Switzerland vacation: Monday in Interlaken

What a perfect week. Sarah and I had a glorious time exploring Switzerland. We lived by only a few simple rules for the week:

#1) travel within Switzerland, keeping an open and flexible itinerary
#2) consume cheese, chocolate, and wine at least once a day (not necessarily at the same time)
#3) take in scenery and experiences whenever possible
#4) plan our excursions based on where the weather looked best each day
#5) wear braids in our hair for as many days as possible in order to channel our inner Heidi

In recapping our experiences, I thought what better way to share then to provide a day-by-day recap of our adventures, starting with Monday...

After waiting for Sarah's suitcase to be delivered to our apartment (the lovely Iberia airline decided to lose it for a few days somewhere between Miami and Madrid), we headed out to the train station to embark on our adventure.  We decided to travel by train for the week since the trains here are very frequent, reliable, clean, and it would allow for both of us to take in the scenery and not be stressed by driving on mountain roads.  Sarah bought a "Swiss pass" at the train station that let her travel on all government run transportation (trains, buses, trams, and boats) for free for a specified number of days. This turned out to be hugely convenient because it covered almost every form of transportation that we used for the week, and for what it didn't cover, it offered a 50% reduction (i.e., on tourist cable cars and trains that aren't run by the government). As a resident of Switzerland, I already own a 50% discount pass.

Waiting for the tram in Geneva to take us to the station

Our destination was the town of Interlaken, famous for its views, adventure sports, the "trio" of famous Swiss mountains (the Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch), and last but not least, for my female readers -- the site of the finale of the Bachelorette for Ben's season.

Interlaken is situated in between two gorgeous lakes

Taking in the views on the train ride to Interlaken

Arriving at our hotel (Hotel Rossli) with a balcony view

Our first order of business was to get ourselves acquainted with the Interlaken area by exploring the center of town. The weather in the early part of the week of our trip was VERY hot for Switzerland (80-90 degrees), so everyone was out and about and the town and lakes were mobbed by tourist groups as it is also a very popular summer destination for tourists in Switzerland.  While the town of Interlaken itself was a bit too busy and touristy for our liking, we soon found that there were still plenty of quiet spots in the town, mountains, and idyllic Swiss pastures in the area for one to feel serene and alone and we couldn't wait to escape into the mountains the next day.

The view of the Jungfrau from the park in the town center 

For Bachelorette fans, the hotel that Ben and the ladies stayed in

If I were a better photographer I would be able to figure out how to get both us in the shade and the sunny Jungfrau mountain in the background to show up in this picture, but alas, you will just have to imagine that I was able to capture both in one picture :)

The river in town - all week we noticed that the rivers and lakes in Switzerland are an icy blue color, and upon further investigation found that this is due to the way the fine rock powder sediment from the mountains is carried downstream and suspended in the water, refracting sunlight in a particular manner to create the gorgeous blues 

We grabbed a mini bottle of wine and paper cups from the grocery store in town and had some wine in the park while we contemplated the views and researched our dinner destination

We decided on a traditional Swiss restaurant for dinner (Restaurant Zum Baren) that had good reviews on TripAdvisor. It had super convenient maps of the Interlaken area for placemats so that while waiting for dinner, you could plan your adventure for the next day

Our meal consisted of Rosti, a traditional Swiss dish of shaved potatoes browned with oil, ham, butter, and other artery clogging ingredients and topped with melted Swiss cheese and an egg. 

Post-prosecco picture opp at dinner

We ended the night by taking in the stars from our hotel balcony and Face-timing our beloved third college roommate, Julia.

For fun, here is how we met our cheese/chocolate/wine requirement for the day:

Cheese: Cheese on our rosti dish
Chocolate: Toblerone bars on the train ride as a post-lunch snack
Wine: Wine purchased at the grocery store in Interlaken and prosecco at dinner

As always, to see more pictures from Monday in Interlaken and our summer season in general, click on the link to the right of the page that says "Our Summer 2013 photos", which will bring you to a photo dump of all of our photos.

Europe's highest cable car

Today Ryan, Sarah, and I went to the Aiguille du Midi, Europe's highest cable car with an observatory that overlooks the peak of Mont Blanc.  The weather in the valley of Chamonix was sunny and in the 80's, but at the the top observatory, the temperature was only in the mid-30's!  The ride on the cable car takes only about 30 minutes in total and ascends to a height of approximately 13,000 feet.  Once on top,    the views stretch for miles over the glacier, the "Mer de Glace" that cuts through it.  Half of the fun of being up here was watching all of the INSANE hikers/skiers/mountaineers, who had on full winter gear and lots of scary equipment that were literally descending and ascending cliffs and walls of snow. What beautiful scenery and weather to kick off vacation week with!!

Sunning himself on the cable car ride

Descending back into town

Beautiful Sarah in beautiful landscape

The Mer de Glace, stretching for miles below

Crazy hikers...

Where's waldo? Can you spot the hikers...

Again... crazy is the only word to describe these people

Sweet, sweet vacation!

Today marks the first day of my week and a half long summer vacation!  I decided to take a vacation with my hard earned hours AND one of my best friends from college, Sarah, is currently en route from the US to join me for my vacation for the week AND the weather forecast is in the upper 80's all week!  Could it get any better?  I think not! Well, maybe if Ryan could join as well it would be better :(

Our plans are to venture around Switzerland for the week - generally the plan is to head east, stopping perhaps in Zermatt for a day/night, going to Interlaken to go up the Jungfrau and hike with glaciers, and taking the Glacier Express train, a word famous train known for its gorgeous views on the 7 hour ride across the mountains.  I can't wait to explore this beautiful country this week! I will be sure to take lots of pictures to share.

The sun returns!

As I mentioned a few posts back, Switzerland's weather was looking pretty dismal for a few months.  Dismal enough for the forecasters to start predicting that we might not have a summer AT ALL.  Apparently this summer-less summer phenomenon occurs once every 30 or so years when the Atlantic ocean doesn't warm up enough and the mountains in Switzerland continually collect moisture from surrounding areas thus making Switzerland a cold mess for an entire summer. I'm happy to report that at least for the time being, summer has returned.  The past week it was in the 70's and sunny every day and the weather was nice enough on Saturday for us to have a little picnic besides Lake Geneva.  One of the things that we miss a lot about home is having access to a grill, so we decided to improvise and bought one of the "grills in a box" from the grocery store.  We then went to the local butcher and bought some hamburgers, chicken skewers, and ribs and marched our way down to a grassy area near the lake that people often congregate in when its good weather. It took awhile to get the little grill box going, but eventually it worked and we were able to enjoy some grilled food, a greek salad, and some Swiss wine by the lake while getting a little tan.  Then Ryan took a nap in the sun while I read Game of Thrones - a perfect little Saturday outing!

As a side note, one of our amusing European observations as the weather gets warmer is that it seems Europeans don't like shorts or sundresses even when the weather is warm. I break out my simple sundress and I feel a little risqué, I guess they just save these kinds of things for real beach destinations. Oh well, me and my sundresses will truck on because they make me happy that summer is here :)

Switzerland in the world rankings

The OECD recently published two survey findings on the "happiest countries" in the world and its "better life index".  The happiest country index measured the satisfaction of the countries' citizens as well as how they scored compared to key economic indicators while the better life index measured a wider set of criteria (safety, civic engagement, GDP, etc.) that citizens consider imperative for living a good life. 

Switzerland won the top spot for the happiest country in the world and fifth on the "better life index", the OECD cited reasons such as the high income of its residents, good health, low unemployment, low probability of high working hours, high life expectancy, among other things.  Below are the links to some of the articles if you're interested in learning more.  It looks like we chose a pretty fantastic place to live. I can confirm that the living is easy and happy here: clean, beautiful, prosperous, safe, and a simple way of life.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/01/happiest-countries-in-the-world/2377563/

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/130528/australia-tops-the-world-quality-life-well-being-says-oecd

1. Switzerland
> Life satisfaction score: 7.8
> Self-reported good health: 81% (7th highest)
> Employees working long hours: 5.9% (17th lowest)
> Disposable income: $30,060 (4th highest)
> Life expectancy: 82.8 years
In no other country did residents have a better sense of well-being than in Switzerland. People in the country tend to be better off financially than residents of most other countries. In 2010, the average household's disposable income was $30,060, higher than all but three other countries. Meanwhile, the average household financial net worth in Switzerland was more than $99,000, higher than any other country except for the United States. As many as 79% of the country's residents were employed in 2011, tied for the highest employment rate in the OECD. People in the country work just 1,632 hours annually, compared to the OECD average of 1,776. Very few residents were unemployed in 2012, when the unemployment rate was just 4.4%, lower than all but three other nations studied.

Dreaming of sunny skies...

Europe has been stuck under a shroud of depressing temperatures and clouds this spring.  We have only had a handful of sunny, warm days and of course they tend to occur on weekdays while we are tucked into our cubicles.  News reports have been saying that this is the worst spring weather Europe has seen in 10 years, which means that we aren't able to enjoy the best that Switzerland has to offer -- the mountains and great outdoors.  At least when it was snowing we could go skiing! So we have been using the weekends to relax, hang with friends, plan future trips and our wedding, drink wine, FaceTime with friends and family from back home, and dream of sunny skies...

Switzerland better get its weather act together before my vacation (and Sarah's visit!) at the end of June...

My favorite topic, SHOPPING

Living in Switzerland is slowly turning us into cross-border shopping experts.  Although we do still buy quite a lot of things locally in Geneva and around Switzerland (chocolate, cheese, and wine happen to be the most frequent of these things of course), over the past few months we have started to take more advantage of shopping options outside of Switzerland to take capitalize on lower prices.

Shopping in France

Because France is only 5 miles away, we often find ourselves crossing the border to purchase various goodies.  For example, we needed new sneakers for our upcoming half marathon training and rather than purchase them for 300 CHF (approximately $300), we crossed the border into France to a shopping mall and bought the same shoes for 160 EUR (approximately $200) (still expensive for sneakers I know, but better than Switzerland!).  Its so intriguing to me that the second you cross a border (and the shopping plaza we went to literally was right across the border), prices drop immediately. The difficult part about shopping in France however is that the border patrol officers may or may not be at the border at any time and they may or may not stop you and ask to see your receipts and open your bags to make sure you haven't purchased over 300 CHF in goods and to make sure you are not over the required limit of meat and wine.  This has happened quite a few times to us (particularly when Ryan slows down at the check point and starts looking suspicious, at which point they ask him to stop and start asking us questions) and resulted in us having our groceries laid out on the pavement while the officer added up the number of grams of meat in your grocery purchase.  Its intimidating and just plain ridiculous to go through this experience, so this often discourages us to make shopping in France a weekly occurrence. 

Blurry picture, but this is a picture of one of the border patrol stations, you go through lanes and the border patrol officers stop you if you look suspicious.  Non-residents and newbies often get stopped because we slow down and don't know whether we should say hello or just wave and nod.... we have since learned saying waving and nodding gives you a much better chance of not being stopped.

Online Shopping

The other day one of our friends had on a jacket that I loved and asked her where I could buy it.  She gave me the name of the store (a popular European brand), and I was about to purchase the jacket online when I decided to just quickly check what the price would be if I switched the country listed on the online store to the UK.  Instead of it being $180, the jacket was $100 if I simply bought it through the UK store!  Bingo!  Saved $80 buy just changing the country of the online store, crazy Switzerland.

PS, shopping in online US stores doesn't work because the shipping and customs costs required to get purchases from the US to Switzerland is just cray cray.

"Visitor" or "Travel" Shopping

I will apologize that many of you have (or will be) subjected to "Visitor" shopping while we live abroad.  It involves having visitors from the US bring things over to us when they come to visit.  Not only is this cost effective, but it also means we can enjoy some of our favorite brands from back home.  So far visitors have brought peanut butter, Frank's hot sauce, garlic salt, Reese's peanut butter cups, Sour Patch kids, Tom's shoes, toothpaste and the list goes on. While it is often obnoxious to visitors that they have to use up room in their suitcase with these goodies on the way over, I like to this that it makes room for souvenirs and purchases in their suitcase on the way back :) 

"Travel" shopping involves Ryan and me bringing things back with us after we visit in the US.  I have found that the best way to do this is when going back home on a business trip because a business class ticket means that I can check two bags for free.  So I arrive in the US with only 1 bag packed and then bring along another empty bag to fill with purchases.  Voila! 

The Ascension holiday

Spring seems to be the time for holidays in Europe.  It started with a 4 day weekend over Easter and continued with the long weekend for the Ascension holiday this past weekend and continues next weekend for Whit Monday.  Essentially all of the holidays are related to Easter in one way or another (check out the links above to get more information).  The holidays have been a nice way to do some semi-local traveling around Switzerland this month.  This past weekend, we spent our time in the canton of Valais (outlined below in purple), which is about 2 hours from Geneva and contains some of the largest mountains in the Alps.

We first went to a town called Leukerbad, the largest natural thermal spa area in the Alps. A plethora of thermal spas have crept up around town due to the natural springs in the area. The town is surrounded by some superb mountains and scenery as well.  It was pretty neat to be sitting in a thermal spa while watching the winter's snow melt into waterfalls and tumble into the valley, it felt very "alpine"!

On Thursday we checked out the 'Alpentherme' spa, which consisted of 2 large thermal pools, a sauna "village", and a Roman Irish bath experience.  This spa was very quiet and relaxing and is known for the different spa treatments you can get. The funny thing to us as Americans and likely you as the reader, was that the sauna village and Roman Irish baths do not allow clients to wear any bathing suits or clothing inside.  The answer to your obvious next question, is no, we only partook in the thermal pools in which bathing suits were required; but, we did find it amusing how open Europeans were with nudity at these spas and this is also a general theme that we have noticed throughout Europe -- just one of the many cultural differences!

On Friday, we checked out the other thermal spa in town, 'Burgerbad'.  Burgerbad had many more thermal pools (10+), but was filled with many noisy kids and locals playing around in the pools for the day as opposed to using it as a relaxing respite.  Essentially, this spa went for quantity over quality while Alpentherme went for quality over quantity.  We decided to get massages here since the massages at the Alpentherme were all booked.  The massages were... interesting. Ryan's masseuse was a nearly 7 foot tall guy that spent more time talking to him and telling him stories about Switzerland than actually giving him a massage. Both massages took place in the equivalent of a high school locker room with makeshift massage tables.  Of course, as is everything Swiss, everything was very clean and the people were nice, but overall... not quite worth the money we spent to splurge on massages.  Overall, our assessment was that the thermal spas closer to the Geneva/Lausanne area are nicer; but, it would be fun to come back to Leukerbad when the weather gets warmer and melts all of the snow so that we can go on hikes during the day and indulge in the thermal spas after.

One of the thermal pools at Burgerbad

Thermal, spring water flows from the town fountains

Water slides at Burgerbad 

Impressive surrounding mountains with snow that is still slowly melting down into the valley below

After Leukerbad, we went to stay with our friends in the town of Nendaz for 2 days.  Nendaz is one of 4 connecting ski resorts that make up the 4 Vallées ski area (one of which is Verbier, which we had been skiing at before).  They just bought an apartment in the town of Nendaz and graciously invited us to stay with them for a few days.  The view from their apartment is SPECTACULAR to say the least.  You can look across the entire valley to the surrounding mountains from their porch. It's fascinating to me to see the snow still covering the mountain tops while spring is in full bloom in the valley below, what a beautiful contrast. I don't think I will ever get tired of the views within this country!

Our friends' uper cute pups taking in the views from the porch

Sunset over the mountains

On Saturday, the town in the valley below, Sion, was having a wine festival where you could pay an entrance fee of 30 CHF to taste the wines of some of the local vineyards from the canton of Valais that were gathered at the festival. Since my knowledge of wine is very primitive (but growing at least), this is a snippet that describes the local Valais wine area:

With over 5,136 ha (13,000 acres), 20,000 winegrowers and 700 winemakers, the canton of Valais is not only Switzerland's biggest wine-producing region, but it also offers the greatest diversity of wines, both red and white.
Even though the Fendant and the Dôle are the most well-known terms of origin, the Valais' specialities are now winning more and more importance. These specialities are issued from indigenous grape varieties, which are vinified either separately or in blend.

The smart marketing ploy at this wine festival was that if you purchased 12 bottles of wine your entrance fee was refunded, so collectively, the four of us ended up bringing back 48 bottles of wine after all was said and done. A delicious (albeit expensive) end to a fun day!  

Enjoying wine at one of the tents

The pups are clearly pleased with our wine case purchases

On a side note, happy mother's day to all of the mothers out there! Lots of love especially to my spectacular mom! XO

Golfing in Switzerland

Hi everyone, this is Ryan on the blog for a guest appearance to tell you about golfing in Switzerland.  Now that the spring weather has arrived, we have been finding ways to continue our golfing habits here in Switzerland (as I have been somewhat addicted to the sport for the last 3 years). At first we thought this might be a pipe dream; but, we managed to find a few suspect driving ranges over the past few weeks and today marked the first day we actually went out and played on a course.  Of course we were curious to see how the sport compares to what we are used to and here are some general observations on the differences in Swiss/European vs. US golf:

1. To play on any course in Switzerland, you need a special card that essentially certifies that you are not a beginner.  This ensures that the pace of play is fast on the courses but presents a difficulty to us because we don't have one.  To get the special card you have to pass tests with a golf pro, including a written exam that pertains to golf etiquette and the rules as well as a practical exam that is comprised of 9 holes with a golf pro where he documents your play and scores the round.  This may seem ridiculous, but that isn't even everything.  Those two exams enable you to play most courses, but some of the courses also require you to have a second golf license with your official handicap.  Needless to say, we are embarking on our mission to secure both cards ASAP.
2. Driving ranges are generally more numerous (as these are the only places that non-card holders can learn); but, the infrastructure is a little shady (i.e., tires for practice targets, no ability to hit on grass, etc.).
3. The courses (well the one that we have been on!) are very nice and actually have some cool features like spray guns to wash off your clubs and shoes at the end of the round.  If anyone knows me well, this capped off the round because I would normally come home after and meticulously clean our clubs and equipment by hand.  I asked our friend who we played with if the washing machines were common and he said it was the norm....winning!
4. Memberships and fees to play rounds are expensive, as to be expected in one of the world's most expensive countries.
5. Golf carts are not commonly seen at courses, typically you carry or tote your golf bag around on a little trolley.
6. Although we keep being told that golf is considered a bit of an elitist sport in Europe, a surprising amount of people here (and many of our friends) already play or are learning to play.
7. Drink/snack carts (beer carts) do not exist on the courses...major bummer!

So, all in all, golf isn't all that different and just as enjoyable in the Swiss version. I am searching for some lessons and Lauren has some lessons lined up with some coworkers through a program at work.  We are looking forward to continuing to enjoy golf while we are in Switzerland.

Lake Geneva views

Lake Geneva views 

Cows in the background, so Swiss of course 

Suspect driving range

Saturday mornings

As it is Saturday, I thought I would share one of my few frustrations about living in Switzerland, store hours. Stores in Switzerland are only open Monday to Friday 9-6 and Saturday 9-6. Now the reason why this always frustrates me on Saturday in particular is that I always feel rushed to get our big weekly grocery shopping trip in. Which means that as I am sitting here in my PJs on a Saturday morning, relaxing after a long week, and trying to think of fun/relaxing things to do for the weekend, the question in the back of my mind is always "OK, when should we go to the grocery store"? From what I have gathered since living in this country, the reasons behind these store hours are as follows:

1. to protect blue collar workers: in a society like the US where stores stay open 24/7, you often have people that are working non-stop, 7 days a week to make ends meet and they don't have time off. The Swiss shop hours ensure that everyone is able to enjoy their evenings and weekends.

2. the land of the stay at home mom: In one of the cantons (i.e., "states") of Switzerland, women just gained the right to vote in the 1970s and it never fails to drive me a bit mad that the citizens of this country refuse to acknowledge that not every family has a stay at home mom, dad, or nanny that can go to the grocery store while the rest of the family is at work.  The other interesting tid-bit on this subject is that kids don't go to school on Wednesdays in Switzerland, translation: one parent must stay at home every Wednesday or hire a nanny because the cost of childcare in Switzerland is equivalent to 30-50% of family income.

3. cost: In the land of uber-expensive, Switzerland has determined that employing workers for a few additional hours might not actually be worth the extra revenue that it would bring in.

4. importance of personal/family time: having stores open past 6PM means that time people would spend shopping would be cutting into time they should be spending with their family.

So where does this leave me? Well, still annoyed that I have to spend my Saturday mornings grocery shopping and a bit annoyed at Switzerland's "its my way or else" approach to family values, but I do appreciate their ability to stand up for worker's rights and a world economy that constantly pushes for more. And with that, I'm off to do our weekly grocery shopping trip! Happy weekend everyone.