sonjainswitzerland

[sonjainswitzerland]

Sunday April 14, 2019

It was a sleepy, snowy Sunday, so G&S and I spent most of the afternoon curled up on the big comfortable sofas of Kosmos bookstore/café, reading and catching up on work. For dinner, we went to Hiltl for one last vegetarian dinner (+ last chance to sample every item in the Hiltl dessert bar). Back at home, we watched the movie Vice about Dick Cheney.

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Saturday April 13, 2019

We started the day with breakfast at Sprüngli before catching a train to Lucerne. In Lucerne, we walked along the famous old Chapel bridge and climbed up the city wall and into the clocktower. (We all jumped a little with fear/surprise with the clock chimed 14.00h with us right by its side!) From Lucerne, we caught a bus to Hergiswil to explore the glass museum. It was interesting to learn about the history of glass--originally made in Egypt--around the world, in Venice, and from Italy to Switzerland. We especially enjoyed seeing the glassworkers creating liquor bottles and blowing glass in the factory at the end of our tour. We then headed back to Lucerne and visited the Rosengardt’s impressive collection of Picasso drawings and paintings. 

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April 12

We were so enchanted by the flowers that we almost missed our tram. 

[sonjainswitzerland]

Friday April 12, 2019

I took G&S to the market in Bürkliplatz for fresh vegetables and to Läderach to sample Swiss chocolate. In the afternoon, we hiked up to Uetliberg and Felsenegg, admired the paragliders above us, and then walked along the river in Adliswil. We tried to take the boat from Burkiplatz to Zürichhorn, but we accidentally got on the counter-clockwise-running boat (which has Zürichhorn as the final stop). So the expected 15 minute boat ride ended up being an hour and 15 minutes! We made the most of the unintended sunset cruise with delicious snacks and cool beverages from the boat bar.

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Thursday April 11

My friends G&S arrived last night! Today, we enjoyed a vegetarian lunch at Tibits, checked out the Museum für Gestaltung, and bought muesli at the MyMuesli store. For dinner, we went to a pop-up restaurant called 50zu5 for a delicious “spargle”(asparagus)-forward tasting menu. 

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Sunday April 7, 2019

Today I ventured to the northern part of Zürich to see the Museum für Gestaltung’s second location. 

Highlights of the permanent collection included 1) seeing the font and logo candidates for swissair (part of a re-design a few decades ago). Ultimately they chose all lower-case futura bold as the font and the iconic white cross on a red parallelogram for the logo. 2) Seeing the prototype cups, plates, tumblers, forks, spoons, and knives designed for swissair in-flight service. If you look carefully at the photo of bows above, you see a bowl that has been cut in half. The exact angle at which the bowl’s side edge departs from the horizontal is meant to mirror the airplane’s wingtip.

The special exhibit of the museum was about the (originally Swiss) shoe company Bally. The company was founded by the Bally family in 1851 in Schönenwerd (a town ~50 km west of Zürich). It was fun to see shoes from the 1850s through 2019. Sometimes a shoe that looked very modern caught my eye, and it would turn out it was from ~1900 or 1910! In general, I thought the women’s shoes from the 1920s were the most elegant.

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Saturday April 6, 2019

The first photo is from my morning walk on the lake. Perfect stillness. 

The second photo is from my visit to the Museum für Gestaltung (museum of design) in Zürich. The main exhibit was Genesis, by Sebastião Salgado, which is a collection of huge black and white photos taken in remote places all around the world (e.g., among herds of reindeer in the Arctic Circle, in the Amazon rainforest, among colonies of tens of thousands of penguins in the South Sandwich islands). They are quite impressive, and as soon as I arrived, I realized I’d actually seen this exhibit before! I saw it in NYC at the International Center for Photography in September 2014 with my aunt and uncle. Nonetheless, it was fun to see it again, especially that I’ve now been to some of the remote places depicted in the photos, like Patagonia. 

I also enjoyed the museum’s permanent collection, which highlights “everyday” objects (combs, watches, paper bags, garlic presses, etc.) made by Swiss designers. Probably my favorite item was the SBB clock that I’ve come to know and love through our many travels on the Swiss railroads. 

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April 6, 2019

I was listening to Lexicon Valley, one of my favorite linguistics podcasts, and came across an interesting segment about numbers. To English speakers, the German (and Dutch) way of saying double-digit numbers seems backward. Germans say “four-and-twenty” for 24, “three-and-sixty” for 63, “one-and-nine” for 91 etc. 

First, I learned that English numbers were originally spoken like this too, but a transition happened in the English language centuries ago, presumably to minimize confusion. German and Dutch did not undergo such a transition. 

Second, I learned that there are actually some German native speakers who get mixed up when counting, manipulating or reciting numbers in their native tongue because of the way the words are organized. According to the podcast, German language therapists tell patients with this problem to count, add, subtract, and manipulate numbers in English rather than German. 

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Sunday 31.3.2019

We had a relaxing Sunday in Zurich. The lakeside is beautiful particularly now that the trees are blossoming. (The gelato vendors are out in full force too!) 

In the afternoon, we went back to the Grasshopper Cup to watch the women’s exhibition final (between two women ranked #3 and #4 in the world) and the men’s tournament finals (between players #2 and #3 in the world). Both matches were great, but the women’s match was especially exciting because the favored player won the first game but then lost the next two—ultimately losing the match. All of the athletes were so quick, powerful and flexible! 

This was J’s last full day in Zurich. Since the weather was so gorgeous, we grilled out on the balcony and had one final dinner together overlooking the lake. Thanks to the time “springing forward” this morning, the sun didn’t set until 8pm. It was a perfect way to cap off our Zurich adventure together.

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Saturday 30.3.2019

M’s main wish for the weekend was to try skiing for the first time. After a bit of research, J found a place (Hoch-Ybrig) that still had plenty of snow and offered lessons! So we took a train, a bus and cable car to get there, rented skis and ski boots, and made it onto the slopes. We started on the “carpet” – a shallow slope that took us by conveyer belt and we went down, slowly, practicing our “pizza” stop. Almost everyone else taking lessons was <5 years old (they were adorable!) but there was one other adult there too. Then we graduated to the longer, steeper slope, accessible by a rope-pull. Our instructor was a patient, friendly Swiss guy who had worked in banking for 7 years and then decided he would rather be a ski instructor. Classic. Eventually, J and I went with the instructor up the chairlift to do the easiest “blue” slope. The view was incredible from the top! The beginning of the piste was a bit steep, and I had a tumble, but after that, it was quite smooth and enjoyable. I’m glad we finally got around to skiing in Switzerland!

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Friday 29.3.2019

J’s friend M from Trinidad came to stay with us for the weekend. In the evening, we all went to Oerlikon to watch the Grasshopper Cup quarterfinal squash matches. It was really fun! J saw many of his squash buddies in the stands and volunteering at the event.

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27.3.2019

I went for a morning run along the Arno river and through Parco della Cascine. When J woke up, we had breakfast at Tamarindo juicery before meeting up with M&A. We walked up to Piazzale Michelangelo, stopping to admire the view from the Rose Garden, and then on to the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte (gorgeous 11th century church with amazing city views). For the rest of the morning, we enjoyed the Galileo museum (which was really more of a ��history of science in Europe” museum). Highlights of the lower floor included intricately carved astrolabes, globes with distorted outlines of the continents, enormous earth-centric models of the universe, two of Galileo’s fingers and one of his molars… Upstairs, I really enjoyed seeing the mid-18th century wax and terracotta anatomical models of normal and abnormal birth presentations (e.g., breech presentation, shoulder presentation). This part of obstetrics has not changed much!

In the afternoon, we went to the Galleria dell’Accademia to admire Michelangelo’s David statue and explore the plaster model collection. We learned about why David’s head and hands appear so big (the statue was supposed to be up on a rooftop of the cathedral, so the head and hands were enlarged to increase visibility. Ultimately, the statue was too big and too heavy to put up on a roofline). We marveled at the fact that Michelangelo completed the statue at the age of 29. We noted the scuffing on David’s left foot, and we learned that in 1991 a mentally ill artist brought a hammer into the museum and attacked the statue! He was stopped before he could attack more than the foot. Although this incident was obviously a disaster, one silver lining was that the marble crumbles dislodged from David’s foot could be analyzed, and scientists were able to identify the quarry in Carrara from which the marble had come.  

After David, we enjoyed one more Italian gelato, and then we caught the tram back to the airport and back to Zürich. It was great ~28 hours in Florence with friends!

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26.3.2019

We flew from Zurich to Florence on a midday, 45-minute flight. When we arrived at the airport, we were pleased to see a new tram--running between the airport and the train station--had just opened in mid-February! It ran every 4 minutes and 20 seconds and was smooth and clean. J was especially excited about this new transport option as it meant we would not have to take any more harrowing cab rides in Florence. 

We took the tram to our guesthouse (Relais Tosinghi), picked up Florentine sandwiches at Osteria All’Antico Vinaio, and enjoyed a free musical concert (by the Deerfield high school orchestra) in a nearby cathedral. Eventually, we met up with our friends M&A, who were just finishing up at the Uffizi, and caught up over gelato. It was great to hear about their sightseeing experiences in Rome/the Vatican. For the rest of the afternoon, we walked through public plazas, the Basilica di San Lorenzo, peaceful courtyard gardens, and eventually across the Ponte Vecchio. We spotted a restaurant (Osteria Cinghiale Bianco) that M said was recommended by their host, and made reservations for the evening. The dinner was memorable: delicious food and plenty of laughter around the table with M&A and M’s mom and sister. The Bistecca alla Fiorentina (which came at a minimum size of 1.25 kg) was lightly charred on the outside and essentially carpaccio on the inside. When the waiter checked on us, he joked that his grandfather would have cleaned off the bone off better than J did, but I insisted that J not gnaw in public… 

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Sunday March 24, 2019

On our last morning in Greece, we said goodbye to our hosts in Gytheio, and started the drive back to the Athens airport. Along the way, we stopped in Mystras (near Sparta) to see the ruins of a Byzantine mountain fortress.  The layout of the fortress and surrounding village was quite similar to that of Monemvasia with the lower town, upper town, and citadel on top.*

We spent a good hour and a half walking around the ruins. When we reached the top, the views of the Taygetos mountain (covered in snow) in one direction and the surrounding agricultural lands in the other direction were quite lovely. 

After we left Mystras, we had a couple more hours of driving before we stopped for lunch at a family-run place called The Stratos Fish in Elefsina. It was packed with families enjoying lunch after sunday church services; we were were only tourists there. We had some delicious salad, saganaki, calamari, and sardines--a perfect way to top off our trip. 

 *In fact, the administrative seat of the Despotate of Morea -- a semi-autonomous province of the Byzantine Empire -- was initially located in Monemvasia. In the mid-13th century, the role was transferred to Mystras. Mystras later became the capital of the Despotate, which ruled over almost the entire Peloponnese, in the 14th century. In the 15th century, Mystras was surrendered to the Ottomans. It remained under Turkish rule (with the exception of <30 years of Venetian occupation in the late 17th/early 18th century) until the Greek war of independence in 1821. 

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Saturday evening: a relaxing pre-dinner stroll along the promenade in Gytheio.

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Saturday March 23, 2019 - afternoon

After the caves, we drove all the way down to the southernmost part of the Mani peninsula. We drove as far as we could, and then we had a short hike from the road to Tenaro lighthouse, at the very tip. The few other hikers we saw were Greek. The only sounds were those of the wind and of cowbells and goatbells chiming in the pastures. The trail was full of little purple wild irises and a variety of tiny white and yellow flowers. Between gusts of salty sea breezes, the air smelled of pollen and spring. It truly felt like the first weekend of spring!

When we finished our hike, we had lunch at the little restaurant on the road, since there were no other towns for a while and it was already after 2pm. The food was delicious! I had a grilled octopus tentacle, and Jacob had chicken souvlaki. The view wasn’t bad either!

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Saturday March 23, 2019 - morning

After a lovely breakfast of homemade bread, yogurt, jams, and fresh fruit, we drove down the Mani peninsula to the Pyrgos Dirou caves. (The drive itself was stunning, taking us through wild rocky terrain with sweeping views of the sea. The roads are relatively new; the whole region was only reachable by boat up until the 1970s!) Once we reached the caves, we were given a life vest and put on little boats with a few other visitors. Our guide then punted our boat expertly (using his punting stick against the “ceiling” of the cave) through narrow passageways for a ~30 minute tour. He did tell us about the caves -- but it was in Greek, so we understood nothing. The sheer size of the caves was amazing. And the stalactites were quite impressive! However, I was sad to see that many had been broken off, so in some places, just stumps remained (probably due to greedy tourists of another era.)