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.

Springtime in Zurich

Alas, I’m not in Vienna to make this post a tribute to the Hip, but I think it’s finally time to rub it in for those of you back in Canada. For the past week it’s been high teens, sometimes over 20 degrees here. The sandals have been brought out of their seasonal hibernation and shorts have been worn. I have had beer on the patio the last two nights and the BBQ is ready to be fired up. I mean it’s no 4 degrees with snow/rain/sleet but hey, everyone has to live somewhere…right?

Of course with the temperatures comes the spring bloom and although it is amazingly pretty, my allergies are driving me crazy. I’m not sure what type of plant it is that my immune system has the feud with, but good grief, the last two days have been histamine-arific. Where’s that Reactine van when you need it?

Nice to see the Jays off to a nice start and I’m debating on paying 50 CHF to have access to all of the playoffs via steaming. It could mean some late nights/early morning for those west coast games, but I think it’s almost worth it.

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. I’m off to Slovenia for a week on Wednesday night for a conference and workshop and hopefully a bit of sight-seeing. They better put a damn stamp in my passport.

Technorati Tags: Spring,Slovenia

A Tale of Two Field Sites

Let me preface this by saying WOW!

I just returned from my first big trip to my field site where my research will take place over the next three years. My research is field intensive including at least weekly visits to the site. I wanted to post some thoughts about the two spots where I've had the chance to do field work

My MSc was based in the Mackenzie Delta which was beautiful for it's remoteness and simplicity. I loved going there and I enjoyed my time immensely up north and I hope to perhaps find a job there in the future. The people were great, I loved the pace of life and although the bugs were bad, it was great to get to know somewhere that few people even have the chance to visit. My field site was nice and getting the chance to boat there each week was great! There was lots of wildlife as well. Here are some pictures of my last field site:

My PhD will take place in the Lötschental Valley in the Swiss Alps. It's one of the larger valleys that connects to the Rhone although until the early 20th century (extremely late for Europe) it was still extremely isolated from the rest of Switzerland. The place is teeming with history in the form of extremely old buildings and a very interesting culture. Although the cheese and bread from the valley is delicious. My field site (which is an elevational transect of sites on both the north and south facing slopes) is located in Ferden (I encourage a look on Google Earth). My sites range from 1300 to 2300 m and it's quite a hike to the top. There was still a huge amount of snow yesterday when I went and it is probably going to be a month or so before all of it is gone. Although it's not as remote as the Mackenzie Delta, I think I'll enjoy this place for other reasons. The culture seems very interesting and once I get some more German under my belt we'll see if I can communicate a bit better with the locals. It’s also extremely beautiful.

Here are some early pictures of the area and sites (although these are going to be much prettier once everything begins to green up):

Looking up the valley (east) showing a few buildings in Ferden.

A photo of the Bietschhorn, one of the more prominent peaks in the valley.

Photo of the south slope taken from the north slope. If you look way up at the top where the last few trees are, that’s my highest site at 2300 m.

Photo of the north slope taken from the base of the slope. The trees without needles are larch (a deciduous conifer), so they aren’t dead, just not growing yet.

When going to the site by car, you need to take the car train through the tunnel (which must be at least 15 km long).

So needless to say, I’m looking forward to the field work and to posting some great photos and some nice hikes to bag some peaks.

My New Place

So, last week I had a flurry of offers for rooms. It came down to two different ones (each with some positives and negatives) and I made my decision. My new roommate is a girl named Regula. She is from Lucerne and is a German literature student and works at a langauge school teaching German as well. By a stroke of luck, I was able to move in last Saturday (March 27). That led to an impromptu trip to IKEA on Friday night to purchase a bed and ended up with Alessandro and myself strapping a mattress on the roof of his small car and driving across Zurich and dropping it off at the new place. Saturday afternoon I moved in with my three bags of belongings and built my bed. The address (for all of those letters...) is:

Sallenbachstrasse 17
CH-8055, Zurich

So without further ado, here are the pictures of my place:

Photo from the street. The flat is on the first floor.

Picture of the front entrance with the mailboxes.

The front door of the flat with the welcome mat (I need to figure out where to get one of the Swiss flag ones!).

The front entrance room of the flat with the kitchen table.

My room (a picture from last week), with the wardrobe that I inherited and my new bed.

The opposite angle of my room.

Back to the entrance area and the hallway leading to the other bedroom and the bathroom.

Two photos of the kitchen. Very nice with lots of light during the day. The dishwasher is also a nice addition.

I've also embedded a Google map below so you can get a sense of where I am in Zurich and Switzerland. There are two markers, the green one is my place and the blue one is where I work.


View Zurich, Switzerland in a larger map

The True Switzerland

This is how Switzerland does things:



This just proves that they do indeed have as sense of humour.

I've found permanent accomodations that include internet access so I'll be updating a bit more frequently, including photos of my new place tomorrow.

Until then...