European Christmas

2006-01-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

2006-01-06T05:07:00.001-08:00

2006-01-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

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strasbourg

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silence!

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oy...

2006-01-06T05:01:00.001-08:00

new year dinner

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our hotel

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fountain

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river

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frozen baden

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apparently, all this decoration is eatable...

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very pretty!

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Dinner menu at Zum Alde Gott - 1

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what do these people do?...

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still colonial goods...

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Zurich

2005-12-26T16:06:00.000-08:00

i miss you...

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Serezha i Masha

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"Mine!"

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Winter garden in Montreau

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Lausanne waterfront

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Smth that Russians would never understand...

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from Lausanne tea room

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I guess telemarketing is still respectable in Europe...

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another great name....

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This Avel looks really feminine...

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You have to zoom this one - science poster in Lausanne cathedral

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but the basic premise didn't change much over 700 years...

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inside

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Chateau de Chillon

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...and, not to be beaten by the kids....

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working away...

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this is my kind of museum object - it gives you unlimited quantities of chocolate for free!!!

2005-12-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

that was pretty neat

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better than coke machine...

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in Alimentarium

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happy piglet

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same - in Vevey

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sunset over Lake Geneva

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the train...

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Alps

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Rhein - from Glacier Express

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Over San Bernardino pass...any ideas what this is?

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Bellinzona castles

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buses in Locarno

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Lugano - best picture

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Lugano

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Murten - sunset

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Didn't know that advertising this can be creative...

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Mom got all kinds of conspiracy theories about this star of david...

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me-e-e-ew

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Murten

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they do terrible things with trees...

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in the middle of 3,000pp medieval town of Murten...

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it was pretty cold, actually...

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Rigi - Alps

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On the top of Rigi

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I wasn't sure what this was all about, but looks good.

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pretty Bern

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....what does this green thingy on the right doing with a women?! eh?

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This is a portal of Bern cathedral - people on the left are on the way to Paradise, and the right half is going straight to Hell...but wait....

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MeoW!

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...can you imagine how many people bugged them for this?...

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Central Bank in Bern

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morning in luzern

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second day...

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very touristy thing, but quite impressive really...in memory of swiss guards trying to defend French monarchy in 1798...

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Store window...

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one of the skeletons on the bridge in Lucerne

2005-12-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

flight from JFK to Zurich was certainly much more pleasant than AA leg from SFO…saw “Must Love Dogs” movie (with John Cusack, similar to High Fidelity but with better dialogs)…oh, and they had some trivial video games available – I must have spent at least a couple of hours playing Pong ;-)
Zurich has probably the fastest civilized border/custom control – no lines, no questions, bags were out on a belt right after….I left the airport just half-hour after landing!
Tunnels from the airport to downtown look creepingly like Boston ones – just a bit longer (2-3km), with more Mercedeses and no tolls…
Found parents in the hotel, went to the station and took a train to Luzern….not much to tell – just interesting contrast between white hills and green valleys…
Got to the hotel and went to explore the town…pretty nice…They have weird bridge with paintings on various themes, but same characters – skeletons…
All squares are much smaller than in other Old towns, but maybe it just seems that way because of Christmas markets. Oh – my parents claim that they saw Russians at these markets selling ikra, pirozhki and .1 cl of vodka (na rozliv) instead of usual gluntwein/sweets stuff…
Speaking of parents – I’m starting to feel like a character from Zeinfeld, just without any laughing track: I went to wash my hands before the meal in the restaurant and, as I came back, found my parents asking why do I have to pee so often (remembering that I used bathroom on the way from the hotel)…I’m telling you – some stuff you just can’t make up…
First meal in Switzerland: tomato soup and mushroom risotto (it was good!)

Went to Bern in the morning – very pretty. You definitely can see how neutrality helps with preserving architectural landmarks…
My parents are having constant surreal discussions on “wouldn’t it be nice to live in …” on the trains. Somehow they just managed to convince themselves that me teaching in Bern university is not necessary – the city is too boring…(never mind that they don’t speak any of the 5 languages used in Switzerland)
Oh – WC at the train station is called McClean and practices interesting price segmentation based on Man’s needs – 1chf for access to pissour only, and 2chf for full access…
Also – how many specialized espresso machines shops have you seen? I spotted three in Bern alone – weird….
Visited nice medieval town of Murten – it is pretty and very empty! It’s one of those small Europeans towns where you can’t turn around without stepping on someone in the summer, but only 5-10 tourists were freezing their butts off with us today – all stores/shops were closed, of course.
After coming back to Luzern, we went for dinner to fondue place (my father really wanted to find out what the fuss was all about – he just couldn’t believe that people could get so excited about eating bread and melted cheese). He was disappointed (go figure), but the menu had some interesting items – such as Chinese fondue. The waiter didn’t speak any English, and I thought the risk was too great….I’m still curious though – what could one possibly melt there?!

Went for a half-day trip to Rigi Kulm (1,800m) – taking boat first to Vitznau and then slowly going up on funicular (>30 minutes – probably the longest I’ve ever taken)
Even though we were the only people on this funicular (besides some personnel),it still was precisely on schedule! No asking us “how long you want to spend at the top – I want to have early lunch after taking you down”, or anything like that…feels creepy…

Took a train down to Lugano through Gottard pass (10 mile tunnel), impressive views…
What I really like about Europe and what’s missing in US is the so-called “tea rooms” at each corner of any Old town – dozens of fresh pastries and cakes on display – just point-and-eat. I also had hot chocolate al densa – it’s drinkable at first, but after a couple of minutes one have to use spoon to finish it off…
Parents insist on having TV on all the time. Their official excuse is that anything can happen in Russia any minute, and they need to know (god knows why), but I suspect they just used to it as a constant background (even though they don’t understand a word)…Anyway – tonight it paid off. There was some interactive game show on Italian Rai-Uno station, and I noticed two decent couples in full dress doing some Tango using Gotan project music - at which point I started watching. After they finished, smbd called in and was forced to choose between two couples. Next, the girl in the chosen couple put her leg forward and started slowly lifting up the skirt of her dress. Turns out she was wearing some kind of black fishnet stockings…and once she got to the top of her right stocking (pretty high), she revealed a piece of paper hidden under Velcro black strip – it said “10,000euro”….after short excitement, the second girl did the same, but it was only “1,000euro”, so I guess the caller was happy with his choice…

Discovery of the day – my mom found that “green” sign on the camera display means “pause” and “red” means “record” – she thought it was other way around and was very excited about how much stuff she could record on one mini-DVD…
Apparently, Swiss allow you to use drugs (but not to sell them). Their solution to reduce drug consumption in public is using electric-blue lights in most of public toilets at the train stations – the claim is that it’s hard to see one’s veins…I’m not sure I noticed any difference though…?!
Weird – even though it’s freezing outside, all Italian part of Switzerland still observe siesta – everything is closed from noon to 1:30pm.
Went to Locarno and Bellinzona today. The latter has three amazing XIII-century castles – all in almost pristine condition! Very cool….
Turns out that Locarno has the most expensive cabs I’ve ever seen - 15chf as a minimum fare! (around $12)

Took a bus over San Bernardino pass and then “Glacier Express” train – along with whole bunch of Japanese teenagers. The views were great though – check out the pictures…
Got to Vevey and checked in the hotel. There is a funny French guy at the reception, speaking English with exclamation points after every other word…
Or, maybe it is a local custom? Near the table with some newspapers in the lobby a sign says: ”Dear client. Please put the newspaper back! Thank you.”
I measured how close the hotel I found from the train station – 24 steps entrance-to-entrance – must be personal record
Had beef tartar for dinner – it was so spicy, I couldn’t even say for sure that it was actually some cow I was eating, and not smth else…

Spent a day in Lausanne – seems like a nice city, but too much construction is going on everywhere.
Parents went to shop for perfume…apparently, my mom is allergic to Chanel N5…
Mom wanted to take a boat trip on Lake Geneva, so we took one. Turns out that it went straight across to Evian (France), and my parents’ Shengen visa hasn’t started yet, so we had to come back on the same boat without disembarking.

Went to Chateau de Chillon. Again, perfectly preserved castle, with the original room layout still intact (down to ancient toilets). One can easily imagine how shitty life was back then…and this is for some of the most powerful folks in Europe at the time, Savoy family!...hard to imagine how tough common people had to be to survive…
Montreax – last day of Christmas music, hurray!....
Making chocolate truffles in Alimentarium (see pictures). Apparently, I found out that my granddad was into making chocolate truffles/candies (using cacao powder as a base) at the end of 1940s...
I'm trying to follow the "don't eat stuff that you can make yourself in the restaurant" rule - haven't had any salmon yet, but lots of beef tartar and carpaccios....what do you think of that, eh?...

Went to see Geneva and my classmate Masha (her husband Serezha is Totok’s classmate, finishing his first post-doc in CERN and moving to Harvard in a couple of weeks). On one hand, she seems to be happy with her two kids, on the other hand she seems to be pretty lonely there…anyway – we’ll probably have to go see them next time I’ll be in Boston.
Geneva seems quite dull – but maybe chilly weather and the fact that everything was closed was part of it.

Spent almost all day getting from Vevey to Zurich (via “Golden Pass” panoramic train) - it gets a bit boring after a while, and I bet it's no comparison to any rail trip through Canadian Rockies...
In the menu I saw Tiramisu spelled "Tirami Su" - ?...

first

2005-12-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, here is the first one - will write more later...