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.