It finally happened.....

Since arriving in Zurich in July I've been slowly building a list of things ranging from odd to downright dumb about Europe. With so much to love about Europe and the romance involved in coming here on vacation, I thought it only fair to expose the seedy underbelly of life when you actually live here. Sorry to offend but truths are truths.

Why now formally put down on electronic paper these thoughts and observations, some of which I have already shared with some of you? Well, it finally happened. I locked Cleaver into the house.

Read that again.

Key and lock, required on both sides!

Yes, “into” the house, meaning that she was unable to exit our apartment through the very door meant to keep people from coming into the abode without consent. I’m at work early Friday morning, I receive a phone call from Cleaver asking me if in fact I have both sets of house keys with me, and I do. I accidentally took both sets and upon locking the door behind me when I left, trapped Cleaver on the inside. And here we have the first of several design flaws in Europe. Locks.
Unlike say a hotel door that automatically locks behind you when you leave the room, doors here require that you lock and unlock the door with the key from both sides. The next person that can explain to me why this is a good idea will be the first. One Euro told me "oh, you just leave the key in the lock when you are inside the house". Great. So then if I am coming home and the other person is already inside and has their key in the lock, my key won't fit in the lock. 'Cause there is another key in there. Brilliant.

Moving on - Let's talk windows. As we learned in Summer it can get warm, humid, and stuffy, so you of course want to open the windows at night to get some fresh air since they do not have air conditioning here. At home in the U.S. you open a window and go on about your life. Here, you open a window and then have no less than 10,000 flies and other bugs in your house within minutes. Why? Screens. Don't have them here, anywhere. Again I have to ask, why is this system better?

Swiss plug on left, Euro adapter on the right

Moving on - Power plugs. You all know the novelty of travelling to Europe and having to think about a power converter / plug adapter so that your computer, charger, etc... will work. Well that part is fine but Europe can't seem to all get on the same page here with the plugs. The UK is on these giant 3 prong funky looking plug thing that is a hot mess. Most of continental Europe is on these two "pins" type deal, and Switzerland for some unknown reason has 3 "pins". So when I take my computer on the road and I plug my cord into the wall, it's actually a no can do. I have to have this adapter so that my Swiss plug will fit into the European wall when not in Switzerland. And don't get me started on the fact that some are flat against the wall and some receptacles are recessed which adds another element of incompatibility. It's a mess, trust me.

Moving on - Money. Europe loves coins and making large denominations of money in coin form. Which is awesome because you end up with like $22 worth of coins in your pocket weighing down your pants and making lots of noise when you walk. Hey, can we move on to more paper please? We all know the day is coming when cash will be a thing of the past anyway so why keep so many coins around? This is a hassle and Switzerland has decided that the "half-franc" coin should be the smallest one of the bunch so you keep missing them when you try to pay for something in change. Should be noted this coin problem is not limited to Switzerland and that the Euro, Nordic, and UK countries have the same issue.

Moving on - Lines. Lines at the grocery store, airport boarding, getting on / off the train, people generally can't figure out how to wait in line. For such an organized efficient society they have created in Switzerland, when there is no defined process - like when the door to the train opens - people lose their minds and try to jam through the door all at once. Never mind if someone was there first, is carrying a bunch of luggage, or that people are trying to get off the train.  All just jam up in one mass of people all going nowhere just like they used to do in cartoons when you were a kid or any number of bad early 90's sitcoms. (Saved by the Bell, I'm looking in your direction!) Figure it out people.

Moving on to one last item - Sunday. I know Europe is steeped in traditions, has countries that are thousands of years old and they hang on fiercely to their language and culture which is all fine and good. But, can we have a store open on Sunday? You are killing my Saturday people. Let's say you want to do grocery shopping on a Sunday, forget it. Buy a new pair of pants, not gonna happen. You want to go do something fun on Saturday and leave your errands to Sunday because during the week is hard since you work, not so fast! With the exception of the train station which does have an open grocery store (which is a complete mad house since it's the only one open, go figure?) you have to do all these errands on Saturday. It's a real pain. And during the week, maybe you say I'll hit that up after work, better hurry since everything closes by 7:00 pm.

Ok, thanks for listening as this has been cathartic for me. Now I can move on myself and go back to enjoying all the other things there are to enjoy about Europe!

Dublin

Dublin has been on our list of places to visit and when we got an email from Stacey asking if we wanted to go to Dublin for the weekend to celebrate Alex's birthday, we jumped on it.  Nate and I both had meetings in other cities a few days before (me in London, him in Helsinki) so we met up in Dublin on Thursday night.  It was perfect because we were both able to work from there on Friday.  We finished up work in time for happy hour and our first pub of the weekend.  The cab driver I had from the airport to the hotel on Thursday night told me that the Irish love their pubs.  When it's cold and rainy outside they say "Hey, it's too cold and wet to be outside, let's go to the pub."  Then when it's sunny outside they say "Hey, it's too warm out here, let's go to the pub."  The theme being, let’s go to the pub (and you will see this as a theme throughout our weekend there as well).

So anyways, we did happy hour, Nate had his first Guinness of the trip, me a Heineken (or Hoinegen as the Irish would say).  Nate said he probably drank more Guinness in those three days than he had in the last 3 years.  After our first pub we headed towards the Temple Bar neighborhood (which is apparently the place to go for tourists and locals alike).  On our way we stopped at another pub for some dinner.  We finally made it to Temple Bar and it reminded us a bit of Bourbon St. in New Orleans.  It was loud and busy, lots of people in the street and just had a feel of craziness.  That weekend it just so happened to be that Ireland was playing Scotland in a big rugby match at the stadium in Dublin.  So there were lots of Scots in town and they were all dressed in their kilts.  Everyone was so friendly and happy and all around in good spirits.  It was a good time!

After some time we headed back towards our hotel and another pub where we were meeting Stacey and Alex (they came in on a later flight).  We met up with them and finished the night out at the Hairy Lemon.

The next day we were up and about and ready to explore Dublin.  We had a few things on our list and the Guinness Storehouse tour was one of them.  We headed there first and found it to be more like a museum.  It was actually done really well and about 6 stories tall.  It was a self-guided tour that walked you through the Guinness making process, the history and even gave you a lesson on doing the perfect pour.  Because if you didn't know, there is a very special way to pour a Guinness....it's a two pour beer.  As you walk through the different levels, you end up at the very top in the tasting room.  Here you get your free pint of Guinness and are able to enjoy your beer while getting 360 degree views of Dublin.  It was quite nice!

We finally left there, grabbed some fish and chips and then headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Afterall, we figured we should do something non-drinking related during our visit.  St. Patrick's Cathedral is apparently the largest cathedral in Ireland and quite beautiful.  We finished up here and headed off to, you guessed it, another pub.  This time it was to watch the Ireland vs. Scotland rugby game.  The boys watched the whole game while Stacey and I headed over to Grafton St. (the main shopping street) for some shopping.  

After the game and a bite to eat we were off to a stand up comedy show which was recommended by a co-worker of mine that used to live in Dublin.  It was in another pub (of course) in the upstairs portion of it.  The room itself was quite small, with a small stage.  It was all really fun though and it was interesting going to a comedy show in a different country because obviously you aren’t all that familiar with all of the references they make.  But we still found it to be quite funny and it gave us a little more insight into Ireland and its culture.  

We left here and went to yet another pub (are you picking up on the theme here?).  We found a really busy street not far from where we were and went to this pub that was packed and had a guy playing his guitar.  We were having a great time and then it happened.  We witnessed a true Irish pub fight.  The only reason this was kind of cool is because we had luckily moved away from the area where it all went down just minutes before it started.  Otherwise it could have been quite scary.  So between that and a few more pubs, we were calling it a night.

Our flight on Sunday wasn't until 5pm so we had some time for more sightseeing.  We headed to Trinity College to check it out.  It was such a beautiful campus and reminded me of what an East Coast college campus looks like.  After walking around here for just a bit, we were off to the Jameson Whiskey distillery for our tour.  This was a guided tour where you learned all you ever wanted to know about whiskey making.  For instance, did you know that Jameson distills their whiskey three different times (the Scottish only distill theirs twice)?  Throughout the tour you definitely got the idea that they don't think much of the Scottish whiskey at all. At the end of this tour you also got to sample the product.  You had a choice to take your whiskey neat or have it with a mixer.  I am actually not a fan of whiskey at all but decided to try mine with cranberry juice and it actually wasn't too bad. 

Anyways, we had one more pub lunch and then were off to the airport.  Overall I'd say we had a great Dublin experience.  Everyone was friendly and there was this energy in the air everywhere you went.  If we end up going back though I'd definitely like to explore outside of Dublin to experience more of Ireland and its true beauty.  

Switzerland, Skiing, Salat, & Hammers

It’s often been said – Why does anybody do anything? And the answer is inevitably “Because they can”. So when you come across a picture of four 30 something professionals standing around an apartment at 2:00 am with Ski helmets and Goggles on and you ask yourself “Why are they doing that?”, well – Because we can!

And I give you night number 1 of ski week with our two close friends Matt and Louis who came all the way from U. S. and A. (thanks for bringing that Borat movie Lou!) to join us in Switzerland for a week of vacation, skiing, a little debauchery, and all around good times.

From the picture above you can pretty much figure out the first night’s events. Dinner, blah blah blah, few drinks, blah blah blah, some duty free cocktails courtesy of our international guests and BAM! wearing a helmet in the living room. The next morning after sleeping in and a few cups of coffee it was off to the train station, skis over shoulders to head off to Interlaken which is about a 2 hour ride from Zurich. If we haven’t mentioned before, the train system here is absolutely amazing.

Late afternoon arrival in Interlaken, some light snow falling and we’re off to see what this town is all about. It was a Sunday, which means pretty much everything is closed. We did manage to find a place called Riki’s which is a small random Portuguese bar with the only cheap beers and jukebox I think in the whole country. Needless to say we stayed here for a bit before finding a place for dinner. The restaurant recommended to us was closed. Shocking except that you remember it's Sunday. The place next door was open, looked like a good Swiss menu so we gave it a shot. Really glad we did if for no other reason than the gemischter salat (mixed salad) was probably the best salad any of us had ever had. When was the last time you found yourself talking about the salad for three days post-meal? If the answer is anything other than “never” either you are a vegetarian or you regret the menu choice you made that night. Really, this salad was amazing and you are probably bored right now from hearing about it.


Waking up the next morning to a fresh few centimeters (hey, that’s how they measure things here) of snow and on our way to ski at a place called Grindelwald. Interlaken sits at the base of 3 huge ski areas and the plan was to hit one each day. Hop on the train, make our way to the mountain and finally up the lifts which took longer than we expected. This “longer than expected” would unfortunately be a common theme for the next few days. Once up there though it was well worth the trip. Epic day of skiing, weather good for the most part on fresh snow, still fairly cold and some amazing views throughout the day.

After a full day, made our way back down the hill to town where we went on walkabout for 45 minutes trying to find a place for dinner. This was not a Sunday which led us to believe Interlaken was either super sleepy or we can’t read a map. We’ll go with the former. Finally ate, few beers and off to bed – it was a glorious but long day.

Pretty much rinse and repeat the next two days, more good skiing, long trips up the mountain, (talking like an hour+, so really not that bad) and back to town at night. Broke off for one day where Matt and I went skiing while Cleaver and Louis stayed in town to sightsee. We even ate chicken wings at an American chain restaurant one evening that will remain nameless however orange dolphin shorts were involved. We went back to Riki’s for a second time, this time emptying out their supply of Portuguese beer. Apparently in this town 4 people can result in more business in three hours than they get in a typical week.

After our few days in Interlaken we headed back to Zurich for two nights in the middle of the week to rest for a day and perhaps see some of the sights in Zurich. Completely by chance our friend’s brother-in-law Johnny who lives in Nashville and is a musician was playing a gig in Zurich of all places. He plays with a country / rock band name Scarletta and they were doing two nights in Zurich fairly close to our house at some country music festival that we had no idea existed. This ended up being a lot of fun.

Reasons why this was fun:

• The band was great, clearly professional grade and not a bunch of losers playing three chords in the garage. In fact one guy in the band was called the following week to play in the band on American Idol. Not a contestant but as a musician on the stage prominently featured.  Legit.
• No idea Zurich liked country music. Literally people with cowboy hats, boots, and a bunch of Harley Davidson’s lined up at the venue. They had a massive American flag on the ceiling.  They had two massive Confederate flags on either side of the American Flag. So massive that one guy in the band who is from Alabama claimed he had never seen the “Stars and Bars” in such a size. Only thing missing was the General Lee and Rosco P. Coltrane.

Next day had a few beers with the whole band, saw a few sights with Johnny, and generally had a low key day which was nice. Nice because the next day we were off to Davos for some more mountain fun. Davos is a little more than 2 hours away and we arrived late afternoon. After a little searching we discovered more life here than Interlaken. Starting at the bottom of one of the ski slopes we had some après ski even though we did not ski this day. Why not right? The weather had warmed up a bit which is good for outdoor drinking, but not ideal for skiing. Had a few drinks and once the sun went down we wandered to a local establishment and much to our surprise / amusement / detriment to safety we discovered this bar had what we’ll call the “wood - hammer” game.

This little gem which for a litany of liability reasons would never be allowed in U.S. and A. consists of a giant stump of wood, nails, and a hammer. We found this to be everywhere in Austria a few years ago but had yet to see it in Switzerland but oh the joy when we saw it. The game is complicated and I’m sure there is a full Wikipedia explanation detailing all the rules but to the best of my ability here goes an explanation:

1. Tap three nails into the wood just so they no longer wiggle and are in there firm.
2. Try to hammer these nails into the wood one hammer swing at a time with the back “claw” side of the hammer.

And there you go. Complicated, dangerous, and the more libations on board the worse (surprisingly?) you get at accomplishing this task. So fun! Played that for a while, found dinner, and called it a night because we had snow to ski the next day.

Our last day of skiing which was a bit warm and slushy especially as you got lower down the mountain but still lots of fun. This is also where we decided to give Cleaver a nickname. At least when skiing she will now be known as “cheese grater”. Because all she does on the mountain is shred. A fourth great day of skiing in one week, great being pretty much defined at my age by leaving the hill with my body intact.

Back to Zurich that night for our final night in town which we spent at home with Durum Doners and more duty free drinks. No helmets though. Perfect way to end a great week with our friends in town. We had some great skiing, explored more of Switzerland, had a few beers along the way, and thoroughly enjoyed the time.

Next up – Dublin! If we see the blarney stone, a leprechaun, or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we’ll be sure to update you accordingly.

Auf Wiedersehen!