Mountains, lakes and mountain lakes

Chapter One: Lucerne

If Daniel can claim his swiss heritage made him a two-stepper, then I think every swissman would agree that I can blame my blogging tardiness on my Kiwi heritage. This will be the first chapter of many detailing our recent trips around Switzerland. A quickie to begin....

Lucerne, a beautiful wee city surrounded by mountains and based around the beautiful Luzern see (Lake Lucerne), has recently become the new stomping ground of a very close friend and soon-to-be famous violinist Malavika.

So, last Friday (21st August) I embarked on my first solo journey on the public transport system for a visit to see her. We met at the central railway station and snuck into the famous KKL (Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern) for a short but sweet performance of the Lucerne festival orchestra (Malavika's BF Geoff is the concert master).

On returning to the outside world, the sun began to shine down upon us gloriously after 4 days of dreary wet weather so we seized the opportunity and took a boat ride out on to Lake Lucerne.

Two hours later and a lake-side picnic later, we arrived in Lucerne city again and spent the next few hours exploring the altstadt. This is us in front of the the Kapellbrücke ("Chapel Bridge" in German) which is a 204 m (670 ft) long bridge crossing the Reuss River in the city of Lucerne in Switzerland. It is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, and one of Lucerne's main attractions.

After a bit more exploring I headed back to Zurich in the train leaving Mal to begin practicing for her next audition. All in all a lovely day's excursion.

Next post will be from our trip to the mountains. Time for bed though, as we head to Lake Lugano and the Ticino bright and early tomorrow morning.

Ciao,

Chloe xx

It's because I'm Swiss that I can't dance

I've managed to catch the flu so I have a day off today, an opportunity to catch up on a couple of bits and pieces. So before I hop on my bike and go collect a tan at the local lake, I thought I'd share a little about my placement at Inselspital in Bern.

I'm doing a placement in Neurosurgery as an Unterassistent = trainee intern. Although I was expecting to be doing my placement in Bern as an International elective student, it turned out they employed me as a paid Trainee Intern, expected to work 50 hours per week, doing similar stuff to what a TI does at home, taking histories and examining, being slammed by consultants, and doing a whole pile of paperwork... the only difference being it's all in German. Admittedly my medical German is less than adequate and for the first few days I considered quitting, however over the subsequent days I found my feet, embarked on a very steep language learning curve, and am now managing to get by with my work.

The work on the wards can be a bit routine, however getting theatre time is a real highlight. Neurosurgery is a fascinating specialty, and the Surgeons are quite keen to get us involved, drilling burrholes etc, so it's been a lot of fun.

On Wednesday night last week we were all invited out by the head of the dept. of neurosurg to a lovely restaurant called Schwellenmätteli. The eatery is built on an island in the middle of the river Aare, which runs through the middle of Bern.

Schwellenmätteli

After a nice meal the registrars decided it was time to head to town. We hit the Cuba Bar, and as drinks were being ordered I had flashbacks of myself uncomfortably executing at best awkward dance moves in front of friends and strangers alike, feeling like a complete fool, and at that moment I knew I was in for a long night. I gratefully accepted a drink from one of the registrars (at $15/drink I was glad to not be buying) and after stalling all I could I made my way to the dance floor.

To my absolute delight what I saw when I entered the room where the music was pumping and the lights strobing, was a bunch of Swiss doctors barely moving at all. They weren't dancing so much as doing my very own much loved two-step. A rush of confidence welled inside me and I spent the rest of the evening "dancing" the two-step with my Swiss buddies. As I swayed conservatively back and forth to the pumping music (which in NZ would have demanded much more energetic dancing) I felt so at home, and took solace in the fact that although I maye be a completely retarded dancer in NZ, in Switzerland I'm not half bad.

Better still was the next morning at work, where after three hours sleep the night before, everyone else looked just as hammered as me. So not only is it a Swiss thing to not be able to dance like a maniac, it's normal here to need to get to bed on time ;)

Vindication.

Love, Daniel (and Chloe who is not sick and so is out visiting some castle with my Grandma and Aunty)

Adventures mit Grossmami

Salut tout le monde,

Over the last two days an exciting social experiment took place. Picture me, speaking almost no german and Grossmami (Erika Frei, Dan's grandmother), speaking almost no english, in a train together making our way across Switzerland...

After successfully spending a day exploring Zurich together, we set off for Rorschach, circa 530am, to visit the world famous Sandskulpturen. These massive spectacles are made each year for an international competition on the banks of the 'Bodensee', a lake bordered by Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

On the banks of the Bodensee (Lake Constance)

Big foot

Back on the train, a short journey away is St Gallen (picture below borrowed from Google images). This beautiful wee swiss city is home to the magnificent 'Kathedral St Gallen' and immediately next door the 'Stiftsbibliothek' or abbey library, home to the most extensive medieval library in the world. If only they hadn't stopped teaching us latin, I would have been able to do more than admire the over 1000 year old medical texts...

St Gallen

Cathedral of St Gallen

Inside the cathedral

Abbey library

After a quick coffee, back on the train for a sojourn to Appenzellerland, home of Appenzeller cheese, Appenzeller beer and apparently, Appenzeller in-breds. It's hard to believe that in a land with such beautiful scenery consanguinity could be so common, but there you have it.

Appenzellerland

Der Zug (the train)

Appenzeller cheese

Grossmami and I enjoyed a lovely afternoon basking in the sun, drinking ice tea and eating biberli before jumping back on the train. 3 train changes and a bus ride later we found ourselves safely back in Glaubenstrasse just in time for tea.

Experiment = successful!

Lots of love,

Chloe und Grossmami

PS. It's important to note that Daniel is also an intergral part of this trip. However due to time constraints (ie. the fact he gets up at 0500 each morning to commute to Bern, and is then too tired to do more than eat dinner and fall asleep again when he arrives home), he has not yet managed to post an update of his experience at Inselspital. But he will.

Hallo aus der Schweiz!

Hallo alle,

We have arrived in Switzerland! Had a good trip over and arrived at 8.15am Sunday morning ready to go after a 10 hour Zopiclone induced sleep. Elspeth and Grosmami were at the airport to greet us and we then took a tram home to Elspeths place to drop off our things.

Elsbeth borrowed a car for the day and we took a trip to the Rheinfalls which were spectacular, as you can see...

We then visited a medieval fortress...

Wandered through the altstadt of Schaffhausen, and finally made our way to Kurt und Doris' house on the banks of the Rhein. After a lovely lunch the sun began to peek through the trees and we decided to take a swim down the Rhein.

By this time it was about 5pm and Dan began to do his 'need to get horizontal before I lose it' routine and so we said goodbye to Kurt und Doris (who are a lovely couple) and drove home.

Daniel leaves for Bern at 5.30 each morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Unfortunately the cold Wellington Weather has followed us to Zurich and so Elspeth and I have spent our days bundled up, enjoying the efficient public transport system as we explore Zurich city.

All in all a great first impression of Switzerland.

Ciao ciao,

Chloë xx

A little something from Singapore for the parents

It's been a good trip so far, although neither of us got a single wink of sleep on the Auckland-Singapore leg. We did manage to watch about 4 movies each though so that's something. We've been up to the pool for a shower and power nap (I'm not a fan of the powernap), no sooner do you settle into a deep sleep it's pulled out from under your nose again.

After about 90 minutes of checking out shops and not managing to convince Chloe to buy any cheap jewelery (I've the feeling she's holding out for something more expensive) we've found a comfortable corner, have pushed some couches together and Chloe is getting some solid shut eye.

Anyway, for the next leg we're stepping it up to Zopiclone, I'm gunning for the full 15 hour solid sleep... I think I've reached the point where I'm ok with not making the most of every offer of food and free movie out of the flight and am happy to settle for the sleep, not an easy decision to make though ;)

Chloe looked fresh as a daisy after the first flight

2 minutes later ;)

Next post will be from the beautiful Rhine falls

Daniboy + sleepy Chloe

Leaving on a jet plane

So we're disappearing off into the deep blue yonder at the crack of dawn. We hope you enjoy our posts from throughout Europe, we'll do our best to keep it entertaining.

If we can all read this I can assume my new Raven software has worked and I am able to successfully update the blog offline.

Until shortly, when the real posting begins...

from switzerland to greece

only 3 months to go, and we have a rough itinerary. should look something like this - SWITZERLAND zurich bern luzern ticino valais FRANCE paris loire valley marsille montsegur montpellier cannes nice MONACO ITALY florence tuscany rome bari CROATIA dubrovnik split istria ITALY venice SLOVENIA bled ljubljana AUSTRIA veinna salzburg CZECH REPUBLIC prague SLOVAKIA HUNGARY budapest MONTENEGRO SERBIA KOSOVO ROMANIA transylvania GREECE crete santorini athens