Long time, no see

Yes, I am a lazy blogger. But I would like to thank Kelly for her comment motivating me to post - and may it be a sign to the rest of you. More comments = more posts. And also, I started posting some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20949982@N05/ I am also a little behind in posting pictures, but that has a lot to do with the crappy internet I have here in Fellergut.

So, the biggest event of the last few weeks was Mike's visit. He was lucky enough to arrive on December 6, which is a big holiday here in Switz called Samichlaustag. Santa Claus (or Samichlaus, as he is called here) doesn't come on Christmas, he comes on December 6. And he doesn't come alone - he travels with this really creepy Grim Reaper-type guy called Schmutzli. Apparently these guys ride around town and hand out goodies to kids, but I didn't go join in the festivities because I had to work. Another odd tradition is everyone eats this sweet bread that is shaped like a man, complete with raisin eyes, called Griiti Baenze. This Samichlaustag dude also hands out mandarins and peanuts, and so these items are traditionally eaten throughout the holiday season, including our twice weekly teas in the lab. In Switz there are 4 types of Christmas cookies, each about 1.5 inches in diameter, that are eaten like crazy this time of year. I think two types are pretty good (cinnamon and chocolate), one is ok (butter), and one is just awful (annis). Anyways, when Mike arrived on this special day, I greeted him with a Griiti Baenze. We gobbled up our bread men before wandering around aimlessly looking for a restaurant. Unfortunately I haven't eaten at a lot of restaurants in Bern, so its still hard for me to find a good one.

Our plan was to head to France for the weekend. When we went to buy train tickets to Marseilles, all the trains were sold out. Bummer. So we decided to try Lyon instead - but all the hostels were sold out there. Double bummer. We said to ourselves at this point "Man, France is lame, who wants to go there anyways," which was also supplemented by my advisor telling me that Marseilles has no culture and you will only be robbed there. Thus, we spent our weekend in safe little Switzerland. On Friday, I worked in lab, where Mike met me for lunch. He stuck around for the few hours between lunch and tea and watched me patch clamp some mice cells. I'm sure he can attest that this was the most exciting portion of his visit and it should inspire each of you to come visit. After the tea we checked out Mr. Pickwick's, a bar in Bern that I have heard good things about. We had a beer or two and then mozied over to another less-good bar where we were captivated by curling on TV before heading home.

Saturday we went to Geneva, which is about 1 hour and 40 minutes from Bern on the border between western Switzerland and France. Obviously, Geneva is in the French part of Switz, so I had to switch from not understanding any of the German signs to not understanding any of the French signs. Geneva felt kinda like a ghost town. Its a pretty big city (by Swiss standards) with lots of big buildings, but not a whole lot of people. I think because of the UN, WHO, and all these other important international organization thingys, Geneva has a lot of really nice 5-star hotels that probably fill up for meetings and whatnot, but when theres nothing going on, it feels pretty empty. The biggest attraction is the Jet d'eau. Geneva is on a big lake (but its not called Lake Geneva!) and in the little harbor the Jet d'eau shoots water way up high in the air. We took some ridiculous pictures with the fountain, and then made our way to the Old Town. As in pretty much every city in Europe, Geneva has a normal city part and a medeival Old Town part. On the way to Old Town, we passed some big shopping streets, but only went into a toy store. We wandered around the big church in town, and then had some way overly priced and underly tasty fondue. It was the first time I've had fondue here in Switz, and probably the last. In general, the food is pretty good (hello chocolate), but I was not impressed with the fondue. After the cheese, we wandered over to the Botanical Gardens, but with it being December and all, there wasn't much to see aside from a little green house, a few goats, and a couple peacocks on the sidewalk. We wanted to tour the UN, but it was closed. Lame. We headed back to Old Town, where they were having some sort of historical re-enactment of the defense of Geneva when some other dudes wanted to take over the city in the 1600s. We marched behind some drummers and fifers to the big church, where we got some vin chaud (hot wine with some brandy and spices - another big Swiss holiday tradition) before following everyone else into the church. Before we knew it, we were sitting in a French church service, but we managed to sneak out before the sermon. We then saw some musket firing and followed another parade - this one with horses, so watch your step. At this point, we had our fill of Geneva, and caught the train back to Bern.

Sunday we traveled up to Basel - about 50 minutes from Bern, on the border between northern Switzerland and Germany. Basel is of course in the German part of Switz. I originally did not want to go to Basel, because I had changed trains there before and my impression from the train station was that it is industrial and ugly. Well, don't judge a city by its bahnhof - I really liked Basel and its probably one of my favorite cities I've been to thus far in Europe. We walked from the bahnhof to town, stopping at a church that had a really huge Christmas market. We then tried to make our way to the Tinguely Fountain, accidentally getting lost along the way and stumbling upon this huge wall next to a church that had been graffitied by some local artist with hilarious little comic pictures, most of which were taking jabs at America. We found the fountain, which was pretty sweet. There was some famous iron worker named Tinguely in Basel, and he made this fountain of little guys that have all these cool gadgets and wheels and squirty things. We then wandered around town some more, stopping at an old church and the Rathaus (town hall) - a really pretty, big red building that had a big Christmas tree inside (hooray!). We hunted down a place for lunch, again failing to find Aelplermagronen, a Swiss variety of mac and cheese with onions, potatoes, and other types of stuff thrown in. I had it in Lucerne this summer and it was my favorite thing in Switzerland, but we could never find it. Instead we settled for Roesti, another traditional Swiss dish consisting of hash brown-ish potatoes and cheese fried together into a big patty. Delicious. After lunch, we headed to the Muenster, which is the big cathedral in town. Of course, half of it was being renovated, because thats how everything is in Europe. We then walked around town some more, stopping by some other towers and monuments in Basel. The town of Basel is super cute. We crossed over a bridge, unsuccessfully finding some statue of a king's head that squirts water out of its mouth. We made a quick pit spot at a jungle gym before catching a ferry ride back across the river. The ferry is famous in Basel because it doesn't have a motor - it travels from one side of the river to the other powered only by the current of the river. We spent the entire ride trying to figure out how it worked, but we're still somewhat perplexed. There is a pully system in the front of the boat attached to a cable, and a big rutter in the back that some dude navigates with. On the other side of the river, we walked around some really old area of Basel, which even had a moat (which is now dry). We also found a super old church and then walked back to the main part of town. At this point it was dark, and all the Christmas lights in the shopping town were really pretty. We did the European thing and stopped for some coffee, and then caught our train back to Bern.

Phew. So, the next day (Monday) I headed to lab during the day. That evening was our department's Christmas apero (apero = party with light food and booze) at the Cinematte, a half bar/half movie theater that is down on the river in Bern. The plan for the evening was eat and drink 6-8, watch Chocolat from 8-10, and drink some more from 10-12. I was under the impression that the food would be equivalent to dinner, but I was mistaken, and being vegetarian severely limited what I could eat as well. So, I ended up drinking a lot of wine and only eating a few veggies - not a good combination. I was pretty tipsy by movie time, and none of the other people our age wanted to watch the movie anyways. Me and Mike sat in the movie with this Swiss girl I work with (Helen) and her Swiss boyfriend Mark. Mike and Mark managed to sneak out after about 10 minutes into the movie, and me and Helen followed about 20 minutes later to continue drinking and socializing at the bar. Mike was chatting with this French guy from another lab I've seen around, and man that guy is hilarious. Oddly enough, his wife lives in Urbana-Champaign, IL, so he had some interesting words to say about the US. He asked me and Mike why we were American - to which we responded "Because that's where we were born." There are also two other French guys in the department, one of which (Thomas) has been training me. For some reason, he started calling me Meggie in this really goofy, high-pitched voice. He also makes this funny pffff noise a lot, for example, "I don't know pfff." Mike fell in love with the "pfff" and developed a slight man-crush on Thomas. We stuck around the bar for another hour or so, hanging out with the tipsy Europeans. The last train back to where I live leaves around 11:30 from Bern, so we decided it was going to be a taxi night and stayed out later. At midnight, the bar closed, and we had the choice of splitting a cab home with the Swiss couple or going out some more with the Frenchies; we decided to stay out with the Frenchies. The original plan was to go to a bar, but instead we started walking to one of the Frenchy's apartments. It was a pretty long walk (almost an hour, although my sense of time at this point was pretty distorted). We made a stop for some kebop, which is like a gyro and is really popular here in Switz, and is apparently the late night drunk snack as well. Anyways, we finally made it to the Frenchy's apartment, which is close to my lab so I at least had some idea where we were. He pulled out some vodka, which I refused because I know better than to start taking shots of vodka at 1:30 AM. We hung out there for another hour or so, listening to one Frenchy say how he was going to sleep with the other Frenchy's girlfriend (although he used a more vulgar word) and the other Frenchy repeatedly defending his heterosexuality by saying "but I'm not gay" every 5 minutes. Around 2:30 or 3 (I think), we left and headed towards the bahnhof to catch a cab home.

I tried to get up around 8 the next day to head into lab, but when I tried to sit up, it felt like a power tool was drilling into my brain. Ouch. I took some ibuprofen and forced down some water and crackers before falling back asleep. An hour or so later, I woke up feeling much better, and managed to shower and get ready for lab. I got into lab around 11, and at 1 we had another apero in lab because it was Thomas's (the pffff-er) last day. Mike came by lab for the apero, and we gorged ourselves on bread and cheese, but stayed away from the wine for obvious reasons. I stayed in lab the rest of the day, then me and Mike found some Aelplermagronen for dinner, which was definitely not as good as the one I had in Lucerne. I had my German class that night, so Mike pretended he lived in Bern and wanted his free trial lesson so that he could sit in class with me. After German, we met up with the Frenchies at Mr. Pickwick's. We only stayed for about an hour, being pretty exhausted from the night before. Mike went off the Italy the next morning, and I spent the rest of the week trying to recover some sleep after all our adventures traveling and partying.

I haven't been doing much else here in Bern. Last Saturday, I went to Zurich to do some Christmas shopping and see the city with all its Christmas lights up. It was really pretty, Zurich is awesome. Part of the city (Bahnhofstrasse) felt like 5th avenue in New York - lots of big department stores and very crowded with people. Most of Zurich is Old Town-y, with little shops built on top of each other all over the place on these crooked little streets. Very cute. I did a lot of shopping for my family, and stopped for some ice cream. For some reason, I cannot find any quick places to get ice cream here in Bern, so I indulged myself in Zurich. I'm sure most of you are aware of my addiction to ice cream, so this alone made my day.

I did a google search for American meetup groups in Bern, and I found an ex-pat group that I then joined. The girl who organizes it is from Rhode Island, so I thought it seemed promising. Earlier this week, we met up for Gluhwein (same as vin chaud - hot red wine with brandy and spices) that they sell in the big Bern Weihnachtsmarkt(Christmas market). There were only 4 of us - the girl from RI, a German girl, and a Spanish girl. It was a good amount of people though, I can talk to people in small groups pretty easily. We stood outside drinking a couple cups of Gluhwein for a couple hours until our toes were completely frozen, at which point we went to the RI girl's apartment. I hung out there for an hour or so before heading home. It was nice - I like them a lot and I would enjoy hanging out with them again. Hooray friends!

This week in lab was really boring. My advisor is in Russia on some "expedition" below the Arctic Circle. No one really wanted to work this week, so none of the techs killed any baby mice or rats, which meant no cells for me, and thus no experiments. Most of the people on my floor have already left for Christmas, except me and a guy from India who is not going home. So, things have been pretty quiet and lonely around here. But I am flying back to the US tomorrow! My flight leaves Zurich at 9:40 AM, so I am probably going to leave my dorm at 6 to catch the train from Buempliz Nord to Bern, then take the train from Bern to Zurich from 6:30-7:30, hang out at the airport for a couple hours, fly 11 hours to Atlanta, hang out there for a couple hours, fly a couple hours to Miami, meet up with my parents, and then drive a couple hours to Marco Island. I think its about 20 hours of travel time. We are going to Florida this year because we now have a condo that use to belong to my grandparents and now belongs to my parents and aunt and uncle. My sister lives nearby and my cousin is coming down with her two sons, so it should be a nice Christmas. After 5 days in Florida, I am heading to St. Louis for a week for New Years and whatnot. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and being able to understand everything!! Hopefully I won't forget too much German while I'm away, not that I know that much to begin with.

OK, so thats all for now. Hope you made it to the end. Enjoy your holidays, and if you are going to be in St. Louis from Dec 29-Jan 5, then we should hang out. I spent 115 Francs (about $100) on chocolate yesterday to bring back to the US, so that should give you extra motivation to want to see me :)