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Liechtensteiny blues

After not leaving the country in over a month, our wanderlust brought us to Liechtenstein on Saturday afternoon. It took about an hour and a half to get there from Zurich by train and then bus. We decided to head for the capital, Vaduz (who knew Liechtenstein was big enough for more than one town?), since it contained a few interesting-sounding museums and such.

We arrived around 1 pm and headed straight to a restaurant that promised Liechtensteinese (is there a real adjective form of this word? Anyone? Anyone?) specialties, which turned out to be strikingly similar to Swiss food: meat, potatoes, sausage, cheese, spatzle, beer. Actually a lot of things about Liechtenstein are strikingly similar to Switzerland: the Swiss Franc is the official currency, High German is the official written language, and an incomprehensible dialect is what they actually speak. Plus it’s generally clean, safe, and orderly, at least from what we saw.

Read moreLiechtensteiny blues

Mmmmmm…. chocolate

I’d like to introduce you to the new love of my life, Cru Sauvage chocolate truffles from Sprüngli, one of Zurich’s two most famous chocolatiers (Teuscher being the other, tackier one). I don’t actually know what Cru Sauvage means, but I’m imagining that it has something to do with the raw, wild, savage nature of … Read more

Sledding down the Alps

If there’s one thing the Swiss do right, it’s sledding. OK, they actually do several things right (melted cheese, dark chocolate, public transportation, yodeling…), but sledding is one of the most fun. It’s a completely different activity here than the sledding I grew up with in the US, which consisted of trudging up a small … Read more

Planning ahead gets you nowhere

So my first attempt at premeditated week-long skiing was not particularly successful. We’re back from Grindelwald, two days early. I’ll let this article in SwissInfo explain why: The month of January is set to be the warmest on record in Switzerland despite the cold snap at the end of the month, according to the national … Read more

Obligatory snow pictures

In case you haven’t already read about it here, here, here, or here, the non-Alpy regions of Switzerland finally received some serious snow in the night from yesterday to today. Actually it’s still coming down. Woo hoo!

Looking for Valentine’s Day fun in Zurich?

[NOTE: This post refers to an event that occurred in 2007. It was a big success!] Dazzle your Valentine by taking him/her to the Valentine’s Day Give Your Heart Out Gala which will be held at Stall 6 in central downtown Zurich. There will be live music, dancing, drinking, eating, mingling – basically everything you could ever … Read more

Crap skiing at Flims Laax

[For those of you who haven’t been following along, we are in the midsts of the warmest and unsnowiest winter in the history of Switzerland (please note that this is just my own estimate, and that I am not a weatherman).] Not being able to hold out any longer, we finally went skiing today for … Read more

Europe has hurricanes?

How is it I’ve lived on this continent for over six years and never realized this? But apparently, that’s just what this lovely little storm has been, hitting Germany and other countries much worse than Switzerland. Here we had a night of howling winds and sideways rain. I kept a suspicious eye on the large … Read more

Do I look like a weatherman?

I have been getting more and more emails these days from readers of this blog. For the most part, I welcome these messages (which is why I choose to have my email address posted at all). I have met some interesting people and even made a good friend or two because someone reading this blog … Read more