Helsinki, Finland (June 8th-11th, 2006)

Yes...this post is WAY overdue...here's a couple pictures for now, and I'll add commentary later if I get the chance.
All I'll say right now was that it was a FAB trip...would highly recommend.









The City Hall in Helsinki.


Jean Sibelius is a Finnish composer. This is a monument built for him:















Apparently they eat them too.








Love this store. Not really into the clothing, but the homeware and accessories are fab. I bought a BOLD bag (of course). I love it.




Church built into a rock.








Someone famous is buried here...I forget who. Oops.




On Suomenlinna, there was a group of students hanging out...I swear they looked like they were straight out of Hogwarts...it was a little bizarro becuase I doubt school children actually dress like that in Finland.





Took an afternoon/early evening trip to Talinn, Estonia (1.5 hour boat ride from Helsinki). Another country to add to the list...and a really neat visit!






There was a huge Russian Orthodox church there. I haven't gone to Russia yet (fingers crossed that I can go this year), but this church is exactly what I always thought Russian churches looked like.

Weather's changing

It's starting to get colder here in Neuch. Sure, in the middle of the day, when the sun's at its best, it feel like the summer, but other than that, it's getting colder. Oh, and the sun doesn't come up until I've started teaching. That's a little annoying coming to work in the dark. Don't forget the fact that there's rain/fog almost all the time as well.
Yup, last night, I skated in the rain. Ugh, we Canadians don't know how good we have it.

Yverdon les Bains

This past Sunday, I finally went to Yverdon-les-Bains. I've been to the train station a couple times, but have never actually been to the baths there.
I'd heard that I really needed to visit it, because it's amazing, and so finally, I had the chance to experience it for myself.
For 27CHF, I had access to the outdoor baths, as well as the Espace detente which had a hot tub on the terrasse (which they call a whirlpool), Japanese bath (a 40 degree celsius hot tub), dry sauna and the Ham-mam sauna. You could also pay to get different treatments (massages, facials, use the exercise room, etc)
The baths are located in Yverdon, because there's a natural hot spring source there.
The first outdoor pool was warm enough that I wasn't shivering (it was pretty cold outside, but the typically strong Swiss sun gave me a suntan), but I was looking forward to the next, warmer bath.
The outdoor baths are like big pools, but have water jets in them. The jets are situated at different levels so that you could massage different parts of your body. In the first one, we sat around chatting as our calves and thighs were bombarded with water and then moved on to the jets for your feet. My baby feet were too sensitive and ticklish that I couldn't stand on the jets,Ii just kind of put my feet over them a little bit until I couldn't bear it anymore and dissolved in a fit of giggles instead.
The warmer bath was FAB. It was at a super-bly temperature...I could have stayed there all day. It too had massage jets, but laid out in Swiss precision. Around the periphery of the pool, you could follow along where one side was jets for your lower body and the other side was for your upper body. Each of the jets were at different levels so that as you moves along a different part of your body was massaged. There was a light that flashed to tell you when to move onto the next jet. So organized. Apparently, we got there at a good time, because we there wasn't a very long queue for the jets, but as we were leaving there were more and more people there. In the second pool, there was also a bubble section. I have no idea how they do it, but it was just this crazy effervescing (oooh, I think this is the first time I've actually used this word as a non-persondescriptorr!) area. There were bubbles popping at every depth. It felt really really cool on your skin. One other really neat thing that I noticed was that they had different scented plants around. I would get whiffs of lavender all of a sudden, and I thought I got a whiff of verbena, but I could have been wrong. I'm sure there were other plants/flowerswhichh were there for a reason, but I'm up to date on my botany reading, so I couldn't tell you what they were. All I know is that it provided for a nice atmosphere.
Afterwards, we went up to the Espace detente where I suffered through the saunas. I got lightheaded (that'll teach me from not eating in the morning)...but I was fine. I didn't do anything stupid, like stay in the saunas too long or anything. The dry sauna was about 84 degree Celsius and quite unbearable. I loved the 40 degree hot tub...but that's about my limit I think. Even worse was the Ham-mam, because it was this crazy humid sauna. I felt like I couldn't breathe and it was so dark in there, that is was slightly iffy. Sure, it'll kill all the toxins in your skin, but it was a new experience for me, so I was a little hesitant. I'll have to go back again and give it another chance (after eating a bunch of food).
It was a great outing, and as I said before, I'll have to go back again. I'd love to go back in the middle of the winter, when it's so cold outside (hopefully snow?) and you're submerged in the fab pools. I hear there's something similar near Zurich...I should look into that...

- photos courtesy of www.thermes-yverdon.ch

Dreamy

This past monday I was training on an outdoor rink. Apparently this is the team's home rink. Luckily, for my first time, it was a clear night and the sunset and moonlight was beautiful. I'm scared for when mother nature decides to act up. It's definitely more than a little bit distracting for me to be outdoors...I was too busy looking at all the pretty stars in the sky to be focussed on the skating. Happily, I did not aquire any more ouchies (btw, my knee is looking particularly disgusting right now).
Man...Canada sure has it good. I hope this winter isn't too stormy. It's wonderful the range of things that you learn about different places when you make the most out of the opportunities that are being presented to you.
Oh, and the outlook on the Swiss-German language situation is quite bleak.

More ouchies

My left knee is a kaleidoscope of colours! From reds, to greens and blues...to brownish tinges.

And my right thigh now sports a "whole toe pick to leg" incident. Yes, that's a full seven bloody dots. Surrounded by a bruise.

C'mon CH, jump on the bandwagon!

France is now joining a bunch of other EU places which has banned smoking in restaurants. Sure it won't take effect for awhile, but it's nice to know that they're heading in that direction. I know CH is talking about it...so just vote already and do it! (There's a "referendum" practically every month on something, it's weird.) I mean even Milano has no smoking. The Italians for goodness sakes are already doing it!

P.S. Went out for dinner last night and even after leaving my clothes out on the balcony, they still reak of smoke.

Maybe I've just been sheltered

It is normal to snort tobacco?
Every so often I seen people snorting the stuff on the train here in CH. Especially those army boys. And they've got all these different rituals that they do with it.

Desalpes (September 23rd, 2006)

It's that time of the year! Time for the cows to come down from the alps for grazing opportunities at a lower altitude!



I've had two opportunities to play these alpenhorns. I did not suceed either time. Boo.








This is different from all the other years that I've seen. Usually it's one bell per person. I guess they're getting greedy.

Fete (Sep 22nd-24th, 2006)

Always a highlight of the year...FETE!!!





The party's getting underway!







This rookie to Fete didn't know to close the windows of the apartment. No, I lie. We were all watching the Fete commence below and started egging the confetti cannons to aim towards us. At this time, the host was not present.



I got a different view of the guggenmusik parade this year. I could still hear everything clearly, but was a lot further away. Boy, does sound carry.





Confetti is so fun. But I hate when people throw it into your open mouth. Yuck. (I have practically the same picture from last year.)


Fete is the best, cause you can eat so many different things that Neuch doesn't usually have. It's pretty darn expensive, but so yummy. I think I'm starting to get used to the taste of curry now. Sure, it's European-curry (read: really watered down), but it's a start right?


I felt like this year's Fete was less crowded. All of the same vendors were there, in exactly the same spots, but I didn't have to elbow my way around as much except in the key areas that are always mayhem.



I really do love Fete. Sigh. It's hard to grow up and make decisions...

Burgundy (Sep 29th-Oct 1st, 2006)

This past weekend, I went back to Burgundy for some biking fun.
Beaune is a small, but beautiful town surrounded by vineyards for ever and ever.


We went to this winery for a wine tasting. The background is that the eldest son of the Bouchard family decided to start up his own winery and created this one. I tasted all of the wines, and can't say that I enjoyed any of them, however I think I might (slightly) like red wine better, and that expensive/good quality wines taste better as well. I also tried some cassis liqueur which is used in a kir royale, and it was way too syrupy.




This poster showed all of the different colours that could be found in wines. It looked pretty cool.





We also went back to the Hospice for a visit. I think we may have even had the same tour guide...






I love markets. It's one of the things that I love about Europe.




I'm not sure why, but I love taking pictures of produce.
























One of these things is not like the others...





We took a little bit of a different biking route this year. It was actually more hilly, but now that I know how gears on a bike work, I don't mind. Getting to the top of those long and steep hills is such a great challenge for me. I love pushing myself to keep pedaling until I get to the
top. I refuse to bail out and walk up the hill. Except for when the chain falls off. I was so mad.
I love seeing the perfectly straight lines in the fields as you go by. For awhile is seems perfectly chaotic, but at one precise instant it is the most organized thing in the world.
Of course I needed to stop and taste some grapes. They were a lot smaller than I thought they would be a little sour as well!
I also saw some firsts. A kiwi tree and a walnut tree. It's funny. I know that everything that we eat comes from a plant/animal, but I guess growing up in the city and not seeing gardens/farms I'm always a little surprised to see a fruit dangling off a branch in a tree or whatever.
We were lucky with the weather this year. Last year, it was torrential rain for the whole weekend, and while this weekend was cloudy and a little grey, the worst this we had while biking was 5 minutes of light drizzle, which was actually a little refreshing.
I've decided that I enjoy biking. I'm not sure if I would just take a bike out on my own (mainly because I have nowhere to go with it), but I would enjoy following a guide through areas where I can calmly bike in my own world and watch the world go by.

Hard core

Whoever thought skating wasn't a contact sport was W-R-O-N-G.
That's my left elbow.
There's another cut on the back of my forearm and a really nasty bruise on the outside of my left knee. Oh, and the ice was pretty hard when I hit my head on it.

[a subliminal *hello* embedded!]

Ardoise

Last night, I had another new Swiss experience. I thought that I'd been exposed to most of them, mainly thanks to my Thursday visits, but turns out I still have a lot to learn.
Anyway, I went out for dinner to a restaurant where an "Ardoise" was recommended. It would entail my choice of a beef steak or "young horse" steak along with fries and a visit to the salad bar. I have tried horse before (actually the first restaurant lunch I had after arriving to Neuch) and didn't enjoy it so I opted for the beef option.
The cool thing about this dish was that the meat was served on a very hot stone. It was still sizzling upon arrival and didn't stop sizzling until about a half hour later (although I did touch the stone much later and it was still quite hot). As you can see in the picture, just the outsides of the steak have been charred and the inside is quite red. I know you can eat beef rare, so if you're one of those people, you'd have to eat the stak pretty quickly. I like my steak well done, so I sliced it up and lay the slices flat on the stone to cook the meat all the way through. It was quite effective.
The sizzling was pretty excessive. I mean, before the waitress would even put the platter in front of us, we had to put on our huge bibs, and you can even see in the picture that there's a lot of splatter on the platter. (Ha ha ha...splatter on the platter...it sounds funny.)
Of course I needed dessert afterwards. Coupe Danemark. I'm going to mniss all the ice cream sundaes they can here.

Grindewald

Back to Grindewald for more hiking and awkward moments which I'm not sure I'll ever get used to.

Here are some pictures:




Grindewald here we come!








Not sure why, but we rode up in the Xamax bus





After taking a gondola up to an altitude of about 1000m, we started our hike in the middle of a cloud.





Above the cloud...and a break for lunch. Much more interesting than your average cafeteria eh?







Straight out of a postcard.






Even higher above the cloud. I guess cows like a good view too.







Makes you want to re-enact The Sound of Music doesn't it? (yes, I know it's the wrong country)




At 2680m - it was too cloudy below to see Interlaken. Last year, the hike was actually painful. It was pretty steep at times and the quads were burning. This year was a lot better. Am I in better shape? Going down still hurt the knees though. I think I'm going to be in a wheelchair at the age of 30. You know, with my bad back, ankles and knees and all.

I said I'm lucky

Proof that I'm darn lucky:

My quite frequent trip back from Burgdorf to Neuchatel has a change in Solothurn.
This past Wednesday, the train from Solothurn was 18 minutes late, but I wasn't too tired (napped to Solothurn) so it was ok. I was more concerned with the fact that usually I get back to Neuch with 12 minutes to wait for the last bus of the night to go home.
The train was going really really fast and making up for lost time. I was bored, so I fell asleep. I guess it turned out to be more tiredness rather than boredom, because after waking up when the train stopped in Bienne, I woke up to see that the sign said that the next stop was Yverdon Les Bain. You see, Neuch is the stop in between the two.
I looked outside to see that I'd just missed Neuch be a couple of minutes (train was going friggin fast). Moments of panic ensued and my groggy head quickly tried to figure out what to do.
Flashback to getting on the wrong half of the train in Bern awhile back and ending up in Murten after the train split in Kerzers. A 90CHF cab ride followed.
Back to the present, I was preparing myself for a nice, three figured cab ride home, when I decided to look at my train schedule for kicks. If the train I was on had been on time, I could catch the last train from Yverdon to Neuch with 14 minutes to spare. Well, we ended up arriving 3 minutes too late.
Wander the station for awhile and go to the track and see the sign still up for the train. No one waiting around 'cept for a sketchy looking guy who's passed out. See a conductor and find out that this train is also late!
One minute later, the train arrives and after 19 minutes, I'm in Neuch and take a cab home. I've decided to treat myself to one cab ride a month, so that was it I suppose. It's not like I take a cab very often, but I guess there aren't too many cabbies in the city, because my driver remembered me from a previous trip.

QED

Moral of the story: I'm really lucky, I'm considering some options so that it doesn't happen again - although at least now I know that I can still get home if it does - and it is possible for Swiss trains to be late.

I'm the luckiest person in the world

I had a FABulous time in Toronto this summer. I was actually very sad to have to come back to Neuch for various reasons, however upon arrival, it's hard not to be comforted by this...














The soccer stadium is really coming together. There was nothing there when I first arrived to Neuch.

Snaps from a summer in Toronto

I do check up on the webcam every so often, but it's nice to see the development of the ROM's crystal in person.















You know, after going to the equivalents around Europe, Holt's was a little disappointing.







I can't wait until I get inside the new opera house.






...errr...I'd be lying if I said that I didn't take this while sitting behind the steering wheel.













I really love Toronto's skyline. I've missed skyscrapers and lots of lights at night.



One last shot before leaving Canadian soil (Terminal 1).