No longer In Zürich

On the 16th of June we headed back to Sweden on the train. We had tickets on a night train from Freiburg, Germany to Copenhagen, but had forgotten that tickets to Freiburg were international tickets and couldn't be bought at the machines. So we had to leave a bit earlier to be able to have time in Basel to buy the German tickets.Otherwise, all went according to plan and we enjoyed the luxury of a 2-person sleeping car on the night train. Andreas had the tough job of hauling the heavy bike bag when we switched trains in Zurich, Basel, Freiburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm, but he didn't complain much. Overall the 24+ hour train journey went much better than expected. Jen didn't even get a backache!

sleeper car

Andreas on the train bunk bed

The last few weeks back in Stockholm have been filled with final work projects for Jen and putting the apartment back in order for Andreas. We have managed to get a few things for the baby (crib, stroller, clothes, etc.). So we feel that we are more or less ready for the arrival of the little one. It was a wonderful experience to be able to have these months together in Switzerland. We enjoyed the travels and exploring a new place. Now on to the next adventure!

37 weeks

This is the last entry we will write for this blog. Further adventures will be recorded under different titles (if at all).

Heading home

Today is my last day at work at Eawag. Tomorrow afternoon we are catching the train back to Stockholm. It will be a long ride back, but we have a sleeper car overnight to Copenhagen so I am hoping that will make the journey a little easier. We arrive in Stockholm on Sunday evening.

I will miss colleagues here. It has been a good experience working with the researchers here. But I am sure that we will be able to continue collaboration in the future. And I am also ready to be in my own home and start "nesting" a bit before the baby arrives. 

Last days in Zurich

There are just a few days left now before we head back to Stockholm. The months have gone quickly!

Town hall, Basel

There is plenty to get done at work these days and I am daily reducing my ambitions on what can be done before the baby arrives. Quickly losing motivation as well! Friday is my last day at Eawag. It has been an enjoyable exchange here. Nice to be in a positive research environment. I have had many inspiring discussions and have laid a good groundwork for the rest of my research project.

These last weekends we have done a bit of last minute sight-seeing. On June 2, I was in Basel to meet with my old flatmate from Lausanne, Yvonne, and her husband. It had been 7 years since we last met - when she came to visit me in Mali. It was good to reminisce about Lausanne and Mali days. A very nice afternoon together.

Last weekend Leif (Andreas' father) and Tina came to visit. The weather turned out better than predicted and we had a lovely weekend to explore Luzern and Zurich with them. 

Exploring the Zurich botanical gardens

Famous bridges in Luzern

View over Luzern

Under the Luzern town wall

 

Where to be a Mother?

Just ran across an interesting report from Save the Children. Their thirteenth State of the World's Mothers report shows Niger as the worst place to be a mother in the world. Norway comes in at first place and Sweden #3. This year, the United States ranks 25th. Once again I am glad to be heading back to Sweden to have my child. Just 10 days until our epix train trip!

Liechtenstein

Winding roads upwards

The 28th of May was a holiday here and we have little time left for running around in the mountains before heading back to Sweden, so we took the opportunity for a day-trip and headed to Liechtenstein. We decided to make a day trip to Lichtenstein and a hike there.  A visit to this small country has been on my wish-list for awhile. In 2001, I had crossed the country on the train to Austria, but never had the chance to stop (trains don't stop there). We had to take a bus from the closest Swiss town across the Rhine to the capital of Vaduz (just over 5 000 inhabitants). The buses are new and have children's voice announcing the bus stops - very cute!

From Alpspitze you can see the greater part of the whole country of Lichtenstein

We hiked to the top of Alpspitze just outside of Gaflei, a small town high above Vaduz. The path was steeper than I had imagined but the views were great. We ended up high above the Rhine valley and could see the whole country stretching out around us - literally! Liechtenstein has a population about 36 000 people covering an area of just 160 square km (62 sq. miles). We passed a sign pointing to the geographic center of Liechtenstein so we are pretty sure that we were seeing it all.

Summit Cross of Alpspitze, 1990m 

Hiking is not as easy at 34 weeks pregnant but I surprised myself a bit made it up and down the 550m vertical without too much trouble. I was not running and jumping down the mountain meadows like Andreas of course, but still quite happy.

Waiting for the bus at a resturant with a view

The whole hike took a bit longer than anticipated and we missed the bus that runs every 2 hours. But waiting was a good excuse to sit in the resturant and enjoy the view. Maybe our last mountain hike this year and it was a good one.

The week that was...

This past week we had some focus on the baby we are expecting. On Wednesday we went to the midwife for the last time in Switzerland, next visit will be in Sweden. Everything was fine! Jennifer is now about 5kg heavier than Andreas.

On the weekend we participated in a birthing course. It was good to go through what to expect of the delivery process and the time right after with the details of birthing stages, pain relief, breast feeding etc. It was also good to meet some other expecting couples, too bad just that we will not be able to meet them again later and compare how it went.

After spending quite some time during the days of sitting and listening Andreas made sure that Jennifer still got her exercise. On Saturday after the course we had a picnic at Zurichberg looking out over the city and the lake before we walked ca 2.5 miles back home. On Sunday evening we biked/ran 10km out to Greifensee where we did our first swim in the lake for the year. After swimming and ice cream we did the 10km back home. Jennifer got very tired, but not too tired to still plan for a hike on Monday (Swiss holiday). 

Ticino Part 3

The last day in Ticino we visited two of the Fortresses of Bellinzona, the town where we had been staying at hotel Croco Federale during the weekend.  There are 3 fortresses in the town and they used to be connected by walls going all the way over the valley closing it off, together with a fortified bridge. Much of the walls and the bridge where destroyed during an earthquake in the 1800s. Before we headed for the train back to Zurich we had a last ice-cream at an outdoor cafe, even though it had started to rain by then.

The train back was really crowded and here we realized that Swiss people are not caring too much for others when it comes to getting a seat at the train. Andreas did not take part of the pushing and elbowing so he had to spend the first part of the trip sitting on the floor together before the conductor could point him to a part of the train with some free seats. Jennifer got a seat, but only because see was willing to sit with a big dog under her feet (not because anyone offer the pregnant woman a seat).

The impression from the Ticino trip is that it is a beautiful landscape with the mountains and the lakes.  It is very green and lush. It is also fun to see the mix of alpine plants and more subtropical ones! The mountains are very easy to access with cable cars and cog trains. There are many well marked hiking trails (as everywhere in Switzerland). 

Ticino Part 2

at 1100m admiring the view before running back down.

On Saturday, Andreas was up early to do a morning run up in the mountains (inspired by the surroundings and a mountain-race flyer he found at the tourist information). He followed the hiking trail along small paths up in the woods. After 10km and almost 1000m climbing it was time to turn back to the waiting breakfast at the hotel.

Overlooking the Versasca Dam from Mergoscia.

After a breakfast with croissants and cappuccino we took the train to Locarno. There we changed to a bus taking us on small winding roads up the Valle Versasca to the village of Mergoscia. In the villages in the area there are many small stone houses with stone roofs.

Start of the trail in the alleys of Mergoscia.

Corippo. The only village we passed before Lavertezzo. 

The trail took us through a beautiful green landscape. We passed quite many abandoned stonehouses that looked like they had been for animals. Some of the houses we passed had been fixed up and are now being used as rustic summer houses. We meet some other people hiking here but it was far from the crowds in the bigger towns.

After passing the small village Corippo the trail followed the river up to Lavertezzo and ended at the famous bridge Ponte dei Salti built by the Romans. The tour took about 3 hours and it was really fun to see the old stone houses and the villages. A hike we could highly recommend. 

Jennifer at Ponte dei Salti.

Our last day in Ticino we went looking at the castles in Bellinzona before hoping a crowded train back to Zurich. A great mini-vacation in a beautiful part of Switzerland!

Ticino Part 1

We are in the Italien part of Switzerland enjoying a long weekend. Thursday was a public holiday and I took Friday off, so we have 4 days here. We were up early on Thursday to catch the 7am train south. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were glad to have gotten out early. After 2:30 hours on the train we arrived in Bellinzona. We stayed just long enough to drop our bags at the hotel before heading to Monte Generoso.
A small cog train climbs the mountain from 300m to 1600m elevation. The view from the top was spectacular! Perfectly clear skies and the whole Alp chain stretching out to the north of us. To the sounth the plains of Toscana stretching into the haze over Milano. We took a short hike from the top and had time for icecream before heading down again. We made a quick stop at Swissminatur (Swiss sights on a small scale) before heading back to Bellinzona, dinner and bed.

We didn't recognize many buildings,
but Andreas knew Zurich!

Milano Cathedral
Andreas remembers walking its roof last year 

Yesterday we headed to Locarno and Lake Maggiore. The plan was a boat trip to a botanical garden on an island (Isole de Brissago). We just missed one boat so in the wait for the next we took advantage on our 3-day travel pass and took the cable car to the top of the mountain just outside town. It was more hazy but the view of the surrounding mountains and lakes was still great. The trip out to the island was also nice and we enjoyed the variety of interesting plants. A late lunch in Ascona in an outdoor cafe near the lake shore made it really feel like a summer holiday!

Monkey Puzzle tree from Argentina

Lake Maggiore

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day - at least if you live in Switzerland and the United States. I said Happy Mother's Day to my mom today and she said "the same to you!". Um, this will take some getting used to, I am not used to celebrating myself on mother's day...

This weekend we had Andreas' mother, Doris, visiting us. She came on Thursday evening when the weather was sunny and warm. We took a boat ride on the lake and saw the sunset and mountains from the water - beautiful! Then, Friday (while I was working) Andreas and Doris headed to the top of Uetliberg to enjoy the views, sun and ice-cream. Sounds like they had a wonderful day. At least I got to join them for fondu in the garden during the evening.
 

Outside the museum - just before we took out the umbrellas!

Yesterday it rained all day so we headed to the National Museum. Perfect day to spend in the exhibits and eating chocolate at a nice cafe. At least we can still enjoy discussing wedding plans and baby names when the weather is bad. And Doris got to see how variable the weather is here. The sun is out today again - just in time for her to head to the airport!

In other news - we have moved again. This time for the last time. We are now in another rowhouse in the same neighborhood as we were living temporarily before. We are renting a room in a 3-bedroom house. One of the guys is my colleague from Eawag. The house is pretty empty right now since it is only us there, but our housemate Nans is moving in tomorrow and bringing the couch, so that should make it a bit cozier.

SOLA-Stafette

On Saturday I ran the SOLA-Stafette with 1st team Vinzenz from the student house where we used to live. The day started out with rain, but in the afternoon it stopped before it was my turn to run. I had the 11th stage and it was hard to know when our runner was going to come. I was standing a bit away from the exchange area chatting with Jennifer when I suddenly heard our teams number shouted out. I tried to start out in a moderate tempo as I knew it was going to be a long uphill the first 5km (of 13). After  2 km going uphill I was going slower then I had expected to, but I was still not sure it was slow enough with half the uphill left to do. I kept on running almost all the way to the top though, only walking the last 100m. But coming to the top I was reliefed to know I had made it through the hardest part of the race.

Soon it started to go down and that is not so easy either as it means high speed and high impact on your leg muscles. I think the picture from the last part of the race shows a bit of how it felt to be running (if you can see my face expression). At the exchange, I realized the race went faster then I had expected even though it started out slow. My time 47:22 over 13km was the fastest on the stage and as a memorial trophy I got a real handmade SOLA-horse from Nusnäs (Sweden). The connection of Sweden is that the SOLA-stafette is inspired by Solastafetten, previous a student-relay in Sweden from Gothenburg to Karlstad.

Ein kleine SOLA-Rössli

Catching up

We have been worse with blogging the last few weeks. Maybe due to lack of energy on my part in the evening. But here are a number of photos for you to catch up.

The 16th of April was a holiday in Zurich (Sechseläuten) to mark the end of winter. There was a parade that ended with the burning of the snowman. The faster he burns the better the summer will be. Despite the rain, the burning went relatively quick so summer should be rather average.

 The following Saturday we went to Lausanne for the day. I studied at the university (left) in 2000-2001. It was fun to return and see how much looked vaguely familar. Must admit that it has been a long time though!

Last weekend Gisela and her son Julian came for a visit. We had met in Lausanne when we were both studying there and have kept in touch. Hosting a two-year old definately changes the dynamics! We took a walk along the ridge outside Zurich and then visited the zoo on Sunday. Gisela is also pregnant and due 3 months after us. Good to get tips from someone who has been there!

week 30

Otherwise, we are taking it rather easy. Andreas is trying to learn the gitar that we found at the house where we are staying. My belly is getting bigger and I have a near constant ache under my right rib (ligaments stretching the midwife says). We are at 30 weeks now and I am wondering how there will be space for another 2 months of growth!

Homemade sushi

Ready to dig in on the homemade sushi. 

Andreas got inspired by the equipment in the kitchen so coming home from work Jennifer had to spend her Monday evening helping him making sushi. Not so easy and not all rolls turned out nicelooking, but it tasted good! 

Easter in Austria

Salzburg

We are a little slow getting around to posting this entry. Probably testimony to how busy work has been since we got back and how little energy I have left in the evening. My bedtime is about 9pm these days and I am ready to get horizontal already about 8pm. But better late than never...

Over the Easter holidays we went to Austria. I took off a few extra days from work so we had a week. The first 3 days we spent in Salzburg. Andreas had booked us into a nice bed & breakfast not far from the center so we were well placed to explore. We got a Salzburg card so had free entry to all of the museums and other activities, like a boat ride on the river. The weather was not great so we did not get up to the nearby mountain top, but saw plenty of museums, churchs, and old houses. Our favorite was the trick fountains at Hellbrunn Palace. The last night we attended a Mozart dinner concert (concert are better when there are food breaks says Andreas).

Hellbrunn

Hellbrunn 

On a snowy Easter Sunday we headed to Widenhofen an der Ybbs to visit our friends Thomas and Monika.

Thomas grew up in Waidhofen and was visiting his family for the holidays. They had invited us to join them for a few days. We enjoyed a relaxing Easter avoiding the snow and cold over good food and conversation. Although the day after was nicer and we visited Dürnstein and the ruins of the medival castle where Richard Lionheart was once held captive.

Our final two days we spent in Vienna. We say the fancy buildings along the Ring road, enjoyed the gardens at Schönbrunn, and biked along the Danube. All in all a nice get-away.