped on an early morning flight to Venice and rented a minivan that could fit 8 for the 2 hour ride into the mountains. I immediately became the least favorite aunt when I banished the little kids to the third row, taking both a philosophical as well as a physiological stand regarding where car sickness prone adults should get to sit. 

Since it was Christmas Eve, I had it from an Italian colleague that we should do grocery shopping in the Venice area before heading into the rural hinterlands, as food would be scarce until after the holiday. So we pulled off for a grocery run. Adam guarded the van full of luggage from the maurading bands of luggage Mafia while the rest of the crew descended upon unsuspecting Italian shoppers. We piled our carts with ridiculous mountains of food including a bag of lentils that 9 year old Max insisted he loved and tried not to act gleeful when the total was a mere 260 Euros. One of the kids loudly remarked how cheap it was and Paula felt obliged to tell him that 260 Euros was a lot of money, throwing herself into the part of an American mother of only modest means suddenly plopped in Italy for her non-English speaking audience.  

Back on the road and keeping a one pee stop per 30 minute pace, we arrived at our AirBnB in Peaio, a small town about 10 minutes from the world famous Cortina D’Ampezzo.Cortina is exactly what you would picture if I said ‘imagine an Italian village filled with tourists in expensive ski gear’. If you needed skis, ski gear, fashionable clothing (Orange fur sleeveless tunic anyone?) or smoked meat products, you were in business. Anything else was harder to find. 

We strolled through town on the hunt for ski rentals and info about where to ski with 4 children and 4 adults ranging in skill from first-timer to expert. Bear in mind there was zero natural snow to be had anywhere in this world famous ski area thanks to global warming, but you would never know it looking at the abundance of snow outfits.  We soon found the hot chocolate stand, which served a variety of chocolate caldo that was more akin to hot chocolate pudding than a beverage. Even the kids said it was too rich after a half a cup of Liquid Diabetes. 

The next day we did a bit of touring, heading to a famous lake called Pragser Wildsee just off the Austrian border. The lake looked to be completely frozen and folk were skating around with and without skates. Paula had the ambitious goal of walking around the lake on the hiking path but the kids were more keen on the novel experience of walking on the lake surface. So I did what any fun and negligent aunt would do… ignored the concerned look of their mom and marched them across the frozen lake surface with Joe leading as our designated ice thickness tester. 

The excursion brought out the true nature of each child.  Maya and Max, being rather sensible children, expressed concern over the foolishness of the endeavor and urged us to turn back. When I said to Max, “Max, we can’t turn back. We may never get to do this again!”he said,”You are right. We will NEVER do this again.” Aaron, being risk-insensitive and unable to hear the lower pitch of adult voices, kept running out ahead of our designated ice-tester, taking over the job by falling hard on the slippery surface every few feet. 

To end your suspense I can report we all lived and nobody cracked their head open on the ice or cried, defying Paula’s prediction on both accounts. We celebrated with hot chocolate and cake. 

The next day we hit the slopes at Socrepes, the family-oriented ski area. About half the runs were open with several tanker trucks worth of man-made snow spread like cream cheese over narrow strips of the mountain. It was down right balmy and we all stripped off the normally necessary ski layers. Joe, Max, Maya and I took off to the upper slopes since we were all semi seasoned skiers. A couple things I learned: 1) warm weather skiing is quite enjoyable; 2) the first run of the day with rental gear should not be done on the hardest slope; 3) there should be 1 adult per child skiing behind to pick up all the lost gear; 4) if you forget about 3 then Italians are very helpful on the slopes and will re-cloth and re-gear your child for you. The skiing ended up being a highlight despite the warm climate and Socrepes avoided being called SoCrappies forevermore in Abraham vacation tales. 

We soon left the Dolemites for Venice. We had a VRBO “artist loft” rental right next to Piazza San Marco –  artist loft being code for funky/quirky/semi-functional. The adults had all been to Venice 10 to 20 years prior,but for the kids it was all new and enchanting starting with the waterbus. 

The first thing the parents noticed was the abundance of shops with shiny highly breakable glass objects, making them irresistible for kids and a thrilling game of Chance for the parents. The first thing the kids noticed was the stinkiness of the canals, which concerned them as we were booked on a gondola ride. Luckily I had my minty chapstick, which they all shoved up their noses. 

The gondola ride was a huge hit with the kids. Our very nice Gondoleer sarenaded us and told us stories of Venice. He refused to let me row but at least showed me how they can steer these immense boats with such precision through the canals. When the kids asked if he had ever hit his head on a bridge he said no, but he once had a full-figured passenger shift position and send him into the very cold and stinky canal water. 

Most of our time in Venice we spent just wandering through the maze of a city, thanking the tech gods every 5 minutes for creating Google maps.  There are no cars but  hundreds of bridges and small streets. Around every corner is some new delight, like the wonderful paticerria where we stopped for espresso and sweets. It truly is the most beautiful place. 

 Today we said goodbye to the Kaufmans who caught an early flight to London. It was probably for the best as Adam’s spine took a beating carrying 5 year old Josie around Venice. Here he is in a moment of spiritual defeat questioning his life choices:

The Abraham family is currently doing a remake of the movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ by taking a waterbus to the train station where we catch a train to Milan to another train to the airport to our flight to Madrid. That’s what European travel looks like when you don’t book ahead during the holidays. Anyway we are looking forward to the Spanish portion of our vacation, though I am concerned about the severity of my Tiramisu withdrawals.