Our humble abode

After much prodding, I've decided it's time for some apartment pictures. Not really sure why, since indoor pictures of tiny places don't generally work too well. So to those of you who asked for this, don't blame me if you're sorely disappointed.

Out in the hall is the elevator which is as big as it looks. It would be an astounding feat to fit four adults in this thing. As I click, I have to hold the door open. There's a sliding door inside too that has to close during operation; nothing automatic about this old crate.


Here is the floor plan, more or less to scale.


Stepping into the foyer, the bathroom is on the left. Mirror just inside the doorway makes a good coat rack.


Bathroom isn't easy to shoot, so too bad I guess!


Living room. Ugly but comfy blanket covering nice but cold couch. All our suitcases and other junk fit nicely behind the door.


The "bedroom" is separated by a handy junk-collecting shelving unit, which I tidied up just for this special occasion.


Some boring shots of the kitchen. One of the worst things to deal with is the fact that I can't buy 4 litres of ice cream unless I expect to eat it right away (tough decision at 50 cents a bite); our freezer is the shoe-box thingy at the top right of our fridge which I'm certain was made for little people.



Well that better have been worth the arduous wait.

To Austria and beyond...

Well not beyond. Just to Austria. With its kangaroos, billabongs, bah-bies, etc. Oh right, wrong country. Now your favourite: some education. Austria is officially neutral (and we thought the Swiss were the only ones!); it intends never to join any military alliance. Just as importantly, the German translation of Vienna is Wien. So the next time you use the word "wiener", you're just referring to a resident of Vienna.

Last weekend we went to Austria to visit some good friends we had met while living in Halifax. We spent a few days in Salzburg and Innsbruck but didn't get as far as Vienna. Getting there required an 8-hour train ride with one changeover (we travelled through Bern and Zurich but didn't get to see anything there). Fortunately, after all sorts of discounts, it cost each of us just over 60 francs each way, including reserved seats for most of the way.

We were in Salzburg first but didn't spend too much time there. We walked by Mozart's birthplace/museum but we didn't go in; we saw a statue of Mozart as well but it was too dark to photograph it by that time. We visited the Hohensalzburg castle in the evening, which was cheaper than daytime but it meant most of it was closed. It did however provide us with a great view of the city.



Salzburg has a long history of salt mining, and what better use for salt than to make salt water?? We enjoyed an evening in a very large and expensive spa resort with a zillion pools and hot tubs, both indoor and outdoor. You can certainly get your money's worth (11 euros) with the extensive selection of facilites (pools, saunas, tanning booths, lounging chairs, groovy lighting); it took a while to stop accidentally getting extremely salty water in one's mouth... yecch!!

We spent Sunday in a small town outside Salzburg. This view reminded me of the appeal of small town living. Lots of green and not much noise. And if you imagine hard enough you can hear "The hills are aliiiiive...". Some scenes from The Sound of Music were shot around Salzburg.



Next stop: Innsbruck. Our friends took us in their car from Salzburg to Innsbruck, which required cutting through Germany to save time... our first experience on Germany's autobahn system. Good thing I practised all the time in Canada. There tend to be speed limits in zones where there are on/off ramps, but for the rest it makes for a thoroughly enjoyable drive. Driving on it myself has just been added to my wishlist.

Innsbruck is in a well-populated valley that is of some importance because it is the lowest route by which the Alps can be crossed into Italy. As all European cities tend to be, Innsbruck is a beautiful old city with plenty of places to explore. Here are some random shots of buildings.



The weather was quite nice so we decided to go up this mountain (almost reminded me of Smithers):



So we went up in a nice new gondola that apparently fits 90 persons (we had 40 in there and were starting to feel like sardines):



And here's us at the top of the mountain. Note the horrid shortage of snow.



And of course one using my improving stick-out-the-arm-and-shoot-blindly technique...



Okay, enough mountains already... it's like we're from Saskatoon or something.

Near Innsbruck lies the town of Wattens. Here the crystal-producing company Swarovski has a factory and the theme park Swarovski Krystallwelten (Crystal Worlds). Outside there were plenty of things to entertain kids; we tried to be entertained by a shrubbery maze, but that is only so successful in February (no leaves) and when participants (me!) can see overtop of everything.



Inside there were many displays to dazzle the eyeballs, too worthy to photograph (okay the lighting was a little tricky). Among them was the world's largest cut crystal at 300,000 carats:



While wandering through Innsbruck, we saw many old churches (of course). One such gem was St. Jacob's Cathedral; it looked fairly plain on the outside, but was awfully detailed within:



Finally, last Tuesday was Fat Tuesday or Carnival Tuesday throughout many parts of the world; in Austria it was the latter (Faschingsdienstag). No one works past noon, after which the festivities start, including a long parade of floats with people performing skits, all of which are judged by a panel that includes the city's mayor.



And since it's legal to drink on the street, we thought we'd join the locals by having a drink. Women got their champagne in real glasses, which could be returned to vendors for a refund; either way, I pity the city's cleanup crew the following day!

Nothing and other things

Wow, some people simply do not know how to keep a blog updated. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because coming up with a single post takes far too long, and then my work week suffers as a result. Which would be cool if I didn't like my work, but I happen to. It's challenging and fulfilling and... well, it's done by computer. (BTW this is me talking, not her; perhaps from now on I'll quit reporting who I am since only one of us has time to waste on blogging.) And you'd think that someone as computer-friendly as me would be able to type by now, but I'm sorry to say I still have to look at my keys when I type. Okay I don't *have* to, but if I don't I suddenly become painstakingly slow. Perhaps one day I'll pull out the old typing tutor games again. But hopefully if I procrastinate long enough, speech recognition will be at a point where the computer folks 25 years ago thought it would be by now. Then we'll melt down our keyboards and just talk all the time (I can't say I look forward to that), or we'll figuratively say hello to sensors that read our eye movements for a hands-free, speech-free user interface.

Wow, rambling actually works.

Now before I forget, I need to say congratulations to our dear sister Michelle Driegen, who just got engaged recently to her romantically-unbeatable beau Carlos Ekkert. For a detailed account of her rose-littered big day, see her blog here. We wish them both the Lord's blessing in the months of planning ahead. This also means another trip to BC next summer... never a bad thing. Who knows, maybe this time we'll make it to the Bulkley Valley... no promises :).

The church situation

I (Andrew) have had this post sitting here awhile, so I decided I better (update and) publish it already, thanks to several people's encouragement and (slightly less so) a general urge to perform blog housekeeping. So crack open a Red Bull, crank up that font size and sit back for a looong read... Or just pretend you read it and leave a comment... up to you.

Our first week we had no working computer and therefore no sermons to listen to. We weren't clear on where the local churches were (well, the ones with English services). So we spent our first Sunday with our friend Xavier (who found us our apartment) and his family and friends. They live in Perroy which, when you pronounce it how it looks in English, completely baffles everyone you approach for directions. We had a fine time enjoying foie gras, local wines and all sorts of other food. For what it was worth, we were certainly gastronomically sated.

After the first week we were finally connected with the outside world, so at least we had access to sermons. On the advice of a contact at Westminster Seminary, we decided to try a local Baptist church; our contact had noted that this particular church was "essentially reformed". Now whenever the word "reformed" comes with its own adverb, warning bells tend to go off in my head. I'm not sure why, but I suppose it has a little to do with my upbringing. Anyway, we went to attend there one Sunday (I have yet to see a church here with two regular services on a Sunday). Unfortunately this was before we had mastered the transit ticket machines, and on top of that we hadn't found any good directions to the place. And it wasn't a conspicuous church building either, but rather hidden in an alley. As it turned out, once we found it we were more than late, so we trudged home not feeling too accomplished at all. But it was a healthy Sunday walk!

The next week we were on the ball and got to church on time. I've never been to a Baptist church (never had any reason to), so the next hour and a half were a little shocking. I have no idea whether it was a typically Baptist service (Kevin, you would know), but it fit perfectly with the stereotype in my head! The band up front, with all sorts of equipment, was central. The overhead projector was handy, except I didn't know the tunes. There were no testimonials. Some hand-waving. There was a lot of praying, once with the piano being played. And the praying -- it was mostly being done by the band leader, who has no pastoral role according to the website. In fact, we saw very little of the minister, except when he introduced a guest speaker from the USA who gave a "sermonette" titled "Do you have the gift, or are you playing with the box?" Was it edifying? Personally I'd have to say not initially, since I walked away not even sure what "gift" he was referring to. He only referred to the Bible once (it was quite possibly The Message actually), and he took three words from a single verse and used them in a completely different context; he might as well have used a dictionary. Quite an experience. Carrie said it reminded her of chapel at Trinity Western University, so she wasn't squirming quite as much as I was, since it wasn't completely new to her although when she attended chapel at TWU it wasn't generally on Sundays. What it reminded me of was a certain Sunday experience in Sydney, Nova Scotia, but perhaps more intense. My poor system doesn't like shocks! In conclusion, I would argue that it was a perfectly suitable service indeed... for Friday nights.

During the week, I remembered something our Westminster contact had said. He had mentioned another English-speaking church, but "from all accounts it is rather bland." This was heartening, since I assumed that for someone who enjoyed such a Baptist service, a Canadian Reformed service would likely be categorized as bland. So there was a possibility that we would feel more at home at this other place. After much searching, we finally figured out where the place was.

It was a small chapel in the shadow of the behemoth St. Peter's Cathedral in the old part of town. It is known by various names, including Auditoire de Calvin and John Knox chapel. Both Calvin and Knox lectured/preached there in the 16th century.

Time for a picture break... it won't do at all for you to miss the rest of my dazzling dissertation by falling asleep. Here is a picture of the inside of the chapel...



Some more info and some pictures can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditoire_de_Calvin. Perhaps I'll blog a tourism/history lesson on the cathedral and chapel one day. Okay, back to work...

The chapel is currently used by the Church of Scotland, the Dutch Reformed community, and the Waldensian Church of Italy. Since Carrie's Dutch is as good as my Italian, we decided to attend the Church of Scotland service. We went there the next Sunday to see how bland it was. Well, it felt pretty homey as soon as we walked in to the sound of a pipe organ (I never thought I'd say that, but hey, I guess the previous week had made me fearing the worst). I couldn't place the tune right away, but it was sooo familiar. Later I realized what it was when the choir stood up to sing a moving piece from Fauré's Requiem (which, incidentally, they will be performing next week Saturday... hmmm...). The service was much more "familiar" to us, like organ only, not a peep from the pews other than singing. A few things were different. The choir sat at the front of the church (beyond the minister) facing the congregation, and stood for all singing (actually we all did). They did one or two pieces without the congregation, always religious pieces by one of the famous composers like Bach or Fauré, making my mind wander to Roy Thomson Hall. There was no visible consistory, although various men and women helped during the offering. The sermon was about 20 minutes, but (big bonus here) the pastor worked from a relevant Bible passage; I would consider it edifying, but it lacked the redemptive historical quality we used to take for granted back in the motherland (Canada of course!!!). We sang from the provided Church Hymnary (4th Ed.) and we knew most of the tunes. Bibles weren't offered at the door (hymn books were) but there was a stack of Good News bibles available in the back corner.

And if any of you Torontians have heard that Rev. MacLeod's accent makes him difficult to follow, the brogue rolling off this minister's tongue will give him a run for his money!

We've gone to the Church of Scotland several times now and may do so again. But it's not to "fill" a Sunday; fortunately we have a good supply of sermons rolling in from Rev. den Hollander (thanks!), plus there are audio sermons by some of our ministers available at the Spindleworks website.

If you're still reading at this point, you might have an inkling as to why I took so long to post this. Yikes this is a long one!

The Swiss...

...label almost all products in at least french, german & italian
...have 2-hour lunch breaks
...allow dogs in stores
...smoke in stores
...smoke pretty much anywhere indoors
...wear real fur clothing
...have real castles
...bike all year round
...love their mopeds
...have mandatory nuclear shelters in houses
...have $200 bills
...have $5 coins
...have 20 cent coins
...don't believe much in food packing over 1.5 or 2 L
...make sure trains, trams and buses always run on time
...do the funny three-kiss greeting thing

Okay so a few of these are Europe-wide, but they're just so not Canada I thought they bear mentioning.

Skiing/boarding at Verbier

Last Saturday we finally decided to try one of the ski hills in the area. We chose Verbier, since some friends have a chalet up there and it was decided we'd try and meet them there after skiing.

It wasn't a sunny day, so our pictures aren't nearly as eye-catching as on other outings. It is sunny here more often than not... maybe that's why Geneva (#2) beat out Vancouver (#3) in the 2006 Mercer Quality of Living Survey of the world's most liveable cities. Zurich is #1, but since we haven't been there yet, we have yet to see what all the fuss is about. We'll be passing through Zurich on our way to Austria this week so perhaps we'll see what Geneva is taking a backseat to.

Getting to the base town of Verbier takes about three hours, although it's only about 90km from Geneva as the crow flies. But then, even the crow wouldn't fly too straight because of the mountains in the way. Unless of course it's the variety of crow that can drill straight through rock. But I digress. The map below shows the problem: Lake Geneva (Geneva is at its western tip) and France (you can see the snaky border running through the lake) are both in the way. Cutting straight through France isn't an option because there's not much transportation infrastructure in that remote area of France. Although not labelled, Verbier is at the green marker at the bottom right corner of the map. You may put down your pencils; geography lesson is over.



Here's um... us. If I had longer arms, I'd be able to snap a decent selves-portrait for once.


The resort of Verbier... a zillion chalets with plenty of room for more. Slopes and mountains are no obstacle for Swiss construction. Most buildings are made of exposed wood, the way one would expect chalets to look. It looks very nice, very alpine... perhaps we should have taken a close-up. Oh well.


Some scenery. The mountains opposite us looked very inviting, especially since we didn't have a whole lot of snow on ours. Many runs were covered with brown snow, from snow being mixed with dirt. Other runs were white but with patches of exposed rock or ground. Others were blue, due to some chemical meant to work some sort of weather magic. Others were terribly icy, which made my always-crowd-pleasing downhill tumbles quite painful. But we did find some that were good, with a fair bit of powder. And when there is ample snow to be found, it is a pure joy to board in (sorry, I don't speak for skiers) since it isn't wet or heavy.


These pictures were taken from the gondola that took us from the base town to the resort area. We could have taken a bus that would have had to manoeuver up the snaky road seen below, but the gondola was much faster. Plus it was paid for in our travel package.


As you can imagine, we were a little concerned about the lack of snow as we ascended. Things didn't improve until a few climbs (gondolas, chairs) further.


It was an alright day, once we found some runs with sufficient snow cover. We saw a St. Bernard or two on the mountain, possibly more for tourism than for delivering free rum to stranded mountaineers (wasn't that their specialty?).

Lift tickets are actually swipe cards that you use to go through turnstiles when accessing the areas to go on the lifts. These turnstiles occur at every lift. Perhaps the low point was around 11:55. We made our way down a run and proceeded to the turnstiles. Swipe! Hmm no luck. When neither of us managed to get through, we figured the worst. We had taken the wrong combination of runs and had ended up in a *different* resort town, whose chairs up the mountain weren't part of the Verbier system. So we went to the ticket person and asked how the system dealt with navigationally-challenged folks such as ourselves. We had the honour of buying a separate lift pass for this particular ski hill. Fortunately, Verbier clients get a major discount because they've already bought a pass, so it would only cost us 11 francs each if we would wait till noon to buy. We did so and skedaddled.

We never did meet up with the friends who had a chalet there. We had neglected to take a phone number or address, and we hadn't set up a meeting point. So home we went.

Château de Chillon

Saturday before last was a gorgeous day again, slightly cool with a very blue sky, albeit hazy in places. We decided to visit the Castle of Chillon, a 900-year-old castle on the shore of Lake Geneva. The castle has a rich history (as do most castles I suspect, with the possible exception of the Disney ones).

Chillon was made famous by the poet Lord Byron, who visited the castle in 1816 and, inspired by a true story, wrote the fictional poem The Prisoner of Chillon. The poem is about the true story of the monk Bonivard, who was chained to a pillar in the dungeon as a political prisoner for six years. We were in the dungeon for about three minutes and were rather cold; it's hard to imagine someone surviving for six years there with limited movement or clothing.

Unrelatedly, some time after his 1536 release he was given the task of compiling a history of Geneva. This manuscript went to John Calvin for correction. I suppose this just supports the theory (which we all hold dear I'm sure) that it's a small world when you know someone Reformed!

Well, we would have preferred it a little warmer but we're glad we went during off-season (less busy), and since it wasn't a weekday we didn't have the choice of a guided tour -- which is fine because exploring castles is more fun when it's self-guided. Unlike many North American historical sites, virtually all areas were accessible and all items within reach (though not always permittedly); it made for a more authentic, less modern museum-like experience.

The day would have been even better if the camera battery had gone and recharged itself during the week, but apparently that requires human intervention. One can have a whole pocketful of memory cards but without a charged battery one is just another helpless tourist relying on memories and such.

Luckily we managed a few nice shots. (Yes, I borrowed the above one for elsewhere... we never managed to get any decent exterior shots.)


We had hoped to go skiing but there just wasn't enough snow for us, after having enjoyed Mt. Baker in Washington over Christmas. But as far as photos go, a bit of white is far better than none.


This was the view from the castle. The spindly supports holding up that really long raised highway didn't look very sturdy to me, but I trust the Swiss know what they're doing.


A very quaint inner courtyard.


Another courtyard... this castle seemed to have a fair number of them.


Proof that we were both there.


This aerial view of the castle looks suspiciously like a miniature model situated somewhere in the basement. (Can castles have basements? It just doesn't sound right.)


This is where poor Bonivard had to hang out for 6 years. Lord Byron carved his name into the other side of the pillar, where it's nicely protected with a hunk of plexiglass. Camera was dying, so you simply get to imagine it.


This is a view from the top of the castle. It doesn't really look like it's that far up, but then cameras rarely get it right.


On the way home, we tried to get some shots of the scenery, but it was through the window of a speeding train, with many obstructions whizzing by, and the sky was a little hazy.