swiss watch

I finally bought a nice "souvenir" for my Swiss experience - a Swiss watch. This was a "happy birthday/merry Christmas/congratulations on your promotion last year" present to myself :)

 

full moon paddle boarding

About a month ago, I did something that I've been wanting to do for over a year now - paddle boarding (or stand up paddling). Jelena and Daniela went with me and we took a 2 hour course on Lake Zurich. It was really fun. It was one of the hottest days of the year and so falling off our boards into the water was actually a relief.

Our instructor told us that the school was doing a full moon paddle in August from 9pm-11pm. Daniela and I decided to go and it was AWESOME! The water was so calm that late in the evening. It was so peaceful and we had a great view of the city of Zurich all lit up by the absolutely beautiful full moon.

Our instructor took a few pictures of the Group during the paddle. We didn't get back to the school until 11:45pm. The lack of sleep on a weeknight was well worth it though. I would definitely do this again!

speeding ticket

One thing that I have to warn all my visitors about is the speed and red light cameras in Switzerland. They are everywhere and so you really can't speed. When my parents were here, my mom designated herself as the "Speed Nazi" and would yell at dad if he was over the speed limit. Well, on Lainey and Josh's last full day here, we were on the way back from Jungfrau and mom took a nap and Josh following behind us saw the camera flash. Sure enough, this week, I received the speeding ticket in the mail (addressed to my dad). Luckily it was only CHF 20! My local friends even said that was cheap :)

 

Update: Dad's speeding ticket #2 received this week. This one for CHF 60. I hope this trend doesn't continue!

aletsch glacier hike

Just a nice little Sunday in Switzerland and a hike to Europe's longest glacier which is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The trip there took about 3 hours, but after a couple trains and two gondolas, we were in Bettmerhorn and at 2,647m. The hike took us along a rocky path with great views of the mountains and the amazing glacier (first time I've ever seen a glacier) until finally we hiked down until we were close enough to touch the glacier.

 

Don't misstep or you're going down.

 

My hiking Buddy for the day  - my friend Piotr - pointing out the obvious (there is the glacier!)!

 

As I said, the path got quite rocky for awhile. This is the "staircase" we climbed down.

 

This is the view from where we sat and ate lunch.

 

Touching the glacier! It was really cold right down by the glacier, but after the hike back uphill, I was warm again!

 

This picture was taken because I was asking "what the heck" after we saw a sign that our destination was 1 hr 30 minutes away and then we hiked 30 minutes and the next sign said our destination was in 2 hours. I was not happy, but the next sign was "correct" again. 

 

The trail description had said that we would hike to the "majical lake Märjelen". When you expect "majical" and get this, it is a little underwhelming, but beautiful nonetheless.

 

The final part of the trail took us through this really long tunnel.

 

The 4 hour hike was absolutely perfect. It might be a competitor for my favorite Swiss hike.

walensee

After all of the drinking games Saturday night, Sunday morning was a rough one. We still managed to make it to our desired Sunday destination of Walensee, an awesome lake in the mountains not far from Zurich. The water in the lake was the prettiest blue. We enjoyed an easy hike along the lake and then a boat ride back to our starting point.

 

 

Mountain goats:

 

 

Minh and I in our matching "Sorry I Partied" Shirts for the day because if there was ever a day for this shirt, this was the day!

 

Thanks for visiting guys! I hope you had as much fun as I did!

street parade

Minh and his sister Liz came to visit for a weekend on the first top of a Eurotrip to Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. They arrived early Saturday morning and they were troopers because it was a long day! I rented a car for the weekend and it was so much fun to drive! After making it back to my apartment, and some quick showers, we went for a walk around the city to show them the main sights.

 

By the end of our walk, the beginning of "street parade" festivities were evident. There were a lot of people walking around in crazy costumes. Many of them carrying bottles of liquor. Minh and Liz were definitely in for a unique Zurich experience. After stopping back at my apartment to grab some beers, we headed out to join the crowd. Street Parade is prime for people watching. The parade consists of 30 "love floats" which have dj's, blaring techno music, and dancers.

 

 

This is one of the floats:

 

After awhile, we met up with my friends Daniela and Mariana and some of their friends. The highlight was Minh and Liz getting a picture with a real-live Swiss cow:

 

Getting to where Daniela and Mariana were was not so hard, but by the time we tried to make our way back, the crowd seemed to have quadrupled. We finally made our way back to the other side of the lake after making a detour around the impassible part of the crowd. Here is a picture of just how massive of a crowd there was that we tried to get back through:

 

We stopped on the way home at the grocery store and got food to grill out and had an amazing dinner on the roof.

 

Some of my friends then came over for drinks with the plan of going out later that evening. The going out never happened once we started playing drinking games...

 

New Swiss drinking game we learned:

 

The whole group with our "moose" hands out:

 

 

stockholm

My friend Alayna and I decided to take advantage of the August 1st holiday in Switzerland and escape the heat for a Nordic adventure in Stockholm, Sweden.We had a very nice extra-long weekend. Our trip started out great with a ride on the luxurious train from the airport to the city center. If you think Swiss trains are nice and clean, you have not experienced the Swedish ones!

After walking 500m from the train station we arrived at our hotel, it was very convenient. We checked in and then went for a walk. The sunset was beautiful on the water. We made it to Gamla Stan (the old town) and found a cute place for dinner. We both had steaks and they were delicious!

 

  

The week we were visiting was Stockholm's pride week and even the buses were decked out for the occasion!

 

We spent the day Thursday walking around the whole city, doing some shopping and taking in the sights.

 

During a brief rainstorm we stopped in a cafe and had some desserts. The cafe was very eclectically decorated, including these old jukeboxes at the tables.

 

Thursday night we met up for drinks with Alayna's friends from Zurich who also happened to be in Stockholm - Olof and Ryan. Olof is Swedish so they had been on vacation visiting his family and he got to answer all of our questions about Sweden. The bar we were at was really cool - on a barge on the water. There was this completely random Jewish pride flag, so we had to get a picture!

 

On Friday, we took a boat to Vaxholm, one of the islands in the Stockholm archipelago. The island was very cute. We had lunch, did some shopping, and watched the boats on the water. The boat ride there and back was also beautiful and we saw a lot of the other islands in the archipelago as well.

 

Friday night we met up again with Olof and Ryan and one of Olof's friends for dinner and a night of drinking. We had a great time, as evidenced by the pictures of the sun rising in the following pictures!

On Saturday morning when we woke up, only one thing would do for lunch---Pizza Hut! As two Americans that have been living with a lack of "American" pizza in Switzerland, we couldn't resist that stuffed-crust goodness!

After stuffing our faces with stuffed crust pizza and fountain diet sodas (with ice - go Sweden!), we walked along the water and found a nice area and layed out and swam in the water. For Sweden, it was very hot and there were a lot of others that were taking advantage of the nice weather too.

A wonderful trip and this was the furthest north that Alayna and I had ever been!