2006 Winter Olympics

Top ten reasons why WE deserve a gold medal for attending the 2006 Winter Olympics:

10. The determination to make (seemly) hundreds of decisions once we decided to actually attend this once in a life-time event: which days to go, which event(s) to attend, purchasing the tickets, finding a hotel, researching train fares, deciding to drive, planning the route, buying a parking space, etc.
9. The constant repetition and resulting pain that was required to pay an unbelievable number of tolls (drive, stop, pay, drive stop, pay…) to drive thru the French and Italian Alps.
8. A test of patience and orientation skills, the Turin tram system is not in any hurry to get thousands of people anywhere in particular. Even BAD signage, information, or maps would have improved on their faulty ESP navigation concept which obviously didn’t work in the pouring down rain.
7. The ability to prevail against all odds to find THE street in Turin that had it all: lunch, a bank machine, the Olympic Store, beautiful Italian architecture, the entrance to the Metal Ceremony Square and GELATO!
6. The concentration required to figure out who in their right mind would approve those mascots - Neve & Gliz?!? She’s a soft, friendly & elegant snowball; he’s a lively & playful ice cube…riiight.
5. Hours and hours of dedicated practice, hard work and sweat put in to trying to pronounce the name of the venue for women’s freestyle skiing qualifications: Sauze d'Oulx!
4. Enduring an ankle-deep snowfall in 2-hrs that twice delayed the event and the only beer available was Budweiser. Fortunately the event was cancelled at 20:30 before too much damage was done.
3. WALKING, 1-hr, down hill, in the snow, fighting off bears with our cool, souvenir pins with thousands of our closest friends because the fan buses were unable to navigate the snow-covered road.
2. Overcoming doubt and confusion came when we were getting directions home from two non-English speaking Italian fire-fighters who gave directly conflicting information even after 3 attempts at clarification.
1. The final test of endurance had us arriving home at 3:48 for a quick nap and off to a fully productive day at work. All that and we only got to see two practice jumps…now THAT deserves a medal!
You can find pictures of our adventure here.

Red Cross Museum

Geneva is home to the International Red Cross and the Red Cross Museum. The Red Cross was founded by Henry Dunant who was horrified to find the wounded soldiers lying abandoned on the field after the battle of Solferino in 1859. After bringing the Red Cross into being, the members also drafted the first Geneva Convention. The museum is very compelling in its content: the founding, evolution and continued efforts around war and disaster relief are a testament to what one person can do to change the world for the better.

Hiromi Concert

On Saturday night, we went to see a jazz artist that Nancy had seen in Seattle two years ago. She was promoting her new album and was at the Marians Jazz Club. The club is located in a hotel across the river on a bluff overlooking the city. The room was plush and windowless – she played to a sold out crowd of about 100 people. Hiromi and her band (a base player and a drummer) are AWESOME. She’s plays the piano like she has 10 hands – we were lucky to be able to sit right behind her and see her hands – absolutely incredible!

Bern Switzerland

Bern, the capital of Switzerland, is hands-down our favorite Swiss city so far. It’s about an hour drive from Basel and is located in a U-shaped area surrounded by the Aare River. It was a nice, sunny day, so we decided to take the city walking tour suggested in the tour book we have. We were greeted with stunning overlooks of far away mountains and the river as well as beautiful old buildings, bridges, squares, clocks, and churches. The bear pit – Bern’s most visited attraction - contains two, live brown bears which are the symbol on the Bern coat of arms – it’s not in a zoo, just a deep pit across a bridge where people gather to see the bears. The buildings on the main shopping street are somewhat unique – the sidewalk is fully covered to create a long, arched passageway. Outside the passageway are what look like cellar doors and when open, have stairs leading down to more stores located beneath the sidewalk. Because you can’t see these stores from the passageway, they have glass display cases in the passageway showing you their name and wares (neat-o!). In one of the squares there was a lively game of chess going on, but instead of a regular game board the players were standing up and moving knee-high pieces on an oversized board that they had to stand on. Spectators were either shouting out advise to each player, or cheering and groaning about the last move. We walked up 240 steps of the highest church steeple in Switzerland (100 m) that had a fantastic view of the city. Finally, we visited Albert Einstein’s apartment where he came up with the formula E=mc2. See our pictures of Bern here.

French Countryside

We’ve spent several hours driving around Germany, France, and Switzerland just getting a feel for the outskirts. We’ve noticed a lot of cars parked along the side of the road and walking in wide open fields. It’s sort of a strange sight, but it seems a very popular past time. We decided to do the same this weekend and went to a nearby town in France called Steinbach. They have quite a large forest area with lots of walking trails and the history of metal mines in the area (we couldn't read any of the signs, but guessed from the pictures what they were talking about). We agreed it’s just like Turkey Run only with no water feature and all the trails go up at a 45 degree angle. Robert got some great pictures and the elevation got our hearts pumping to keep us warm. You can see more pictures from this trip here.

Jungfrau

A 2-hour train ride from Basel, Jungfrau claims the highest railroad in the world. The Jungfrau region consists of several mountains, towns, and beautiful scenery. We visited Grindelwald and Lautenbruner along with hundreds of our closest friends that were there to go skiing. There were several restaurants serving lunch OUTSIDE (it was easily in the lower to mid-20’s), but we opted for one inside with a great view. Unfortunately the weatherman predicted clear weather, but did not deliver. We’ll go back to visit the top of Junfraujoch during the summer when it’s nice, warm and sunny. They have great hiking trails so you can take a picnic and spend the day. You can see pictures of Grindelwald here, and Jungfrau here.