A weekend in Münich

In the 2 ½ day we were visiting Münich we saw a lot of the central tourist attractions. On Sunday we took a guided tour, which we can recommend doing. Getting the background to what you are seeing makes the experience a whole lot better. A good example is the animated Glockenspiel at the Münich City Hall. The animation consists of two different sets of figures moving around, starting after 5 minutes of bell ringing. Not really impressive (our guide rates it as one of the more disappointing European tourist attractions), but getting the history behind the scenes and an understanding of why the glockenspiel is decorating the City Hall makes it more memorable. 


A few observations about the city:

1. Münich is the most expensive city in Germany (according to our guide anyway). Though coming from Zürich, the worlds' most expensive city, most things seems almost inexpensive (and we took advantage). Pretzels cost the same as in Zürich, but you get nearly 3 times as much! 

2. A lot more people live there then in Stockholm! We were amazed by the amount of people on the streets, and this wasn't even peak tourist period.

During the stay we enjoyed sampling the local cuisine at the beer houses. There you can get all kind of meat, like the liver-ball-soup Andreas had for example. And if you want you can also go for the traditional monk "fast" food. The monks did not eat anything during the 40 days of Lent, but subsisted instead by drinking around 3 liters of beer per day.  

On Sunday we had reservations at the vegetarian restaurant Prinz-Myschkin which Andreas had read was one of the best in town. We did not roll out of there disappointed. The truffle-potato-zucchini-gratin was Andreas' absolute favorite, but the mango tiramisu was not bad either. 

In front of the opera House at Max-Joseph Platz. 

 On Saturday we were out for a wander and came across the surfers in the Englischer Garten. The artificial waves are not for beginners and it was fun to watch. 

Monday was a "work" day for Jennifer, mostly comprised of visits to the Swiss consulate. But that's another story.

Biking premiere

This week has it been sunny and warm weather. 

The snow is melting and the roads is getting clear. 

Today I did my first longer bikeride here (I did a shorter one earlier this week).

Above you see the view that I met after less then 10 minutes of biking. 

I went down small roads and eventually came to Zürich Lake at Säfa

(see picture below). 

Here I turned around and had a 20 km ride back along the lake to Zürich. 

A beautiful sunny & panoramic 2 hour bike ride in total.  

Skate Skiing - Rothenthurm

Yesterday we took a day skiing at Finnenloipe Rothenthurm. From Zürich it is a one hour train ride to Rothenthurm where you can rent skis right next to the train station. They have about 20km of skate and classic trails. 

It was a beautiful sunny day and we could enjoy having a picknick lunch out in the sun after the first loop. I dozed in the sun while Andreas went out for another lap. Then we did a last loop together with a fika pause in the middle. 

In total we did about 2½ hours of skiing before handing in our skis and taking the train back home. The ride home was a chance to rest our sore bodies and enjoy the beautiful scenery through the window.

Being the first time out skate skiing in over a year made us sleep like babies (all 3 of us). A good 11 hours sleep felt good.

Work

Some of you are probably wondering why we are here. We are here as part of the post-doc that I started this year. It is called a "mobility starting grant" and encourages young researchers to expand their network by working with different institutes. So I am here at Eawag to work with some of the best sanitation and water researchers in the world. Eawag is the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.

While I am here I will continue to focus on sanitation planning and decision-making, but also be part of a project related to reinventing the toilet for the urban poor. I also have to start getting a grip on what actually I will develop during my post-doc - besides traveling and visiting other researchers. I will get back to you when I can formulate that idea into a few sentences.

My desk at work and the view from the office. We live on the other side of the hill you see out the window. Today I walked to work - up and over the mountain! It was great and only 20 min longer than public transport. I will be walking more!

Zürich Kunsthaus

According to The Economist's wordwide cost-of-living survey is Zürich the world's most expensive city to live in. Maybe not the best place to live with a slacker like me and only one salary.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/daily-chart-7

Anyhow yesterday we went to the Zürich Kunsthaus, which has free entrance to their collection on Wednesdays. They have a wide variety of art from the Old Masters to Modern Art. We spent a couple of hours there without seeing it all. We must admit that we are not great art connoisseurs. Most of the modern art we found a bit strange - like the stuffed horse skin on the floor with no face titled "Speechless Horse". We thought "Dead Horse". The old art was a bit better and some of the impressionist were cool. At least we know the next time we need to get some culture there is more to see (for free (on Wednesdays))!

Penguin Parade @ Zürich Zoo

Today we spent the day at Zürich Zoo together with Saga (Jennifer's Masters student). One of the big events there is the Penguin Parade where they release the penguins at the zoo for a daily walk. They do a 15 min walk to the elephant enclosure, then turn around and walk back - pretty much on their own initiative. The whole time there is crowd of humans following them. Quite funny.

Another big attraction is the Masoala Rainforest hall. It's nice to come in there from the cold to the warm and humid rainforest. Afterwards we took a fika in the restuarant where you have a nice view over the pond in the forest. 

Our favorite animals where the giant anteater and the eating tiger!






Anteater pics:
http://www.purpleopurple.com/life-science/mammals/giant-anteater.jpg
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/5off%20beat.jpg
http://www.odditieszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cub-giant-anteater-4.jpg

Week 18

For all who are intrested in following the bodily adventures here is baby and me at week 18. Don't worry, I will spare you most of the physical details of pregnancy, especially now that I am not feeling sick every day. But there have been requests to follow how the baby is growing, so I will occasionally share some pics.

We had the ultrasound in Sweden just before we left. The baby is normal and looks fine. We even got to see it wave at us! In Sweden they recommend only one, so unless there is complications we probably won't do another. And no, we did not find out the gender.

Living

Moving from an apartment at 52m2 into a room at only 182 is quite a change. We are still a bit sceptical as to how good it will feel to be sharing bathroom and kitchen. There is only 1 kitchen to share among 120 students! So far it feels okay though.

It is calm in the house. One reason might be that even though the semester at the Zürich university started on February 1, the lectures starts on the 20th of February. We will see how things turn out to be.

Cold

In parts of Europe the last weeks have been extraordinary cold. On Tuesday night in Glattalp they had the coldest temperature ever recorded in Switzerland, -45.4C. At the lake Genfersee have some parked cars turned into icesculptures.

http://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/kann-man-damit-je-wieder-fahren-id1755387.html

Luckily it has not been that bad in Zürich, but even the -18C that it has been has felt really cold. Maybe it felt worse because of the cold/flu that we have both had since arriving from Stockholm.

Big Changes in 2012

This year will be full of adventures for Andreas and I. This blogg will chronicle the start of it with our stay in Switzerland. At the end of 2011, I received a Formas mobility grant for young researchers (essentially a post-doc). As part of this grant I will have the opportunity to travel to different institutes - including a half year with Eawag in Switzerland!

So here we are, off for Swiss adventures. It will be the first time living abroad for Andreas and my second time in Switzerland, although this time where they speak German. But a foreign country is not all the adventures that we will be having. We are expecting a baby in mid-July!

So since we will be far from family and friends during the pregnancy we have decided to start this blogg so that all who are interested can follow the changes. Enjoy.