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)