Sweet Weekend in Store

Off to Geneva this weekend for my first European ultimate tournament, Talampaya. Apparently this is one of the oldest co-ed tournament in Europe (this year is the 20th anniversary). 3 days of disc and camping because June 1st is a holiday. I'm playing with ZUF this season, which is the best Zürich team and although my preference would be to play open, there is no possibility in Zürich this year. However, this team is pretty good and they are serious about playing disc instead of drinking their faces off at tournaments. A good sign.

I mean if you only have a one word name for the tournament, it must be epic, right? Updates next week.

Weekend in Italy

Slowly chalking up European countries. Actually considering I'm been here three months and I've already been to Slovenia, Germany (for a day), and now Italy, I'm not doing too bad. I figure I've got three years so I can afford to take my time.

This trip has been in the works for about a month and a half, but didn't really come together until two weeks ago as my MSc supervisor, found out that he didn't end up getting permits from the NWT in time for research this month, and decided to come to Italy to give a talk at a university in Milan and see a stage of the Giro D'Italia.

Since I am somewhat constrained by conducting weekly field visits (hiking in the Swiss Alps is such a drag...) I took a train directly from my field site to Milan. We stayed in Milan (just out of the core) with a former professor from the Geography Department at Carleton, which was great. Took the train to Venice on Thursday morning and spent two days there, staying at a bed and breakfast. Went back to Milan on Saturday, walked around a bit that afternoon and then watched Stage 9 of the Giro. Headed back to Zurich on Monday morning and then went dirctly back to my field site in the Loeschental for more sampling.

My shorts thoughts on my trip along with some photos and a link to more photos on my Facebook page.

Venice

• Amazing, beautiful city. Almost entirely car free on the island. Although very expensive (especially in high season (which by my calculations is about 51 weeks a year), but if you make that one week low season, look out!

Venice!!!

• Most tourists actually only spend a day and arrive at the train station and beeline for San Marco square, take a gondola ride, have a gelato and then get back on the train, so the afternoons could be busy in the main areas, but the evenings and later nights were great.

San Marco Square at night

• Spent a lot of time walking the city and the spots away from the main squares (which are very nice) are amazingly calm and beautiful.
• The city is a maze of streets and canals and streets that end in canals. Did a lot of backtracking.
• One of my favourite things to do in any city is to go to the market and Venice didn't disappoint with it's fresh seasfood.
  
• Randomly there was an extreme Catamaran race on Friday afternoon. It was pretty cool to sit on the waterfront (despite less than sunny weather) and watch some sailing.

Milan

• Nice to visit, wouldn't want to live here. To begin with I'm not a huge fan of big cities, but it was overly busy and very dirty (although living in Switzerland I guess everywhere is dirty compared). Overall, not a fan.
• Spent a bit of time walking around the core. The Duomo Cathedral was very impressive (I guess any building that takes 200+ years to finish will be) and the first indoor mall (The Galleria) was nice, although I'm not sure how anyone affords anything sold there.

The Cathedral from the front. Amazing detail up close.

• There is a nice castle in the middle of the city which houses a couple of mueums and is surrounded by a great central park.

Giro

• Great to finally have a chance to see a cycling race in the flesh. Obviously my goal was to see Lance. Mission: accomplished. Also saw lots of other top riders.
  

Lance out of the saddle

• Cool stage because it was 11 different laps around the city which allowed us to see racers more than once. Managed to slowly walk across the city and see the racers in a few different places.
• This will however be known as the stage that wasn't. The riders weren't very impressed with the safety of the course and they staged a protest that involved stopping 3 laps in and addressing the crowd and taking a lesiurely ride around the course. Race officials caved and said that no changes in the GC would take place. So despite a Mark Cavendish sprint to the finish, everyone was awarded the same time.

Cavendish sprinting for the finish in Milan

Lots of other photos of my trip here.

All in all, a great trip. Italy is big though and I plan on going back. However, next time I hope to hit the Dolomites (perhaps with a MTB) and southern Italy (Pompeii and Mount Etna). Next big trip is back to Ottawa from June 9th to the 21st. See you then...?

World Hockey Championship in Bern

Apologies for this post being so late, Windows Life Writer seems to have given up.

Not sure how many of you are hockey fans (shame on you if you’re Canadian…), but this year the World Hockey Championship was played in Switzerland, splitting time between Zurich and Bern. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get a ticket (or afford one!), but fortunately the Swiss aren’t as excited about hockey as football. That meant that I was able to go and see a quarter-final game at pretty much the last minute.

I went to the game with Ben Mueller (who I met because of an introduction from Mr. Hobson) and his wife Cornelia. They live in Bern and although they aren’t huge hockey fans (although Ben mentioned he had seen a Mooseheads game when he was in Halifax) they decided to give it a try (perhaps on my account).

We bought tickets before the matchups were decided and hoped for the best. The game ended up being USA v. Finland, which although not Canada, was a great matchup with lots of history. I had also heard great things about the Finnish hockey faithful.

Each ticket included return transportation from anywhere in Switzerland, so I took a train from Zurich and met Ben at the station in Bern. We then went back to his place for a quick dinner and then took the tram to the game. We had standing room tickets, but the view was great:

View from our “seats”

Team Finland pre-game warmup

The game was good and it was hard not to cheer for Finland when their fans were awesome (lots of noise throughout the game with many SU-O-MI (Finland) chants).

Lots of Finnish flags

All of the scoring took place in the second period with the Finns opening the scoring and then the States scoring 2 and then taking the lead (for good) with an odd-man rush near the end of the period. I think the Finns played better, but Robert Esche was played outstanding.

As you might be able to see, the place wasn’t even close to being full. Perhaps this was because it was only a quarter-final, but a huge factor was the price of tickets (I paid 77 CHF for a standing room ticket, the price to sit down was 129 CHF). I heard the IIHF was disappointed about the prices. One thinks they might have mentioned that to the Swiss organizers before the tournament started…

All-in-all, a great experience. I just heard that the Blackhawks will be playing a game against the Zurich Lions in the Victoria Cup next September, so that may be my next in-person hockey experience.

Amusing Things about Switzerland: Part II

Another edition of the small things that I have taken note of since moving to Zurich.

1. Dairy

Some would argue one of the better food groups and the Swiss take their dairy very seriously. There is a large dairy fridge section in each supermarket and the cheese selection is spectacular (and quite aromatic at times). However, the thing that I have noticed the most is the amount of milk fat in everything. You struggle to find milk with 2% or less. The norm is 3.5% and I’m adjusting to 2.5%. Same with the yogurt, rich and creamy seems to be what the Swiss enjoy. You can get 0%, but why would anyone do that (even in Canada)?

2. Church Bells

I gather that religion is a major thread in the fabric of Swiss society. The sheer number of churches in Zurich (a city with only 300,000 residents) is impressive. More impressive is the ringing of the bells of every single church every 15 minutes. You probably wouldn’t want to live too close to a church, because sometimes they play for a solid 15 minutes (Sunday morning), but also seemingly randomly…

The church (St. Thomas Kirche) down the street from my place.

3. All-In Pricing

What you see in the store is what you pay. Period. None of this getting to the register and being shocked at the numbers on the screen. It’s great. You can really go to the store with 20 CHF and figure out what you can buy because the entire price is on the sticker.

4. Polluter Pays

One of my personal favourites. Within Zurich, all garbage must be thrown out in Zuri-Sacks. You must buy these at the store from the cashier and they cost roughly 1 CHF per sack. There are different sizes available (17 L and 35 L being the most common) and sure you could try to throw out some trash without a Zuri-Sack but you better hope you have no identifiable garbage in there, including receipts, because they have garbage detectives who will identify the guilty party and you’ll end up with a nice fine in your postbox. I think this system is ingenious and because you pay up front, it makes you take pause before throwing away huge amounts of trash.

5. Sunday Shopping

Or the lack thereof. No Sunday shopping in Switzerland (I suppose there are a few stores open at the main rail stations). I love it. Perhaps that is because Nova Scotia had a similar system the entire time I lived there, but I really think it allows you to take full advantage of a day to relax and go biking or hiking or throw a disc…

Last Night’s Gig: Holy F%$# at Mariaberg in Rorschach, CH

I’m going to commit some outright thievery here and use the blog title common on CBC Radio 3 when hosts review concerts they attend. I think it’s a great title, so I plan on using it here when I go to see bands.

This was my first concert in Switzerland and it has been quite a while (since I consider live music to be an important past time of mine) since my last show. The one thing I have noticed is that a) it’s going to be a bit more expensive to see bands that I like here as they tend to only be the big stars that tour through Zurich and b) I think I took the concert scene in Ottawa for granted, especially when it came to acts I really enjoyed. They might be few and far between here.

I’ve had this show on my radar since the end of March, but it wasn’t until the last second that I was able to convince anyone to come along. The concert was in Rorschach which is close to 2 hours from Zurich by train. A nice small town on the shore of Lake Constance. No idea why they were playing here as their only stop in Switzerland though.

I had been introduced to the band from CBC R3 and really enjoy their live creation of electronic music and have heard great things about their live show. The opening act was It Hugs Back from Kent, UK. They were decent although the acoustics in the venue (which based on the architecture used to be an old church?) prevented me from making out any words. Decent tunes though. Holy F%$# didn’t go on until just after 11, but they played a great 1.5 hour set with little banter (not sure if that is more common in Europe because of language differences) and lots of energy. The sheer number of different keyboards and crazy instruments they have to create the sounds astounded me. The crowd was on the small side probably about 100, but were loud, appreciative and dancing like mad. After finishing the set with Lovely Allen, they were cheered back with some sort of chant which Brian then recorded and included in the next song. Sick improvisation. Wished I could have had time to give greeting from a fellow Canadian/Nova Scotian, but they finished up with just enough time to make it to the train station for the ride back.

A logistically tough 2.5 hour trek back with three train switches and requiring night tickets and waking up just in time to alight in the Zurich HB. Then a lengthy 40 minute drag back to my place. Walked in the door just before 4 AM. Yikes.

All in all, a great show and I look forward to the next Canadian act coming through or at least close to Zurich.