Biking to Vevey

Saturday, Teesa (from Boston) and I decided it was a beautiful day and why not bike 20km to the nearby town of Vevey (my uncle Tommy, avid cyclist and adventurer, may not be so impressed)? There is a bicycle rental company here where you can rent bikes by the day, leaving only a 20 Franc deposit and an ID (there is no charge)! There is some advertisement on a basket on the back of the bike, which is how the company makes money while allowing you to ride it all day for free.
Since the new metro which could take us from the bike rental place to the road on the lake in Ouchy, we thought it would be thrilling to take our first new metro ride with the bikes, and, realizing that the train was right there and about to leave, we hopped on. However, we thought it was strange that a new metro would have a car that seemed like it was a few decades old. We also thought it was strange that the metro was going up hill (away from the lake) instead of down. It was even stranger when we passed a cornfield, a sure sign that you are definitely NOT in the city anymore. So we got off, and realized that we had actually been on a northern-bound commuter train!
Luckily, it was all downhill back to Lausanne, so we biked our way back on the street. Here, bike lanes that you are encouraged (maybe even obliged) to use tend to appear and disappear on the road, so we half stayed on the road and half went onto the sidewalk. Part of the problem for us was not knowing the laws here for bicyclists: were we even allowed to be on the road? would the cars and buses pass us or treat us like cars? could we pass a stopped bus? what do the road signs mean, anyway (they're different here)? But I was wearing a helmet and therefore had some sense of security (here, again, uncle Tommy might not be so impressed with our semi-vehicular-potentially-illegal road cycling). But we made it to Ouchy without causing any accidents.
The rest of the ride to Vevey was amazing. On the left, what seemed to be the major wine producing region in francophone Switzerland looming in terraces up a steep hill. On the right, Lake Leman (Lake Geneva) and across that the alps rising above some fog. Because of our earlier misadventure, the sun was ready to set and it cast a golden glow over both the lake and the vineyards.
The bike path (which was just some roads linked together with signs telling you which one to take) went through several small towns, some of which had wineries. It's grape harvesting season, and as we passed one of wineries, people were emptying huge yellow boxes of grapes into a vat, presumably for future wine. You could even smell the smell of slightly rotten grapes as you passed these places.
We eventually reached Vevey just before it got to the point where we would have needed lights on the bikes, deposited our bikes at the place there (we had to pay 10fr to leave them in a different city), and took a walk around. Strangely, there was KNIE, the Swiss circus, in town, so we took a look at some elephants and camels before heading back to Lausanne on the train!

Want to see where we were? I'm having a bit of trouble getting the map to zoom in to the right place, so you'll have to do it yourself. Just Zoom In until the lake takes up the screen! I'll try to fix this soon.

View Larger Map

Milk from Gruyere

This morning I was at the grocery store when I realized that, for only 5 cents extra, I could buy organic milk from Gruyere. Since I only drink half a liter per week, I think this is going to be a typical purchase from now on, since I know it is economical enough! I got some, and it was really great, I just dipped bread in it instead of using butter!
Coming here was worth it, after all!

What to eat for breakfast

I’ve probably already mentioned how delicious everything is here. Usually in the morning I have an omelet with some onions and peppers in it, and eat it with a slice of bread. If I’m feeling like I really need energy, I heat up muesli and add milk, just like oatmeal.

The milk here is UHT and comes in a box pack, which means you can keep it out of the refrigerator before opening it. At first I thought this was really strange, but now I realize that I can buy a bunch of it and treat it like canned food- let it sit on the shelf for a week before opening it. Some of the milk containers have pictures of flying cows or horned, evil-looking cows on them, I’m not sure why!

All of the food products have three languages- German, French, and Italian (in that order!)- because of the linguistic diversity of Switzerland. I like reading ingredients and comparing what the same thing is called in each language.

I try to pack leftovers for lunch at school, but sometimes I don’t have any and end up either buying some over-priced sandwich from the café here or packing some bread, cheese, and fruit from home. This is not an act of desperation- the bread is really great and I try to get different kinds of cheese each week (though gruyere is still my favorite by far!).

For dinner, I typically cook the same things as I did in the US: lots of vegetables. If you are thinking of moving here, consider eating meat less often- it’s at least $10 per pound, even the cheap kind on sale!

Lots of products are advertised as having Swiss origin, especially produce and dairy. They will usually tell you if the grapes are Swiss or Italian, or if the eggs are Swiss or French. Sometimes, they go into the details of which canton (state) in Switzerland the product comes from (I am in Vaud), even though they are really small!

There’s also lots of chocolate, but of course I haven’t been eating any of that.

Climb every mountain

Yesterday I went on my first hiking expedition in Switzerland. My friends Teesa (from Boston), Huria (Lahore via Boston), Viola (Stockholm), Albrecht (Germany via Paris), and Ludek (Prague) and I caught the train from Lausanne at 7:30am to Villeneuve, near the eastern edge of Lake Leman (lake Geneva), then the bus to a trail near Vouvry, which is just outside of edge of France. You can take a bus to almost anywhere in Switzerland. There are little vans that travel around the less populated villages and regions a few times a day, and you pay a few dollars to get to the beginning of the trail from the train station. There was a young couple and two older men also headed to the same location to go hiking.

It was still raining when we got off the bus, and we were already almost to the snow line. We originally had a plan to do a big circuit hike past a lake and through some mountains, then return to the bus stop by around 6pm, but most people’s lack of hiking boots plus the slippery rocks had a different plan for us.

The first hour was straight up the mountain, which was good because we got warmed up pretty fast. At the top of that hill there is a very impressive view of the Lake Taney, and the village Taney, and all the surrounding mountains which are by now snow-covered. Since hiking is so popular here, there were three little “auberges” in Taney where you can get food and drink. It’s hard to pass those things by, so we stopped in for hot chocolate and croissants.

After Taney, we continued up into the mountains. In the summer, they keep cows here, but the farmers had just moved them down to the valleys for the winter. At this point, it was snowing and we were walking through several inches of snow! I kept feeling as though I was at the farm in the winter. The sun came out for about an hour, and we had lunch on some rocks before it got cold and snowy again and we decided to turn around.

Most of the views from the trail were absolutely amazing. Ludek has posted some pictures of the hike at http://picasaweb.google.com/lcigler/LacDeTaney . Sadly, pictures will never be able to capture the reality of the mountains, but I hope you can at least get some idea of the beauty of the area from them!

The way back was much easier, since it was completely downhill. We stopped in one of the other auberges in Taney for more hot chocolate after circling around the lake, then again at the bottom of the trail while waiting for the bus to take us back!

Finally I got home around 9pm, took a shower and fell asleep!

Flamme etc.

The following is from last weekend:

Yesterday I had my first experience eating out in Switzerland. After working on some physics problems, Nanne and I went out to a brewery cum restaurant and had some “flamme.” Flamme is a pizza-like dish, with a really thin and crispy crust, a creamy sauce and cheese. You can put all different kinds of toppings on it. This was interesting, but the real shock was the price of everything! The flamme was about $20, and that was one of the less expensive things on the menu. You can get a salad, or a hamburger for $25. The whole meals were even more outrageous. And this was not even a fancy sort of restaurant. This was the kind of place that the typical student or group of friends would go to on a Saturday night.

Since last night was “museum night” in Lausanne- all the museums were open until 2am with free entry for anyone with a ticket ($10)- I later met up with another Masters student Teesa, who is the only other American here, and some of her friends to check out the exhibits. Interestingly, Teesa and I speak French with each other most of the time, even if no one else is there! I am really enjoying all of the different languages that are being spoken around me all the time. For example, last night, there were three guys from Luxembourg who were with us, so they were speaking Luxembourg version of German, which is very close to German most of the evening. Nanne, who is from the Netherlands and speaks Dutch (also not the same as German) can understand them but wouldn’t really be able to speak with them. Add to that Schweitzerdeutsch, which is the Swiss form of German and is mutually understandable with German but not really speakable (although German-speaking Swiss can easily switch to “high” German, and use it for news etc.).

There’s also a lot of Italians, Spanish, and people from the Nordic countries.

This is reminding me a lot of my friends Murad and Siddharth and our discussions on Urdu being the same language (or not) as Hindi!

Mal-adjusted no longer?

Last weekend was the big celebration of the new metro, the M2, opening. Included in festivities were free concerts all evening (in two simultaneous locations!) and lots of free exhibits during the daytime. On saturday, I met one of my classmates Nanne for one of the concerts. It was really amazing how many people came into town for the celebrations- not just young people and students, but people of all age groups and styles convened on several central locations. Even though the music in itself wasn't that exiting, the whole atmosphere of the town was welcoming and seemed alive. A few interesting observations that I wasn't used to: the ready availability of beer and other alcohol on the streets and also the great contrast between a really loud rock concert and a centuries-old cathedral looming above.

Now that I've been here for two weeks already I've had the opportunity to get a few very critical things taken care of: residence permit, bank account, cell phone. Next, apartment!

Daily routines are also getting established: I'm living pretty close to a grocery store so I can pick up potatoes, vegetables, etc. pretty easily and I'm finding most things to be available here. I have noticed that all of the produce seems to taste much, much better! I think it's because a lot of it is grown either in Switzerland or one of the surrounding countries, so it's very fresh and hasn't been transported in a truck for days and days. Dairy products are also fabulous (thanks to the cow bells?)!

Classes are also going well. I'm beginning to get used to doing the exercises in class with the assistant, and then just reviewing at home instead of spending hours and hours struggling through a problem set. I'm still not sure which one might be better for learning. I thought that it might be an interesting to study these two very different approaches: which one actually makes learning more efficient, effective, etc.? I am not sure how to experimentally measure "amount learned" or if it is a measurable quantity at all, but someday I would like to get involved in this kind of study, even if it is on my own (future) students!

In the beginning

This was actually written about a week ago, but I want to get into the habit of updating the blog and also keeping it complete, so here it is!


Things are going well here in Switzerland! The first couple of days were pretty difficult, but now that classes have started and I know how to go from door to campus without getting lost I am much more optimistic about life here. Right now I am staying in a small town called Le Mont north of the city and taking the regional bus to the downtown area before catching the metro to the university. The total commute is only about 45 minutes, but I would like to be closer to the main city and have a roommate so I'm not alone at home all the time!

I am taking 5 physics courses, including the "practical work" component- which will potentially become the area of my Masters thesis next year- involving meetings with my advisor and the other students in my group (which is the particle theory group) to do mini-projects. As for the classes, the system is a bit different here in that each course has a lecture component, and an "exercise" component. The exercises are led by post-docs and involve solving problems- like homework but in a class. So far, all the lectures have been in English but one of the "exercise" sessions was in French! Needless to say, that made it a bit more confusing than I would have liked. There are a few other international students from Portugal, Netherlands, Spain, India, etc. who appreciate courses in English, so we might try to convince the exercise leaders to conduct these sessions in English. However, right now I think I prefer the American version of homework- there is less pressure from time and more opportunity to try different ways of solving problems, get them wrong, then try them again.

I am making friends with some of the other students here, both the international students and the Swiss. We mostly speak French together, but some of the students don't speak French very well and prefer English. But we have all agreed that we would like to improve French so it is becoming the "lingua franca" so to speak! We will probably all get together for dinner this weekend or next week and spend some time relaxing together.

Last Saturday I went to visit Avenches, which is the old Roman city Aventicum. Aventicum was the capitol of Helvetia at that time (100-200AD). There was an amphitheater, at one end of which a tower was built ~1200AD, but some of the stones are remaining and even some of the old passageways. The tower was used during various raids, particularly from the Bernese, who ended up capturing the town at some point ~1500. The Roman theater was quite impressive and large portions are still remaining because it had been built into a hillside. Behind the theater, there were about ten cows grazing the field with their cowbells clanging noisily. All cows here seem to be happy grazing all day with their bells at various pitches- I haven't seen any cow with no bell yet!