Two-week vacations from 12-hour work weeks, and other European experiences

So as my title suggests, I certainly have no excuse for tardiness in updating this blog. You have my apologies. I'm going to make serious efforts to reform, though, and write more steadily, so that you won't be forced to read many oversized, bloated entries like this one. I've let far too much pile up to say all at once.

But the main point is...Brianne and I have just returned from a week and a half in Switzerland for our first big vacation of the year. We made a tour of Geneva, Lausanne, Interlaken, Luzern, St. Gallen, Liechtenstein, and Zurich and for the most part we used a network called CouchSurfing to stay for free with people who live in the country. You sign up and create a profile and then you can contact people in cities you want to visit to see if they'd like to host you for a few days. In Interlaken we stayed with a group of 40-something adventure guides from all over the world who help people jump out of planes and down canyons in the summer, ski in the winter, and take off to Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and New Zealand during the off seasons to learn to kite surf or to teach surfing workshops. And in Liechtenstein we stayed with a heavy metal rocker who took us to a bar filled with fake dinosaurs and Kiss music and who spent a half an hour showing us videos on YouTube of European "heavy metal folk" bands who scream into microphones while playing bagpipes and hurdy gurdies.

But the best experiences we had were in Luzern and St. Gallen, where our generous hosts helped us combat the foggy weather by driving us up into the mountains for sunny hikes above the clouds. They walked and explored with us, showed us their favorite spots, and overall made me feel like I was getting spoiled silly by strangers. But the wonderful thing is that it gives you this huge urge to pay it forward: I would love to host someone here in Nantes, or better yet in Michigan, where I could show them around and make them feel at home. It gives you the feeling that everywhere in the world there are people who are open, warm, generous, hopeful.

Just one more thought before the photo montage (much-anticipated, I'm sure): being around mountains and mountain-loving people this past week has made me feel like I'm really only one small step away from throwing grad school in the maybe-later closet and taking off to live in a Vanagon with a friend and two dogs, hiking, rafting, and farming across the seven continents, stopping in one place for a couple of months at a time to meet new people and lay down new roots. It's not a lifestyle that I could live for ages, but it's got a strong pull for me now. The me that I imagine living in the back of her car, walking her dog down the beach in Thailand or rafting down a river in Nepal: she's a pretty happy person. But that just goes to show you how many shapes your life could have/would have/might still take(n) depending on what little influences come along to push you in one direction or another.

O.K. enough existential pondering for one post. On to the photos! You may think I've put up quite a few of them, but you have no idea from what a horror of vacation-slideshow-induced stupor I have actually spared you. I could create an entire photo album titled "Leaves, Berries, and Swiss Farm Animals." You're only seeing the highlights. You're also not seeing any of the nice photos of me and Brianne together, since those are all on Brianne's camera and we're having technical difficulties at the moment. Click to enlarge, if you so desire.

Feeding one of Switzerland's countless swans in Geneva

Lake Geneva: a partly cloudy day and our first rain


Lausanne: a very beautiful city, which we saw almost entirely in the rain, and of which consequently I have almost no photos. But we had a great day nonetheless visiting the Olympics Museum (I tear up every time someone shows footage of people winning medals set to triumphant music) and a museum of "Art Brut," or art done by people with no artistic training, which was simply incredible.

I had to put up at least one wildlife picture. Hanging out with goats on a rainy day in Interlaken. After three cloudy days, we were about to give up hope of actually seeing mountains, but never fear...

The next day we woke up to two feet of snow! We went up the mountain a little ways to Lauterbrunnen, where we trekked through the drifts alongside a river and made a couple snowmen.

After our morning walk, we took the cable cars up to Murren to try to see some mountains over the clouds: great success!

And our last day in Interlaken, we even got to see the mountains around town.

Next stop was Luzern, of which I've chosen a night photo, because the view was actually nicer than during the cloudy daytime.

But luckily our host Remo drove us up into the mountains, where we had an awesome view of the Alps in snow.

After that we stayed outside St. Gallen in a renovated farm house with Sebastian and family. This was my attempt to capture the joy we felt when we woke up to a huge Swiss breakfast, sunshine, and cows out the window.

Sebastian took us on a walk through the hills of Appenzell

Alpen cat

And then we had a layover in Buchs, where we managed to take about 80 pictures in two hours.

Case in point #1

Case in point #2

And then...drum roll...we spent a day in Liechtenstein! 160 km2, 30,000 inhabitants...just about the size of University of Michigan.

Fun with reflections

And just before leaving we got to spend one night in Zurich, where we wandered about admiring the beautiful food/kitchen stores, taking pictures of the lights in the river, and eating at an amazing vegetarian cafe.

Thanks for reading, folks. You have my word that the next entry will not be so long.