Thursday, March 29, 2007

You can call me the Lowen Frau


I've been here for a week and a half and only just now noticed that I have a view from my room of one of the most famous landmarks in Munich, Frauen Kirche. I guess churches aren't really on my radar so much.

What is one my radar is lions. They are everywhere. Braunshweig is, apparently the city of lions. Herzog Henrig von Lowen (Duke Henry of Lions??? I think) was from Braunschweig. I guess he's the German equivalent of Richard the Lion Heart in England. Henrig also went on a pilgrimage (read: crusade) to Jerusalem. We visited a church in Braunschweig with carvings of Herzog Henirg conquering the non-Christian's one of which depicted him standing on someone's head. It was supposedly a non catholic church, which is easy enough to believe as it was not nearly as ornate as most catholic churches that old are. However, Herzog Henrig's crusade pre-dates (I believe) any sort of Christianity other than catholic. In any event there was a large bronze statue of a lion in the courtyard of this church and a series of benches, which unfortunately I didn't get pictures of, that had lion statues as their feet and each lion was in a different pose, one was sleeping, one was roaring, one was yawning, etc. They were so cute.

Lions abound in Munich as well. Those of you that have been living in Seattle for a while will probably remember when we had pig statues all over the city. It was a benefit for the Pike Place Market Foundation and local artists were enlisted to decorate the pigs which were then displayed on street corners for a while and ultimately auctioned off for charity. I can only assume that Munich did a similar thing with lions, though I think the auction has already happened as some of the lions are now in store windows though some are still on the sidewalks and I saw one at the Olympic Park.

I went, yesterday, to the Olympic Park with my flat mate (the Brit). The main attraction there is a tower that's, basically, a lot like the Space Needle (though I think perhaps shorter). We went a bit late (at around 10:00PM) but still I was kind of shocked not to see more people there. I mean I've lived in the Seattle area my whole life but I still go to the Space Needle every now and then (and it's always busy), plus I've been to the Seattle Center more times that I can count. There was practically no one at the Olympic Tower or in the Olympic Park.


There was a swim team practicing in the pool there though. This pool was beautiful. I mean, it was a pool, like any other, but much bigger. When you hear people claim that a pool is Olympic size I can almost guarantee that they are lying. The ones at Universities (at least at UW and Western) come close, maybe even match in size but not in scope. Obviously there is a regulation length for the Olympics and, maybe, the pools that claim to be Olympic size are as long as this one was, but I doubt as wide and it wasn't just the size of the pool that was so grad. The whole scope of the buildingwas awesome. There was a second, regular sized, pool (presumably for the Olympic swimmers to warm up in) behind the main pool and the stands could probably seat well over two thousand people. It was amazing. Really.

The Olympic tower was, in itself, unremarkable. It was tall, there was an amazing view from it, and expensive rotating restaurant in it (which we didn't go in because it appeared that they only served 3 or 5 course meals), etc. There's a rock 'n' roll museum in the top of it which is small but interesting mostly for the fact that it's there, in the Olympic Tower, in Munich. I didn't get any pictures but it was cheap enough that I'll probably go back sometime, during the day, to take pictures of the view. It actually cost less to get up the tower than the U-Bahn ticket to get there cost.

The best thing about the trip to Olympic Park was the company. I wish my flatmate weren't leaving after this week. She has a cousin at the University in Granada who she wants to visit over the Easter holiday. I'm trying to convince her to just wait a couple weeks so she will be there at the same time I am, but she seems to have her heart set on Easter. I'm exceptionally shy but when I do meet people (and they talk to me) I often connect with them immediately and so it's hard for me, sometimes, to meet new people whom I know I'll only really see for two weeks and then probably never see again. I'm also really bad at keeping in touch with people so even if there was a possibility of seeing someone again I often ruin it through my laziness about keeping in touch. I hope I'm getting better at it. I made a resolution to be better at it and so far I think I am. You guys would know I guess. Am I? Doing any better at it? Or if you've met me within the last six months or so are you asking yourself "What the hell is she talking about she keeps in touch plenty"?

Monday, March 26, 2007

The wild, wild East

The weekend seems like a million years ago rather than just yesterday, but I'll try to recall it as best I can.

First, I have to mention the Hauptbahnhoff in Hannover. I'm a big fan of the trainstations here. They are big, and busy, a lot like American malls but busier and with trains coming and going all the time. The one in Hannover is even bigger than the one in Munich and when I arrived there, late on Friday night, a soccer game had just let out so it was packed with soccer fans. It was also packed with teenagers all of whom were buying liquor and condoms. The eagerness of teenagers to buy liquor seems to me to indicate that it's legality has not diminished its popularity, if anything it's the opposite. In any event it was kind of funny to watch 16 year-olds walking, hand in hand, determinedly to the liquor and condom sections of the stores in the Hauptbahnhoff. The Braunschweig Hauptbahnhoff, by the way, had well over a thousand bicycles parked in front of it.


Saturday my dad and step mom picked me up in Hannover and showed me around my step mom's home town. Wulfenbuetel's claim to fame is that it is where Jagermeister is made. According to my parents when they went grocery shopping this past week in Wulfenbuetel the store was handing out free Jagermeister drinks. I can't say that I tried Jagermeister at the source tough. Instead I saw the Saturday market in town and took communion at the church of mustard. Seriously, there was a store there that sold nothing but mustard and you could sample any of the zillion or so varieties of mustard they had by putting it on communion wafers. You don't have to take my word for it, I got a picture.


After that we went to Goslar which was really fun. Goslar is famous for being the place where they used to burn witches back in the middle ages. Every shop there sells witch memorabilia. I didn't buy any witches but it was fun none the less. I saw the most adorable dog there. he looked full grown but his paws were huge, like puppy paws so maybe he was still growing. He was sleeping at first but then a couple of kids came into the square and were running around. He woke up and wanted to play with them but they were afraid. There was nothing to fear though, he was a gentle giant, and he liked me, he let me rub his tummy and shook hands with me with his gigantic paw. He was so cute I had to take his picture. When I get a dog I want one like this.


Saturday night we went to a rockabilly show in Eastern Germany. My stepmother got a warning from her mother as we were leaving. She told us to be careful in the "Wild East". My stepmother explained that it was a double warning because we were not only going to the Wild East but also to a rockabilly show. Rockabilly here attracts a neo-nazi crowd apparently. When my step mom was a teenager here they had banned certain types of clothes because they were associated with the neo-nazi movement and people dressed a certain way weren't allowed into the shows. Also, the east really is a little wild. The autobahn stops at a certain point, in fact we took it all the way to the end. They're was no autobahn in the east when they first opened up the border (in 1989) and a lot of the towns were really run down so they've been pouring money into building autobahns and restoring some of the old historic villages but it's a project that will probably still be going on for many years to come.

There were, in fact, a lot of skin heads at the rockabilly show. My step mom speculated that they were primarily there for the psychobilly act that opened the show, but also that it was Saturday night and there isn't much to do there so a show of any kind brings everyone out. I don't know that the skin heads are any different here than they are in the US, but...well, in the US I get the impression that it's mostly posturing. It's a style not a movement in the US. It seems like the ideology comes with the style more here. Maybe that's just cultural bias on my part. Perhaps being in the wild east got to me. Though, even here in the west, they have extra precautions to deter the violent tendencies of the neo-nazis. There are police in St. Jakobs Platz every morning when I walk through on my way to class.

It was definitely odd being so close to what used to be the border of Germany and the GDR and then being in the former GDR. During our excursion to Goslar my step mom pointed out the highest point in the Harz Mountains which used to be in the GDR or maybe in the demilitarized zone. It makes me wonder what it was like to be here when the borders first opened up. My step mom said the autobahn was extremely congested after the east opened because the old eastern cars couldn't drive faster than 80 k/h and ultimately they had to add extra lanes. The wall came down in November 1989, my step mom would have been almost 20 at the time. It must have been very odd to be a teenager when all that was happening, although I think by then my step mom was living in Munich which is at the other end of the country and was, perhaps, less affected by it.

Another thing there was a lot of at this rockabilly show was smoke. I think every person there, aside from my father, stepmother and me, was chain smoking. Even when they were dancing they all had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

The bands were pretty good, but often difficult to understand because they sang in English but with thick accents. My dad and step mom, who are much bigger rockabilly fans than I, said they recognised some of the songs the first band played, but not many because they played so fast. According to them one of the schools of psychobilly is just to play everything twice as fast. Ironically that band (The Tombstone Surfers), I think, seemed to speak less accented English so they could have been more easily comprehended if they'd played slower. The third band (Desperado 5) was definitely the best and they had a saxophone player. I really enjoy horns in rock music. I would have been able to enjoy it more though if it hadn't been so smokey. I miss my nice smoke-free Seattle music scene.

On Sunday we ventured into Braunschweig, which is the "big city" compared to Wulfenbuetel. There was a gigantic flea market there and I picked up some interesting purchases. A lot of downtown Braunschweig was destroyed in the war so it's an interesting mix of old and new architecture. There is a particularly odd new building right in front of a really old church and across the street from a building that was reconstructed exactly as it had been before the bombings (but also attached to a brand new mall). It's an odd juxtaposition, and I'm not sure this photograph does it justice.


We had lunch across the street from the new old castle in Braunschweig and I had an "Alterbier" (I think). It is apparently a Northern German specialty, served with fruit in the bottom of the glass (in this case strawberries). It is one of about a million kinds of specialty beer that I've been told I have to try while I'm here. Since the soccer tickets are all sold out and the opera tickets are all sold out I guess that leaves beer drinking as my main tourist activity. Stay tuned for a beer update, some talk about lions, Prague, and possibly more pictures of cute furry animals.

And for Alice, a picture of the food I had for lunch that day. I've been forgetting to take pictures of all the food for you, but I remembered that day.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Freizeit? Was ist Freizeit?

I looked up that cafe I was in last night and it's advertised as the first kosher cafe in Munich. Presumably that doesn't mean first ever but first in the last 60 years or so. It was a great place. The proprietor sat in the corner with a group of people debating the intricacies of language. At least I think that's what they were debating. They kept switching back and fourth from Hebrew to English to German (or possibly Yiddish or possibly both). The part of their conversation I caught was about the meaning of the (German) word Mench.

In German they often have one word for things we have several words for in English (like Die Krebs which is cancer, both the disease and the astrological sign, but also means crab, the animal) but just as often they have more than one word for things we only have one, if any, word for in English. Mensh is one of those. It means man. Der Mann also means man (or husband), but Mensh is the more global sense (like mankind). It's used where we might say "one" in English. It's in a German proverb I learned from my landlady "Des Menches wille ist sien Himmelreich" (Man's will is his heaven). Anyhow, one of this group was trying to explain to another what it meant (because she didn't speak much German), at that point they switched back to Hebrew and I couldn't understand any of it anymore. I kind of wish I spoke Hebrew (and/or better German) so I could have joined their conversation.

I also wish I could have found a place to plug in my laptop there because I could have had an equally interesting conversation online with a friend of mine about the same topic if my laptop battery hadn't died just then.

Today, for the first time I found myself responding to a question in German without having to search for the words. And today the sun finally came out on Sunny Street just in time for me to go north where it's still freezing and wet. Also, today, I felt for a moment like my time here is something to be gotten through rather than something to be savoured. I think that's partly because I don't have much free time while I'm in Munich. I'm in classes everyday from 8:30AM-5:00PM. I planned on getting out and seeing more of Europe on the weekends but now that I realize how little of Munich I get to see during the week I might stay in town on at least one of my weekends. I'm conflicted about it though because there's so many other cities I'd love to see too. Prague is one that I really can't miss. I can't imagine being this close to Prague and not going. The main reason I chose the Goethe Institut in Munich (as opposed to the one in Berlin, or Hannover, or Gottingen, etc) is because of its proximity to Prague.

Prague holds some sort of mystique for me that I can't quite explain. There is, of course, the fact that both King Wenceslaus and Saint Nicholas are from there which I find both interesting and somewhat funny. But the mystique of Prague is more than Christmas iconography. I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to it but it's one of the places I felt I had to go to. One of the only places that I'd even be willing to skip class to go to if I had to.

So, the itinerary was going to be:
This weekend (March 23-25) - in Wulfenbutel
Next weekend (March 30-April1) - in Prague
The following weekend (April 6-7) - in Belgium for the Tour of Flanders
Then on to London on April 15th, Spain April 19th, Ireland April 25th, home May 1st.

The Tour of Flanders turned out to be too expensive and time consuming so instead I'm going to leave for London a day early (on April 14th) and go from there to the Paris-Roubaix. I'm still going to Wulfenbutel, in fact I'm almost there now. Prague is a must but I'll probably do that the following weekend now to give myself a break from traveling and time to really enjoy and explore Munich.

Travelling kind of saps my energy and by travelling I mean the time spent on planes, trains or buses not the whole experience. I try not to think of this as a metaphor because I like to think of myself as, metaphorically, someone who enjoys the journey as much as the destination, not more, but as much. The literal journey, however, I kind of can't stand. Being in any kind of moving vehicle makes me alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, sleepy and nauseated but trains (and boats of course) are especially bad.

The 4 1/2 hour train ride from Munich to Hannover didn't just sap my energy it kind of sapped my will to live.

However, again just as I was starting to think the cold and fatigue were killing my spirit, I find myself in one of the cutest places in the world. I booked a hotel/train package (because it was significantly cheaper than the train ticket alone) and this hotel is fantastic and adorable. It's off on a side street in an old building. I arrived late, at around 11:30 and the reception desk was already closed for the night. It would have stayed open for me had I not completely messed up my reservation. I might not have even gotten in but for a cute old man who was just leaving the hotel to take his dog for a walk (I really love hotels that allow pets, by the way). He let me in and I called the receptionist from the phone in the lobby. They were super accommodating even though my astounding ineptitude was the sole reason for the mix up with my reservation.

Also, the room is basically the room I always wished I had at home when I was growing up. It's in the top corner of the building and the roof is sloped so I can only stand up fully in half of it. All the furniture is super dark wood and there's a skylight in the sloped part of the ceiling. This room is so cute I can hardly l stand it. And instead of a mint on the pillow there was a tiny bag of gummy bears.

It's places like this that make the time spent on planes and trains and buses worth it. Places like the cafe last night, where I thought I could happily sit for days drinking tea and eating potato soup and listening to interesting people have interesting debates that I could only partly understand, or this hotel where I wish I could set up residence and just sit in this room writing all day and night. If I had more time.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Potato Soup for the soul

It's cold here, way colder than I'd like it to be. I like walking around the city and I don't have anything really warm with me. I mean my clothes are okay for cold weather but I have no gloves and, more importantly, nothing to keep my ears warm, but I'm not letting that stop me.

The last two nights in a row I've gotten lost in the city. Not really lost since I didn't really bother to attempt finding something specific until I couldn't stand the cold anymore. Both times I was lost and wandering aimlessly through the streets of Munich enjoying the city in all its urban beauty people have asked me for directions. I was able to give them directions, despite being almost completely lost myself, though admittedly the second time I had to use the map in my purse, only because this super cute guy stopped and asked me, in German which I don't understand, if something was one way or the other and I thought it was neither so I had to get the map out and show him. I kind of love giving directions to someone while lost myself, not just for the irony, but because it makes me feel quintessentially me. I don't think that people stop me on the street and ask for directions because I look like I know where I am or where I'm going, but because I look like someone who will help and I am. It's the dichotomy of me though that I will, can, and do help other people without finding my own way.

Tonight though I was looking for something specific and it was way to cold to give in to the urge to stay lost. I was looking for a cafe that I'd been told was a wireless hotspot. I can't get used to the numbering system here. In the US each block has a number grouping so all the numbers in that block are, for example, 1XX and the next block is 2XX. Here the numbers start with 1 and just keep going. So, the number I was looking for was 47 and I got to the end of the block and on one side saw 46 and the other 51, but 51 was the corner building so I'm thinking there can't be a 47, but it's actually 3 doors into the next block. I walked up and down the block and almost gave up before I remembered about the numbering system here.

I finally found it, came in, and ordered potato soup and tea in my very bad German. I said "Entschuldigung, meine Deutsch ist nicht serh gut" (excuse me, my German is not so good) and the woman behind the counter said, "Mine either, which is better?" and I said, somewhat confused, "English". It was then I realized that most of the people in here are speaking a language I don't quite recognize at first, Hebrew it turns out, which I understand none of and the only way I'm sure it's Hebrew is that I look around and notice the kosher products for sale and the menorah and Israeli flag.

This cafe, it turns out is a wireless hotspot but not the kind I thought so I had to pay. It was well worth it though. The potato soup here is so good that it totally makes up for the ridiculous rate I'm paying for the T-Moile hotspot even though I already signed up for a whole month with AOL.de hotspots. There are more T-Mobile hotspots (supposedly over 1000 in Munich), but T-Mobile doesn't offer a monthly membership. You have to pay for increments of 15 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours or 24 hours. The AOL membership costs less than 1/4 for a month what it costs for 24 hours with T-Mobile.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

A Swede, a Brit and an American walk into a bar...

Okay, not yet but it might happen and I'm sure there will be a joke in there somewhere when it does.

The people...

My landlady is an interesting character but I'm not sure I can do her justice so I'll tell you a little bit about my flatmates and classmates.

First, let me say that the Goethe Institut is exclusively a language school so it is very small and many, if not most, of the students here are not really students but professionals who are learning the language for work related reasons.

I have two flatmates and two classmates, of the four there is one Swede, one Brit, one Kuwaiti, and one Italian all of whom speak English. We, of course, are supposed to speak only in German but to each other we can't help but speak in English because the desire to have meaningful communication is there and by meaningful communication I mean...any, really.

My flatmates are the Swede and the Brit. The Swede is a salesman here to learn German because he has primarily German customers and travels in Germany at least 12 weeks a year. I think he's actually younger than me though he seems to be closer to my age than anyone I've met here yet. In some ways it's harder for me to relate to people my own age because of the place I'm at in life. For example the Swede, who is at least very close to my age, is done with University, he's working, he's married, he's past me basically.

I find it easier to relate to my other flat mate, the Brit. She is about 18 years old and she is here as part of her "gap" year. If I understand it the British system gives them a year off either between their equivalent of High School and Uni or the first year after Uni and she chose to take it before Uni rather than after. Her brother told her that Byern Munchen is playing Milan while she's here and apparently won't forgive her if she doesn't go to the game so I think the three of us (her, the Swede and I) will go together.

My classmates, the Kuwaiti and the Italian, are also older. The Kuwaiti is a doctor but is getting another degree, or doing his post-doc, here in Germany. The Italian is a banker with JP Morgan in London. He's married to a German woman and they are both trying to learn each other's languages. He says so far her Italian is better than his German but, in any event, they speak to each other mostly in English.

The only other people I've met here so far are friends of my family. My step-mother was into the rockabilly scene when she lived here in Munich (she still is but in Seattle now), she published a magazine much like my dad's magazine back home and I met a couple of friends of hers from back then. Also, I met a friend of my dad's (a musician who, I believe, played with him at his gigs here on at least one of his trips over) and his son who's studying Physics at the University. The son was pretty stoked on the new football stadium (that's soccer for you non-Euros) and said I had to see it.

So, that's two recommendations, nay, demands, to see soccer. I guess it would be way out of line for me not to. Perhaps seeing it live will turn me into a fan. I think it's funny how insistent the Europeans are that live soccer will convert me but when I say the same thing about baseball they laugh in my face.

So, I'll leave you with this quote:

"I'm over soccer...I just think it's a mind numbing bore and anyone with sense would rather be playing it than watching it" - Dan Rydell (Sports Night)

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The not so sunny side of the street

Munich is so much more beautiful that I could have even imagined. I really am at a loss for words about it so that part of the story will be mostly pictures. For now I'll talk about my living arrangements.

I am living in a boarding house in one of the bussiest parts of Munich. It's an amazing old building with, of course, a bunch of modern improvements. This flat, though, does not have a few things that I generally find essential, like an internet connection. It also has a washing machine but no dryer and as inconvenient as that is I have to say having a hand held shower head is far worse. Now, to sound, as Lou Reed ellegantly put it "so BA in English", I've just put this travel blog in conversation with a friend's blog. He's in Spain, having some interesting adventures of his own and he too noticed the inconvenience of not being able to quickly dry one's clothes. He's right, of course, but try washing your hair one handed.

Communicating with the outside world is a problem on top of a problem on top of a problem. First, there is the lack of internet connection in the flat I'm staying in. Secondly the exorbinate international roaming rates on my cell phone combined with the fact that my cell phone doesn't even get signal in most parts of Munich including the street I live on (or any non-urban areas in Europe including all of the places I went to in Switzerland and Italy). So, I've solved the later by buying a pre-paid German cell phone which won't do me much good in London, Spain or Ireland which are the places I might really need a cell phone because I'll be trying to connect with people. That said, if you want to call me e-mail me and I'll give you my European mobile number, it's likely to be the best way to reach me for at least the next month. The former problem is easy enough to solve as there are two wireless hotspots within a short walk of where I live which I'm happy to do since Munich is amazing to walk around in. It's very pedestrian (and bicycle) heavy. Not that it doesn't have it's share of car traffic too, but it seems, to me, much more condusive to foot traffic (for those expecting me to actually learn something while I'm here that would be fuss gehen auf Deutsch).

Which brings me to the final problem of communicating with the outside world inside Munich. That is to say, I don't speak German (or I speak only ein bisschen Deutch). I'm here primarily (almost solely) to learn to speak German, but I don't yet so logistically I'm in an interesting position in a foreign city, my first time abroad, not speaking the language and trying to get settled. It's actually mostly a lot less difficult and frightening than I expected it to be but in some ways it is actually more unsettling. For example, it does bring out my naturally shy tendency. I'm not one to approach people anyway, but at least when they approach me I'm pretty confindent in holding up my end of the conversation (and then some, as you can tell I'm very...verbal), but now that confidence is gone. For now I'm content to walk around the city observing but pretty soon I'm going to want to engage a little more.

The one draw back of the walking around philosophy and of being a pedestrian in Munich right now in general is the weather. It's cold. In fact it snowed today. It's apparently unseasonably cold. Normally Munich is very snowy in the winter time and starts warming up near the end of March but this year they had no snow at all, no rain, just clear sunny skies all winter, until now. The weather in Locarno was also unseasonable but the other way. Usually Locarno is still cold and often even snowy until the very end of March or begining of April but they had a very dry winter as well and it got warm sooner than usual. So there was no snow left there and, I went from warm, sunny weather, every day to grey, cold, snowy weather in just a 5 hour drive yesterday and both were, apparently, out of the ordinary.

Now on to the photographic portion of your entertainment.

This is my room


And the view from my room


And my street


And the entry hall to the building I'm living in


And the courtyard. If it ever warms up perhaps I'll spend some time out there.


And the stairwell. I am on the third floor, which is actually the fourth floor because the numbering of floors starts with 0 here.


And a medly of pictures of my walk home from class today. First we have a couple of pictures of the ironically named Sonnenstrasse (sunny street), I'm sure there is lots of sun most of the time but there isn't predicted to be any more for quite a while. Munich is so amazingly beautiful that every few meters or so I have to stop and take another picture. At least I know I'll never get lost coming home from class and if I do I'll have all these pictures to guide my way.


The last two are the brand new Jewish Community Center (and, I think, Temple). Not as architecturally interesting as I imagine the old one was, the one that was burned down on the famous "night of broken glass", but they chose not to rebuild the old one and instead sold the property and bought new land to build this building. Stay tuned for more about the new Munich Temple and the resurgence of Judaism in Germany. It's only about a block and a half from where I'm living and I plan to go to the Temple at least once while I'm here. It will actually be a first for me.
I'm Jewish but I like to say I'm faux Jewish or that I'm Jewish by technicallity. My mother's, mother's, mother was Jewish and being Jewish is matralineal (according to Orthodox rules) ergo it doesn't matter what (if any) religion you were raised practicing, if your mother was a Jew you are (and, interestingly, if your mother was not a Jew, even if your father was, no matter how devoutly you practice Judaism, you are not a Jew). My grandmother though, didn't even know that she was Jewish until she was an adult with kids of her own, adult kids of her own, in fact, even one grandchild (my big brother). She told my mother who was either trying to get pregnant or already was pregnant with me at the time and my mother has made a bit of an effort ot reconnect with this part of her heritage but only as far as giving me a Hebrew name and lighting candles on Hanukkah really. So, I've never been to Temple, but what better time and place to start than in Munich less than a year after the opening of the new Munich Temple and the ordination of the first group of Rabbis in Germany in 60 years.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Italy, Livestock and Little Miss Sunshine Euro style

Day 2
On my second day here we went to Italy, just 15 minutes away. Ah Italy, land of Espresso and Gellato where life moves a little slower (except behind the wheel of a car) and people give their children numbers rather then names (like Primo Levy). I actually don't have much to say about Italy, except that there are a lot of churches there too and they are really ornate, sometimes the point of being ridiculous. In addition to there being churches every few meters in Switzerland and Italy there are also little shrines to the Virgin Mary set up periodically by the side of the road or in the middle of little villages. This is big time Catholic country. In fact I haven't seen much evidence of any other religions being practiced here at all, aside from the two families of Hasidic Jews that were on the flight into Zurich with me. My step-grandparents tell me there is a large Jewish population in the German states of Switzerland, but here in Ticino it's pretty homogeneously Catholic.


Day 3
We went up into one of the Alpine valleys and saw a bunch of Rustica villages. The houses in these villages are all built out of stone (including their roofs). The Alps here are basically solid granite so the cutting (and selling) of granite is big business here and everything that can be made of granite is. The curbs on the sidewalk are granite, the cobble stones are granite, fence posts are made of granite, the stakes holing up the grape vines are granite, the drain grates are granite, any outdoor stairs and many indoor ones are granite and up in the alpine villages whole houses are made of it. Granite is everywhere.


Another thing that is everywhere here - dairy products. I swear it seems like the dairy products aisle in the grocery stores takes up at least 1/3 of the total shelf space. Switzerland has crazy dairy products. Way better than anything we have in the states. I'm told that this is true of all Europe, which I suppose I'll see a bit of for myself by the time I'm done. The icon of Switzerland is a cow though so it stands to reason they'd have a pretty good handle on making dairy products. Butter, cheese, yogurt, it's all good here.

We got a chance to see first hand some of the super adorable livestock Switzerland has in such abundance. I know, "adorable" and "livestock" aren't usually words you hear together, but take a look at these pictures and tell me you don't think they're super cute.


Tap water is also better here. In fact where ever water runs from any kind of tap, fountain or spigot you can drink it and it's great. Every little village up in the mountains still has a community water source (like the fountain in this picture) and, while animals bathe in the trough the water coming from the spigot is cleaner than anything you'll find stateside.

We, of course, had fondue for dinner so I could get the complete Swiss experience and fully enjoy the fantastic cheese that abounds here.

Day 4
We went back to Bellinzona for the market they have on Saturdays which was remarkably like Pike Place market except they only have it one day a week (half a day really since it closes at 1:00PM). We also saw the other two castles there which were actually, along with the one we saw my first day here, at one time all three connected by a wall that went all the way across the valley. So, really the three castles were once one castle. More castles meant more opportunity for me to take zillions of pictures, of course, and on our way back to Locarno we stopped an watched some Go Kart racing which was fun and provided another opportunity for me to indulge my photography obsession. The drivers were all little kids (maybe 7 or 8 years old) but it seemed to be a pretty serious race. They had a pit crew and little racing suits and everything.

Day 5
My last day in Switzerland, spent mostly in the car. I was actually in 4 different countries (none of which had anyone stationed at their borders so I still don't have any stamps on my passport), Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria and Germany. We drove up through the Alps which was pretty amazing. Unfortunately I got hardly any good pictures of that because I was in a car on the Autobahn the whole time. I'm in Munich now and, as you might imagine, have loads to say about it too but apparently the Internet hasn't come to Europe yet, at least not to Germany or Switzerland, you'll have to wait a day or two for the next update because I'm at a wireless hot spot but only had 2 hours battery life on my laptop and it's nearly out.