Pesach in a foreign land

Passover started monday night. I celebrated with the Gross family, a nice French-Ashkenazi family living on the border of Switzerland. They however did not provide the seder, but brought me to their friends house. Their friends were Moroccan-Sephardic and I attended the Chabad-Lubavitch service before the 9 PM seder started. Herve Gross (the patriarch of the family I was with) had never been to this Chabad, and knew only his friend whose house we would be dining in. Odd, then, that when we walked in, I knew 2 people in this Chabad. 1 was Stephen, a Canadian student who I was unaware was Jewish and in living in the John Knox Centre where I live. The 2nd was a Cornell student studying through BU whom I met in Gryon during a ski trip. Small world.

Anyways, the seder was hilarious. Most of it was in French or Hebrew, but the funny part would be when mabe 4 of the guests would be readng from different parts all arguing about where they were in the Haggadah. Eventually, one of them would yell the loudest, and instead of doing it over, they would be finished and we would dip the greens in salt water, or whatever part we finished. It was a traditional Moroccan feast as I am told and we had fish balls, lamb, and a gamut of other amazing foods that I grew full over. Long story short, I got home at 2:15 because they eat and drink too much here. Chag Sameach

Posts and Posts and Posts and...

It appears that I am several weekends behind on the posting. I still need to update ye on Venice, Padova, and Portugal. But, I want to talk about Slovenia as quickly as possible so I will give the shortened versions of Italy and Portugal (besides, I already gave you all my pictures anyway).

Padua, IT with Amy and Kevin
60,ooo Student University of Padova, Romeo was exiled there, crazy night life, Spritzers are the drink of choice, Kevin's friend Bart led us around, the city is divided between ugly and beautiful. I had fun.

Venice, IT with Amy and Kevin
Canals, canals, glass, masks, Murano, boats, canals, walking, canals. There really isn't much to Venice, we only made it a day trip, I've been there before and its a tourist trap. Just a lot of nice walking.

Lisbon, PT with Ashley and Kevin
Amazing. Like a Portuguese version of San Fransisco. Hilly, tram cars, golden gate bridge, nice people, best seafood I've ever had, good public transportation system, fun night life (drank something called the Hemmingway Special), Fado is a spanish guitar-opera thing with a beautiful sound that is in almost ever bar in Lisbon.

Sintra, PT with Ashley and Kevin
Lord Byron called Sintra an "Eden". So true. Unbelievable architecture over gardens. One garden was sprawled on a hill including caves, over lakes, lookout towers, grottos, rivers: all to mimic Dante's Inferno. Crazy awesome. Good Porto in Portugal, surprising?

PS. I shaved my beard.
Here is the album.

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2225733&l=33f2f&id=6800010

Apologies

So, let me please apologize for my lack of blogposts the past few weeks. I have absolutely no excuse. However, it has come up to bite me in the ass, as now I have to update the past 3 weekends (time is flying by) of Gruyéres, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Basel, Venice, Padova, aaaaand Portugal`s Lisbon and Sintra. Wow. 3 weekends, 3 countries, 4 languages, 8 cities, 12, 19, 39... That is alot of numbers.

Let us start from the beginning. Basel, Neuchatel, Gruyéres, Lausanne. This was all one weekend broke into 2 days as day trips. No expenses for hostels, just food, drink, and whatever museum or castel we wanted to see. Basel was...interesting. We ate at a restaurant called Gifthüttli, which means Poisin cabin, but it was amazing. In my love for Rösti, I hate a huge platter adorned with a sausage, just the way I like it. It is a very pretty large schwiezer-deutsch town (swiss-german). I posted the pictures in all my links, so people should be able to see the beautiful Rathaus and the Rhine R. By the way, this trip was with Kevin, Molly, Amy. Before we headed home (as it was only a day thing, 3 hours away), Kevin and I wanted to grab a brew at the oldest Brewpub in Switzerland, the Fischerstube that serves their own Ueli Bier, quite delish. On the way home, we decided to walk around Neuchatel and watch the sunset over Lake Neuchatel. Its a rather quaint french speaking town, known mainly for their university. The lake is nice although the swans get rowdy if you try to feed them granola, so dont.

The next day we headed out around 8 for an arrival in Gruyéres around 11. Its an intensly small town with only one road, perched on the top of a hill in a green valley flanked on all sides by alps. Very beautiful. This time, the roster was supposed to be the same as the day before, with Amy, Molly and Kevin. However Amy decided she was quote unquote tired. So last minute, I convince Meghan to steal Amys Eurail pass, which they dont check IDs with, and we headed off for the Swiss Cheese capitol. First stop: the swiss cheese factory. We took a tour, and our tickets to get in were none other than pieces of Gruyéres cheese, aged 6, 8, 10 mos. old. The 8 was the best. After the tour, we hiked up the hill to the actual town walked the one street to the end, where we discovered(knew it was there) a sweet castle. Amazing mountanous and valley views, a theme I am beginning to see a trend of in Switzerland. Everywhere. After the castle, we went to a bar outside of the Giger museum. Ahh the Giger museum. We did not pay the 8CHF entry fee, but it may have been worth a laugh. HR Giger, the swiss surrealist who envisioned Alien and Species movie series has a museum in Gruyéres dedicated to fantasy eroticism. Weird. The bar however was cool, and was fashioned with mold casts of alien spines everywhere. They made up the ceiling, the chairs, table legs. There were mutated baby heads coming out from the wall, all in all a wholly odd experience, but one worth having. After this, we headed home around 4 and stopped in Laussanne to get some Kebab, walk around, have a drink, and watch the sunset over Lac Leman. Tres beau. This blog post will get incredibly long if I include all 3 weekends in here, so I will cut it short and do the other 2 soon.

I have just realized the extent of my travels here. By the time I reach the USA, I will have hit Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Hungary. 11. Damn. This weekend is Bled, Slovenia, I cannot wait.

All of my pictures in one big bang (thanks to CERN)

Hopefully this will work...

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2221832&l=14108&id=6800010
-these are my trips to Padua, Venice, and the Geneva Auto Show

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2213664&l=f0a25&id=6800010
-these are day trips i took to save money to Basel, Neuchatel, Gruyeres, and Lausanne

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2212528&l=60ab9&id=6800010
-spring break in Sicily, Florence, and the CinqueTerre

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2206040&l=424f1&id=6800010
-Salzburg and Vienna, Austria (so far my facorite country)

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2194705&l=1ed82&id=6800010
-Luzern, Bern, and Madrid

http://indiana.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2185953&l=3eef5&id=6800010
-Orientation Week in Geneva and around Lac Leman.


Now, of course I have taken more pictures than this, but this is all that I have posted on facebook, which means the others are either confidential, or not as good of pictures (or both). In any case, this is a new method of sharing my pictures with family that are sans facebook, so I am not sure if it will work. I encourage people to leave comments as to the pictures and the funcionality of the links. Soon I will update on Padua, Venice, and my upcoming weekend in Lisbon, Portugal.

The staircase can be quite...treacherous (and rewarding)

Let me preface my Sping Break post by first stating that either Sicily or the Cinqueterre are (hopefully) where I will be when the apocolypse comes.

Sicily takes 23 hours to reach by train from Geneva. Now that eveyone is aware of this, I would advise all to take the train to Taormina. It is well worth it. My Spring Break was a 10 day italian food and wine festival ranging from the olive oily/frutti de mare(seafood) sicilian tastes to the (bland by comparison) Tuscan fare. If it werent for the amazing scenery and hiking in the CinqueTerre, I would have regret my excursion there. I also hit Florence for a day, somewhere I do not visualize myself returning to unless for a good reason. Florence is like New York, only tourists and mean locals. I think I am a small charming Euro-town kind of person.

I wish I could go over all that I did in Italy in one blog post, but this is not possible. I will shorten. Climbed volcano Mt. Etna in a 26km hike. Ate more pasta and seafood infused together than an italian version of 20,000 leagues. Thomas doesnt do directions. The Ionian Sea is freezing in February. Amy is an illiterate. Hiking is treacherous and rewarding. When it rains, people without raincoats and umbrellas (ie, our group) eats to avoid the rain. Gelato deserves to be consumed 2 times a day.

If anyone has any questions, comments, concerns (Vargo 1998) they can skype me. Pictures included should show the Duomo in Siracusa, Me in front of Vernazzo, one of the 5Terre cities, and my group (Thomas, Amy, Alaine plus an annexed Erica). Enjoy

The hills are alive...with beer and churches (Austria)

I love Wienershnitzel. and Austian monk-made beer. and any type of Wurst.

This past weekend I traveled to Salzburg and Wien (Vienna) by train from Geneva. It was a spectacular time. We left Geneva at 7PM on Thursday night, arrived in Salzburg via nacht train at 4AM, then toured the morning-ghost town until things opened and we were able to get some Austrian breakfast. I traveled with Abby Anderson, Molly Gilmore, Ginnie Fridell, and Kevin Creighton. After seeing almost all of the old town before it even opened, the girls departed Kevin and I and left for a 4 hour Sound of Music Tour. We opted out of this, decided to climb the towns overlooking cliffs and searched for the Augustiner brewery and abbey. After much searching, we found the brewery and were appalled to discover that a beerhaus was not open at 930AM. I mean, who would see that coming?

After walking, drinking beer, eating, walking and drinking beer, eating and walking, and a mix of all three, we met back up with the girls and decided to have an early dinner (around 430). We ate at the oldest restaurant in Europe, the Stiftskeller, founded in 803 and situated in a cellar right next to the St. Peter's church, a beautiful building right under the cliffs with an amazing graveyard. That night, we took the 3 hour train to Vienna and planned our time while there. This is now Friday night.

Saturday morning, we decided to walk Vienna and see every single chuch we could, taking in all the Gothic architecture and beautiful Hapsburg influenced palaces, parks, and squares. Kevin and I continued enjoying the fine Austrian beer everywhere we went, while the girls watched on in amazement.

Really I cant explain our trip more than a pile of amazing food (incapacitating amounts of wienerschnitzel), great gelato in Vienna, about 10 churches all with different splendid grandeur and lots and lots of beerhauses, biergartens, kindergartens, kinder chocolate...

Regret: not bringing a pedometer to Europe, I wished i could log all the space I cover.

More pictures will follow.

A Fruitful weekend

Hello again friends and family. I did not travel outside of Geneva this weekend (unless you count a day excursion to the French Alps to hike, but we didnt go any further than a bus, a tram, another bus, then a 3 mile walk to get to the mountain, and I dont count that), but I did make many plans for future travel. This upcoming weekend, I am planning on hitting Vienna and Salzburg, Austria with Kevin, Molly, and Ginnie. The weekend and week after that is my Spring Break (early I know), and I am heading south with Thomas, Amy, and Alaine to see Sicily, then back up north for the Cinqeterre. In Sicily we are staying in Taormina and Siracusa, with day excursions to climb Mt. Etna, the biggest volcano in Europe, still currently active and spewing liquid hot magma (had to say it). We will also see the beautiful Aeolieon Islands, where the God of Wind (from Homer`s Oddessey) resides. The train to Taormina from Geneva is a measly 20 hours. Aside from planning and hiking, chocolate is the other main point of this post.

Swiss Chocolate. Let me count the ways I love thee.

Lindt, Caillier, Melchior, Toblerone, etc, etc...

In America, I am not much of a chocolate eater. But, this is no America friends. The chocolate here is possibly the greatest thing ever. Whether it be noir, blanc, truffle, avec 76% cacao, or tiramisu infused, they all taste better than the best chocolate you have ever had in the puny land of Hershey. I scoff at Ghirardelli, Hershey, Tollhouse (the chocolate chips).

Moral of the story - It is worth the trip here, if not only for the brown sweets.

Also, enjoy this picture of (L to R) me, Lorena, Kevin, Amy playing in the Swiss snow.