Adventures at altitude

Boy oh boy, what an adventure we had at the weekend! Such an adventure, that it's taken me four days to write it up! It's a long one, sorry!


Claire finished work early on Friday while I packed the car up. It didn't actually take me all day, but I was trying to be thorough. I nearly did it right as well, only forgot one bag, which happened to be the one with the bread and disposable bbq in, so not a huge problem!


By 1530, we were on the motorway, heading south at high (but legal) speed for Lauterbrunnen via Bern. Very uneventful journey with excellent navigation from the co-pilot. Took us maybe two hours to get there and we found our campsite, Jungfrau camping with no problems. Got a pitch no problems got the tent up no problems noticed the missing bag slight problem but on the whole all good. Then the adventure began.

The kindness of strangers

Our plan had been to do some walking. We had a route up to Wengen all planned out for the morning and everything.

But just as we'd got the tent sorted, a Kiwi couple came over to us from another tent and told us they had one day left on a travel permit for all the cog railways of the area that they couldn't use as they were heading to Frankfurt the following day and did we want it? Now, these cog railways are not cheap. This particular pass also gives you a 50% discount on the Jungfraubahn, which we knew was very expensive as it's basically a tunnel cog railway that goes up to Jungfraujoch at 3.5km (ish). Claire has wanted to go up there since twenty years ago but couldn't afford it at the time as she was a poor student. So after thinking about it for a nanosecond we said "of course, yes please, we owe you a beer" [which we still owe unfortunately]. So all our plans went out of the window.

New plans

We went and sorted out the finances at reception - they gave us a whole bunch of leaflets and flyers and things, including one for the Jungfrau Bahn - an early bird price (from Lauterbrunnen) of 130CHF each. And you had to get the first train at 06:59. But of course we now had our travel cards, which gave us 50% off the JB and we only had to pay from Kleine Scheidegg. We sat in the bar area, had a couple of beers and made our new plans. We decided that we could go up to Jungfraujoch pretty early, to take advantage of the cloudless morning skies and then still get in some walking. So after supper it was an early night. We didn't sleep very well as there were some "issues" with the air bed that meant we kept having to reinflate it...

Lauterbrunnen to Jungfraujoch via Kleine Scheidegg

We left the campsite at 0640. On a Saturday! But we were there in plenty of time for the first cog train up to Kleine Scheidegg. In fact, astonishingly for Switzerland, it left the station a bit late. It seems it was waiting for the train up from Zweilütschinen first. Then we were on our way. I'm sure you could drive up there quicker, if there were any roads. And you could maybe walk it, but it would be tough going. This is the way to travel! After a brief stop at Wengen, which is very picturesque, to take on more passengers, the train wended its ways up to Kleine Scheidegg, where we'd get the train up to Jungfraujoch! This picture was taken from the bahn at Kleine Scheidegg and if you zoom in a lot, you can just make out Jungfraujoch just right of centre, where the mountain comes out of shadow. Pretty breathtaking stuff!

We scrambled to get a seat on the train. Even this early in the day it's an incredibly popular place. In fact, there were people left on the platform, so another train was laid on for them. We were on a pretty new train, which had TV screens telling the story of the railway which was all very interesting - basically it was tunneled out of the rock about a century ago. Wikipedia has more history. The journey took about an hour, with stops at Eigergletscher at the foot of the Eiger, then Eigernordwand - The North Face of Eiger where there are big picture windows and interestingly enough that's where mountain rescue go out onto the Eiger when climbers are in trouble. Then the Eismeer - the sea of ice, which is just one big ice river on which some of the blocks are bigger than houses. I'd love to post a pic but the panorama windows, understandably, are a bit weathered and you can't get a really good picture. Then finally, you're at Jungfraujoch. Wow.

Our first stop was the observation platform at the very top. You get in a lift which goes up about another hundred meters from the train station and you then get rewarded with an amazing vista. It's simply stunning up there. And quite hard to breathe! Previously when I've been up that high, it's either been gradual as in we've gradually climbed over the course of days so you get used to it or I've shortly afterwards skied back down again. When we left the comfort and safety of the building and walked onto the metal platform outside in the cold, it got even better. And worse.

Please don't think I'm a big girl's blouse here, but standing on what is basically a bit of scaffold with nothing but sharp jagged rocks beneath you is a little bit stomach-churning. It's not that I have a problem with heights, I think I have a problem with falling from them. We went back inside and back down pretty quickly.

Again we left the rocky station, this time to walk on the glacier. There were lots of others doing the same thing, but these guys had ropes and spikes and things and they were actually going to WALK on the GLACIER. We just strolled along the prepared path for a while. Man my eyes hurt! A pair of sunglasses is required equipment when you're surrounded by snow and it's a very bright sunny day, you know. Mine were about 2.5km down, sitting the glove compartment in Lauterbrunnen. What an idiot!

Given that we hadn't paid anywhere near full price for our train tickets, and given that we wanted to do some walking that day, we felt we'd seen enough. There's an ice sculpture palace or some such up there, which maybe we'll look at another time, but really we just wanted to walk on the glacier. It was amazing. I'm actually grinning to myself as I type this, thinking about it. We were pretty much the only people on the train going back down. Now here's a thing: you'd think that you'd go down much more quickly than you went up, wouldn't you? Only a couple of problems there. Firstly, for most of its 9km, the Jungfraubahn is single track with passing places in the stations. Secondly, at this time (10:00), the tourists are really starting to arrive thick and fast. So although there was only one train going down, there were lots coming the other way so we'd have to wait for them all to come past at each station. It took about an hour and twenty to get back down! I think we both had a little snooze at one point.

Kleine Scheidegg to First via Grindelwald

We got on a train down into the next valley along, into Grindelwald. Much of the journey was consumed with looking at the north face of the Eiger slipping past on our right. You can see the attraction for climbers. Grindelwald is a much bigger place than Lauterbrunnen, and very pretty. The cable car station at Grindelwald is the other side of town from the bahnhof so we walked over, grabbing some rolls and cheese for lunch on the way [I did mention that somebody forgot the bread, didn't I?]. All the shops which will be selling ski gear in a few months are selling walking gear at the moment. We got on the cable car up to First, which isn't so-called because it's the first stop, it's actually the last. First is the name of a peak above Grindelwald. I hate cable cars almost as much as I hate walking around on scaffolding! The worst part is when you get the bumpy bit as you go over a pylon. The journey up was about thirty minutes, with obviously great views of the Wetterhorn and other peaks.

From First, we followed a well-marked wanderweg to Bachalpensee, a picture-postcard lake looking over at Wetterhorn. It was a pretty straightforward walk in the brilliant sunshine, old snowdrifts still yet to melt on either side of us, lots of incredible views into the valley or over the mountains. We stopped for a bit more lunch at the lake and then tried to decide which route to take back down the mountain, whether we'd have enough time to walk all the way down to Bort [the first cable car station] as planned, or whether to take a shorter walk back to First and get the gondola back down. We decided that we had time, bearing in mind we had to get back down into Grindelwald, up to Kleine Scheidegg and then down again to Lauterbrunnen before the trains stopped), to walk on down to Bort. So off we set. I spend most of my time trying to work out if you could ski down the path we were on. There was one bit that looked like it had to be part of a piste, but I just could not see how you'd get down it. We looked at a piste map later and it was, indeed, a very nasty-looking black run. Black and curly. I look forward to skiing it in a few month's time!

Hiking downhill is definitely quicker than up, but it takes it out of your knees and thighs, especially when we decided to take a "short-cut" at Waldspitz down to Bort; there were two signs one saying Bort 1hour and one saying "Bort blumenpfad, 40min". The blumenpfad, which we translated as "flower path" was very pretty but essentially straight down. Steps and very short switchbacks absolutely killed our legs! But it was very very pretty so worth the pain we felt the following day.
Back into Grindelwald, up to Kleine Scheidegg for a bier whilst we waited for the train, then up from the train station into Lauterbrunnen where we felt we'd earned another bier (or two maybe...), then back to camp.

It was a fantastic day.

Now, we did some quick and rough calculations and we reckon the journeys we took (including the cable car) probably would have cost about 150CHF each. I know we were gifted this travel pass, but at 200CHF for six days, it has to be the best value way of getting around the Jungfrau area, even if you're only there for a couple of days.

Home again

Both suffering from extremely sore legs, we felt it only right and proper that we took it easy on the Sunday, so we got up fairly late, although we had to pack up and leave the campsite by 10, so not that late and went into Lauterbrunnen for some breakfast. We then drove up the valley as far as we could - about two miles! Then turned around and headed down towards Interlaken.

We stopped at Bonigen on the Brienzersee shore for a while and saw the paddle steamer come in. Then we headed for Brienze itself at the other end of its eponymous lake and had a wander around and saw some paragliders doing some mental tricks before landing in a field just in front of us. Then we headed home, via Luzern this time, which is a much prettier if slower route back up to Basel. It's kind of like taking the A5 rather than the M6, you know? We got a lovely look at another ski resort, Lungern, again very pretty, and then drove alongside various lakes until we got to Luzern, after which it was motorway all the way.

Sadly, we were home in time to watch the football!

Right, hopefully that'll whet your appetite for Swiss Adventures of the Large Kind, as I'll be taking a break from adventuring for a couple of weeks. More soon though, I promise!

A rainy weekend in Basel

The weather forecast being absolutely diabolical, we decided to postpone the planned trip to the mountains (the real ones) for another weekend, which left us free on the Friday to go out and watch the England / Algeria match [yes, I wish we hadn't bothered!]. The atmosphere in Pickwicks last time out was good but a bit partisan and we are here to explore after all, so after some research, we decided to go to

Eoipso

Man what an interesting place! Oh, here's their website by the way. We got there, about a half hour before kick-off; it's not the easiest place to get to by tram but well worth the effort.


Sorry, I need to backtrack a little here; en route to Eoipso we called in at Mister Wong at the Bahnhof for grub. Claire had been to the one on Steinenvorstadt a couple of times before and really liked it and we had to change trams at the station so it seemed like a good plan. The great thing about Mister Wong is that they cook your food right there in front of you when you order it! It's like a cafeteria kind of a set-up where you grab a tray and your drink and your cutlery and then look at what's available and take your choice. Except that the pre-prepared stuff is all cheap and doesn't look very appetising and there's a menu where you can choose fresh stuff and it's GREAT! [and still very reasonable]. Claire went with a Thai green curry, which was very fragrant, very fresh-tasting and very effing hot! I just went with the fried chicken noodles, which I do believe I could happily live on for a year. And I tried the dunkel feldschlossen, which is a darker version and is quite nice. A bit tough to have a session on, I would imagine, but quite nice with my dinner.


Back to Eoipso. It's like this massive old barn or warehouse or something (there's still some kind of lifting apparatus that runs on tracks up in the rafters) that's been converted into a kind of arty restaurant slash bar, with lots and lots of TVs everywhere. Old TVs of the CRT variety; presumably when people throw them out to replace with LCDs, the Eoipso people are taking them into their bar. It's all open plan, the bar area has sofas, and some chairs and tables and very relaxed while the restaurant half of the building has candles and white linen and things. It really was a very very interesting place and if you're ever in Basel, it's well worth looking at. It's also the first time I'd tried Zeigelhof Bier, which was pretty pleasant too. We won't mention the footie...

Stepford Tourists

Actually, the really weird thing about Eoipso was that as we were arriving, a whole bunch of people with headphones on were leaving - we assumed that they were part of some kind of tour party of course and didn't think any more of it. But when we went inside, there were a whole bunch more of them. Just sitting there at various tables, some in groups and some by themselves, with drinks in front of them, not speaking just (presumably) listening to some audio guide. I joked about them being the Stepford Tourists. It was pretty weird, right. But it got weirder when suddenly, as if on some cue that only they could hear, they all rose, silently, leaving their drinks behind and heading en masse for the exit. Spooky! [Well obviously it was a cue only they could hear because they were wearing the headphones but let's not spoil the narrative!]

International Tourism

On Sunday, I went to France. Then to Germany, then back to Switzerland. Then Germany, Switzerland, France, Germany, France, Switzerland, France, Germany, Switzerland. Then France. And finally Switzerland. And then I had a little sit down because I was dizzy.


As you may or may not be aware, Basel is up in the North-west of Switzerland and as such, it has suburbs in both France and Germany. It also, naturellement, naturalische, has borders with both countries and where those borders meet is ... the middle of the Rhine. But very near to where they meet is the dreilandereck, which is translated into English as "Three Country Corner", but the French version is something like "the pylon of three lands", which is I think a nicer translation. It's a fairly pretty monument, a ten-minute walk from the end of the number 8 tram line (well signposted all the way), but there's not a lot else going on there - it's at the end of a wharf and there appears to be a restaurant there. I'll leave the creative among you to guess what it's called, but it wasn't open.


I think it's the sheer symbolism of a border with TWO OTHER COUNTRIES that makes it a special landmark. There can't be that many of them in world and there's some primal appeal that I certainly felt from visiting it. That is all. Hopefully, next post will be about the mountains!

Mini solo adventure

I've been getting bored of the World Cup! [no, I never thought I'd say either! Although, yesterday things picked up a little. Do I feel sorry for France? Not one jot] So I decided to head off on a mini adventure all by myself.


Except, we've got this dodgy unseasonable weather just now. Apparently, we're right in the centre of this massive storm system that's causing such chaos throughout Europe [and the part of France that's had these terrible flash floods does get a lot of my sympathies]. So the weather is changeable to say the least - one moment beautiful blue skies, the next, lots of precipitation.


Am I waffling? The point is, I was thinking about going for a stroll in the hills outside Basel, but didn't really fancy it if the weather was inclement. So I hit upon a cunning plan: head out to Dornach on the tram (I love the trams!); if nothing else it would be interesting to see where that line goes. If the weather looked semi-decent, go for a walk otherwise, head back into the City and do a little city walk from a booklet we happen to have here at the flat (there's one that takes in both banks of the Rhine and the clever ferry that I promised to tell you about)


At the end of Tram Line 10, Dornach, there's a little station and a lot of wanderwegs. So I decided to head for one of those - there's one that goes back into Basel at St Jakob, which happens to be where FC Basel's stadium is located, so I thought that sounded good. And it was - the wanderweg goes alongside the River Birs (a tributary of the Rhine) so there were plenty of trees to give me a bit of cover in case the threatened rain did happen to arrive [it didn't]. There's a big nature reserve along a lot of the way and lots a dogwalkers, joggers, cyclists and indeed the odd wanderer [none more odd than yours truly of course!] The 70% or so humidity wasn't great for my tee-shirt though. The posted time for the walk was an hour and three-quarters, so of course I saw that a challenge, which also wasn't good for my tee-shirt, and I made it to St Jakob in an hour and fifteen minutes.


The picture at the top of the post was from about halfway along the walk, where there seemed to be a bit of a widening of the river and a smallish quarry. To be honest, there were nicer spots along the walk but it was too tricky to get a decent picture of them.


I was a bit tired (and hot and bothered) by the time I got to St Jakob, so I didn't have a big look around the stadium, but it does appear to be very impressive and I'm looking forward to watching a couple of games there once the new season starts [I have a little fantasy that Spurs are either going to play a pre-season friendly against FCB, or get drawn against them in the Champions League]. There's also a massive shopping centre there and all sorts of things. Interesting historical fact about the Birs and St Jakob.

Irish Bars and Wanderwegs

Irish Bars

Let's face it every town in the world has at least one. You could be stuck out in the middle of nowehre in a town with two chickens and a dog and one of the two shacks will have a Guiness sign outside it! And that's not a bad thing!
I had a job to do on Friday: suss out where to watch Saturday's game. Now, as you know, I'd already checked out Mr Pickwick's on previous occassions, so that was always an option but I'd had two other suggestions - McGuinesses and Paddy Reillys. Hence the subtitle.


I tried McGuiness's on Elisabethenstrasse first and I must say it looked pretty good - nice size, big sign outside saying "showing all world cup games" and "open from 12:30" and "smart dress only - no baseball hats". The problem was, it was half past three, a half-hour before kick-off of the opening game, and the place was locked up and in darkness!


So off to Paddy Reillys on Steinentorstrasse I went, where a sizeable community of South African fans was gathering outside, spreading across the grass and peering at a 32" flatscreen outside. Me, I went inside, sat at the almost entirely empty bar about 6 feet from a nice 42 incher. Almost next to me at the bar was a very nice American chap with whom I spent most of the match talking about soccerball. It was good, and will be visited again, but not on Saturday as a decision was taken to go somewhere else entirely.

Wanderwegs!

We jumped on a tram at Zoo. [bet you can't guess what attraction that stop is near, can you?] We headed out to Oberwil, which isn't too far out of Basel, with some sandwiches, water, and a free map my wife had got of the front of a free newspaper (or something). I wasn't too confident about the quality of this map, but I was assured that we wouldn't need it as the Swiss wanderwegs are very well signposted. As you can see. As soon as we stepped off the tram, we saw the sign for the various walks we could take. We'd decided to go into Basel St Margarethen, a short stroll of an hour and a half, so off we went.
Every junction, if you're not sure which way to go, check the lampposts / trees / fenceposts for a yellow diamond saying "wanderweg", and you're sorted! A perfect system until, just like back home, someone forgets to put a yellow arrow [or diamond] on a stump / post. At which point you're buggered.
Despite all this, it was my first little stroll through the hills of Basel and a not unpleasant one. We saw a fantastic "pick your own" berry place, called "Beeriland", and I really wanted to go off towards the "batterie", which I assume is the old defensive battery for Basel [equals excellent views!] and will report on at some future point probably. There was also a garden centre, and a wildlife reserve with, honestly, a frog-crossing! Look!

Pickwick burgers

I should also mention that we ended up in Mr Pickwicks for the England game and had burgers for sustenance. I had a "Mr Pickwick Giant Burger (the biggest burger in Basel)" [™ probably] and IT WAS GREAT and big and good. Not much bigger than Claire's Spicey Burger, but big and tasty nevertheless.

Housewarming BBQs

Lastly, but not leastly, Sunday was spent at a very-nice-colleague-of-my-wife's house who had just moved in. I met lots of very nice people, drank lots of beer and Pimms and ... something else ... and it was very nice. Thank you Lisa.

Hopefully, if the weather is nice, we'll be off to the Jungfrau this weekend and if so there will be pictures.

[...STOP PRESS...] Hopp Schwiss!

Food and Exercise...

...two of my favourite things... well, one of 'em is, anyway.

I was a little bit worried about not having a World Cup Wallchart this year for the first time since 1982 but the good old Sunday Times had (a small) one in their 30th May edition, which we managed to buy on the ferry when we drove out here. So that's on the wall, I've got a plentiful supply of Feldschlossen in, and plenty of Merlot. But before I can sit down and start soaking up the festival of footie, I have some jobs to do today. One is the recycling which is very well organised out here - you can pretty much recycle everything; some gets picked up from the road, some I have to take about a minute's walk away and some gets done at the supermarket. And they'll even let you recycle plasticised cardboard of the kind you get on milk cartons!

Another is of course to write this post about last weekend's adventures.

Food

Before I tell you about this place, a little background - Claire and I went and did a tour of Turkey with Explore for our honeymoon last September [thanks again Dad and Louise!], visiting a whole lot of the western part of the country and learning some very interesting things. Not only was it historically, culturally and geographically educational but for a kebab fan like myself, it was a gastronomic delight - I pretty much had a different kind of kebab every single day. But there was one type of outstanding kebab which I had to have more than once, which is the Adana kebab. Kind of like a kofte which you'd get in a kebabby in the UK, but spicier and delicious. I had planned on telling my local, The Kebabery in Stortford, about them and trying to get them added to their menu, but I bottled it. Anyhoo, Basel it seems has a fairly sizeable Turkish community (judging by the number of kebab shops at any rate) and a number of pretty nice restaurants. And clearly the Swiss are well educated on Turkish cuisine because not only do most restaurants (including the take-aways) serve Adana kebabs but they also serve Pide, Claire's favourite, which is basically Turkish pizza!

Background complete, let me tell you about Kelim restaurant [warning this website plays music at you!] It's very close to Mr Pickwicks for one thing, up some stairs in a somewhat dodgy-looking area. I say dodgy-looking mainly because of the graffiti. For such a well-maintained and regulated country with a strong rule of law, Switzerland seems to be pretty relaxed about graffiti, some of which is actually very impressive stuff. It's got a little courtyard area and a few tables inside, decorated with, funnily enough, a few Kelim rugs on the walls. The food was lovely. Not sure about the prices because I haven't got too much experience of Swiss restaurants to compare with, but it seemed very reasonable. They served Efes beer for that authentic taste of Turkey, too. Staff were very friendly, and extremely patient with my pidjin-German and the proprietor (? manager ?) was delighted when we thanked him in Turkish, which also proved the place's authenticity. We shared the lentil kofte and some hummus for a starter (both delicious and served not with pitta but with this lovely soft seeded bread that we had got used to in Turkey). We both went for an Adana (yes I was sure Claire was going to go for a pide too) but whilst Claire went for the classic adana, I had to check out the Adana Iskender. Now, I'm assuming that that's Alexander, and I know I had at least one Iskender kebab in Turkey and the theme seems to be that it gets served with like a sour-cream and a tomato sauce - nice and messy and delicious. This one was served on a bed of large croutons. And yes it was delicious. I know that we'll be going back there.

[Note to self: investigate what the association between Iskender and cream and tomato is]

Exercise

Basel has a number of outdoor swimming pools [actually Switzerland does], so we decided that, if it was a nice day on the Saturday, we'd exercise off some of those kebab calories by cycling to our nearest pool, the Gartenbad Bachgraben, and of course swimming off some more once there. We arranged to meet one of Claire's colleagues and her husband once there. Clearly, the whole of Basel had had the same idea as it was rammed! But what a fantastic place it was - 5CHF to get in (and we obviously only spent a few hours there - you could easily take a picnic and spend the whole day) - a massive area with 3 pools - one regular pool with lanes and a (seperate) diving area with two springboards, one odd-shaped and fairly shallow pool with a big wide waterslide and one little kiddies paddling pool. My only previous experience of outdoor pools was the one at Bath Road in Luton whilst I was growing up (not even sure if it's still there anymore), which was fairly small and all concrete. This place was mostly grass, apart from directly around the pools, with trees for shade, several ice cream vendors, a big food court terrace, beach volleyball court. Just fantastic!

There were really only two downsides - firstly, I managed to spring punctures in both wheels on the way there so had to walk back (and the repairs are another thing on today's List) and secondly the water was absolutely effing FREEZING! Or perhaps I'm just a bit of a big girl's blouse - I should've gone and swam a few lengths of the big pool and I'm sure I would've been fine.

Right, next post will be all about how Basel is celebrating the World Cup. I'm going to do a scouting mission this afternoon for the opening match - checking out Mr Pickwick's and seeing if they're going to put up big TVs in Barfusserplatz etc. Not having either a South Africa shirt or a Mexico shirt, I'm not sure whether to wear a Cameroon top to show my support for Africa or Peru to show my support for Latin America. Perhaps I'll just wear my "Lennon: Give Pace a Chance" to subtly hint at both my club and country affiliation.

Also we're planning on taking a picnic and using our travel permits to go up into the mountains (that's Welsh for "hills") near Basel for a little walking and exploring. That post might have some photos!

Chin chin and COME ON ENGLAND!

Bureaucracy and Shopping

So sorry, dear reader, I didn't intend to leave you for so long, but I had a thing I had to do in Sweden (which isn't a part of the adventure so I won't bore you about it) and ... well ... to be honest I finally set up the Wii so I've been playing FIFA 10.

In order to immerse myself thoroughly in Swiss culture, I decided to put my Spurs career on a back burner and start up a new career in charge of FC Basel. Who in the real world have recently been crowned champions of Switzerland, but on the Wii are a little bit rubbish. Apart from Alex Frei, who is AWESOME!

Bureaucracy

Anyway, on with the point of the post, which is Swiss bureaucracy. Avid readers of this blog will remember that as I signed off my previous post, I was off to buy my residents' travel permit. Well it turned out I couldn't. The piece of paper that I had that I thought was a permit was just a thing saying that I could live in Switzerland, not that I was a resident of Basel, which you need to be to get the travel permit at the reduced price. So I gave that a swerve, and the VERY NEXT DAY (which I'm thinking was what, last Wednesday - the second or so?), in through the letter box popped another piece of paper, this one with an official stamp on it. So I thought OK great, I now have my resident's permit thing. Except I don't! Because it turns out that this one is just a temporary one that says that I have applied for a permit. But it turned out to be good enough for my travel pass, so I can now roam hither and yon within throughout the whole of the Basel Canton at will (well, until July anyway). So not just the city of Basel, but the whole of Basel Land, which is a lot of ground.

Claire's real permit arrived a couple of days ago so I thought mine might come soon, but instead I had a letter asking me (in english, thankfully) for a certified copy of my marriage certificate, which thankfully we have a number of copies of. So hopefully in the not-too-distant future I will be a real resident.

So whilst I'm awaiting my residential status I am, of course, trying to settle in and learn the lingo and everything and of course, that's helped by doing the second point of this post:

Shopping!

[Sorry, that exclamation mark makes me look like a girl.]

We have some local shops and of course there's a lot of big shops a short tram-ride away in town but I figure getting to know the local lingo requires some local patronage. Also, we have a kitchen that is just slightly smaller than the galley of a 37-foot yacht. Seriously. One cupboard for crockery, one for grub. So shopping is a daily thing because otherwise we'd just run out of space. And bread's nicer that way.

The supermarkets here are different to what I'm used to. We're talking seasonal stuff in the veg aisle which was slightly problematical as, when I first arrived, "ist spargal zeit!". I only have a few recipes for asparagus, so there were a lot of frozen peas consumed. We seem to have moved forwards a bit in terms of availability now and of course, through the exploratory process, we're finding more stores and therefore more choice. Please don't think for one second that this is a moan - I actually think the supermarkets in the UK spoil us by making stuff available year-round. It just a difference, part of the adventure! [you know I have never for one second thought that I'd at some point in my life describe shopping as "part of the adventure"!].

Also interestingly, for me, is that there seem to be two main supermarkets - The CO-OP (who sponsored the beach volleyball in Barfüsserplatz) and Migros - and only one of them sells booze! Can you imagine? A supermarket without booze? Those crazy Swiss... I had been a little apprehensive about the price of beverages from what Claire had said before I got out there; wine especially. But I've got it sussed out now.

There are at least two local beers - Feldschlossen (insert umlauts where appropriate) and Warteck. I'm sure there are others but they're the main two. At the supermarket, it's just under 10CHF for 10 330ml bottles of Feld and just over 10 for the Warteck. Now, I prefer the Warteck but not enough to spend a bit more on it in the shops. So we're talking about 3CHF for a litre of 5% beer. Call it two quid and that sounds pretty reasonable.

Until you hit the wine section. Now, there are some very nice wines available at very reasonable prices - Faustino Rioja for a fiver, think I saw some Chateauneuf de Pape for well under Tesco prices. Which is great, but I'm looking for a quaffing wine. So get this. Merlot. One litre. 11.5%. 2.6CHF! Sorted! And honestly, it's thoroughly thoroughly quaffable. When we get some visitors, I promise to spend more but seriously. Sorted!

[Stop Press]
Literally just as this post was about to get published, I went out to stock up on beer in time for ... oh I don't know, is there some kind of sporting event occurring soon? ... and there's a special offer on - 18 bottles of Feld for a mere 11.90! Which requires some calculation I think:

Product	Quantity	ABV	Cost	ABC*
Feld	18 * 33cl = 6l	5%	11.90	25.2
Merlot	1 litre	11.5%	2.60	44.2
*Alcohol By Cost - millilitres of alcohol (quantity * abv) per CHF

OK, not such a big deal after all. Merlot still wins by a mile!

Next post will be about Adventurous Things, I promise... and I plan to write it before RSA vs MEX at 1500GMT tomorrow...