New Year’s in Paris!

It was somewhat spontaneous, somewhat always subconsciously in my plans, but it finally arrived: a trip to Paris…. for New Year’s! 

I found another international student, Paco, who was not going home for the holidays, and two Swiss friends, Nico and Christian, who were keen on doing something a little different to celebrate the New Year. And after a quick week of booking the last available (cheap) hotel in Paris and securing a few spots on the train, we were planned to be there for 3 nights. With exams, final papers, and Christmas parties!, we didn’t have much time to make a serious itinerary about where we wanted to go, or what we wanted to see, but it all worked out in the end as we explored the big tourist spots, a few funky neighbourhoods and warmed up in many cafes. 

Multi-lingual touring

 At least we had our guide books… in English, German and French. 

Line up at the Louvre

outside the Louvre Museum

We first tried to get into the famous Louvre on December 31st- we tried as well as hundreds of others- but decided to walk through the Tuileries gardens to Les Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe instead of enduring the 2+ hour line-up in the cold.  We did eventually make it to the Louvre on our last day and thoroughly enjoyed the amazing marble statues in the centre indoor courtyard, became more interested than we thought in the Mona Lisa, and discovered the ostentatious apartments of Napoleon Bonaparte and some of the royal monarch jewels. 

A clear day in Paris... the view from the Louvre

The weather was not the best as it rained sporadically and was rather cold. However, this set the stage for walking around Montmartre, the artisan neighbourhood below and through one of the many famous cemeteries in the city. 

We were very keen to explore and thrilled with everything we saw at first. The crowds (other than the tourists) were diverse and all seemed to have somewhere to go and something to do, which at times was overwhelming but we soon found quiet back streets with architecture that spoke of a time long ago and each building seemed to have a story to tell. Such a great contrast to the very conservative buildings in Zürich and most of Switzerland; Paris just felt more alive. 

Makeshift chestnut roaster

Paco, Nico and Christian in front of the Sacre Coeur Basilica

Street performer in front of Sacre Coeur Basilica and the Paris skyline

Christian brought us to a cemetery he had visited before. It was slightly sunken below the street level and full of old french family names, dark leafless trees and black cats (of course). In combination with the weather, it had a chilling effect. 

Montmartre Cemetery

 After the days of exploring, we planned to go to the Eiffel tower for New Year’s eve. We hadn’t been close to it yet, and the weather had been so foggy that we hadn’t seen the top of it either. So when we finally walked up to it, all lit up in time with music blasting from the base, it was spectacular. 

We joined the crowd of thousands and waited and watched the light show before midnight. Many were dancing to the Eiffel tower music mix of country, rock, pop, and classical French, others were already popping their champagne bottles, and many groups were setting off fireworks in the crowd. All this only intensified with the countdown, and we certainly joined in with cheers around our bottle of champagne! 

Light show

Twinkling tower at midnight

As the party started to disperse from the tower we walked with the thousands of others (not excluding many of the visible police force) to the Champs Elysees for more celebrations, then off to a friend of Christian’s house for the final moments before dawn. We crashed eventually but had an incredibly memorable night. 

The following days were spent recovering and relaxing and exploring a few last places in the city. 

Notre Dame Cathedral where we prayed it would stop raining... and it did!

The Hotel des Invalides

Sunset over the Seine River

We all agreed it was an unforgettable trip and there are definitely good intentions to go back when the weather is better!

Christmas in Schluein

Following my Christmas experiences in Zurich, I headed up to the mountains for the real stuff: family!

With all 4 kids, a mountain guide, a tired ETH student, and one excited dog, my Aunt was Wonder Woman and created a truly memorable Christmas for all of us!

Christmas dinner in Switzerland is not as grand a production as in Canada. This is mainly because the tree is only decorated on the 24th (also the night of the dinner) which is a feat in itself. So after surveying most of my Swiss friends, the conclusion was that they tended to have a simpler meal on the 24th before or after opening the gifts.

Up in the mountains, we had a very cool alternative Swiss dinner- personal pizzas using the raclette grill!

Just to clarify, raclette is a traditional Swiss meal where you warm up cheese in little pans (about the size of your palm) on a communal grill in the middle of the table. The cheese is then added to bread, potatoes, or meat etc. For the pizzas, we used the little pans with fresh pizza dough, and a pile of toppings. Everyone could make them as they pleased and waiting for them to ’cook’ built up the suspense between pieces. Yum. 

In terms of gifts, Lisa maintains some Canadian traditions even after 20 or so Christmases here and so we opened the gifts on the morning of the 25th- definitely bringing back some of my favourite memories of Claire and I waking up early, opening our stockings and hanging around in pajamas until the afternoon. In the mix of presents was a Wii for the whole family! I would never have guessed how much fun/exercise you can get from some of those games! My favourite: Just Dance where you have to dance in time to some fun 80’s hits, competing against a partner. When looking at the pictures below, please note that these are not professional dancers and there were some sore bodies the following day.

A few photos to give you an idea of the fun with all 7 of us and the dog!

Mia and Freddi in pizza mode

Ty and Nora

Lisa and Caylin playing Wii

Lisa and Freddi in a serious dance-off

 The town of Schluein also organized advent windows where you can do a loop through the town to see 24 windows dressed up for Christmas. Lisa and Freddi had number 19, and of course a deer had to make it in there too. Adevnt windows are a pretty common tradition and are very fun to see as you walk around.

Advent window

 Even though I was away from my friends and close family, it was a really special Christmas!

Christmas in Zurich

A long-awaited post on the magical European Christmas… at least from the Swiss perspective.In many of the Swiss cities and towns, an outdoor market is set-up with quaint little huts outfitted with fake snow, spruce branches, twinkly lights and of course the artisan offerings. Zurich has one of the largest, though most commercial unfortunately, with around 100 huts located mostly in the main train station (bahnhof) (making it slightly more environmentally robust) and it lasts most of December.My friends and I visited frequently to scope out authentic gifts among the knickknacks and chinese scarves, sip on mulled wine (‘Gluhwein’ as it locally called, which becomes as ubiquitous as water during the holidays), gaze at the sparkling centrepiece tree decorated entirely with Swarovski jewels and sample as many Christmas cookies, German gingerbread, and local cheeses as we could.

Swarovski Tree

Zurich Market in train station

Market stand

Stepping outside the train station, you enter on to the always busy Bahnhof Strasse decorated with hanging lights, streams of tourists and shoppers, and clouds of smoke from the chestnut roasters that are every few blocks.I have to pause on the chestnuts. They are locally available here and in the fall there are many seasonal dishes that specifically include them. With so many around and the warm nutty smell from all the street roasters, I felt the urge to buy a warm bag of them for myself. This is one of the wonders of travelling and experiencing things on your own. As my parents will attest to, I have never really been fond of chestnuts. I can’t remember a single winter season that my dad didn’t have some around, and yet I often refused to even try. Now they are my special treat when I make the walk into the downtown and past the little temporary roaster stands.    

Frozen fountain

Zurich dusted with snow

Back to the streets… Many of the narrower streets are strung with lights that hang down between the buildings. I didn’t get any great photos of it, but imagine, in the evening, that it feels like the stars are about 10 feet above you as you walk down cobble-stone streets, and the view ahead is of single points of lights… very very cool.Another special tradition is called Lichterschwimmen- translated as ’swimming lights’. These are little candle on floating blocks of styrofoam launched at night down the Limmat river in the centre of Zurich. A study break, before a particularly annoying exam, led a bunch of my friends down to see it. Turns out we weren’t the only ones with this idea but it was quite special.

Floating candles

In Rapperswil, a city at the other end of Lake Zurich, there was a special outdoor re-enactment of the story of Jesus. There was an initial procession through the old town followed by the story of Jesus’ birth . It was very special: snow was falling, locals young and old were involved in the show, and they actually brought out camels from their zoo for one of the three kings!

Angel procession in Rapperswil

The king's camels!

Finally, to end my Christmas time in Zurich, I organized a Christmas party with my Canadian friend, Andrea. It was the day after our last classes and before we all went our separate ways for the holiday. The semester had created some really wonderful bonds and we all felt that it was necessary for some time to enjoy each other, some christmas cookies and, well, some more gluhwein!

Shopping for Christmas Gluhwein

 I don’t know if the price is clear, but that bottle is 3.90 swiss francs (equivalent to Canadian dollars)… not bad.

Homemade Gluhwein

Christmas party friends and tea

Christmas desserts

And this last one was our craft project: take mandarin skins, keeping the inner white bit to use as a wick in olive oil, cut little decorative holes out of the top half, light and instant snow lanterns! We were very proud.

Christmas party mandarin shell lanterns

 Oh, and a few last pictures from a hill above the city, with a great view of the distant mountains (my next stop for Christmas) and one of me, just to let you know I haven’t changed too much!

Overlooking Lake Zurich

On the top of the hill!

Hope everyone had a most wonderful Christmas!

Saturday Morning Market

This is purely for posting a few pictures… and to procrastinate a little from my international environmental politics studying…

One of the advantages of living in Europe is the access to local food and particularily at the markets. As I have mentioned, the variety of local fruits and vegetables boggles my zone 3 Albertan brains. (For comparison, the Hardiness Zone for most of Europe starts at 6 and goes up to 10!) Lately I have been enjoying the new clementines from Spain, so sweet and juicy, they are definitely a sign that Christmas is coming. I visited a market in downtown Zurich one saturday morning and snapped a few pictures of the local products. It was rainy and grey but the stands juxtaposed it all very nicely. The most interesting aspect were the people of course. Tasting, bargaining, enquiring about new recipes and taking this little market very seriously. Below are a few candid shots.  

Fresh flowers from the south

Fresh Herbs

This was a portable Olive Oil store. Just open up the sides of the car (3-wheeled even!) to reveal a display of 20 odd types of oil. The guy seemed a little surprised that I wanted to take pictures of his entrepreneur-mobile.

Olive oil on wheels

 And of course some cheese…     

Some samples of locally made cheese

      

Sausage

And a few from wandering around the old town after the market.   

    

     

Special sunday bread- Zopf

But these were a few weeks ago, and it has finally snowed! Just in time for the start of December, the rain turned into big fluffy flakes and blanketed everything with a few centimetres of the white stuff. It was gorgeous and made for the prefect start to the holiday season… though international environmental politics does not garner any holiday spirit in my view.

Posts on Christmas traditions, special holiday markets, family and friends are soon to come…

Thinking of everyone and remembebring all the lovely celebrations from the past few years… Early Christmas in Canmore and Stewart McLean in Banff, the multitude of corporate Christmas parties, the amazing spirirt at the yoga Christmas party, special dinners and desserts!, warm cups of chai tea, dancing around living rooms to the Nutcracker Suite, close friends, family and pets…

From the city to the mountains with Andy

Later in October, I had a special visitor from England- Andy. Special because it had been 5 years since we had last seen each other! Previously in 2004, we had both volunteered in Costa Rica on a sea turtle conservation program. E-mails are a pretty incredible way for keeping in touch (nudge nudge, wink wink).So, we both were only a little concerned that meeting at the train station might be tricky, since neither of us was covered in mosquito bites, dressed in rugged beach clothes, or glowing from weeks in the Caribbean sun! No problems though and we had a great weekend checking out Zürich.

The first night down in the old town for dinner, there were some lovely reflections on the Limmat river of the Fraumunster church.  This was followed by an adventure to a friend’s house party complete with dance floor in the living room, video projections on the ceiling of another room where there was a fierce  pac-man competition in progress on the hand-made arcade game and of course a few black lights… rather unique. Not to mention that each room was heated by wood stoves!

 The next morning, a bratwurst and bun from a well-known street grill gave us energy to walk around the University of Zürich’s overgrown botanical garden. It has been a beautiful fall, and the trees throughout the garden were at different stages of dropping their leaves.

A little oasis in the middle of Zürich. We heard and spotted quite a few birds that Andy identified as Robins, Great Tits and Blue Tits.

But then a stop at the famous Sprungli bakery which is home to the Zürich specialty “Luxemburgli” got us thinking about chocolate for our train ride up to the mountains.  

We were able to grab some chocolate from Merkur (the place of the ’slabs’ of chocolate seen in a previous post) and hop on our train up to Schluein. We felt that grapes were enough to balance the chocolate covered pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, apples and mangoes even!

Views from the train were beautiful as we went from the lower hills into the mountains. Here we are passing Walen Lake.

A few more photo shoots up in the mountains at my Aunt’s house…

 

The morning that we were in Schluein was especially foggy in the valley, but the cows didn’t mind.

 

 

These are rather condensed tales of the visits but there was more hiking, more eating and more photos throughout this weekend. It was another great visit full of laughter at old stories and from the new ones being created.

 

Old friends always have a great grounding effect and remind me of where I came from. Even with the huge amount of work that piled up over these two weekends, I was very happy to have had some old faces around.

Ben Visits and the No.1 Tourist Destination of Zurich

In late October, I was lucky enough to have some visitors come stay in my miniscule room. First to come through was Ben- a good friend of mine from Civil Engineering at McGill. He had already been travelling through France, Spain, Scotland, and Greece (though maybe not in that order…) and decided to make a final stop in Zurich before heading home to Montreal.

Well, there are so many great things about visitors. Let me outline a few about having ‘international’ visitors:

1. They correct your increasingly bad English- who would have thought? and after only 2 months… I really am an engineer
2. They remind you of how life in North America functions- apparently mid-afternoon breaks from class accompanied by a cappucino are not standard
3. They force you to get out and be a tourist!- see pictures!

So Ben and I toured Zurich, though I mostly brought him to all my usual haunts, but we did find a few new ones too. Most exciting, though, was the trip we took to Rhine Fall: about an hour out of Zurich by train, this is a famous waterfall on the Rhine river.

After some initial dissapointment with the infrastructure (sketchy, wet scaffolding leading down the cliff to the river) we walked around to find some much better views. The upstream of the falls was more interesting then the falls itself, hence the majority of the pictures being from that angle.

Lots of little pools with water cascading down from the various levels.

Who doesn’t love a few picturesque cranes?

As we made our way down, we could spot people on the rock in the middle of the falls, and the boats that led them into the mist.

We made it around to the front in the end…

Ben and Devon in front of the Falls!

Thanks for the great visit Ben!

Been too busy taking pictures…

After an inappropriately long break, here come a handful of posts of pictures from the last little while.

First up: just a random assortment of pics that I liked from around Zürich area, starting right on the Limmat river in the centre of town all the way out to a monastery at the edge of the city (ie. pretty much the countryside)

Fun old apartments that some engineer squished together about 100 years ago.

This was a spectacular fall day where everything just shone a little brighter than normal.

The monastery where the rest of the pictures are from.

More to come soon… I promise!

Hmm, also seems as though you can click on these pictures to see them at full quality… this blog thing still eludes me a little

Aha, has it been a month already?

Mostly I just have a bunch of pictures that I wanted to share. But indeed it has been over a month since I have been in Zurich and tomorrow marks an entire month of school.

 What an experience it has been so far. There are certainly moments of confusion and loneliness as I get used to living in a different culture. But looking back over the last 30 days, the overwhelming feeling has been one of stepping out onto the edge to realize that I won’t fall in. It has taken some serious self-trust to believe that I’m probably not as weird as I think I am to the people around me  They don’t know my family though…  

Each day I am challenged by new opportunities to meet and connect with people, finding out what it means to be a foreigner, and work through the language barriers while trying not to lose my own English along the way. I am constantly asked to correct English and pronunciation, which I am happy to do but I hate being the bearer of bad news to say that, “No, you cannot say that you ’stood up at 7am this morning’, it’s probably better to use ‘woke up’. ” (one of the funny direct translations from German).

But the conversations are usually enlightening for myself and the other person. And the Swiss have an expression that is used more often than you would realize, the simple: ‘Aha’ (with a sort of drawn out second syllable and light intonation on the first). It breaks down all judgements of wrongdoing and quickly leads everyone to an open mind to learn something new.  I tease my family here about it, but truthfully I have already adopted the custom as well!

Each week is full of ‘Aha’ moments that my peers fill with interesting facts about Switzerland, language, food, music and all the rest. And I am more than happy to be open to it.

Not to say there haven’t been the occasional other types of moments, but I’m happy to pass those off as culture shock and stick with what makes me happy. And speaking of culture shock, I went to an interesting workshop on it, presented especially for international students. Rather eye-opening and quite hilarious as we went through many of the typical Swiss stereotypes. One was presented as the map below which is scary how true it is. (And just in case you can’t tell, I’m in the Odd German and English spoken bit)

So to stick with being a tidy/punctual/chocolate eating Swiss student, I will get on to the pictures.

First stop, the Zurich Zoo! One lovely Sunday afternoon in the fall was spent walking around with some fellow Canadians at ETH. I certainly have a special place in my heart for the Calgary Zoo, so no zoo will quite compare, but this one had a few great moments.

Baby Galapagos Turtles. Well these ones appeared to be babies compared to the elders who were a meter in length!

I still can barely comprehend that this sign exists. It reads 'Watch out, this is where I feel at home'

Another amazing educational sign

Inside the tropical forest, this guy slowly turned fully green.

Next up, a music show I went to with a handful of Environmental Science students. The drummer, though you can barely see him, is also in Environmental Sciences. You can check out the band here www.myspace.com/coldeve to hear their awesome electro-rock. The guy in the front was dancing from the first moment, and the rest of us joined in by the end. A really great night.

Coldeve and their biggest fan

And finally, from where I take walks/runs. Up the hill from where I live, through the community gardens and onto the beautiful panoramic of the city and lake.

At night, walking past the garden plots

One of the numerous public fountains

Lake Zurich at dusk

Zurich at dusk

 

A few last words:

Thank you for all the comments and e-mails. I love hearing what you think and how you are doing!

Happy Birthday Zahra! xoxo

And if you made it this far, one more stereotype joke…

Heaven is where…

the police are British, the chefs French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where…

the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians.

Schluein

This is the town Lisa (my Aunt) lives in with the gang of Freddi, Mia, Nora and Ruby. I go up (about 2-ish hours from Zurich by train) whenever I feel the need for some family time or a little open space.

It is the ideal place to get to know Swiss living (this last weekend we had fondue and made our own pasta!), take some fantastic walks through the surrounding hills with my Uncle Frederic who is a mountain guide and play with my cousins, Mia and Nora, and the dog, Ruby.

The town is in the area of Flims and Laax which are famous ski resorts in the area. The summer hiking on the ski hills makes for dramatic vistas onto the surrounding Alps.

Some photos for you to get the idea… 

View from Lisa’s Living Room

The big trees on the left are walnut. Lisa and I went out to pick them as the tree drops them over the fall. In a month or so, they harden up and develop their lovely buttery taste.   

Lisa and Nora

My lovely Aunt and baby cousin.

The Mountain Hut above the town of Laax

The mountain hut that was built by Frederic and his friends. They go up here for three weeks a year during the legal deer hunt. At dawn and dusk they are 30 feet up in the air suspended from their favourite strategic tree waiting for the elusive Red Deer… this year was a bad year (blame it on the hard winter, was what I heard the locals whispering) and only 3 deer were shot amongst them. We hiked up to the hut once to meet them when they came down for lunch. Sitting around over wild mushroom (that they found on their way down) risotto with a bunch of smelly, unshaven, and deer-obsessed mountain men was a funny experience. As I sat there listening to Lisa translate with my eyes wide, I must have looked a bit like a deer myself. It certainly blew away any previous notions about Swiss hunting that I had.

The Flims Stone, the local area is known for this formation

 Taken from the town of Flims, this outcrop is the backdrop throughout the town and is instantly recognizable once you have caught a glimpse.

Flims Ski Hill

We made our way around the open face of the ski hill with the Flims Stone in the background.

Cool mushrooms everywhere

I could probably do a whole post only on mushrooms…

Blueberry picking with a sleeping Nora

Our path went through a huge blueberry patch. We ate our fill and talked about our safe escape from scurvy. Nora did not partake.

Freddi and Ruby

The distant mountains just started to clear out of the fog as we finished the hike.

Environmental Science Master’s Weekend

What a weekend! I just got back from two days up in the mountains with my fellow Environmental Scientists. With plenty of new faces and new stories, the weekend was full of meeting people and discovering their backgrounds, their reasons for coming to ETH, and testing their Canadian geography (which proved to be quite good, but foruntaley not enough to know all the stereotypes). 

Other than learning about one another, the conversations dealt heavily with language- native languages, comfort in foreign languages and all the diverse cultural aspects that relate directly to local language. It was fascinating and the big questions for myself and my friend, Andrea, who is from Ontario, were about the Quebec ‘accent’ and that Irish slang they have going on in Newfoundland. Amongst the French speakers, a good ‘Ouai!’ always found common ground as they were all keen on learning to speak it. I never would have guessed…  :)

I’ve provided a handful of the best pictures from the weekend to show some examples of what real Swiss people look like, a working tropical greenhouse, and plenty of breathtaking views as we hiked below, through and above an incredible fog.

Our first stop of the weekend was a tropical greenhouse using waste heat from a nearby Natural Gas compression station. The heat is used to warm the greenhouse to grow organic fruits for local markets and high end restaurants. An incredible project that has brought investment into this small agricultural area, as well as captured some of the huge energy off of the compressor station (they said about 100 GW hours of which about 50% is captured through the greenhouse and heating a local hospital).

The group headed to the tropical greenhouse

Looking over the papaya plants to the banana palms

My favourite: Tilapia ponds providing nutrient filled water for the plants!

They also employed a Greenwater System using Tilapia fish (which at maturity can be sold as food) in ponds where the water is recirculated to the tropical plants. The murky green water, which gives this system its name, is full of nutrients from the metabolic processes of the fish and is ideal for the plants as well as for the fish. The whole system comes very close to being nutrient and water neutral. A very impressive setup!

Next, we were headed up to a mountain area called Napf. We had a few stops along the way to take in the incredible view and taste some local food. First though, we were in a small village with some locals who asked  us to take their picture. Well, I snapped one too because they were just too great.

Real Swiss People in front of a typical Swiss mountain house

We hiked about 3 hours, through mostly open fields looking out over the neighbouring valleys, villages and grazing areas. As we got higher we began to get closer and closer to the misty clouds/ fog above us.

Looking out

Local vegetation

Into the fog

It felt like we were entering into another world...

Then we met some goats!

Out of the mist...

I bonded with this one

Then we found who the goats belonged to- the farmhouse at the top of this rise had a stand selling their dried sausage, goat cheeses, and apple cider. I love Switzerland!

Mid-hike refreshments

A little further up and we passed out of the clouds and were on top of the Napf! A lovely old farmhouse that fed and housed us (as well as some of the other hikers that made it up). Our group wandered around looking into the mist below and thoroughly enjoyed the moment of floating above the clouds.

Napf

Jumping at sunset above the clouds

horse around the house

The view at sunset

 We eventually made it in for a typical alpine meal and some tasty dessert. Plenty of story-telling and singing ensued but we knew what was awaiting us the next day- the 4.5 hour trek down.

Meringues, ice cream and whipped cream!

Overall, the hikes were stunning, the food was great and the company proved to be very entertaining. A 10/10 for this one.