Switzerland

I had a great, whirlwind visit to Bern, Switzerland this week.

Tuesday morning Linda drove me to the Gilze-Rijen train station at 5:40am. I took a train to the Schipol airport in Amsterdam and then a direct flight to Zurich. From there, a train to Bern and then a 30 minute walk to my hotel (it should have been 15 minutes, but Google Maps got very confused).

As a quick tangent, I learned that Bern is the Federal city of Switzerland, but it’s not quite considered the capital. The Swiss people consider themselves pretty independent and don’t really feel like there is a capital.

There’s also not a major airport in Bern.

Anyway, Tuesday afternoon I had some office visits followed by a great dinner.

Wednesday morning Markus Arnold and I went skiing at Grindelwald. It was beautiful! Great snow and few crowds.

That afternoon we went back to Bern and then I presented a paper including some brand new data, so new that I actually analyzed it that morning!

After the workshop we all went to an Italian dinner. Everyone else knew exactly what they wanted to order and started ordering right away. I was stuck trying to get Google translate the menu from Swiss German (not the same as German German) to English. Of course, half of the words were in Italian anyway, so I was just plain confused. When it got to be my turn I said, “Um, the lasagna?”

The waiter liked that, and then asked in German what starter I wanted. “Um, some bread?” My colleagues then asked if I wanted a salad or soup or something. I tried to look at the menu frantically to pick something at random.

Markus recommended the Lamb Festivus salad. I thought that sounded fun, so I ordered it. It was really good, but not at all what I expected. I was expecting something with lamb, maybe with a Greek flair. Nope, it was lettuce, beets, fig, dates, and some cheese. Very sweet and very good, but certainly not what I expected.

After dinner I went back to my hotel. Then got up at 5:10am to catch a train to Zurich so I could fly back to the Netherlands for the Tilburg Wintercamp Thursday/Friday. Whirlwind of a week!

One more quick tangent. I really like hot chocolate. I often get it at the office in Tilburg after biking to work, and I sometimes get it in meetings when my colleagues get coffee.

Now, if asked to name a brand of hot chocolate, the only brand I would be able to think of is Swiss Miss. Based on that anecdote, I would have expected Switzerland to have good hot chocolate.

In reality, my hotel’s coffee machine didn’t have any hot chocolate, nor did the machine in the airport lounge. I’ve been to several hotels in several countries in Europe. They have all had hot chocolate except for in Switzerland, the country famous for hot chocolate.