Inland Adventures

Yesterday Martin and I went away from the coast a bit to explore some of the rest of Mallorca. We had so much fun! First stop was a town called Sineu where they have a giant market every Wednesday. We had to get up early (well...early Spanish time, so 8:30. It's not like we were setting an alarm or anything) to make sure we got to see everything.

Got there! Time to go exploring.

We followed people who looked like they knew where they were going through narrow streets for a little while. Every house had green shutters and they were packed really close together. There was no sign of people in the houses except for sounds coming from within, but it gets so hot there that life takes place mostly indoors.

These green shutters are all over Mallorca. It's really pretty against the earthy houses!

After a little while, we started to see more people and there was the market! The first part we hit was all food--fruits, veggies, nuts, dried fruits, bread, cheese (from a wide variety of animals), and salami. We sampled everything we could and bought cherries, grapes, figs, dried figs, and a couple of empanadas for the walk and for later.

 

 

There was a non-food section after that (I'm telling you, this thing was giant. It filled up the whole city) with leather goods manufactured on the island, shoes, clothes, scarves, and jewelry. I didn't bring enough money for that, but I wanted to buy gifts for basically everyone I know. There was also an animals section with the scariest pigeon I have ever seen. Who buys pigeons? They're everywhere!

 The whole thing took place throughout this really old-style town, complete with random statuary and a beautiful cathedral.

After all of that we went to the towns of Inca and Binissalem, then to Alaro where we climbed a mountain to find a castle. We'll have to wait to cover that, though, since my computer is dying and there aren't any plugs here!

Love Katie

The Mediterranean!!

Hi All,

Sorry I've been so spotty with the posting lately, it's a little bit challenging to find internet here (on Mallorca!) and I'll be the first to admit that I've been focusing a little more on vacationing than being a good blogger. We're in Mallorca! We're staying at Martin's family apartment here, which is really cool and right by the beach in a spot called Costa de la Calma. Right when we got here we went down to the beach for a swim in the amazingly warm water of the Mediterranean. I still can't believe that's where we are!

This is the beach by our apartment, we're right up the hill. 

There are bigger sandy beaches (more on those later) but 

these are small and secluded so there's hardly anyone else there.

We swam out a little ways, and saw a firefighting plane--one of the ones with the giant water bays on the bottom--touch down on the bay to scoop up water. We looked where it was going and part of the island was on fire! Not near any houses or anything, just a brush fire, but we got to watch them (quickly) put it out with the plane and a few water-carrying helicopters. It was pretty cool, especially since nothing was damaged and nobody was hurt. 

So far we've done a few cool things. We spent a day at a nearby local beach called Paguera where we did some swimming and sunbathing (I got burned despite sunscreen. Better now!). We also hiked down there to see the European soccer championship semifinal game with Germany, since that area is typically full of German tourists. I had a pina colada that was absolutely excellent! Definitely made me feel like I was on vacation.

 

Paguera!

The next day Spain was playing in the soccer championships, so we went to Palma de Mallorca, the main city here, and explored before watching the game. So far Spain and Germany have advanced to the quarterfinals! I'm hoping they both make the final so we can watch it here with the respective crowds. 

Palma is a harbor city with a cool mix of history and touristy attractions. There are lots of bars, clubs and shops along the main street, but there are also super old city walls, within which is an old-style city with narrow stone streets and a more Spanish feel. Still touristy, but more authentically so? I'm not sure if I can make that qualification. Either way, we found a bar full of Spanish fans in the old city and watched Spain make the semifinal, then went for tapas at a nearby restaurant. We wandered around and checked out the cathedral (holy cow) after that. 

Part of the main street in Palma. 

The coast runs to the right along the street, the city wall is visible on the left, 

and the cathedral in the background.

Other than that, we've been doing a lot of swimming, exploring, tanning, and reading; with some bike riding and running thrown in there. It's been really fun so far, and I'll update again soon!

Love Katie

Small Country Drama!

Liechtenstein is having a historical political moment right now.  The prince is threatening to leave!!

Our main character: the prince of Liechtenstein. With his castle. Where he lives.

 

The prince of Liechtenstein (it's a principality, by the way) is facing a popular vote that will determine if he gets to keep his veto power. It works a lot like the US presidential veto power in that he can veto a bill that's passed the elected legislative bodies, except that his veto cannot be overridden by a legislative or popular vote. After he threatened to veto any bill legalizing abortion a while ago, there's a lot of rumbling that maybe they should be able to outvote his veto if he decides to go nuts. Hypothetically, of course.

Act as a figurehead? Not in my principality! I'm out. Potentially.

So the popular vote is going on right now to determine whether he gets to keep his royal power, and it's very controversial. There is a significant conservative base, and the original abortion bill that got vetoed only passed the popular vote by 51%. So much on the line! Added to that, citizenship in Liechtenstein is complicated and a little unforgiving, so the voting population is even smaller that the 33,000-person resident population. Which is why they had a popular vote on a bill anyway.

I am too fabulous to exist without my princely power. Vote for me!!

In a country that's generally super-conservative (again, 51%), this vote is major. But you have to admit, the prince threatening to leave if he doesn't win makes it a little bit awesome.

Love Katie

PS Please check an actual news source if you want a better idea of what's going on. I will be the first to admit that my research on this was a combination of hearsay and minimal googling.

Driving to Liechtenstein

Martin's family lives in Liechtenstein, which is a teeny tiny little (did you get that it's small) country of about 33,000 inhabitants between Austria and Switzerland near Germany. The country is in part of the Rhine river valley (the river itself forms the border with Switzerland) and roughly half of an Alp. Liechtenstein itself is insanely gorgeous (more on that later when I have proper pictures), the 90-minute drive between Zurich and Liechtenstein is also very scenic.

Martin and I drove to his parents' house last weekend to say hi and pick up some furniture (thanks to his parents our room is fully furnished and excellent!), and we are there now getting ready to go to Mallorca (!). It was a beautiful day, so we got a good look at all of the alpine scenery.

Please note the castle perched atop the little hill in the foreground!

The drive starts out through farmland that feels very, very Swiss. It's all green meadows, cows grazing, and a skyline of silos and farmhouses; backdropped by the foothills of the Alps.

I'm pretty sure this is what yodeling looks like.

Once it starts to get a little more mountainous, there are tunnels so long that they have jet engine-looking fans inside to keep fresh air moving through them. Holding your breath here is definitely not an option.

And, as this is the land of Bond villains, as we started getting closer to Liechtenstein there was a definite supervillian lair under construction.

 Pictured: evil in the making.

As I mentioned, Liechtenstein and Switzerland are divided by the Rhine river. We drove along the river for a while, so what you see on the left side of the picture below is Switzerland, while the mountains on the right side are mostly Liechtenstein! I'm not sure if we're actually at the border yet in this picture, so the right bank of the river may or may not be Liechtenstein. If not, Switzerland.

We plan to climb that mountain. I'm excited.

Love Katie

The Limmat

The Limmat is the river that runs northeast out of Lake Zurich through the Zurich city center. The downtown area of Zurich is located at the point where the lake turns into the river (called Bellvue) and downstream from there. It's lined with nice stores and apartments, and it makes a very picturesque backdrop for the city.

 

Looking South across the Limmat. So European!

Right now, the river is super high because it's been raining a lot around here plus the snow is melting off the Alps. It's not too terribly cold (by Lake Tahoe standards), but I've been told that it will get much warmer before the end of the summer. Along the riverfront there are lots of cafes and restaurants, as well as bars and bathing areas. Martin and I were downtown the other day and stopped to sit on one of the riverfront docks where people read, swim and tan.

 

Hi Martin! We had beautiful weather that day.

I'm excited to go floating down the river later this summer, so far the extent of my interaction with the water has been running by the lake and walking along, over, or near the Limmat. We found Zurich's version of boathouse row on our run yesterday, so maybe I'll get to go out and row sometime soon! I hope so, I've been away from the sport for a month! That's a record.

Love Katie

Mountain Climbing

We live in a student house up the hill from the universities (University of Zurich for me, ETH--which is German for the Federal Technical Academy, meaning engineering school--for Martin), which themselves are up the hill from the city center. In fact, we are so much up the hill that the area of Zurich in which we live is called Zurichberg (berg=mountain). All of that means two things: we have great views...

You can see Lake Zurich!

...and we spend a lot of time walking up hills and climbing stairs.

 Starting point: UZH. Please bear in mind that we're already halfway up the hill.

  Stairs part one! Headed up to the main entrance of the University.

 Once we've walked up a big hill, we can take a little shortcut through stairs part two!

 A little bit more hill (with pretty flowers), and you can see our final climb. Hi Martin! Isn't that green hillside so pretty?

No. It is meant to be accomplished, not looked at. See the church at the top? That's where we're going.

First up: five or six flights of these delightfully varied steps. Excellent training for the "oops! That stair was twice the size of the last one" muscles. Quite scenic though, right?

Regular stairs! So nice and consistent. I think the air is getting thinner.

 The church! Good, I'm starting to feel a little religious about my couch.

 But first: one. last. flight.

And we're home! We live literally across the street from the church. On the second floor, but I'll deal with that when we get there. The kitchen is downstairs...

Love Katie

German Word of the Day

Berg: noun, mountain.
        As in, "wir wohnen auf einem Berg." We live on a mountain.

Not gone! Promise!

So I'm a terrible blogger and I haven't posted in a week. I'm sorry! I have lots of things to update about, though, so I'll probably post lots today.

Martin and I are going to Mallorca (American spelling Majorca) on Thursday for two whole weeks! I'm so excited. Mallorca is an island off the coast of Spain, and it's supposed to be all white sandy beaches and crystalline water and cheap tapas and it sounds excellent.

 I'm jealous. And I need to find this spot so I can jump off the cliffs into the water!

Martin's family has an apartment there near the capital city of Palma, in the same way that families in the US have a cabin in Tahoe or Colorado or somewhere. It can be complicated to get time what with negotiating amongst aunts, uncles etc., but we get it all to ourselves for two weeks! Have I mentioned I'm excited?

 That's Palma. Our apartment is left and about 20 minutes away. 

Just enough to have uncrowded beaches!

There are also lots of good hiking (trail running?) paths, cycling routes in the northern mountains, and a big Spanish go-out-and-dance scene. There's even a farmer's market! Apparently it's pretty touristy on the edges, but if you go inland it gets really inexpensive and authentically Spanish. I think we'll have to do both.

Some of the trails were built during the "Time of the Arabs," as early as 900 CE.

Martin and I loaded up the iPad with library books (yay for three library cards!) for the trip, so we'll get to do plenty of lounging and tanning. Martin's brother Bernhard just came back from a sailing trip freakishly tan, and I think Martin plans to beat him. We're all about goal-setting here. There will also be productivity not measurable on a color wheel, as Martin has some studying to do for August exams and I have to learn German and read up on what I'll be studying next year. Still, I think we'll be able to have some fun!

Love Katie

Super Kondi Body Attack

The gym that UZH and ETH share is called the ASVZ, which stands for something very sporty and Zurich-themed. They have all kinds of really cool classes (all of which I am very excited to try out) like the usual spin and yoga, but they also have erging and stuff.

  

I'm leery of an erging class with no rowing. But they do hold the world record for the most people erging at once!

I can't officially go yet since I'm waiting on my Master's diploma before I can get my student ID card, but Martin helped me borrow one from a really nice girl in our house. On Sunday, we and another guy from our house went to a class called--I kid you not--"Super Kondi Body Attack." Kondi is short for the German word for conditioning, so I figured it would be a little like bootcamp; I can do that! I've been weirdly missing pushups since my arms aren't sore all the time, so I was excited.

It turns out that SKBA (it even sounds hardcore as an acronym!) is what would happen if Zumba started doing Crossfit and had a child with circuit training. It's an hour-long class where you're doing things like high knees, squat jumps, push-ups, planks, and general jumping up and down, all at 90 beats per minute. Needless to say, it totally kicked my butt. And it was awesome. 

 This picture is blurry but you can see the room and the podium where the instructors are.

The class had about 150 people in it (huge!) and took place in a gymnasium about twice the size of your normal high school variety. I would say the human density was about twice that of the above picture. It was totally crazy and super fun. This is the highest level of three conditioning classes, and the average fitness level in there was pretty impressive. It was mostly guys (not by a huge margin) and almost everybody was keeping up. Except on the push-ups. There was a long segment of close-grip push-ups, and I was relieved to see that most of the girls were not keeping the rhythm (I certainly wasn't, but now I have a goal!).

After that the million stairs back up to the house felt a little like Everest as I'm not used to living on a mountain yet, but it felt really good to eat dinner and watch some of the European soccer championships. I'm rooting for the Netherlands in honor of my heritage, and they have to beat Germany (Martin's team) tomorrow to advance. Time to whip out the orange!

Love Katie

Words of the Day

Wer: pronoun, who
        As in, "Wer bist du nochmal?" Who are you again?
Was: pronoun, what
         As in "Was ist das?" What's that?
Wann: pronoun, when
        As in "Wann bist du hier angekommen?" When did you get here?
Wo: pronoun, where
        As in "Wo ist mein Haus?" Where is my house?
Warum: pronoun, why
        As in "Warum sprechen die hier kein Englisch?" Why don't they speak English here?
Wie: pronoun, how
        As in "Wie heisst das auf Deutsch?" How do you say that in German?

I'm learning!

"Milk Drink"

Martin and I were grocery shopping yesterday (the same store with the fabulous chocolate section) and we discovered that the store carried both milk and "milk drink." After some investigation, we determined that only full-fat milk can be called milk, any reduction in fat content makes it a "milk drink" rather than true milk.

Note the blue writing "M-Drink" under each language. This is 2.6%

In true perfection-oriented Swiss fashion, the fat content of milk here is carefully standardized at 3.7% for whole milk (it varies between 3.25% and 4% in the US and Canada) and "milk drink" is 2.6%. So far, 2.6% is the lowest option available, and everyone seems to drink the regular stuff.

Nearly all dairy products here are offered primarily, if not exclusively, in full-fat versions. I have to admit, I really like the yogurt! I find that I'm happy to eat it plain without anything in it at all, and I eat about half of what I would in the US before I'm full. I wonder if I can use this logic to eat chocolate at will?

I realize this is a strange thing to be obsessing about, but I have to admit that the grocery store is probably the most interesting place for me in any foreign city! It's where you see what's different--nearly everywhere has houses and streets and history, the grocery store is where you see what's going on inside those houses and what people find important.

Love Katie

Today's Adventures

Martin and I went down to the Zurich city center today to visit the Apple store, grocery shop, and explore. We saw the work of a street art knitter on the way, made me think of Elise.

The Apple store was nice enough to give me a free European plug cable for my computer charger, it's much whiter than the rest of the charger. I was very excited to discover an H&M, too!

The chocolate section at the grocery store was AMAZING. Just the chocolate bar section (pictured) is inspiring. I got one dark chocolate bar and I get one row of squares every day. Better keep running!

After our long walking adventure we didn't do much, just a little skyping (hi Dad!) and studying. We did laundry this evening, and as some of you may know there are no dryers in this part of the world. It is possible to find them, but they are very uncommon. Our laundry room has drying lines and racks everywhere, it looks very Lady and the Tramp to me.

Time to pay attention, it's the Germany vs. Portugal 1st round game of the European football (as in soccer) championships. The Netherlands didn't do very well today but there's still hope!

Love Katie

German Lessons

German Word of the Day:

See: n. Lake

Because I can see Lake Zurich from our window. And some Alps!

Hello!

Today is my third morning here in Zurich, and things are wonderful.

On my first day, Martin met me at the airport (with a rose!) and we took the tram into Zurich and home. There's a tram stop right by our house so we're very lucky. It's only a 10-minute walk at most to both of our universities (ETH for him, UZH for me), so I imagine we'll only need to take the tram in really bad weather.

We live in a student house with about 40 people. A student house is basically an apartment building, except that we share a bathroom with the other 5 rooms on our floor and we all share a kitchen. The kitchen is very cool, massive and a little industrial. There is a whole wall of fridges, each room has a shelf. Added to that we have a cabinet in the kitchen and another one in the locker room-like pantry off the main kitchen. Pots, pans, and dishes are shared, so we don't have to buy anything. Very handy!

We stopped at the grocery store once we'd dropped off my bags, and got some yogurt and fruit to have for breakfast. Some of you may know that my only real apprehension about this move was that I wouldn't be able to find a kind of yogurt that I like, but that fear is over! Martin's pick is excellent. I think I might be able to make it work here.

Yesterday I slept in until 2pm (yay jet lag!), so all I really did was eat breakfast (or late lunch, whichever) with a couple of people in the house and go for a run. I followed another runner and found a whole system of trails just up the hill from the house, I'm so excited! I just need to work out a strategy for exploring them without getting lost. Everything is super green here, so it felt a bit like running through a rainforest. Added bonus: no poison oak to watch out for here!

The European soccer championships are going on right now. We caught a bit of Poland vs. Greece last night during dinner, but tonight is Netherlands vs. Denmark and Germany vs. Portugal. I have decided (in honor of my heritage, hi Oma!) that I will be rooting for the Netherlands, and Germany is a very popular team in this part of Switzerland (especially because the Swiss team did not qualify for the championship). I am looking forward to watching down in the living room with people from the house!

I love you all! And Martin says hi.

Katie

PS I can iMessage (for those of you with iPhones) and I've been making use of my Twitter (@katiecaves) and posting pictures to Instagram and Facebook, but the wireless here is a little sketchy so email is probably the best option!