Rifugio Monzino - Part I

For the weekend I went on a hiking excursion in Italy with Emilie, Cécile, Yvain and Emilie’s father. The trip began Saturday morning with a three hour drive that took us primarily through Switzerland (via Martigny) before briefly passing through France (via Chamonix-Mont-Blanc) and then across the border with Italy (via the Mont Blanc tunnel) to Courmayeur. The Mont Blanc tunnel was particularly impressive – it’s over seven miles long and literally takes you right through the Alps.

After arriving in Italy we stopped for a quick lunch that consisted of a huge plate of charcuterie and cheeses. I never ate much of either before living in Europe, but now I’m addicted to them. Whether for an appetizer or a full meal, the combination of the two always tastes great to me. Unfortunately, I was too busy eating to even consider taking a photo.

From a hiking perspective, our plan was to spend the balance of Saturday heading up to Rifugio Monzino, a refuge at 2,590 meters where we would spend the night. On Sunday, we would then spend the morning hiking further up in the mountains before returning to the refuge for lunch and ultimately hiking back down to the car on Sunday afternoon.

Here are some pictures that I took as we began our journey…










To say that I was unprepared (at least mentally) for the “hiking” that followed would be a complete understatement. While everything was initially quite standard, about an hour into the hike Emilie’s father unpacked climbing equipment that consisted of waist harnesses, carabiners and climbing rope. The following is what we were up against.

Over the course of the next couple of hours, our “hike” required multiple climbs that made full use of our equipment (though primarily for safety purposes). While all of us could have made the various climbs without the equipment – as evidenced by the fact that no one fell – I was glad that we had taken the precaution. At times, the climbs were effectively vertical (albeit with ample foot and hand holds during the more difficult sections) and there were many instances where the slope was so severe that there was nothing to break your fall for at least 50 – 100 feet.



















As if the climb wasn’t challenging enough, Emilie’s father was intent on Yvain and me not taking any short cuts. If he caught us using a man-made foot / hand hold, he would shout “Only use the rocks. ONLY USE THE ROCKS!” (in French, of course). While adding a little bit to the challenge is fine by me under normal circumstances, once the consequence of a misplaced step or a failed grip entails a potentially lethal fall, I prefer to stick with the standard route…

But with risk comes reward – and in this case the reward came in the form of incredible views.




























Here’s a picture in celebration of finally seeing the refuge (it’s in the background at the top of the hill in the top-center of the picture).

By the time that we arrived at Refugio Monzino, I was definitely ready to get off my feet. I’m pretty sure that I used muscles that had been dormant for years and I expected to pay for it in the morning. I tried to suppress the pain in this picture, though.

Here are some pictures of a local inhabitant at the shelter. He loved to walk atop the stone wall as if he were a gymnast and clearly was not afraid of heights (a fall over the edge entailed an 80 foot drop). He loved to look straight down at the slope below and at times seemed fixated on something in particular, though we weren’t able to see anything special.











After we had settled into our room – which was actually quite nice and a clear step above camping given that we had beds and sheets – we went to the common area for dinner. There were roughly 20 others staying at the refuge (it also serves as a base camp for serious climbers) and everyone ate together. The food was classic Italian and hit the spot after an intense afternoon of hiking.

By the time that dinner ended it was getting late, so we went back to our room to get as much sleep as possible before our full day of hiking on Sunday. Further proving that the refuge was a step above camping, there was a communal bathroom and two showers that required a token (each guest got one) and were on a short timer. Apparently my internal clock is poorly calibrated, as I grossly misjudged the shower time window. And once the water stopped there was nothing you could do.

Montreux Jazz

Last night I went with Emilie, Cécile and Yvain to see a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival. While I had been to the festival last year with Erin during her visit (there’s a related post from July '09), this was the first time that I had gone to see a specific band.

The group was Phoenix – a French, alternative rock band that Emilie is a fan of. I wasn’t very familiar with them or their music, but thought they put on a very good live performance. And it turns out that Erin is a very big fan of them as well, which I learned after telling her about the show.

My favorite part of the Montreux Jazz Festival is the food. There are literally hundreds of booths to choose from, representing a broad selection of global cuisine. We decided to go with Mediterranean and it was very good.

I found the large menu at the back of the booth to be pretty funny. Unfortunately, the camera phone picture that I took did not come out clearly, so I’ve included the relevant text below the picture as well.

“Ass. Kebab Frites…”
“Ass. Poulet Kebab Frites…”
“Ass. Falafel Frites…”

I understood the meaning – “ass.” being an abbreviation for “assortiment”, which you may have already guessed basically means “selection” or “assortment”. Nonetheless, the 12 year old in me found the phrasing funny when it was my turn to order an “Ass. Kebab”.

Permis de conduire Suisse

This week I finally got my Swiss driver’s license. The process is fairly straightforward provided that you take care of everything within the first year – you simply need to fill out a form, get an eye exam, show your U.S. drivers license and pay a small fee. If you fail to do this within your first year in Switzerland, however, the process gets far more complicated. Effectively, you have to go through the full process that includes a drivers’ training course (20 hours of classes…in French) as well as a standard driving exam (also in French).

As many of you are well aware, my one year window closed at the end of May. Thus, I was faced with the prospect of going through driver’s training (likely with a group of 17 year olds – 18 is the legal age for driving in Switzerland) and taking the exam – at a total cost of roughly $2,000, mind you. Given that I never really have to drive, it would be hard justifying the cost. But then again, my U.S. drivers’ license was no longer legal in Switzerland so I couldn’t (legally) drive at all here in the future if I needed to.

Fortunately, I learned from one of my colleagues that the one year limit wasn’t always strictly enforced. (As a quick aside, it should be noted that this would be the first instance that I’d come across in Switzerland where a rule or regulation wasn’t followed to the letter.) As a result, I decided to not waste any more time and go for it. If I got my license, great – and if not, I’d hold off until I absolutely needed it.

After filling out the form – which took about 10 minutes – and making sure that I had my U.S. driver’s license, I headed out to get my eyes checked. Aside from reading the letter chart at the doctor’s office or the DMV (when I was 16), I can’t remember ever having my eyes actually tested. And I’m pretty sure that I’ve never had a formal eye exam by an eye doctor or optometrist.

The eye exam ended up being the most comprehensive examination that I could have imagined. Even excluding the fact that it was in French (which clearly complicated things – sometimes I forget hot to properly pronounce certain letters like “g” and “j”), it was a thorough ocular workout and probably lasted a good half hour. And in the end, it was for nothing. One of my eyes was just beyond the “acceptable” vision limit so the test could not count towards my driver license application.

Instead, I needed to re-take the exam with glasses. And, no, I could not borrow a pair from the optometrist I would instead need to buy a pair. Ideally, I could have found a cheap pair like those in the check-out line in many U.S. supermarkets. However, after a failed attempt at such a search I realized that my only option was to buy a real pair immediately since I didn’t want to further delay my driver’s license application.

To make a long story short, an hour later I had my new glasses and passed the exam. But to add insult to injury, the guy who gave me the second exam said that since I was on the threshold I didn’t necessarily need the glasses. Great…I wish he had been the first one to test my eyes. Nonetheless, the glasses definitely help me see more clearly when reading distant signs with small print.

As I arrived at the local Swiss DMV-equivalent with my full “application” in order, I also came fully prepared with a laundry list of excuses for why I hadn’t submitted the forms within the requisite one year period. And I was further ready to beg shamelessly if push came to shove. But it didn’t even remotely come to that. After my number was called, the woman behind the counter processed all my paperwork and I was legal again. And by the time I made it downstairs to the lobby, my new Swiss driver’s license was waiting for me.

Coupe du Monde

I’m not sure how big the World Cup was in the U.S., but it was definitely HUGE here in Switzerland. For the past month, you could hardly go anywhere without seeing a match on TV or hearing people discussing a team, a match or the tournament in general.

To give you a feel for how popular the World Cup was here, multiple cities throughout the country set up giant outdoor big screen TVs in various plazas for the duration of the tournament. And they were absolutely packed from the very first match through the championship.

Lausanne was one of these cities – in fact, they basically transformed the main plaza by the lake into a giant outdoor viewing experience, complete with grandstands, food / beverage tents and a even a full studio for one of the main Swiss TV channels that carried all the matches live and provided pre-, mid- and post-game commentary.

Here’s a picture of the setup…










I watched a couple of the matches in the plaza and it was a pretty incredible experience. People went absolutely crazy when their teams were playing (dressing up, singing, etc.) and there were tons of fans supporting literally every team that played (I knew that Lausanne was an international city, but I was genuinely surprised how many global transplants there really were).

Fans came in all sizes...

Even some animals got into the spirit, like this chien français (UPDATE: err ... néerlandais ... I guess the flags are right-side-up ... ).

One downside of living so close to the plaza where they were showing the matches is that there was about a 1 second delay between my TV signal and that of the big screen. As a result, whenever anything exciting happened (namely a goal or good save) I would always hear the crowd’s reaction shortly before seeing the play on TV.

My interest in the World Cup definitely reached its peak while watching the final last night. I was happy to see Spain win as I felt that they deserved the victory and played consistency well throughout the tournament. Plus, I have some Spanish colleagues and was happy to see their team win.

I was also happy to see Paul the Octopus finish the World Cup with 100% accuracy on his predictions. For those who aren't familiar with Paul, here’s some background on him…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_octopus

It’s pretty incredible that he was able to pick the winner of all eight games that he was presented. Even if it was pure “luck”, it’s still amazing in my book.

***

While I thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup, I found that there were two things that got on my nerves. The first was players who flop – i.e., regardless of how hard they were touched (if at all) by an opposing player, they would collapse as if they’d been shot and then flail about on the ground in seemingly excruciating pain. Yet as soon as the ref called a penalty, they miraculously sprang to life as if absolutely nothing had happened.

The second was the infamous vuvuzelas – a horn made “popular” by South African soccer fans. I don’t think that I would have minded their monotonous buzz if I had only heard them on the TV, but they unfortunately made their way to Switzerland and fans took full advantage of them before, during and after the matches. There’s nothing like trying to go to bed when an ecstatic fan is blowing a vuvuzela outside your apartment window at midnight in celebration of his team’s victory.

Happy 3rd of July

It’s somewhat hard to maintain a connection with the major U.S. holidays while living abroad. In addition to very few people actually celebrating them (unless you actively seek out other Americans), they often fall during the work week. While at least the 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year, it was still difficult to get motivated to celebrate given that Monday was a regular work day (the post-4th Monday day-off carry-over doesn’t make its way across the Atlantic).

I did have a bit of a treat to celebrate the 4th, though (albeit on the 3rd for the reason noted above). Emilie decided to make some American classics for dinner – tortilla chips with fresh guacamole followed by burgers and fries and then some freshly baked apple pie with vanilla ice cream for desert.










It was all very good and I don’t think that I’ve eaten so well for the 4th in a long time. And I’m generally not a fan of guacamole (unlike seemingly everyone else on the planet), but I really enjoyed it.

***

I’m glad that we ended up having our 4th of July celebration yesterday as we were treated to some crazy weather today. For much of the morning it was sunny with blue skies, but in the afternoon huge thunder clouds came out of nowhere and literally dumped sheets of rain off and on for much of the afternoon.

Here's a picture of the literal calm before the storm.

And here are some pictures that somewhat provide a feel for how hard the rain was coming down.










Given that the storm came from nowhere, most of the people down by the lake got absolutely soaked. There was pretty much nothing you could do except run for cover. Fortunately, I was in my apartment when it all started.

Final Day in London

On Sunday our first stop was the British Museum. I was excited about the visit, as I wanted to see the Elgin Marbles – a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures and other artifacts that were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis. Following my visit to Athens earlier this year, the timing of the visit worked out very well.

In terms of the artifacts themselves, they weren’t significantly different from those that I had seen Athens (basically different pieces of the Parthenon as well as one of the six Caryatids). Instead, the truly interesting part of the visit was being able to compare the different perspectives of the Parthenon Museum and the British Museum with respect to the ongoing controversy over whom the artifacts rightly “belong” to (there was even a pamphlet outlining the opposing views).











Here’s a related link for anyone who is interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles

Aside from the Elgin Marbles, I found the Rosetta Stone to be the most interesting exhibit in the museum. I had forgotten (or perhaps never really knew) that it was in the British Museum’s collection and was pleasantly surprised to see it.

We then walked to the London Gallery in order to see a couple of paintings that Emilie was interested in (some works by Rafael in particular).

The most memorable part of the visit turned out to be during our departure, however, when we asked a girl to take a picture of us outside and she turned out to be perhaps the worst picture taker ever. As can be seen from the photo below, she seems to have very poor aim (we noticed this while she was lining up the photo, but didn’t know what to say…).

The best part was the fact that we didn’t just pick out some random person to take the picture. She had a very expensive camera and was taking artistic shots of Trafalgar Square. Who knows…perhaps she was trying to be artistic with this shot as well?

***

After walking around a bit more it was time to head back to the hotel for our stuff and then on to Heathrow for our flight home. As we were heading to the Tube, the English soccer fans were out in full force preparing for their afternoon World Cup match with Germany. They were definitely fired up, with many dressed in full hooligan attire – face paint and all.

***

After arriving at the airport we learned that our flight was delayed for nearly two hours. By this point all we wanted to do was get home and now we had to hang around Heathrow for three hours. But there was one bright spot – the Germans were beating the English 4-0, which I considered payback for the English fans rooting for Ghana (or, more likely, against the U.S.) in the pub the other night.

Two Tates and the Thames

Our first stop on Saturday was the Tate Museum to see the Joseph Turner exhibition. Perhaps it’s a sign of cultural deficiency on my part, but I was completely unfamiliar with Turner. It’s possible that I learned about him at some point during school (or at least read a paragraph about him briefly in a textbook), but I have no recollection of doing so. Nonetheless, I quickly appreciated why he is considered a master of landscape paintings.

Next we walked along the bank of the Thames and decided to take a boat ride up the river to the Tower Bridge. As we approached the dock where the boats depart, we were overcome by a sea of tourists who were taking the various river tours. We elected for the main commuter boat to avoid the tourist madness and maintain some level of sanity.

The weather was beautiful – sunny and in the 80s – and the ride up to the Tower Bridge was relatively quick. I have to be honest, though...I didn’t find the views from the Thames to be that impressive. Sure there were some nice views here and there (e.g., of the Parliament and the London Eye), but as a whole it was a bit underwhelming.










After getting off the boat we walked past the Tower of London but did not visit since the wait looked a bit arduous. Instead, we walked along the Thames and then across the Tower Bridge










Our ultimate destination was the Tate Modern museum, which Emilie wanted to check out. There was a nice exhibit of photos from the NYC subway system taken in the 70s.

We then walked back along the Thames and across the Millennium Bridge, before spending the rest of the day just walking around in the city and enjoying the warm afternoon sun.

***

Before dinner we went to a pub near Covent Garden to watch the U.S. - Ghana World Cup elimination match. It was standing room only, but we were ultimately able to get a small table right before the second half. Aside from a couple of Americans supporting the U.S., the crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of Ghana.

The match was very exciting – particularly when the U.S. tied the score and then controlled the rest of the second half. The dream came to an end, however, as Ghana scored quickly in extra time and then managed to prevent the U.S. from tying the score before the whistle blew.

As a result of the match going to extra time, we ended up being late for our dinner reservation at an Indian restaurant nearby. Fortunately, our late arrival wasn’t an issue as there were plenty of open tables. And thankfully, the empty tables weren’t a reflection on the food, which ended up being excellent. There wasn’t a menu – the waiter simply asked if we wanted the regular or vegetarian option and then brought us all of the related courses based on our selection.

London Calling

On Friday I arrived in London for a weekend trip with Emilie. Apparently I fit the profile of a drug trafficker, as I received the 3rd degree from a customs officer upon my arrival to Heathrow. Why was I in South America prior to London? What was I doing in London? Why do I live in Switzerland? The questioning went on for a good ten minutes, but I guess I finally convinced him that my visit was legitimate since he decided to let me pass through.

Since my flight arrived at 7am, I had a couple of hours of wait time at the airport before Emilie’s arrival. Fortunately, my ticket granted me access to the British Airways arrivals lounge so I was able to spend the morning in relative comfort. BA was showcasing some contemporary paintings in the restrooms, which I thought was kind of funny. I wonder if the artist knew that this was where his work would end up one day…

After meeting up with Emilie, we headed to the Tube for our journey into London. The trip was very efficient and we had seats the whole way. We’re staying at the Beaufort hotel, which is a boutique hotel on a quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac in South Kensington. We chose the location because it is walking distance from Hyde Park – the site of the Pearl Jam concert we’d be attending.

After a quick lunch, we headed out to explore London. Our hotel was also coincidentally walking distance from Harrod’s, so Emilie talked me into a “brief” stop in order to make some obligatory purchases. As I stood helplessly amidst the estrogen-filled frenzy, I made eye contact with another pour guy (likely someone’s husband or boyfriend) also trying to survive the experience. No words were needed – the shrug from across the store said it all. We felt eachothers’ pain.

With the shopping behind us, the real tourism began. Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. It wasn’t open for visitors but given the beautiful weather we preferred to spend the day outside anyway. We then walked through St. James Park, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. I was a fan of everything except for Piccadilly Circus, which basically felt like Times Square in NYC.




























Next we walked toward the Thames to see Big Ben, Westminster Palace (the British Parliament) and Westminster Abbey. All three were very impressive and I particularly liked the parliament building.




















It was at this point that I first learned about a unique aspect of London tourism – it costs money to enter churches but museums are free. During all of my travels, I have always experienced the opposite. While some museums simply “requested” donations, they all generally had an entrance fee. But churches, on the other hand, were always free. But I guess the Brits just like doing things a little differently – kind of like driving on the opposite side of the street.

Speaking of driving on the opposite side of the street, I found it amusing (though nonetheless helpful) that many of the crosswalks in the touristy areas had warnings for which way to look before crossing (see picture below). I guess it makes sense, though, in order to ensure that tourists don’t end up getting flattened by oncoming traffic.

By this point the evening was approaching, so we headed back to the hotel in order to drop off some stuff before the concert. On the way we passed the Victoria and Albert museum, which has visible bullet damage on the external walls dating back to German aerial attacks during WWII. I like how they chose not to repair it and instead left it as a visible reminder of the past.

Before the concert we met up with two of Emilie’s friends that she had met while working in Malaysia. They happened to be visiting London at the same time so it provided a nice opportunity for her to catch up with them.

The concert was actually more like a festival, with multiple acts playing throughout the day. Since we only wanted to see Pearl Jam – the final act of the night – we simply arrived about a half hour before they were scheduled to play. This allowed us to grab some food before and squirm our way as close as possible to the main stage before Pearl Jam went on.

The venue was huge – basically, a large section of Hyde Park had been closed off for the concert. While we tried to get as close as possible, we were still a couple hundred yards away. Nonetheless, we had a nice view and given the size of the crowd we were actually quite lucky to have made it as close as we did.

The show was easily one of the best that I have ever seen. Aside from the fact that Pearl Jam is one of my favorite bands, the combination of the warm weather, outdoor venue and 10pm summer sunset really made the overall experience unforgettable. And to top it off, they played for a solid 2.5 hours.