Zurich Switzerland

It's been cold and snowy here for the last week, so we decided to take a day trip to Zurich to enjoy some indoor activities. Only 50 miles from our house, it's a quick and easy drive. We took advantage of a deal offered at the tourist office. The Zurich Card offers free admission to museums, unlimited free rides on public transportation, and discounts at restaurants. Our first stop was the art museum, better known as The Kunsthaus Zurich. This is a great museum filled with works by some of our favorites like Giacometti, van Gogh, the Swiss artist, Koller and others. After lunch we visited the House Constructive Museum. Well, there were "interesting" works there from Gunter Umberg and Verena Loewensberg. After a quick walk down the shopping street we decided to head back to Basel. When the weather is better, we'll go back to see more and maybe go on the walking tour or even a boat tour around Lake Zurich. There's a lot to see in Zurich. You can see our pictures here.

The Blind Cow

We happened upon an article in the Swiss Airline magazine about an interesting restaurant here in Basel - The Blind Cow. You eat totally and completely in absolute darkness...doesn't that sound like FUN!?!? A co-worker of Nancy's was coming in from San Francisco with his girlfriend so we floated the idea to them and VOILA, we made it a foursome. A few pre-dinner drinks at the house to get everyone acquainted and then we were off. The menu is projected onto the wall in a very industrial looking space with lockers to secure your coats and belongings. There are 3 appetizers, main dishes, desserts and 2 'surprise menus' (1 meat, 1 vegetarian) to choose from. Once you have your order memorized, a waiter comes to get you and gives you a list of instructions before you go in: what will happen, what if you need to leave, how the table is setup, etc. We were instructed to hold grab hold of the shoulder in front of us to 'snake' our way to the table. Once seated, we felt around at our place setting and were successful pouring the wine into our glasses. It was soooo dark - HOW DARK WAS IT?) - it was sooo dark that it looked just like the time you were in the bowels of mammoth cave and they turned off the lights - it was unbelievably dark. We all had a great meal and a great time with delightful dinner companions- you'll have to come and 'see' it for yourself =)

A New, Clean Start

Ever since we moved into our apartment we have NEVER liked our shower. It has plenty of water pressure, it's warm enough, it's a large enough space (once we got the shower curtain issues sorted out), but the shower head produces scores of needle-like lancets that produce a less than satisfying experience which we articulate each morning using very colorful language. This weekend we broke down an bought a brand new shower head with THREE (3) settings that has made us the happiest people alive from 7:30am-7:40am (if Robert is taking his patented 'fastest shower ever' that will be from 7:30am-7:55am). Thank you (good) shower head companies for making our world a better place to live, one shower at a time.

Basel Museum Night 2007

Each year several Swiss cities sponsor a museum night where you can visit all the museums in the area for one price (20CHF) from 6pm-2am. There is a huge variety of museums to choose from in Basel (architecture, art, history, design, toys, etc.), but this year we decided to visit a few that we had never been to before. First up - the Music Museum. This museam features the history of many different instruments and is housed in the old city prison. You can see the evolution of many instruments over time including the recorder, flute, clarinet, saxaphone, pianos, organs, orchestral string instruments and traditional drums. Then it was off to the Cartoon and Caricature Muesum. Here they were featuring one artist in particular, Tomi Ungerer - sometimes a bit lude for my taste, but he certainly had panels that were fun to look at =) Just down the street was the Basel Contemporary Art Museum designed by the local, Prizker Prize winner architecure firm of Herzog & de Meuron. The high-light of the exhibit was the Sol LeWitt wall drawing (pictured above) - FYI: we also have a Sol LeWitt at the IMA in Indianapolis. Lastly we ventured off to the Paper Museum that operates using a paddle wheel from way-back-when. It's a delightful museum that allows you to participate in the paper making process, details the history of paper making, and features a fantastic gift shop packed full with a huge assortment of hand-made paper and paper products. We had a terrific time and hope to be able to participate next year too. Otherwise, we will use our new-found knowledge to direct our 2007 visitors to the best Basel has to offer. Check out the photos from Robert's new camera here.

More hiking in Switzerland!!

A perfect day for hiking in Switzerland! The weather has been unusually warm for January. Today it was in the 50’s so we decided to take advantage with a trip to the mountains. We ended up near Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland region of central Switzerland. This area also over looks the Thunersee which is a large lake in Interlaken. Thanks to clear blue skies, we were able to walk along and view the gorgeous snow capped mountains that seem to go on forever. Robert really enjoys the mountains and the views, so it was a particularly good day for him. It also gave him the chance to experiment with a new camera that Santa gave him for Christmas. You can see pictures from the day here, or all of our hiking pictures here.

Konstanz Germany

The second part of our day trip took us to Konstanz Germany. Konstanz is a town located on Lake Konstanz which is just across the Switzerland border in the Northeast part of the country. Because we visited on Three Kings Day (or Epiphany), a public holiday in Germany and Switzerland, most of the stores and shops were closed. However, we were able to wander around the town and see many of the sites including the Cathedral, and from across the lake, the Austrian Alps. After dinner, we were able to see a small part of the Three Kings Day parade located in the center of town. Complete with costumes, music, a public reading, and singing, it was a nice experience for us. You can see our pictures of Konstanz here.

Rhine Falls

We decided to start the new year with a day trip to Northeast Switzerland to see the Rhine Falls. It’s a natural waterfall located on the Rhine River in Neuhausen Switzerland. Schaffhausen and the German border are also nearby. The name says it all, the Rhine Fall is the largest waterfall in Europe in terms of volume of water passed. At only 23 meters, it wasn’t tall, but with the full weight of the Rhine running over it, it looked spectacular. Like Niagara Falls, a whole town (Neuhausen am Rheinfall) is built around it. Unlike much of the Rhine in Germany that is wide and rock free, this part of the river is narrow and full of large boulders. Barges can’t travel through this part of the river. The Schloss Laufen is perched on the high cliffs directly above the falls. The Schloss may have once been a true palace, but now it serves as the Rhine Falls' primary tourist haven. The Schloss hosts a restaurant, a massive souvenir stand, a garden, and a gateway to several observation decks that wind their way down to the falls. You can see our pictures of the falls here.

Christmas Vacation

We were lucky enough to be able to spend over 20 days in Indianapolis over the holidays. We met our new nephew (9 months old, now), got caught up with our families and did a LOT of shopping (Switzerland and Europe in general is VERY expensive). Robert got a new camera and took lots of photos. Thanks to everyone for taking time out of your busy holiday schedules to get together with us. YOU are what we miss the most from home (not Dairy Queen, unlimited soft drink/coffee refills, our 24-hr gym, Jayne's chocolate triffle, shopping after 6:30 pm, or the ability to do laundry in less than 3 hrs). Wishing you and your families a happy and healthy 2007…Nancy & Robert

2006 Anecdotes

During our first trip to the grocery store in Germany, Robert decided that he needed to use the facilities. Off he goes and thirty seconds later, Nancy hears the fire alarm. Robert returns to the aisle almost immediately and yells over the alarm that the door he thought led to the bathroom…didn’t.

Trevi Fountain – there is a legend that says that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome (est. @ ~3,000 euro per day). During the filming of a documentary, a man was interviewed who, early each morning, collected these coins from the fountain. It turns out that he was unemployed and had been collecting the coins for years. They calculated that he had made about a million dollars doing this for many years (GENIUS!). The city now collects the coins for the needy.

Signature shot: Robert LOVES his camera and is constantly taking pictures of anything and everything of interest (5,000+ photos in 2006). During each day of photo taking there is a ‘signature shot’ as he likes to call it…a partial, upward view of a building, mountain, etc. that reveals a blue sky in the background. Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, but that never hinders his efforts – look for them in up-coming blogs!

Aruba – the Dutch-colony tour guide spoke perfect English during our submarine tour of the Caribbean and was thanking us for our participation. She wanted to let us know that there was a traditional saying in Aruba that was part Dutch and part English. Danke (donk-a…the same as “thank you” in German) and the traditional American good bye. Oddly it came out as a very enthusiastic: Donkey, Bye, Bye! Something we now say to each other every day.