The last time I updated this old thing was right before leaving to see Egypt and a bit of the Middle East. After I came back, things were insanely busy as I finished my internship and returned to Canada where I began working at the University. I got lazy and didn't feel like writing stories about my trips for a while and this is why this update comes five months late.
At the end of April I went bungee jumping once again with my friends, this time jumping off backwards. The next week I finished my job and celebrated my birthday at Desperados, just like my roommates Dieter, Sean, and Brandon did (it truly turned into a Kehl tradition). That weekend the Prague Crew visited our friends Johan and Dan in Denmark/Sweden for an insane start of summer party called Valborg. Right after returning from Scandinavia I departed on a solo trip to Croatia for five days before flying back to Canada.
Back in Calgary I continued working in the iLab where I left off a year prior. During the summer I have done a lot of hiking with Aaron and sometimes solo. Carman, one of my coworkers was moving to New York so we threw him an Amazing Race themed going away party at Edworthy Park. I was in charge of one of the events where the teams have to run around the park locating clues on a map. Everyone had a fun time and I really enjoyed setting up this event with my new GPS unit. At the beginning of August, Darren and I went houseboating on Shuswap lake with his friends, which was a very relaxing holiday.
Soon I will drive with my friends to Ucleulet on Vancouver Island to go surfing for a week. I have a lot of trips to write about, but I have uploaded pictures and stories from my trip to Cairo, Israel, Petra, and the Sinai Peninsula. I have to write about Scandinavia, Croatia, and about the seven hikes I have been on this summer.
Finally, I would like to discuss a few reasons why I do this website and why I think I have not given up on it. First of all, I do this page primarily for myself. Sometimes when I am bored or nostalgic, I will load it up and read about some of my trips and be filled with great memories of the places I have visited and the friends I have shared the journey with. For example, I read about how I first arrived in Baden 16 months ago and immediately experienced the emotions and memories I had that day. I felt excited, nervous, and happy. I remember seeing the Alps from our balcony because it was such a clear and beautiful day and Richard showing us around town after we got kebabs. Other times I remember my first night-train and how anxious I was because the conductor was confiscating my passport (standard procedure), or how we camped in the middle of Munich the night before Oktoberfest and waited until 1pm to get our first of many beers. If I hadn't spent the time to write about these experienced, I would forget these wonderful memories that I now enjoy.
I think that you have to be motivated by more than just showing off some cool pictures to your friends online. Often I don't feel like writing about a trip, especially if I don't do it right after coming back, but I still sit down and write something down even if it is a half-effort a few weeks (or months) later. One thing I noticed is that my writing style has changed; it has gotten more succinct and focused. For example, my stories of Belgium or Munich are long and in my opinion have boring details that could be omitted. The reason I wrote so much was because every little detail was new to me and I wanted to share this, even if it described boring things like train connections and hostel arrangements. Later on, when these things were normal to me, I omitted them and isolated the interesting elements from each trip. Lately I have tried to focus on sharing my thoughts about the place I am visiting while striking a balance by including descriptions of things I did or saw.
Anyway, I'm not even sure anyone but myself reads this because I don't collect statistics about who visits. If you do read my website, write me an email and tell me what you think and how you came across it. Bye for now!
In my last post I forgot to mention that Mike and I visited a huge science museum called Technorama on the weekend. Geek jokes aside, this place is really fun and almost all of the exhibits are hands on so it's even fun for non-Engineers, hah! I also went to a hockey game between national teams Davos and Kloten in the Swiss playoffs with my co-workers. Kloten was playing at home and the energy of the fans is something else. These guys had a "conductor" with a megaphone working up the crowds for the entire length of the game. It was a really good game and Davos beat Kloten despite being the weaker team!
A few of us decided to go to Germany for dinner on a random weeknight. Dieter, Brandon, Mike, Sean, and I were supposed to catch the train after work but Sean somehow got on the wrong train but later found the place by checking random restaurants in the town center, haha! The food was great and plentiful and oh so German. Delicious!
I've uploaded trip reports for Bratislava, London, and ski trips to Engelberg and Davos (powder day!).
Tomorrow I am going on a much anticipated 16 day long trip to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan! I suspect that this will be the trip by which all others are defined and I'm cautious to say that it will all be good times (long bus rides and border checks await). Cheers!
The way I check to see what I've done during the weekdays is by browsing through my photos since it is nearly impossible to remember every single evening. However, in the last month the only thing that I can produce photos of is Fasnacht in Luzern. Fasnacht is what the Swiss call Carnival. Carnival is most famous in Brazil and Venice, but it's something that goes on all over the world, or at least Europe. Basically, it's for people to party and drink for one last night before Lent begins. Now-a-days all that happens is people dress up in masks and costumes and marching bands parade down the streets. Mike, Brandon, Ula, Christian, Andy, and I went to Luzern for the evening to witness the rare spectacle of the Swiss partying. There was a marching band dressed up as beavers with Canadian flags to we sangyelled the Canadian national anthem into the crowd.
If you've read the list of differences I posted a while back you'll know that Switzerland is quite militarized, but that it's also ready for the end of the world - so to speak. This includes an elaborate network of bunkers, air raid sirens, underground hospitals, etc. On the first Wednesday of February, Switzerland performs a yearly air raid siren test. Imagine the confusion - mostly for foreigners - when all of the sudden all the sirens turn on at once in the entire country.
Last month I went on only two ski trips; a day trip to Klosters and a mega-trip to Zermatt. Now that the short ski season has nearly come to a close the praktikants have begun to travel again. I ended February with a weekend trip to Ljubljana followed by a trips to Bratislava and London that I still have to write about.
I'm currently slated to return to Canada on May 9. Until then I have almost every weekend planned. Two weekends of skiing followed by a 16 day trip to Egypt and Israel, a trip to Denmark/Sweden, and a final trip to Croatia and Serbia.
This weekend I stayed home both days. On Saturday I went to Zurich and Brandon and Andy to see a travel agent about flights to Egypt. Afterwards I came home and a few friends went to Brokenhaus, a cool 2nd hand goods store close to Baden. After that I climbed a tree with Ula. In the evening I went to my friend Aaron's house (different from Canadian Aaron) for a birthday party he was hosting. I ended up getting home really early in the morning and having to cancel skiing on Sunday.
An interesting thing happened on the way home from the train. I saw a bunch of weird coins scattered all around the ground. I looked at one of them and it had a strange hole it, others were strange sizes and colors. After collecting these strange coins and getting home I saw that it was a strange combination of coins: old Austrian shillings, Belgian and French francs, German marks - there were even coins from Israel and Jordan! I have no idea what they were doing on the ground in Baden and no one else can think of a plausable explanation.
In the last update I forgot to mention that I went to see Iron Maiden live in Zurich on December 6th with Brandon, Dieter, and Johan. They had a great show but I liked Guns'n'Roses more. I also went to Andermatt again last weekend and I finally finished the write up for Rome.
Watch as I brilliantly reconstruct the events of the last two months! First, I went to Dublin for 4 days, followed by a short trip to Stuttgart. Next, I travelled to Rome but I have been lazy about writing this trip up, which is actually why I haven't updated the front page in so long. I'll eventually get to it. Right before I went to Calgary for the holidays Schadenmuhle threw an awesome Christmas party. Louise and Taryn baked up a bunch of delicious goodies, Darren put together a "deep house mix" with his DJ equipment, and I entertained people by pretending to be Santa.
I went home for about 10 days and spent almost all my time at home. I had a great time seeing my folks and playing with our new cat, Kobe. I got a chance to go skiing once, saw some of last year's praktikants at a party, and met with some friends. It was a very relaxing break, especially playing with Kobe!
When I came back to Baden I brought both my skis with me in order to do some riding in the Alps. The first weekend of the year Brandon, Christian, and I went to Andermatt for a day. On Sunday I cycled to the top of a big hill overlooking Baden with my friend Ula. Over the week Brandon had planned a two day ski trip to Disentis with a night in a cozy Swiss B&B.
And now I'm caught up!
A lot of little things have happened lately, but not too much travelling. First of all, I went to Expovina in Zurich with my friends Natalie, Louise, and Eva. Expovina is an annual wine festival that gathers over 4000 different wineries from Europe. It is held on a series of docked boats on Lake Zurich and everyone comes all dressed up. This was the first real wine tasting for all of us so we got off to a rocky start when I simply asked the first person I saw for "some wine" (I'm all about being direct, you see). After learning the correct technique for ordering wine, we walked around drinkingtasting for about 2 hours, getting a wee bit drunk.
A few days later a bunch of us went to the Switzerland - Canada hockey game in Zurich. I don't think that these were national teams but perhaps some clubs or something (I'm not too clear on the details) so it wasn't the best hockey I've seen. Switzerland got off to an early start in the 1st but we overtook them in the 2nd only to lose it all in the 3rd. Final score: Switzerland 6, Canada 4. Everyone had a good time and it was fun to cheer for Canada along with a few others in the mostly Swiss stadium.
Two days ago I went to a beer factory tour with a group of my friends. We went to the Unser Brewery in Basel, a microbrewery selling to local bars. I was expecting that they would give us little tastes of the beer as it was being brewed while explaining to us the logistics of malt and yeast fermentation. We were all pleasantly surprised that our "tour" consisted of a 2 hour open bar and a free meal.
I am managing to do some travelling this month. First, I went to Budapest with my friend Natalie, and tomorrow I'm going to Ireland for 4 days. I also posted an update on my life that you should read if only for the list of differences between Switzerland and Canada.
At the end of the month Ziegel-D hosted a Thanksoween potluck dinner. We missed Canadian Thanksgiving because we wanted to do a potluck, and no one was around at the start of October. The idea was that we combined Thanksgiving with Halloween and had a big dinner at the end of October and oh boy did we have a lot of food, and many different kinds. I won't list what everyone brought but we ate goose, sushi, mashed potatoes, yams, vegetable salad, the list goes on. I decided to bring an oddity: boiled cow tongue. We also had a delicious desert: pumpkin and apple pie, chocolates, and other delicious sweets. At the end of the night we ate so much we had trouble moving.
On Halloween Sean turned 21 so we celebrated at Desperados again (this time I won some wine!). During October my friend Peter visited for a week and travelled around Switzerland. We visited Bern and Geneva and at the end of the week flew to Berlin for 3 days. Last weekend I went hiking with some friends near Solothurn.
I've got a lot of trips planned for November and December and then I will fly back to Calgary from December 23 until January 1 for Christmas vacation. The winter will be dedicated almost entirely to skiing, and then suddenly my year in Switzerland comes to a close and I fly home for good in May. It's already been half a year and it feels like the time has just flown by.
A week or two ago Mike, Andy, and Pat hosted a party at "The Berg", their apartment. The theme was moustaches and sweaters, particularly ones that old men would wear while they sit in front of a fire and puff on a cigarette. I was a little sad to shave my beard off, but I think you'll agree that the result was well worth it (while I was at it, I figured that a unibrow wouldn't hurt). I ended up trading sweaters with my friend Natalie, which was very revealing, but it was for a worthy cause because I won a prize for best moustache: a used male grooming kit. Brandon won prize for best sweater with his stunning rendition of "70s ski jacket". Thanks Mike, Andy, and Pat for an awesome party! Oh, my god.
I finally caught this website up with my life! I posted pictures and stories for my trips to Amsterdam, Oslo, Oktoberfest in Munich, and finally a hike I went on to the Faulhorn.
It's been more than a month since the last update; far too long. I don't even remember all the little things that happened last month. Lets see, all my Anker is gone because Mike drank half of it with a little help from Brandon and Darren. I was a little upset about that. We had a nice BBQ in the woods behind Baden a few weeks ago. Work has been keeping me busy so I haven't had much time to update this thing. I went on a 9-day roadtrip through Spain at the end of August. After that I went on a hike in eastern Switzerland, followed by trips to Amsterdam and Oslo (that I haven't finished writing about yet). Tomorrow I am slated to visit Munich again for Oktoberfest, so perhaps next week I will get this shebang up to date (don't count on it).
I update this front page much less frequently than I update my actual travelogue, so check out that page if you want up-to-the-minute adventure stories.
Woah, I haven't updated this thing in a while! My usual blog writing exercises at work have been replaced with - work! Yes, it's true, I am no longer the carefree office flyguy that I used to be. The days of slacking have come to an end and the work has piled up, so I'm forced to write this shebang from home, and that never works because usually I am doing something funner than writing webpages.
A few things have happened in the past few weeks. First of all, I feel I should mention my recent beer acquisition. There is a beer here called Anker; it's the really shitty beer that no one but poor people drink (e.g. praktikants). Actually it's pretty good beer, but it makes us feel better to call it shitty when we drink it. Anyway, each year there are a few "Anker sales" where they sell tons of Anker for real cheap! This is the chance to buy a few flats and stock up for the winter (or for the next few weeks depending on your drinking habits). So after work I went on an Anker mission with Brandon and Dieter and bought two flats (that's 48 half liters) for all of 25chf, or $23 Canadian. That's about 32 cents for a normal Canadian beer. The sad thing is that I'm almost half way through my supply. I swear, I'm not an alcoholic. Yet. Just kidding mom. :)
I have also purchased a Swiss watch. I was looking a few really nice models that were loaded with features but decided to stick to the simple and affordable. This watch is what the SBB (Swiss rail company) clocks look like at the train stations, so every time I check my watch I get warm feelings of trains that follow schedules.
Also this weekend was the famous Zurich Street Parade. It's basically a huge rave party that takes places on the streets of Zurich and lasts all day. People show up in crazy costumes (or no clothes at all) and dance all day long. I'm not into the trance/house music scene so I didn't stay for long, but I stayed long enough for my friend Pratik to drag me into the foam fight. There are a bunch of floats that go along the streets and one of them expels foam out the back where people stand and throw it at one another. Anyway, the picture accurately depicts the outcome.
Saving the best for last, I have three new travel stories for you. First is my two day trip to Prague, Czech Republic. Second is a 3 day trip to Krakow, Poland where I saw the old concentration camps and the biggest salt mine in the world. Last is a river rafting trip in the Swiss alps.
I'm quite a few days behind in the updates. Since Canada Day a lot has happened. Firstly I have shaved off my behemoth of a beard so that I didn't look threatening to airport security. However, it was not without it's fun, as I carved a nice handlebar into my face. Now instead of looking dangerous I look like a 70s porn star. Not that it's a bad thing. Dieter also turned 21 recently. In order to celebrate we headed to a Mexican place in Zurich. After dinner they let us play this game where you had to put a metal ring around a bottle of wine with a really long fishing rod. Everyone but me and Sean were victorious and scored free wine. Happy birthday Dieter!
I recently went on a big trip to Greece for 5 days. All in all it could have been a little bit less stressful and more relaxing but it was still awesome. The next weekend I went on a two day hike in eastern CH with three friends from Zurich. Oddly enough, the hike felt sort of like the relaxation that Greece didn't offer. Lastly, I just came back from a weekend trip to Prague, so you can expect a story about that in a few days. Enjoy!
First of all, happy Canada Day to whoever reads this page! Tomorrow is Independance Day, so happy that too! This past weekend I went to see Guns n' Roses live in Zurich. I also did the highest bungee jump in the world. In fact it's the same one that James Bond jumps from at the start of GoldenEye. Check out the video, it's crazy, 220m straight down!
A lot of things have happened since my last update. I should start by talking about the football craze that has swept us here. Pretty much everyone loves to watch football. I got to watch a Swiss match at work on a huge TV with all my coworkers and bosses. I have been going to Zurich a lot lately and watching the games in huge tents with large screens.
This past Friday I went and watched CH play South Korea; CH won. This was the first time that CH has ever made it past the first round. My impression of the Swiss has totally changed after that night. It was just like the Red (literally) Mile back at home 2 years ago, but crazier. People were partying everywhere: in fountains, in the roads, on bus stops, on traffic lights, on trams, etc. There were bottles everywhere. It was like years of repressed partying came out in the period of 6 hours. It was insane. So much so that the police felt it was necessary to use tear gas on the crowd. Yes, I was tear gassed by the Zurich police. That shit is potent: we barely got hit and we were coughing and rubbing our eyes. The crowd settled down after that, but the party raged on well through the night.
I went on my first Swiss hike a few weeks ago. It was very hot and humid but the amazing scenery was well worth it. The week after I took a 4 day trip to Vienna and Salzburg in Austria. Next on the slate is a Guns'n'Roses concert and then a 5 day trip to Greece!
Don't forget to check out Paul's Official Museum Nap List!
In the last few weeks I got a bike that I've been using every day to get around town. It's way faster than walking and more convenient (and cheaper) than taking the bus everywhere. A bunch of praktikants had a BBQ in the hills west of Baden to celebrate Keegan's birthday. A lot of people showed up and we stayed there until it got dark so it gave me a great chance to use my bike headlamp on the way home.
In more interesting news I went to a football game in Basel a few days ago between Brasil and FC Luzern. The world cup started today so I suspect I will be watching a lot of football games in the next month. Last weekend I took a 3 day trip to Paris. This weekend I am going hiking in CH and the week after that I am going to Vienna and Salzburg for 4 days in Austria.
Quite a big update this time around. Before going to Munich there were some more fountain shenanigans involving Shane, Dieter, and Brandon. The idea was to only throw Shane into the fountain, but suddenly everyone was going in (like last time). Just as we are about to go home, I realize that everyone is very silent and staring at Dieter, Brandon, and me. Shit, we're next. I had a minor leg injury so I couldn't run at all. I made my best to escape by hiding in an alley while Dieter was thrown in. On the way home Brandon was thrown in, making me the only dry guy from Kehl. I have to be careful next time we go out...
A while ago there was a pie shop opening in Zurich so they were hosting an open house with free food and wine. I met Richard and his friend Mak at the train station and we spent the evening in Zurich. The store mostly sold shepherd's pie so everyone working there was English. This was also my first time to Zurich but it didn't look very nice because it was raining most of the time. Can't beat free food and wine!
Alright, lets get to the goods. I put two new posts up tonight. The first is my trip to Munich, Germany and the second is my four day trip to the northern Italian coast.
I went to a football (look at me being all European) game last night between Brasil and FC Luzern. Brasil won 8-0. I'll do a quick writeup sometime soon.
As promised, I went on a roadtrip to Belgium with my roommates. We saw Luxembourg, a bit of Brussels, Gent and Ypres in Belgium, and Vimy Ridge in France.
I also put a Google Map that shows all the places I've been to so far. You can click on the map and go directly to the story. Work has never been more productive!
Five days ago I moved to Switzerland to start my new job for ABB for a year. Things here are pretty cool so far. Tomorrow I am going on a road trip to Luxembourg and Belgium for the weekend, so it should be a fun time.
It's 3am right now and I finally finished this thing. I won't bore you with details. Got the random thing working on the right, so refresh a few times and take a look around.
