Strangers in the Alps

We're getting hitched!

2008-08-11T03:20:00.005+02:00

Hello all,

I thought I'd use our blog as a means to communicate to everyone (via email, Facebook, or otherwise), that Lindsay and I are officially engaged! I proposed to Lindsay yesterday during our trip to Madison, where our families met up for the day. It was the perfect timing to get everyone together, and, after our three years together, the right time for us to make this decision.

Lindsay and I met in July of 2005, through mutual friends. We communicated via email for a few weeks and got together on July 22nd. On our first date, I picked her up at her apartment, having no idea what our first date would eventually bring. We went to an African restaurant, Fasika, in St. Paul, to a movie and out for drinks at the CC Club, where we got to know each other more. Lindsay described what she did for a living at the University and Medtronic - it wouldn't be the first time I wouldn't understand all of her jobs - whatever they are (I'm still learning). We ended our first date late, and I walked her home. As we parted, she stepped onto the first step leading up to her building and turned around. Now looming over me, we exchanged a firm handshake and called it a night.

The very next night, we happened to get together again. Before we met, we discussed how we both liked the movie Wet Hot American Summer, and it just so happened to be playing as a midnight showing at a theater in our neighborhood. So, we got together again, breaking the first rule of dating, to wait at least two days before contacting one another again...

One week later, Lindsay was off to NYC for a week for a wedding, and I left for California for a week the night after she got back... for souvenirs, she bought me some handmade soap from her favorite soap shop in SoHo, and I bought her some unique handkerchiefs from an outdoors outfitter in Santa Cruz. Strange gifts perhaps, but it represented our strong comfort level with one another early on in our relationship.

In the fall of 2005, I was on a project at work that required me to put in long hours over a long string of days. During these few weeks, Lindsay was there for me in what little down time I had, and I looked very much forward to seeing her after work, and it was at this point in our relationship that we became much closer. We moved in together in May of 2006, after it became less and less reasonable to pay two rents as we spent more and more time together. Our mutual interests blossomed as we spent more time together, from our taste in music and movies, to getting our hands dirty in the kitchen or our garden. When we weren't in the cities, we were traveling to faraway places.

We started small in our travels with one another early on - first to Wisconsin to meet my family, and then to Dallas to meet hers at Christmas. After that came NYC, Toronto, Jamaica, and Iceland. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to live in Switzerland for three months, where we visited Germany, England, Italy, and, of course, Liechtenstein.

There's no one I'd rather be with, and, since Lindsay said yes to my proposal, I guess she feels the same! I look forward to more shows, more movies, more cooking, more gardening, more traveling, more whatever-it-is-we-take-on-next, and simply more time being with together with her.

Right now, I think we're still trying to digest the weekend... We've got no date or location picked yet, and have gotten only so far as a brief discussion on whether or not we'll be making any name changes.

All I know for sure is that I love her to no end, and am happy to proclaim that we're getting married!

Zermatt - Matterhorn

2008-06-22T23:59:00.005+02:00

Lindsay and I reunited on Friday evening, and after a brief shower and shave, we were off to her co-workers house for dinner. Dinner was fabulous, her co-worker lived in a simple house on a hill outside a small town. Her co-worker Funke (from Nigeria) lived in the house with her husband (from Zurich), and their four year old daughter, Jordan. Another of Lindsay's co-workers, Kristina and her husband (both from Germany), were there as well. We had a couple drinks, and Jordan entertained us by showing us her 'pet' frogs in their little pond, and showing us the fat slugs around the garden.

Despite being inland a little ways from Lake Geneva, we could see the lake, the mountains across the lake in France, and Mont Blanc. You can't see the mountain from Lausanne for whatever reason, but it certainly lives up to it's name - in mid-June, it's not only one of the last mountains with snow on it, it's completely covered in it. The mountain stood above the rest of them, and as the sun was setting, turned from white to pink to gray as the sun set. Not to be outdone, as soon as the sun set, a nearly full moon made an appearance. It was quite a nice way to relax after a long day of traveling.

Lindsay and I decided that for the weekend, despite my sore feet, to go camping and hiking in Zermatt, gateway to the Matterhorn. Zermatt had been at the top of the list of places to visit in Switzerland from day one, and only now did we really have a chance to visit. The drive was about 2 1/2 hours from Lausanne, through some of the most beautiful countryside in Switzerland, in my opinion. The highway we took is situated in a large mountain valley along the Rhône River. We travelled through the canton [state] of Valais, where it happened to be apricot season. Pledging to get some on the way back, we carried on, and got to the campsite in Randa that afternoon. We set up camp, and carried on to Zermatt for the evening. There are no public roads to Zermatt, so we had to ditch our car in the town of Täsch and take a train to the town. We didn't do a lot in Zermatt that evening other than browse the shops and figure out what hiking trail we were going to take on on Sunday. There were gondola's from Zermatt to virtually every mountain that surrounded it. We headed back to Randa in time to have a quick bite to eat and watch the Netherlands-Russia match with a bunch of other vacationers. The Netherlands had been playing incredibly well in the EuroCup, and were heavy favorites over Russia. In the end, Russia beat them right at the end of overtime.

Sunday morning, we decided to take a gondola from Zermatt to the Schwarzsee Paradise, and hike down through Zmutt back to town. The gondola ride was a pretty exciting experience - just when you thought you were done, you'd pop over a ridge, and the gondola would ascend again, out of sight. We ended up climbing about 3000 feet in 15 minutes. It turned out to be about a 3-4 hour hike back down the mountain to Zermatt. The view of the Matterhorn was fabulous!!!

We drove back to Lausanne soonafter we finished our hike. It had been pretty hot at the lower elevations, with temps near 90 degrees. We never did get our Valais-ian apricots. A stand with a load of them called us just as we were to hop on the highway. We passed it and turned around to get some, only to get stuck behind a tourist bus, which unloaded with enough people to buy out the lot. Boo.

We had a wonderful time in Zermatt. The area had enough hiking areas to keep one busy for the entire summer, nevermind skiing for the winter, which is certainly the greater draw to the area. Though it was certainly a tourist town, we didn't get the feel like we were in a tourist trap. Lindsay and I talked openly about coming back for a winter holiday here.

Old shacks - few, if any of these seemed to be used for anything... maybe a holdover from the pre-tourism days? At the bottom: In the middle: At the top: Lindsay Bockstedt: Adventurer The Matterhorn: Zmutt:

The Ancestral Stomping Grounds: Part Two

2008-06-20T23:59:00.023+02:00

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I met with Chris at the train station late Sunday night, and we wandered around town for a bit, drinking a Kölsch beer, and catching up on our lives from the past six years. Turkey had just won a match in the EuroCup, and all the Turks in town were out on the street celebrating.

On Monday, while Chris had to work, I went down to the city of Koblenz, about an hour south by train, to go to the 'Landeshauptarchiv', the state/civil archives for the region. The information I obtained filled in some gaps in my tree... by Tuesday, I was able to find nearly all of the incomplete information. It was an interesting search... I still have to translate some of the records (if I can read them at all). Monday night, I headed back to Köln to watch the Germany-Austria match with Chris.

Statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine rivers:

The archives:

On Tuesday, while I continued my research, Chris took the camera and explored Koblenz... he hadn't been there before, and took a boat ride down the River Rhine during the morning. Chris discovered an amazing vegetarian/vegan buffet restaurant, Salat Garten, where we ate for lunch.

Statue representing one of the symbols of Koblenz, the Rascal: Views around Koblenz (courtesy of Chris):

In the evening, we headed towards the 'homeland', bound for Kaisersesch, the only proper town in the area. We rented an apartment for the night from a woman with a furnished basement. We dropped off our things, and headed out to find some dinner. After passing on the combined Italian/Chinese joint, we found a pizzeria with a flat-screen TV to watch the France/Italy game - a rematch from the World Cup in '06. I wandered around town for a bit during half-time to see what the town was like. Being the 'big' town in the area, it was quite small (only 1500-2000 people, tops). The older buildings were nice, and the church was quite interesting... for one reason or another, the steeple is both crooked and twisted. It almost looked like a wizards cap.

On the train:

Our apartment for the evening (through the sunroom on the right):

The streets of Kaisersesch:

On Wednesday, Chris and I wandered around Kaisersesch a bit more. We toured a couple cemeteries to look for familiar names... I found some that are in my family tree, but no Kalsch's. There is supposedly a time limit on gravesites in Germany... if sites aren't tended to, or after a certain period of time, they get excavated. I'm not sure what happens to the remains... so much for an eternal resting place. Ultimately, there were no sites older than about 40 years or so, with the exception of war veterans. We also checked out a Jewish cemetery on the edge of town... most of the headstones were no longer legible, though the latest burial date at this particular cemetery was 1929, well before WWII. It was all but abandoned, aside from some lawn maintenance.

The main cemetery. Bleser is a name in my family tree. These people might have been distant cousins. The Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. We checked this out more out of curiousity than for anything related to family research:

After touring Kaisersesch, we walked 3 km towards Masburg. Masburg is where my grandfather's grandfather lived before moving to Chicago in 1881. It was a small town, with a nice church and school. As Chris was leaving back for Köln that afternoon, we enquired for a room at the local hotel. Unfortunately, they were full... there was also no designated camping area in town, but the hotel owners said that if I were only sticking around for one night, I could put up a tent on the edge of town, and no one would really care.

We made relatively short time of Masburg, as we had to get to another village so Chris could catch his train back to Köln. We walked another 2 km to Urmersbach, where we grabbed a beer and snacks and killed some time. I saw Chris off, and wandered around town a bit. Again, I visited a cemetery, but again, only newer gravesites existed.

The view of Masburg from a hill in Urmersbach:

From there, I headed towards Dungenheim, another ancestral town, at the edge of where my relatives spanned. Again, the town and it's old buildings were beautiful, and the town quaint. I grabbed dinner, and before I could pay my bill, the last bus of the day passed the restaurant by. I was able to catch a ride with a local back to Kaisersesch (from a guy named Dirk, who was a electronics technician in the Army). From there, I walked back to Masburg, and took the hotel owner's advice, and set up my tent on the edge of town, in a stand of trees in between farm fields.A view of Dungenheim: A view from my impromptu campsite. Farmers wrapping rolls of hay. It was a pretty interesting operation.

Full moon over Kaisersesch:

The next morning, I wandered through Masburg some more before taking a bus to Kalenborn. This is the town my grandfather's grandmother was from. It was a pretty unremarkable town, save a few older buildings. I would say that the population couldn't have been more than a couple hundred people at most. The monument for the soldiers that died in WWI and WWII paint a pretty grim picture of the losses these small towns faced in these wars...

I walked through the towns of Eppenburg and Laubach on my way towards Mullenbach, where I had a large number of ancestors born and raised.

Eppenburg: Laubach had a number of houses that utilized slate for the sides and roof... Mullenbach, just down the street, had a large slate mine, where a number of my ancestors worked. Overlooking the town: Home of the 'Alte Schule', or Old School... it's now a museum dedicated to slate mining history. I decided to wander around the old slate mines before ending my trip. One ancestor, named Peter Welling, owned one of the mines, according to some of the information I obtained. I held a glimmer of hope that there might be some info on him along the trails, to no avail.

The placards at the trailhead mentioned that some forms of wildlife lived in the valley. I saw a couple small lizards scurrying about, and came across a small pond with baby salamanders. I had only seen them once in my life before, and now there were hundreds of them. It was a pretty cool experience.

The slate mine was more interesting than I had expected, especially with the remains of mines and buildings on site. Not surprisingly, I was the only person on the trail (I didn't expect slate mining would draw too many tourists), but nevertheless, to have the trail to myself was quite nice.

With the EuroCup quarterfinals going on later that evening, I was just able to catch a bus from Mullenbach to Kaisersesch in time to watch the game with Chris (With my cell phone dead, I was unable to reach him, and just so happened to run into him as he was leaving to watch the game.) Germany won a great match to advance to the semi-finals. Somehow, the fervor of the Germans after the match was paltry compared to the Turks from the other night. Exhausted from a long, long day of hiking and traveling, I was eager to hit the hay.

The next day, I had to catch a relatively early train in order to get back to Lausanne in time for evening plans with Lindsay. Having not seen any of Cologne, Chris gave me the nickel tour during the morning. We wandered around the Cologne Cathedral (Kolner Dom) and took a couple bridges across the Rhine.

Visiting these towns was a fantastic experience. I was able to see a part of the world that I would never see otherwise. I've spent a lot of time tracking down these towns and the branches in my tree associated with them. Hovering over them on Google Earth, I tried to envision where my ancestors might have lived, what the towns looked like from below. To finally be there was very rewarding, the countryside was gorgeous. And while the towns don't stand alone as being special, they were towns that had a unique meaning to me, and as a tourist, to have them entirely to myself made the experience even more worthwhile.

Moreover, it was fantastic to have this opportunity to visit Chris again. It had been over five years since we partied all night long on my last night in Melbourne. It meant a lot to me that he was able to come with me to Koblenz and to Kaisersesch, and that we were able to hang out as much as we did. He is a wonderful friend, and I hope we can visit again soon.

The Ancestral Stomping Grounds: Part One

2008-06-16T23:59:00.000+02:00

Sunday afternoon, after bidding Russ and Sue 'adieu', I hopped aboard a train bound for Cologne, Germany. I had three goals for the trip: catch up with my friend Chris, who I met in Australia on my semester abroad in '02, search the archives of the Rhineland-Pfalz state for information on my ancestors, and visit the towns where my ancestors came from. I began my ancestral research in March of 2007, when we had a wicked snowstorm hit Minneapolis. Something like 22 inches on the weekend. Stuck inside, bored, I decided to do some casual genealogy research by googling my mother's maiden name: Kalsch. I was surprised to find a digitized obituary of my great-grandfather, who died in the 1970s. It got the ball rolling on finding out more familial history.

With the internet, it is much easier to dig around for information, especially with the digitization of info, and databases turning up online. Sites like familysearch.org, and ancestry.com, helped me find census records for most of my relatives in the states, dating back to the 1890s. Ultimately, I was able to obtain a death certificate of my first relative off the boat (Hubert Kalsch b. 1858), and found out the town he was born in: Masburg, Germany.

From there, I was able to find microfilms of churchbooks through the LDS church, and found more names of Kalsch's from this area. After posting the information in my family tree online, I was able to find other people who had more infomation. One woman, Ursula Buchholz, was able to email me all the info she had on my tree (from databases of church records she compiled), with some branches dating back to the early 1600s!!!

Ever since I found out about where my family emigrated from in Germany, I wanted to come to Europe to see these towns. With the opportunity to come to Switzerland, I knew I had the chance to visit. So, I arrived in Köln, Germany Sunday night in order to visit Chris, continue my research at the archives, and tour the my ancestor's hometowns.

Russ and Sue Visit Switzerland! - Gruyeres

2008-06-15T16:00:00.010+02:00

On Sunday, Russ, Sue, Lindsay and I went to Gruyeres. Lindsay and I went there during one of our first weekends there, and wanted to show her parents the town. There were a few things in that area that we missed out on during our first visit, so I was glad to be able to visit it again and check them off my list. Number one on the agenda was the alpine slide in Moleson-sur-Gruyeres. Lindsay and I walked the "Trail of Cheeseries" from Moleson to Gruyeres in our first visit, but passed on the chance to ride. This time, we were sure to give it a go - where else to do an alpine slide but the Alps? I had been talking it up since Russ and Sue came, trying to persuade Sue to give it a shot. Despite my best efforts, she wouldn't go (even though I think she really wanted to in the end). It was pretty fun, but I think I had higher expectations - something on the order of cheeks flapping in the wind, kicking back shots of whiskey from St. Bernards and dodging wheels of cheese... to my disappointment, none of this happened. After our alpine adventure, we headed down to the old town of Gruyeres. Another place I wanted to see, but didn't even know about when we first went, was the H.R. Giger Bar (scroll down in the link for some good pics). H.R. Giger was the artist responsible for the design of the aliens from the Aliens movie series, among other things. His artwork doesn't really do much for me, but it certainly shows he's an interesting character, and the bar was probably one of the most unique places I've seen in Europe. Afterwards, we had a delicious lunch at the same fondue restaurant Lindsay and I went to in April. The weather was cool and drizzly, so it made the fondue experience all the better. We liked this fondue joint not only for the deliciousness of its melted cheese, but also because they give you potatoes in addition to the bread, which no other fondue joint did (it's the little things). Plus, how else am I supposed to do an impression of a potato eating cheese, if I ain't got no potatoes? And look at Lindsay. I don't think I've ever seen her so happy. To think she used to be vegan. Since there were four of us, we decided to go ahead and order the raclette as well. Basically, it's a giant brick of cheese that you put under a heat lamp, and eat the delicious burnt bits as they form on top. In addition to the bread and potatoes with the fondue, we also got tiny pickles and cocktail onions. It's not the first thing I'd pick to accompany melted cheese, but it doesn't really matter, it's just a vehicle for melty cheese goodness in the end. The transformation:

Lindsay and I picked up a sweet fondue pot as another souvenir for ourselves. We're looking forward to busting it out this winter with any friend or family member who has a cheese craving.

We headed off back to Lausanne that afternoon. Russ and Sue were in town until Tuesday, but I had to bid them adieu early as I was catching a train to Cologne to visit a friend from Australia, and do some genealogical research, including trekking around the towns my ancestors came from in Germany.

Lindsay and her parents took a train to Bern on Monday to see the old town. And on Tuesday they left for Belgium on the last leg of their trip. It was good to be able to hang out with Russ and Sue outside of the hubbub of our daily grind in Minneapolis. We saw a bunch of new places, and revisited others that we likely wouldn't have seen had they not visited.

Russ and Sue Visit Switzerland! - Jungfraujoch

2008-06-14T23:59:00.004+02:00

On Saturday, we all woke up pretty early (like 5:30 early, unlike my usual 9:00 early), to meet up with Russ and Sue at the train station and take the long haul to Jungfraujoch, also known as the Top Of Europe. We traveled through Bern and Interlaken (Switzerland's backpacker and adventure capitol), and made our way to the cog trains that head up the steep slopes toward the mountains. The scenes on the way up were absolutely breathtaking. There were some fantastic views of little swiss villages below, and the mountain formations were almost other-worldly. The train eventually went through a series of tunnels, and would stop intermittently for tourists to get out and see the views from special viewing areas they crafted in the tunnel. Unfortunately, the clouds blocked out any of the views. The clouds proved to be a bit of a problem during our trip. Our cog rail: Cows being herded along what seemed to be a pedestrian path. Almost all livestock in Switzerland has the bells similar to the guy below, in various shapes and sizes. Eventually (5 hours, 30 minutes later), we reached Jungfraujoch. At an elevation of over 11000 feet, it's the highest train station in Europe, and has a number of things to do at the top. On our way out from the station, we wandered through the Ice Palace, which is a series of passageways carved into the glacier. Outside, there were a few vantage points where you could overlook the landscape. Since we had come from an underground train station, and walked through a glacier to get outside to the viewing platforms, it was quite surreal to look out onto a place completely covered in ice and snow, and not see any other signs of civilization. The clouds persisted for awhile while we were there, but all of a sudden, they started breaking up, and mountains would slowly be unveiled 360 degrees around us. It was quite spectacular. Eventually, we made it down off of the viewing area down to the ice and snow below to do a little wandering. Lindsay and I were able to use our hiking poles for the first time, which came in handy on account of my light-headedness (I apparently don't handle the altitude well). We wandered along a snowy trail for a bit before the clouds came in again. Lindsay and I rested for a bit in the fog, and with nothing but snow around us, and really no one else around, we were utterly and completely surrounded by white - It was no different than locking yourself in a completely dark room and trying to see. The lack of vision, combined with the dizziness caused by the lack of air made it quite the transcendental experience. View obscured by clouds: Clouds breaking up momentarily: View of a crack in the glacier: Altitude sickness: We made it back earlier than expected, and stopped in Interlaken for pizza for dinner. I don't think Lindsay and I would have made it here had Russ and Sue not come, so it was great to be able to do so. A phenomenal day....

Russ and Sue Visit Switerland!

2008-06-13T23:59:00.002+02:00

On Thursday, Lindsay's parents, Russ and Sue, came to Switzerland to visit us for a few days. They planned a European vacation for while we were here, and came here from Holland, where they spent a few days in and around Amsterdam. After Switzerland, they travel to Belgium, to see Brussels and Bruges. We had a simple night Thursday, wandering around Lausanne, and having dinner and drinks at our favorite pizza place in town. On Friday, we decided to head out to the small town of Cully, where Lindsay and I spent our very first evening in Switzerland back in May for a work related dinner. We picked up a variety of things at an Italian Deli at the end of our block, which is fantastic not for the amazing food they make in-house, but for the cutest grandma in history who runs it. We picked up some marinated eggplant, zucchini, and artichokes, some buffalo mozzarella, and some fried rice-cheese balls, and headed out of town. The lunch was nice, and the weather perfect. We had a good time feeding a group of chickadees our bread, and sipped on a little Limoncello before browsing a flea market nearby. There was a great variety of things of Swiss origin, and I ended up purchasing a souvenir for Lindsay and myself... an old carriage trunk from 1870, with some simple Swiss shields painted on the front. It was a pretty impulsive buy, perhaps, but a one-of-a-kind find. On our way back through Lausanne, we stopped at a park at the top of the city, where there is a large wooden watchtower to climb. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but Lausanne is essentially built on a mountainside, with an elevation of 375m at the lake, rising to ~900m at the north of the city, in only a couple miles. So, the views to the south, across the lake, into France, are beautiful. That evening, we went out to a nice dinner at a nice restaurant to the west of Lausanne, called La Clef D'Or. The little town was surrounded by vineyards, and there were a number of wines from the town. The sommelier was happy to mention that the wine we ordered came from a farm just down the road. The menu was quite French, and even included a fish item, which mentioned that the fish was caught at 7:00am that morning on the French Mediterranean Coast. I ordered the risotto, and the other three ordered fish. We made it an early night, on account of our having to wake up early to embark on Switzerland's most famous daytrip: Jungfraujoch.

Zurich: Eurocup 2008

2008-06-08T21:38:00.000+02:00

We went back to Zurich for the weekend. I met Tim's friends from studying abroad: Desiree and Juliana. After we arrived into Zurich, we went down to watch the first two games of the Euro2008: Switzerland v. Czech; Turkey v. Portugal.

Switzerland and Austria are host countries for the Euro2008, so the enthusiasm for the tournament is enormous! We watched the first two games along with 15,000 other people in the fan zone built for match watching in downtown Zurich. It was a great experience -- it was absolutely packed with people, a sea of red and white dressed and face painted Swiss fans, drinking beer, and eating pretzels. Of course, Switzerland lost and Portugal won. After a long night out, we went back to Desiree's apartment to sleep.

The next day we strolled around Zurich and enjoyed the weather. We left Zurich around 5pm on Sunday in time to watch the Germany game at home.

Every night until June 27th, there are two soccer matches: 6pm and 8:45pm. Every town, even Lausanne, has built an impressive fan zone. Tim and I have watched almost every game since it started last weekend. We watched the second Switzerland match (Switzerland v. Turkey) down at the fan zone in Lausanne, and plan to watch many more down there. It's a great time to be in Switzerland!

Amalfi Coast: Maxin' Relaxin'

2008-06-01T23:59:00.007+02:00

We arrived in Praiano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast around 7pm on Wednesday night. We were greeted by Luigi -- the owner/manager of Hotel Le Fioriere. He showed us to our room. Our terrace had a wonderful view - we spent many mornings, afternoons, and evenings sitting on our terrace looking at this:

Luigi, recommended a place for dinner, La Strade. We met up with Liz and Tim and enjoyed a wonderful dinner on a rooftop. We had an assortment of pizzas and caprese salad. Delicious!

The next morning, Tim and I had our first breakfast at the hotel. We were blown away on how great it was: croissants, cappuccinos, toast with nutella/jelly/honey, fruit, and yogurt.

Tim and I made our first of three hikes down to the Gavitella beach. We counted 493 steps down to the beach. On the way down we peeked into everyone's garden - packed with lemon and cherry trees, and tomoatoes, eggplant, fennel, and garlic -- truly wonderful. Unfortunately, the first day was a bit rainy. After some time at the beach, we had a few beers (that come with endless amounts of olives and chips!) and took an afternoon nap before heading out to dinner. This became our routine for the next three days. We liked it so much that we never even left Praiano! We had intended to do a boat trip to the island of Capri and hike, but we enjoyed the beach and the people at the hotel (especially Luigi) so much that we couldn't bear to leave.

The stairs to the beach:

Our second night, we ate at Il Pino. The waitress/owner, Sandra, was so great - she had a fabulous sense of humor. She went to grade school with our new friend Luigi. Praiano had such a great small town vibe. We had buffalo mozzarella broiled on a lemon leaf (the lemon leaves came from Sandra's garden), risotto, and gnocchi. We enjoyed everything so much that we forgot to take photos - but I did manage to snap a photo of the aftermath of our mozzarella dish. We finished our meal with a limoncello.

The next day in Praiano was my birthday. I called to order breakfast and was greeted by the staff with a GIANT boquet of flowers. Tim had snuck away the day before and asked Luigi how to go about getting a boquet for my birthday. Luigi called a florist in the town over and ordered the flowers. Tim's only request was that there were no roses (I am not a fan of roses). Tim was expecting a small and simple boquet of flowers...these were nothing like that! The vase and flowers weighed about 50 lbs and not only were they huge, they were covered in red glitter! We laughed about for a good while -- as you all know, we are not glitter people. It was a terrific birthday present.

We then made our way down to the beach again. This time we could sunbathe - but the water was too rough to swim.

We again had our afternoon beers and olives. We went back to La Strade for dinner - we ordered the exact same dishes as the first night...it was so good! At dinner, we ran in to Liz and Tim and the entire wedding party. We all went out to Il Pino for drinks. Il Pino was closing (it was around 11:30), but they let us in anyway. Sandra and her husband were great - we only ordered drinks but they brought out a huge amount of snacks - ricotta salata, olives, artichokes, to name a few. There was so much food that the 13 of us barely made a dent!

They had giant lemons on display...

The next morning when Tim and I woke up, we noticed an entire bottle of Prosecco in our room...we realized that Luigi had given us a chilled bottle for my birthday! By the morning it was warm, so Luigi replaced it with another cold bottle. Tim and I drank it later that night.

Our last day, the water was perfect. Tim and I swam and sunbathed the entire afternoon.

Tim jumping in - he's the splash!

After dinner, Tim and I met up with Liz and her bro-in-law Mike. We drank our bottle of Prosecco and countless limoncellos - for some reason Luigi kept bringing us larger and larger glasses of limoncello. When we decided to call it a night, Tim realized he didn't give Liz's camera cable back, so Tim went running (with limoncello glass in hand) up the road to catch up with Liz. Before he knew it Luigi was next to him on his moped and asked Tim to hop on. Luigi and Tim drove up the hill after Liz. Tim was so giddy when he got back, "I can't believe this place - Luigi is so awesome!" It was a great way to wrap up our trip.

The next day we took a car to the Naples airport and headed back to Lausanne. We had such a great time, we both would have liked to head back to Minneapolis afterward -- to end our travels on such a high point. We will definitely be back to Praiano and at Hotel Le Fioriere!

Rome: Our Last Morning

2008-05-28T13:07:00.003+02:00

On our last morning in Rome we visited the Pantheon. The "Temple of the Gods" was built during Ancient Rome and re-built in 125AD. The temple is gorgeous in its simplicity.

The openinng at the top is the only source of light.

The view from the Pantheon:

We made our way back to the Trevi fountain - we realized that we didn't take any pictures from the day before or throw in our coins -- one to return back to Rome, and the second for good luck.

At 3:00pm we met up with our friend's from Minneapolis (and other half of our curling team), Liz and Tim. They were heading down to the Amalfi Coast for a family wedding and we were heading down to the Amalfi Coast for some fun in the sun! It was coincidental that we both were leaving from Rome on Wednesday (Liz and Tim flew in that day). We shared a car on the way down to Praiano, Italy. On the way down we passed Mount Vesuvius!

Rome: Borghese Gallery

2008-05-27T23:59:00.004+02:00

Tuesday, Lindsay and I had a reservation at the Borghese Gallery, one of the busier museums in Rome, and got up early to make our 9am entry time. We ate breakfast in our room, and were forced to head out in a rush as Lindsay found out we were supposed to check in half-hour early. With no transit near the museum, we walked quite a way, and almost gave up on going, since our long walk put us there at 9:15. Luckily, when we got there, we were happy to find out that people throughout the line were there for the 9:00 am entry time. Unfortunately, since the gallery doesn't allow cameras, we weren't able to get any pictures. The website is fairly thorough, however. The bottom floor of the gallery had marble statues galore, and luckily, the website has some impressive descriptions for them. We were simply amazed by how Bernini could essentially take rock, and make it look so soft. The first work we saw of his, David, showed him as he was about to fling the fatal shot toward Goliath. I believe it was one of his early works, but looked as if it were about to lurch toward you, with how lifelike the muscles and facial expressions looked.

Pauline Bonaparte, depicts the princess reclining on a sofa bed - everything seemed so realisitc even the lins on the sofa looked like it was made of actual fabic.

After that, we saw Apollo and Daphne... the link describes it better than I could. What's interesting about it is that when the sculpture was being restored, those restoring it noted that the leaves that comprised Daphne's fingers pinged like crystal.

Pluto and Proserpina, a scene depicting a scene from Greek methology where Pluto abducts Proserpina blew us away - Proserpina's skin seemed to give under the pressure of Pluto's grip.

The sculpture in the gallery was simply the best and most amazing either of us has ever seen.

After our trip to the Borghese Gallery, we went back to the hotel to rest and cool off -- everyday was so hot! Later in the afternoon we strolled around to the Trevi Fountain. We sat on the steps of the fountain and enjoyed a Peroni.

We strolled around the neighborhood near the Pantheon in attempt to find some traditional Roman cuisine. We stumbled upon a little restaraunt that served the delicacies we were in search of: carciofi alla giudia (fried whole artichokes -- a traditional Roman jewish delicacy), stuffed fried zuchinni flowers, tonnarelli cacio e pepe (pasta with cheese and black pepper), we ate al fresco and enjoyed our last night in Rome.

Rome: Vatican City

2008-05-26T23:59:00.003+02:00

On Monday, we had reservations for a tour of the Holy See, aka Vatican City. We booked the tour in order to bypass the lines that are otherwise two hours long, minimum. Our guide was a little campy ("You will now be entering AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COUNTRY!!!"), but it was nice to have some insight on the significant pieces of the vast, vast, Vatican art collection. Apparently, the Vatican owns something on the order of 100,000 pieces of artwork. Given that the whole country is only 0.5 square miles, I'm assuming Pope Benedict has some rented storage space somewhere in the burbs. Courtyard "Pigna" (Pine Cone), near the entrance to the museum:

Marble statues inside the museum:

Laocoön Sculpture... my favorite of the museum. It's hard for a picture to do the sculpture justice... I think the zoom lens helps some...

Nero's bathtub... The supposed bathtub of the infamous Roman Emperor, it measures 6 meters in diameter, and made of the largest known piece of "porphyry" in the world. It's made of a type of purple marble that was/is so valuable, none exists that hasn't already been mined (if rock can become extinct, this would be one of them). The so-called "Gallery of Maps." Virtually every square inch of the halls are painted - the walls show the evolution of the Roman Empire, and the ceiling depicts various religious scenes. You can't help but feel a little defeated in here, knowing you'll never be able to fully appreciate everything here as much as you should. It was truly overwhelming. Close of of one of the ceiling paintings... this is probably 10 ft across.

We wrapped up our tour by seeing the Sistine Chapel (wiki), and were unable to take pictures inside. Ultimately, the place is simply amazing, and it's hard to believe that Michaelangelo had never done a fresco before, and only a few paintings prior. During the tour, it was interesting to hear about him as a person, from his poor hygiene to his arrogance to his solitary nature.

This is outside St. Peter's Basilica. Pope Benedict XVI lives in the building in the back in the center of the photo below. We watched and watched, but he didn't make an appearance.

Since the Vatican doesn't have an army, and the Swiss Army isn't doing much, the Swiss Guard is responsible for providing security for the Pope and the Vatican. Here they are wearing their silly uniforms. St. Peter's Square: St. Peter's Basilica in the background: Me in Italy, Lindsay in Vatican City.

Rome: Coliseum and the Forum

2008-05-25T23:59:00.005+02:00

On Saturday, Lindsay and I embarked on our 'big' trip during our stay here in Europe. Our itinerary had us in Rome for four days, followed by four days on the Amalfi Coast. We arrived to Rome in the afternoon on Saturday, and hopped a train to the city center from the airport. On the train, I was surprised to see some ruins from an aqueduct line, certainly defunct, but remarkably intact, heading towards the city. We arrived to our hotel soonafter, and after resting up, wandered the town for a bit. Lindsay had been to Rome once before a number of years ago, but this was my first time, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. We walked from our hotel, near the Termini Station, toward the restaurant-laden Trastevere neighborhood for dinner. Along the way, we saw some spectacular buldings and ruins, and I knew we were in for an exciting few days in Rome: Santa Maria di Loreto: The National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II:

Basilica Ulpia:

On Sunday, we made a day of checking out the most famous ruins of Rome, the Coliseum and the forum. Apparently, a lot has changed in the few years since Lindsay had visited. Previously, Lindsay had mentioned that you could walk directly into the Coliseum, free of charge, and that there were cats EVERYWHERE! Nowadays, there's an admission fee, and the cats seem to have disappeared (we saw only one) After visiting the Coliseum, we checked out the Arch of Constantine, before proceeding to the Palatine Hill.

Hippodrome of Domitian:

Other places in Palatine:

The Forum:

Temple of Castor and Pollux (foreground), Arch of Severus (background) Temple of Antonius and Faustina: We overheard a tour guide say that this used to be a brothel: Temple of Saturn: Too much sun:

A good link of a reconstruction of the Forum here

We headed back soon after this, as the weather was a bit much. It was the warmest weekend in Rome for the year, with temps in the mid 80s. We had been used to 60s and 70s in Lausanne. We didn't have any sunscreen on (since it was 25 euros [or ~$38] for a simple tube), and the sun certainly got the best of us that day, even though we tried to stay in the shade. We headed home in the afternoon for our vacation-long tradition of afternoon naps.

Zurich: Germania Reunited

2008-05-19T22:00:00.004+02:00

Back in 2002, I spent a semester in Melbourne, Australia at Monash University. The time I spent there was some of the best of my life. I met a lot of great people there. Among them, my friends Desiree and Juliane (along with two others) lived in a house near the campus, dubbed "Germania", and hosted some great gatherings. Their parties were always fun, and involved a lot of drinking box wine from coffee mugs, and listening to Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" many times in succession (maybe you had to be there), and shenanigans that could keep me from being president someday. When we all left Melbourne in November of 2002, I wasn't sure if and when I'd see them again.

Through the magic of the internets (specifically Facebook), I was able to get back in touch with Juliane and Desireé, and found out that they too are living in Switzerland! They moved to Zürich over the past few years in pursuit of jobs - the market is stronger in Switzerland than in Germany. It works out nice for me, as Zürich is only a 2 hour train ride from Lausanne.

So, from Tuesday through Thursday this week, I took the train ride to Zurich to visit some old friends from my days in Oz. I made it to Zurich during Tuesday evening. While Juliane was finishing her work day, I walked around the shops near the station, and made an early conclusion that Zürich is quite the cosmopolitan city - there are very classy stores everywhere and everyone is dressed in suits (Zurich is the financial center of Switzerland).

I met Juliane in the early evening hours, and she gave me the nickel tour of the city. We met up with Desiree, and caught up over some drinks and dinner, met up with Juliane's boyfriend Jan for a drink, and called it a night early, on account of the two having to work in the morning.

A photo 5 1/2 years in the making:

On Wednesday, I met up with Desiree for lunch at a Tibetan restaurant near her work. Afterwards, I followed her suggestion to explore Uetliberg, the "Top of Zurich."

Zurich, from above:

On the other side... nothing really.

A critter lives here:

Along a ridge walking down Uetliberg (it was very steep on either side of this)

The plant with the little white flowers smelled like garlic. The air was thick with the smell.

The hike down was interesting (and, at times, a little treacherous), as I chose to follow the (steepest) paths less travelled. I eventually managed to find my way down, with blown-out knees as my reward! Before meeting up with Juliane at her apartment again, I went to the Kunsthaus, which is argued to be one of the best museums in Europe. I saw some interesting works, and discovered a new favorite artist, Claude Lorrain.

That evening, Juliane and I met up with Desiree again, and watched the Champion's League Final at a American-style bar called Zic Zac. I met some friends of Desi and Jule's, one of whom was a big baseball fan (and had just been to Wrigley Field), and another who had just visited a friend in Minneapolis a few weeks ago! The match was a good one, between Manchester United and Chelsea, the two British teams, and was decided in the end by penalty kicks.

Afterward, Juliane and Desiree called it a night. I was invited along by their friends to hit the town, and we went to, of all places, to a Goth Dance Party (?). I guess it was the only place open late, and I guess it gave the goths of the city a little place to dance to dress up and be 'merry' on a Wednesday night. It certainly wasn't our vibe, but I had a good time observing and chatting with my new posse. I found out that they mostly worked together as air-traffic-controllers (and luckily, they had Thursday off.) We stayed out late, until 3:30, when I went back to Juliane's apartment, and promptly went to bed.

I slept in on Thursday (with a pretty good hangover), and headed back to the train station after strolling around Juliane's neighborhood and looking at the mom-and-pop stores in the area.

I had a great time in Zurich, and it was great being able to see Desiree and Juliane again. Lindsay and I will be heading up there again the weekend of June 7th and 8th to visit them, and will be lucky to avoid any of the chaos of the Euro 2008 matches in Zurich (though there will be plenty of hooligans around, I'm sure).

Tammy and Mike Visit! : Bern, Switzerland

2008-05-15T23:59:00.006+02:00

Thursday was Tammy and Mike's last day in Europe. Lindsay was able to get off of work for the day, and Nate had just completed a deadline for a project he was working on, so the five of us were able to take a road trip to Bern! We headed out rather early, and stopped in Bulle to visit an Aldi there. Tammy works as a manager at an Aldi store in Milwaukee, where they typically sell mostly food. The European stores are more elaborate, selling clothes and health and beauty products and the like. Tammy was pretty excited to see the place... the rest of us made fun of her for it. I guess I wouldn't expect anyone to be very excited about Bernese storm sewer systems...

Our visit focused around the Historic Old Town of Bern, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (video). We walked up the old streets, and Lindsay and I ventured inside the apartment that Albert Einstein lived in when he wrote his theory of relativity. I felt wholly inadequate when I found out that he was only 26 when he came up with this theory.

We grabbed a beer at a local brewpub nearby, and admired a lovely statue from our table... yes, it's a statue of a baby-eating ogre.

After grabbing a bite to eat, and visiting the famous Bear Pits (Bern means 'Bear' in German), we headed to Levey-les-Bains to the east of Lausanne to visit some wondrous thermal baths, which Lindsay and I visited a week earlier, and had no problem visiting again (and plan to again and again).

Tammy and Mike had an early flight on Friday morning... we were running a little behind with traffic towards Geneva, but they seemed to have no problem getting back... after the fiasco of their flight in, the less time they spent in the airport, the better.

I had a great time with my sister and bro-in-law... and they seemed to have had a great time as well. We've each travelled quite a bit on our own in the past, and together, typically with family - typically in the US. In as lucky as I feel to be here, it feels all the more better to experience Europe with family.

Tammy and Mike Visit! : Lausanne and Evian, France

2008-05-14T23:59:00.002+02:00

On Tuesday, Tammy, Mike and I stuck around Lausanne, so they could see the city where we're staying. We toured the Lausanne cathedral, and upon our friend Nate's request, made our way to a museum nearby.

The museum, called the Collection l'Art Brut, was a phenomenal collection. Basically, it's an art museum that consists of art by people who have no formal training in art and/or defy convention in their work. Typically, this work is done by people with mental or social disorders. The works were certainly unique. Some of the works included detailed wood carvings by an institutionalized patient who would carve patterns into the wooden walls of his room, and elaborate dioramas from a man who used only shells and nail polish (from shellfish he ate in large quantities).

On Wednesday, while Lindsay was off at work, Tammy, Mike, and I did a little more exploring of the Lausanne region. I took them to Montreux to see the Chateau Chillon, where Lindsay and I visited in April.

That evening, we met up with Nate and took a ferry across the lake to Evian-les-bains, France for dinner. Having never been to France before, Tammy, Mike, and I were able to cross it off of our lists. Evian is famous for its delicious water, and occasionally plays host to G8 conferences and the like. More infamously, they were host to the so-called Évian Conference, which was organized to discuss the matter of Jewish refugees during the rise of Hitler. The boat ride and the weather were nice, and we were able to kick back for a half hour and have a beer or two...

Unfortunately, like Monday typically is in the US, Wednesday is the day of the week in France (or at least Evian) where restaurants are closed for the day. So, after walking around for a while, we settled upon visiting an Irish Pub, having a drink, playing some board games, and heading back to Lausanne for fondue later in the evening. Even though the town wasn't all we hoped it would be, we had a good time hanging out and riding the ferry to and from Lausanne.

Tammy and Mike Visit! : Gavi and Cinque Terre

2008-05-12T19:38:00.001+02:00

Tim's sister and brother-in-law, Tammy and Mike, were due to arrive early Saturday morning. We had planned to pick them up at the airport and drive straight away to Gavi, Italy. Friday night after we had dinner we saw that we missed 9 phone calls...Tammy and Mike's flight was dealyed and re-routed about a dozen times. We went to bed on Friday night thinking we'd pick them up in Torino, Italy around 2pm Saturday. We woke up early Saturday morning to discover that they missed their connection due to bad weather in Newark, and had a final itinerary was to fly from Newark to Rome to Genova. While Genova is great since we could still manage to squeeze in Cinque Terre, they were now arriving on Sunday morning. Luckily, Monday was a holiday in Switzerland so we still could have a bit of time to visit. We were pretty frustrated at the whole situation - we were of course wishing for smooth travels for Tammy and Mike. After getting confirmation on their final itinerary, Tim and I left Lausanne Saturday morning to Gavi, Italy. Our drive to Gavi was very dramatic - through the Swiss and Italian Alps, rice patties, rolling hills, and streets barely a VW Golf width wide, we arrived at Agritourismo Della Guardia in Gavi, Italy. We didn't pick Gavi for any particular reason. We had tried to book accommodation in Cinque Terre, but we waited too long and everything was fully booked. When we arrived at Della Guardia, we were glad everything else was fully booked! It was fantastic. We were greeted by Mario who drove up on his vespa and spent 3o minutes showing us our room, which was more like an apartment with a fully equipped kitchen and two terraces. The view from our room terrace: Mario recommended a small family restaurant, Il Portico, in Carrosio. Mario called and made reservations for us - we found out at 7:15 that the could squeeze us in only at 7:30. The dinner was fantastic - I had pesto gnocci, Tim had ravioli with cream walnut sauce. The food was so good that we ordered a mushroom pizza. We finished dinner with the house dessert: 3 small tarts: nutella, pine nuts, and banana. Yum! Il Portico: Sunday morning we went to the Genova airport to meet Tammy and Mike. They arrived safely, but stressed, and with missing luggage. Once picking them up we took the train to Monterosso al Mare. The northern-most city in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a series of 5 towns and is a cultural heritage site and national park. Typically visitors walk through all 5 towns, which takes about 6 hours. Since we wanted to get back to Della Guardia when it was still light out to share the beautiful terrain with Tammy and Mike and in case they were experiencing jet lag, we only really toured Monterosso. It felt great to be on the Mediterranean. We had perfect weather! Inside a store making Limoncello: of course we brought some home! Lunch: Monday morning we had cappuccinos and croissants at a bakery in Gavi. We then made our way up to the Fort of Gavi, an impressive fort overlooking the entire area that dates back to the 1100's. The fort was closed for restoration, but the views were impressive!

Bavaria and the Neuschwanstein Castle

2008-05-04T10:56:00.000+02:00

After leaving Munich on Sunday morning, we started out drive back to Lausanne by taking back roads from Munich through Bavaria. Our destination was a "fairy-tale" castle. As soon as we were in the rolling hills, spotted with cattle and dandelions, we found an authentic Bavarian radio station, playing polka and yodeling songs. It certainly made the mood just right for driving through Southern Germany!

Along our way, we saw some beautiful scenery,

and were surprised to come across two men in Lederhosen walking some horses down the road.

There was also a town we drove through during the lunch hour, where there even more people in Lederhosen, each drinking a liter of beer, and eating pork-knuckles (sorry, no pics... we didn't want to gawk). In my mind's eye, it was quintescentially German.

We arrived at Neuschwanstein castle early in the afternoon. After having the Bavarian backroads practically to ourselves, we were surprised to get to the castle and see tourists everywhere. Nevertheless, we took the walk up to the castle and took a look around.

Our proximity to the castle didn't allow for the best pictures of the whole place... there's a bagillion pics from the Google here.

While we weren't quite ready for lunch, we got a good look at the menu at the restaurant near the castle... It's good to see that you can get your sausages boiled, fried, grilled, and schnitzeled all in one place!

After our visit to the castle, we hopped back on the autobahn and headed home. We had some heavy traffic caused by construction and customs, and didn't get home until nearly midnight. I was able to kill some time trying to figure out what this road sign meant. We saw it once on our way home...

Munich Germany and Salzburg Austria

2008-05-03T10:11:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Munich on Thursday evening, after a long drive from Milan. After settling into our hotel room, we headed toward the town center, Marienplatz. The 'old town' of Munich was anything but, and we enjoyed wandering around, scoping some of the older buildings, and taking note of all the stores along the main strip.

For dinner, we decided to check out the legendary Hofbrauhaus. The place was packed, and incredibly raucous. We managed to find a seat in one of the quieter areas the place (quiet being a relative term). The atmospehere was very energetic, with sounds of polka music, fists pounding tables, chanting and singing carrying throughout the place. We befriended a group of Brazilians sitting next to us, shared some pretzels, and ordered the cheese spaetzle with fried onions. Of course, we each washed it down with a liter of their finest beer!

We spent Friday roaming around Munich. We found a bakery in Marienplatz that had phenomenal pastries and large coffees served with whipped cream. After finishing our breakfast we strolled over to the Glockenspiel for the 11am show. We tried to stand and watch the whole show, but as our city guide put it, "the Glockenspiel is the most over-rated attraction in Munich." While charming, the music was horribly out of tune, and the mechanics were, well, rusty.

We walked over to the Viktualenmarkt, a fabulous outdoor food market, and picked up ingredients for a picnic lunch. We strolled through countless food, vegetable, bread and cheese stands. We ended up buying baba ganoush, cheese stuffed hot peppers, marinated artichokes, olives, cherries, bread, and goat cheese, which made a terrific picnic lunch in the English Gardens.

It started to rain a bit on our walk through the English Gardens. We walked through the Japanese Tea Garden and stumbled across a guy floating down a nearby river with a surfboard. Upstream, there was a group of guys surfing in a natural river wave at the foot of a bridge. It was pretty fun to watch!

We made our way back to Marienplatz and visited the Asam Church. It was incredibly lavish, filled with marble, gold, and silver.

We then made it to another beer hall for another delicious liter of dubel beer. For dinner we made reservations at Saf im Zerwirk, a vegan and partially raw restaurant. The New York Times recommends Saf im Zerwirk as one of the best places to eat in Munich. I had a raw veggie lasagna, and Tim had a cooked truffle ravioli. It was a great dinner, especially after gorging on cheese, spaetzle, pretzels, pastries and beer for most of our trip thus far.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and strolled back over to the bakery we ate at on Friday. This time we ordered 3 giant pastries and coffee. After breakfast, we took a road trip to Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Mozart. It was about a one and a half hour drive.

We visited the "Old Town", which is a World Heritage site for its preserved baroque architecture.

Shoppers on Rasthausplatz:

We visited the Salzburg Cathedral, which was originally built in 774, completely renovated in 1598 after severe damage, and restored again after being damaged by a bombing in World War II. The cathedral, which is the site of Mozart's baptism, was beautiful.

After visiting the church, we ate some pretzels and walked through catacombs above the Old Town.

We then took a cable car up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. The crowds were large and the waits were extremely long to tour the interior, so we decided to enjoy the view of Salzburg.

We drove back to Munich and dined at Prinz Myshkin, a great vegetarian restaurant near the town center. Tim had the tofu stroganoff and I had a Thai curry. The dinner and the service were spectacular.

Sunday, we had a six hour drive ahead of us. Before leaving Munich we made a trip to the Olympic Stadium.

Can you find Tim?

5 Countries, 1 Day

2008-05-01T09:20:00.000+02:00

Lindsay and I spent the night in Milan after our interesting change of plans, and headed to Munich in the morning. We had a new course to travel, with included heading north through Italy, through the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, along the border of Liechtenstein, through a corner of Austria before making our way to Germany.

Heading north from Italy, we crossed the lovely Italian towns of Cadenazzo and Bellinzona before entering the German speaking areas, where were drove through towns with such lovely names as Chur, Splungen, Zizzers, and Balzers (who says German isn't a romance language?)

The main pass through the Alps en route to Munich... the snow is bright!

After the main pass, our highway travelled along a river on the Swiss side of Liechtenstein. Looking to cross another country off our list, we passed through the wee little country of a mere 62 square miles and 35,000 citizens.

Surprisingly, we managed to spend two hours there, which were focused around three things: a passport stamp, lunch, and unexpectedly, princely wine.

The passport stamp was something we expected to get at customs, but Liechtenstein didn't have customs. If you want a passport stamp, you have to find the local tourist office in Vaduz, and pay $3 to get one. We happily handed our money over for a stamp! The downtown of the capital Vaduz is quaint... it's interesting because the main castle of the country sits on a bluff a few hundred feet overhead... and the King and Queen live in it!

We grabbed a falafel for lunch (Have you ever had Falafel in Liechtenstein? We have!), and discovered the Hofkellerei - the private vineyards of one of the Princes of Liechenstein. We purchased a few bottles, and after a half-hours drive, we were out of the country, and into Austria. We blazed through the tip of Austria (we were visiting Salzburg over the weekend), and made our way to Munich that evening...

A castle in Balzers, on the south tip of Liechtenstein:

The main castle in Vaduz, home to the Liechtensteinian Royal Family:

While we visited, it appeared that the castle was undergoing an aerial attack by hang-glider (we didn't stick around to see the fallout)

Falafel lunch in Liechtenstein:

Munich Via Milan

2008-04-30T23:31:00.000+02:00

Last Wednesday, Lindsay had a business trip to Milan, Italy. We walked up to the train station, where I saw her off. She was supposed to be back at around 11pm that night. I went back home to do some research for our trip to Munich on Thursday.

At about 10am, I got a text message from her: "Want to spend the day in Milan?" She called a few minutes later to explain that she forgot her passport!!! She managed to evade having her passport checked coming into Italy, and initially, we figured that she shouldn't have a problem getting back in.

On further thought, we were concerned that if she couldn't get back into the country, we wouldn't find out until the late evening, and neither of us were sure in what town she'd cross the border. Since we were intending to head off on Thursday morning for Munich from Lausanne, we didn't feel that we'd like to start out our 4-day weekend with a twilight drive to and from Alpine Podunksville. So, we decided that it'd be best that I pack up our things for the weekend, and pick up Lindsay in Milan!

I hit the road around 12:30, and had little idea where I was going. Fortunately, the signage on Swiss roadways in incredibly helpful, even if the highways aren't fully developed. The major mountain pass to Italy from Lausanne is through Simplon Pass, although a recently completed 20+ mile tunnel provided the option of a car-carrying train that'd bring me to the other side. It was an interesting conundrum, but since the train was 40 minutes from departing, and a 20 minute ride, I decided that the hour-long journey through the mountains was the more exciting choice. Approaching the Alps: At Simplon Pass: Yes, that's a tank... I did stop for a few brief moments to observe the scenery, and descended across the border into Italy. I finally made it to Milan around 6:30, and had only a Lonely Planet map to guide me to the train station where Lindsay and I agreed to meet. I followed signs the the city center, but with pedestrian zones and one-way streets, I could never get my bearings straight. Lindsay and I couldn't get our phones to work right, but finally were able to communicate that the building was a large white columned structure. After a half hour of driving around Milan, italian-style, I just so happened to come across the station. It was HUGE! I parked illegally, and with police all around, I was afraid to leave the car alone. So, I tried to call Lindsay, but my phone wasn't working... luckily, we happened run into each other just as I started looking for her! Very lucky. We found our way to our hotel, which Lindsay's colleagues helped her find... they were very accommodating, and would have let us stay with them if it weren't for the holiday weekend. Given our late start to the evening, we headed out pretty quick to get some grub, as in my rush, I hadn't eaten since breakfast. We went to a recommended restaurant, which was fully booked, but managed to find a place a few doors down that looked appealing. The interior of the restaurant was separated from the kitchen by a giant plate glass window, and as we were seated, were greeted through the glass by our chefs. We ordered a nice Italian Gewürztraminer before getting our meals... Lindsay got a fantastic gnocchi dish with an asparagus salad. I ordered a spectacular vegetarian meal, which included homemade arugula-stuffed mozzerella, a mini dill-flan thingy, a roasted fennel salad, grilled eggplant (best eggplant ever), and an asparagus soup. If we go back to Milan, we're already planning on going back to the same place again. After dinner, we did some more walking around, and visited the Duomo in the city center. This building is probably one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen. Mark Twain describes it best. The level of detail involved in creating this building is mind boggling... along the side, around a single window, there were 12 life-size marble statues, never mind the additional detail in the moldings and trim around the windows, and the spires at the top, which remind me of those crazy fractal drawings from math class in high school. We headed back to the hotel soon after, as we had a long trip to Munich the next morning.

Some detail up-close:

The bronze doors of the cathedral... Everyone touches the same spot... weird. Ongoing restoration work...

Nate Z.

2008-04-28T22:41:00.000+02:00

Within the first week or so of moving to Switzerland, I found out that a friend of mine from Milwaukee was moving to Switzerland. He moved off to Boston for school for a Masters in architecture, and I haven't seen his in about 3 1/2 years. In the years prior, my visits to Milwaukee, and his to Madison have resulted in numerous memorable escapades, which typically involve drinking and associated debauchery, the details of which will remain intentionally vague in this blog!

Anyways, he went off to school, and happened to meet some professors who reside in Switzerland. He was lucky enough to get a gig with these guys. So, I was pretty surprised to find out that he was moving to Switzerland the same time I'd be here. Assuming Geneva, Zurich, or Bern, I thought that it'd be cool to be able to visit once or twice. Lo and behold, he moved here to Lausanne last Monday.

I picked Nate up from the airport last Monday (which was arranged in the half-hour between we got home from London and he was to leave for the airport in Boston), and he crashed with us for Monday and Tuesday night. He had been here for a brief period in February, and was able to show us some of the sites that he discovered during his previous stay here.

Of all the people and all the places, I'm excited for Nate to be here. I hope that we'll be able to paint the town red here in Lausanne while we're here.

Lon Don Een Guh Lund

2008-04-27T16:05:00.000+02:00

Well, it's been a solid two weeks since we've posted, if only because we've been on the road for 8 of 10 days through this past weekend. Two weekends back, Lindsay and I visited London - Lindsay had a meeting for work there, and we decided to make a weekend of it! We got into town about 12 on Friday. While Lindsay had her meeting, I wandered around the Hyde Park area, and strolled through the Natural History Museum...

Photos of the Princess Diana fountain in Hyde Park, with some interesting hydraulic features: Some pics from the Natural History Museum: A Giant Sloth Skeleton: Your typical England Ogre skull: Petrified Ogre: Afterwards, we hopped on the Underground to Kings Cross Station near our hotel. The station is the fictional site of the departure point to Hogwart's Castle in Harry Potter (Platform 9 3/4), and more infamously, was the site of one of the four bombs of the July 7th, 2005 terrorist attacks. Not surprisingly, as we got out of the station on our way to the hotel, we were stopped by police, who inspected our bags, presumably for bombs and/or magic wands. After settling up, we walked around the area of Russell Square and grabbed a beer (including a thick, foamy Guinness) before heading to an amazing vegetarian restaurant: Eat and Two Veg. I still don't get the name, but the grub was fantastic! Lindsay got a veggie burger, and I got the Marylebone Hotpot, with cabbage, mashed potatoes, and faux-sausage that was probably the best I've ever had. As I type, my stomach is growling at me... Best Guinness EVER! Ye Olde Vegetarianne Marylebone Hotte Potte:

On Saturday, we started out our day with a traditional English Breakfast (beans, eggs, and toast), and took a ride on the London Eye. The weather for the day was spectacular, with sunny skies and temps around 70! (In London, no less... we hadn't even had weather like this in Lausanne yet)

London Eye:

After that, we went to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and headed up to Trafalgar Square and visited the National Gallery, and saw paintings by Van Gogh, Gaugain, and Cessane, as well as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, among others.

Victoria Tower at the Parliament Building:

National Gallery at Trafalgar Square:

In the afternoon, we walked through Chinatown to scope out some places to eat on Sunday, before heading to see Spamalot at the Palace Theatre. The musical was, as it's billed, "lovingly ripped off" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and was as hilarious as the movie.

Afterwards, we walked around some more, in search of some reasonably priced shopping areas. With the pound at $2, we didn't really find any, unfortunately. Basically, everything in London costs as much in pounds as it does in dollars - or, in other words, everything is really, really expensive.

We had hoped to get dinner at a recommended Indian restauant across town, but decided we had walked too far to go back. With three restaurants by the same name in town, we held out hopes of finding the others on our way back to the hotel. We were lucky enough to stumble by one by chance, and had an amazing South Indian dinner. We were hoping to see a movie that evening, but after returning to our hotel after a long day, the bed was just too comfortable.

On Sunday, the plan was to see the rest of the sites around London. We walked through Hyde Park and had hoped to see some eccentric characters speaking non-sensically, but the threat of rain may have kept them at bay. We headed to Buckingham Palace after that to see the changing of the guards. There weren't too many people there, just me, Lindsay, and about 10% of the world's population... the event was incredibly overly-elaborate for what equates to a shift-change - a high-five would do in my book. And does anyone really have anything against the queen? She's such a nice lady. I'd work there for $10 an hour and catch up on my sudoku puzzles...

Buckingham Palace, built in 1989 and home to King Ralph

We hopped on the tube after that to check out the Tower Bridge, which I have always thought was called London Bridge, and were fairly close to the Tower of London, which is noteworthy for its high-profile prisoners and executions (including Anne Boleyn), and housing of the Crown Jewels. We didn't have time to do a tour, as we were running short on time... we grabbed some eats in Chinatown before grabbing our things and heading back to Lausanne.

Tower Bridge:

Tower of London:

Old entrance to the Tower of London Fortress. At one point, Lions were used in the hole below to help guard the entrance.

Well, that's about it. This was my first trip to London, and Lindsay's third. The weather and food were great, and the sights were all I expected them to be. It was great to be able to speak English freely again!!! It was a very busy weekend, and we hardly scraped the surface of what London's all about... I really hope to visit again soon!

Montreux - Château Chillon

2008-04-21T19:14:00.010+02:00

On Sunday, we had breakfast at the near-by bakery. You can get a croissant, any other pastry, and a coffee for 5 CHF - what a deal! Tim had a croissant and pain au chacolat, and I had a plain and an almond croissant. We will be eating here quite a bit! After eating breakfast and retrieving our camera from the pizza restaraunt, we drove off to Montreux. But, first we filled the tank. It was 75 CHF (apx $75)...mind you we still had 1/4 tank of gas left. Luckily, our VW Golf TDI gets 43 miles to the gallon! Château Chillon sits on its own little island right off of the shore of Montreaux. Built in the early 12th century, the château served as the fortress, prison, and records center for what now is the Canton of Vaud. Some of the interior: Gorgeous views from inside: Trying to fit into the short doorways: Oooh a root cellar: Tim peeking through the window: And the Swiss do love the latrines... The Château also makes a wonderful white wine that is sold exclusively at the site. The wine uses the grapes grown in the local Vaud wine region. All proceeds of the wine go to the restoration of the château. We had a bottle with Sunday night dinner of Thai red curry. After leaving the Château and Montreaux, we went back to Lausanne and visited the Olympic Museum. Lausanne is the home of the International Olympic Committee. While the Olympic Park was quite nice, especially on such a beautiful day, both of us were pretty unimpressed with the museum itself. The majority of the museum was dedicated to the Olympic spirit and the financing/sponsorship of the games, but little was mentioned about the athletes or the historical context of which certain games took place.

Geneva

2008-04-21T18:10:00.012+02:00

We were planning to head to Lake Como Italy this weekend or to go bike riding through Burgundy, but the forecast was rain. So, we opted to stay relatively close to home.We decided to spend our Saturday exploring Geneva. But before heading out, instead of having an espresso - we indulged and gave into our American cravings for a giant cup of filtered coffee at Starbucks (I know, it's a sin!). After filling our craving, we headed to the train station and picked up a hot waffle and a apple strudel for the train ride. Our first stop in Geneva was an English bookstore, Off the Shelf, where we picked up the 4th Harry Potter and the Yiddish Policeman's Union. Strolling around Geneva was very refreshing - the weather was gorgeous and the terrain was...FLAT! From almost any vantage point in Geneva, one can spot the Jet d'Eau, which is a large water fountain that shoots a jet of water up into the air 460 ft high. View from a park: Closer up: Even Closer up: Next, we strolled through Geneva's Old Town. We enjoyed the pedestrian zones of the Old Town for its quietness. We came across St. Pierre Cathedral, which is where John Calvin preached for some years. The cathedral is gorgeous, particularly its steeple. Below St. Pierre's Catehedral are ruins from an ancient roman civilization - most of which has been excavated. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the cathedral in time to see the tour of the roman ruins. However, we did get a glipse of an ancient Roman old prison. Our day of walking through Geneva left us very thirsty. We stopped off at a convenience store and picked up a couple 1664 beers for the train ride back. Once getting into Lausanne we were exhausted and dined on some pizza and wine. The next morning, I woke up in a panic when I realized I left our camera at the pizza restaurant! Fortunately, they had it waiting for us, phew! It was a real scare.

Chester!

2008-04-15T18:43:00.003+02:00

As we posted about 10 days ago, Lindsay's Aunt Ann is taking care of our dear Chester. Thankfully, she's kept us posted on how she's doing... Chester in the morning: Chester in the evening: Chester the rest of the day: Thanks Ann!

Neuchatel and Gruyeres

2008-04-14T22:09:00.008+02:00

This weekend was the first time that Lindsay and I had some extended time to tour the countryside of Switzerland. True to our vow to visit the cities and towns that provide us the food so dear to our hearts, we visited the towns of Neuchâtel and Gruyéres, famed for their cheeses. We made sure to make the most of it, since it was the first time since we got here that it wasn't snowing or raining. Last Monday, we had steady snow all day, luckily nothing stuck around like the 12" or so that fell back in Minneapolis. Tuesday through Friday, it rained... pretty much non-stop. Lindsay's co-workers say that that's pretty much how April goes... the pay-off is in May, supposedly the best month of the year here in Switzerland. On Saturday morning, we headed uphill into town, and browsed around the shops and markets... The narrow pedestrian areas of the city have vegetable and spice stands all over... it was pretty interesting to basically walk amongst the produce stands on either side of an H&M. The produce looked great... there was pretty much anything you could want... eggplant, kohlrabi, strawberries, apples, pears, etc. I'm not sure what's in season when and where, but I trust that the variety is more abundant here than in MN this time of year. We headed to Neuchatel in the afternoon, about an hour north of Lausanne... unfortunately, most places were closed by the time we got there on Saturday, but the town was a smaller, more picturesque version of Lausanne, clocking in at about 30,000 people, on a lake of it's own (Lac-du-Neuchâtel). We hope to get back to endulge in a bagel with Neuchatel cheese! We took the short route to the city, along the motorway, through countless tunnels at 120k. On the way back, we took the long way home, and journeyed through small towns on the lake's southeast coast. One of the highlights was the medieval fort of Estavyer (link). On Sunday, we headed out relatively early to visit the town of Gruyeres, about an hour away to the east... We wanted to do some hiking in the Alps... Neuchatel didn't evoke the jagged, snowcapped mountainside I associate with the Alps... luckily, our trip to Gruyeres made up for it. We started out at the village of Moléson-du-Gruyeres, and hiking to Gruyeres along the Sentier des Fromageries (roughly, the Trail of Cheese Making). It was about a 2.5 hour hike, mostly downhill, through forests and pastures. We stopped in the restored medieval fortress of Gruyeres for a well-earned lunch of fondue and wine. Between us, we probably ate about a pound of cheese each, and Lindsay 'somehow' didn't realize that a liter of wine is roughly a bottle of wine... luckily we had some time to work it off before our bus came to take us back up the mountain. Although, there's nothing necesarily wrong with splitting a liter of wine after a 6-mile hike through the mountains... The view up the mountain from Moléson-sur-Gruyères: Where there weren't pastures, there was forest: We lost our trail around here... and had to walk down this ~30-deg hillside The chateau of Gruyères: The Old Town of Gruyères: My first bite of fondue... ever. Lindsay shows me how it's done...

We hiked through that...

Waiting for the bus...

Back home...

Vodka in Ikea

2008-04-09T08:53:00.003+02:00

I thought I should write a post since our arrival. Tim and I are settling in - we have a fairly basic one bedroom apartment just south of the main train station. We're in a perfect location - half way between the center of town and the water. Our apartment is 100% Ikea and was lacking a few things, like hangers, a coffee maker, and decent pillows. This prompted a trip to the dreadfully necessary Ikea - there is one 10 minutes from where I work. I give Ikea kudos for having a systematic shopping experience. I must say that I enjoy the Switerland Ikea for the mere sake that they sell Swedish vodka, beer and have a mini-H&M inside - all things Swedish. As far as work goes, it is fabulous - I am keeping quite busy. I have been ushered about meeting people and I am desperately trying to remember names. As Tim mentioned, I am sitting only a few feet away from an espresso machine - I am quite jittery and awake at the day's end. Even the cafeteria is impressive -- fully equipped with a fondue station. I am looking forward to the weekend. I want to spend some time exploring. Lausanne's farmer's market is on Saturday mornings. We plan to check out the market and then head out of town to do some bike riding. We exchanged our car yesterday - we now have a Passat station wagon that is capable of fitting both bikes. On Sundays the entire city is shuts down - no stores are open. We plan to head out of town again on Sunday to do some hiking. We are going to try out our new hiking poles! More to come.

We're here!

2008-04-06T21:02:00.014+02:00

Bonjour! Lindsay and I have made it safely to Lausanne... we've spent the last couple days getting ourselves organized here, and have had some issues with powering the computer, hence no blog updates... We left Friday afternoon from MSP with no stress or hassle. Typically, we always seem to be sneaking onto our flights by the skin of our teeth. The first leg of our trip, to Amsterdam, went very smoothly. We had individual TVs on the seat-backs - Lindsay and I played some trivia for a bit, then watched There Will Be Blood - great movie! We tried to get some sleep, which was virtually impossible on those planes... I think we got 1 or 2 hours at most. We got our first glimpse of Europe by flying over Glasgow, and descended into Amsterdam amidst a sea of high-tech windmills and a meticulously groomed countryside. It's certainly a place I'd like to see more of. We took a puddle-jumper to Geneva from there, a mere 90 minute flight. On our descent into Geneva we were flying right alongside the mountains! We met up with a woman who works for the relocation agency Medtronic hired. She was incredibly nice and accomodating, allowing us to load virtually all of our luggage, including bikes, into her van, and guiding us to our apartment in our rental - a Volkswagen EOS... turns out however (as I JUST found out), that it was only a temporary loan until our original car was ready. Too bad.

We arrived at our new apartment Saturday around 4pm. From there, Lindsay and I went out to a meet-and-greet with Lindsay's co-workers in the gorgeous village of Cully. We had a glass of wine at Lindsay's new co-worker Sylvia's house, which overlooked Lake Geneva and the Alps to the south, and the terraced vineyards of Lavaux to the north. The vineyards were designated a World Heritage Site in 2007. We made it home after dinner at around 10pm, and promptly fell asleep. In total, we were awake for about 33 hours straight. We slept for over 12 hours that night. Sunday, we finished unpacking, and took a tour of Lausanne together. In case you didn't know, Lausanne is considered to be the San Francisco of Switzerland, and they aren't kidding! The topography of the city is ridiculous - you can be climbing a road that's at a 45-degree angle, only to see a bridge, 100-feet high, that traverses the top of the hill! Roads go up and down, they zig-zag... I think I even saw one that did a vertical loop! In short, the city is a perfect example of the ideal European city - dense, with narrow brick roads, and shops everywhere. We did a tour of the 'old-town' with the landmark cathedral at the center of it all... Monday, Lindsay went off to her first day of work... she seems to like it so far... her co-workers are very nice, and the office appears to be as nice, or moreso, than her office at the Medtronic HQ in Mpls. I think she's almost as excited about the espresso machine in the office than anything else! I made my first ventures into shops on Monday, trying to secure a phone number for my cell, and exchange currency. Unf, since I didn't have my passport with me, I was unable to do either, and wasn't going to take on those hills again!!! Since we speak no usable French yet, I am nervous about asking shopkeepers to speak English. This has probably been the most difficult aspect of being here so far. However, since some folks at Medtronic have lived here for a year or more, and don't know French, and seem to have been getting by, I think it's just a matter of being able to approach people in the right way about speaking English. We've been wise enough to be sure to say our "Bonjours", "SVP's", and "Merci's" whenever possible... oh, and "Perdon, je ne parle pas Francais."

Chester has officially moved out

2008-04-04T05:23:00.011+02:00

Tonight after dinner, we moved Chester over to my aunt Ann's house - she will be living there for 3 months...Chester is in need of a vacation. We had a bit of separation anxiety, but she will be fine - as long as there is food she'll be a-okay. Tim with Chester in the car:

Me saying goodbye:

And Chester driving herself to Ann's

We'll miss you Chester - and all of your crazy antics.

One more day! ~eep~

2008-04-03T21:53:00.002+02:00

Tim here... I probably shouldn't be blogging right now... it's 2:55 as I type. I've got a dentist appt at 3:30, meanwhile, all my clothes are lying on the bed, and not in a suitcase like they should be. I just finished packing the bikes into boxes, which took about 50 zip ties, 10 ft of pipe insulation, 5 hours, and a bunch of skin on my knuckles. I just got a haircut, so I'm itchy, my pits stink, I need to shave, and I need to pack, pack, pack. Lindsay wouldn't be pleased to see me sitting here right now. :) While I'm stressed out about tomorrow, I'm not too worried overall - everything will work out. That certainly doesn't mean there isn't a laundry list of things to do before we go tmrw. I need to vacuum my car, drop it off at my co-worker's house, get Swiss Francs and Euros for the trip, have dinner with Lindsay's family, drop off Chester at her Aunt's, clean the apt, throw out the milk, pack, shower, shave, and sleep. I just finished up my last day of work til mid-July, and it was incredibly refreshing to have that "first-day-of-summer" feeling from when I was in school. I kind of like the stress and the pressure in a crazy way, but as soon as I get on the plane and have that first sip of beer, I'm sure I'll melt into the seat for the 8-hour trip to Amsterdam. T-minus 28 hours. Tim

Two More Days and Counting

2008-04-02T19:48:00.000+02:00

We have been quite busy finalizing all of our plans for our trip. In addition to figuring out the logistics of our move (where we're living, will we have a car, holding our utility and cell phone accounts), we have been busy trying to pack - especially trying to fit our bikes into the right size boxes, making sure we have all the camping and hiking gear for weekend trips, and trying to narrow down places to visit on the weekends we will have free. Phew. Despite all of the preparation - we're looking forward to a relaxing time abroad. Tim has never been to Europe (with the exception of Iceland last summer) and I have not spent time in Europe for a couple of years. We are planning to do extended weekends related to some of my work travel. So far I will be in Paris on April 14-15, London April 25-28, Milan April 30 - ?. There are also trips to Spain, Germany, and France being planned. Instead of just doing work-related travel, I was able to get a week long vacation built into my time abroad - so we are vacationing in Rome and Praiano (Amalfi Coast) May 24-June 1. While we're not traveling, I will be working on some very interesting projects in Tolochenaz, Switzerland and Tim will be training to become a bicyling, cheese-making, chocolate-eating, mustache-sporting, Alpine horn playing extraordinaire. We will update you on our apartment and travels when we arrive - until then au revoir!

New York Times Travel Section: Zermatt, Switzerland

2008-03-19T18:59:00.001+01:00

Appropriately enough, after seeing our first Swiss feature on PBS last night, the New York Times today is featuring Switzerland in its travel section. The article focuses on Zermatt, which is the last town before you reach the Matterhorn, probably the most rad mountain on the planet. Lindsay and I have been eager to plan a weekend trip there since we first got word we were heading to Europe. It's about a two hour trip from Lausanne. Most cars and trains a forced to stop in Tasch, a few miles downhill, so the pollution doesn't obscure the view of the mountains from Zermatt. Sounds like a good place to live - unfortunately, only Swiss nationals can buy property here. Boo. A link to the article is below: New York Times Article Wikipedia: Zermatt View Larger Map

First Post - For Real

2008-03-19T05:17:00.002+01:00

So, this is the first post to our travel blog...

It's probably something we should have started a while back, since, over nearly three years together, Lindsay and I have been to New York, Toronto, Jamaica, and Iceland together, among our numerous trips to Dallas and Milwaukee to visit family. We've got some pictures scattered about some sites, but nothing official. Since we're going to be in Europe for three months, we figured it'd be a good idea to document our trip, both for ourselves and for family and friends.

We had a hard time figuring out a name for the blog... Lindsay wanted something about Yodeling, I wanted something obscure and probably not very funny, except to me.

Ultimately, thanks be to my dear friend B.R. for the suggestion of "Stranger In The Alps". The phrase is a reference to a incredibly poor edit in adapting the movie The Big Lebowski for television.

Preparing for the trip so far has been a bit of a roller coaster mentally. A few weeks ago, we were nervously anticipating getting word back from Switz about whether Lindsay would get the position, and when she did, we were both in shock we were so excited. We've been stressed in the last few weeks with our obligations at home: Lindsay finishing up exams, and me trying to complete my projects at work, never mind moving across the pond, studying French, where we're living, and so on. Our trip planning, and all the opportunities we have to see so many places is incredibly exciting! There's so much culture so close to us, it's overwhelming. Deciding what to do about my job has been amongst the toughest decisions for me. Ultimately, I've decided to request a leave of absence from work, which will hopefully give me a job and an income to come home to, which, given the uncertainty of the economy and the job market, is probably the best choice.

Tonight, Lindsay and I stumbled across a PBS show on Switzerland, which toured Lausanne, our future home. For some reason, this made me incredibly nervous (Lindsay, not so much). Neither of us can believe this is happening, and coming so soon! We're both incredibly excited for this opportunity to live and travel in Europe! We've got so much to do!

More details to come soon!