Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe

Carbet Falls Guadeloupe

I’m still alive and well – eating rather too much but wishing I could eat more without detriment!

Today (Sunday) was a trip through the rain forest to the Carbet Falls; it’s 24th December, so many people celebrate Christmas today rather than tomorrow. Apparently, in Guadeloupe they eat goat on 24th December, plus many vegetables and beans. There’s also a potent and sweet orange liqueur that they drink only at this time of year. The guide said twice that it was very strong!

I have a busy day tomorrow, Christmas Day. I’m booked on a railway tour round St Kitts on a train with an open upper-deck and wicker chairs on the bottom. Sounds fun. After that it’s straight onto the beach for “Caviar in the surf” followed by a beach barbecue, and then I assume I’ll be swimming or snorkeling. It all sounds good to me.

Thank you for reading my blog (I should have reminded you all to buy some of my “25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Cats/Dogs/Fish!” books as Christmas presents, but never mind!) – wishing everyone who is reading this a very Merry Christmas (if applicable) and in any case health and happiness in 2018!

Cruise - Miami

Bayside Miami

I don’t intend to write a blog for the next three weeks since I’ll be travelling on my holidays. By the time you read this, I’ll have left Miami and will be en route to Puerto Rico. I’m on a cruise round the West Indies.

I’ve met up with two sisters who are teaching me all the ins and outs of cruising (the biggest advice seems to be to order as much as possible and give your free bottles away instead of tips). I had a great day in Miami looking round Bayside and starting my holiday off with a speedboat tour of Miami. I was completely shocked to see how big some of the cruise ships are.

I had a bottle of champagne in my room as a welcome present , so drank a couple of glasses from that as we departed for Puerto Rico.

Anyway, I’ll try to leave a photo each week, but no guarantee of a proper update!

It’s warmer here than in Egypt

El Andalous - Cats

My December Visitory

A peculiarity (at least to me) of living in Egypt is the preponderance of wild cats and dogs that roam about the streets, restaurants, and cafes. It’s quite a topic of discussion over here.

We have a few wild cats in El Andalous, but they look fairly well fed and almost as if they are descended from domesticated cats. I had one visit me twice this week.

The first time, it was yowling outside my balcony. I stood up to find out what was making the noise and the cat looked up at me. I invited it onto my balcony and to my surprise, it ran across, jumped over my wall and joined me. What was more astonishing was that it seemed to be wanting someone to stroke it rather than desiring food.

I’ve never seen a cat look so happy to be stroked. He purred and slanted his eyes in happiness, nudged me to continue, turned his head if he wanted to be scratched behind his ear or on his neck. Every time I stopped, he started to yowl again. Every time I went into the kitchen to get something to drink, he would yowl outside. When I sat down, he sat on top of my computer or tried to nudge himself to sit right beside or behind me. It was very cute. He was actually still a kitten because his paws were still quite large, but it wasn’t a tiny kitten. I’d say it was an adolescent.

I was tempted to feed it, but since I’m going on holiday soon and I don’t stay here all year round, I didn’t want him to become dependent on me. Also, it would be a good idea for him to kill some of the rodents that must still be around rather than eating canned food. He stayed the entire day right up until it got dark, much to my surprise.

He visited again two days later, but I haven’t seen him since (I have heard the yowl, though!), and he didn’t stay so long on the second visit.

If you get too many cats around in any one place, of course, they can be a nuisance and there are many horror stories going around in Hurghada about people leaving poison out to kill them off (and then people’s domestic cats also get killed).

Joke told me that one café was being troubled by too many cats, so she advised them, ironically, to keep a cat family there who would regard the café as their territory. The cats would then make sure that other cats would not come. They did this, Joke comes in to feed the cats, and the cats in turn are indeed protecting their territory and the café is no longer overrun with them.

There’s a charity – I think it’s called Blue Moon – that will neuter cats and dogs in order to help keep the problem in check. A daughter of one of the owners over here, who is a vet, came over to do some voluntary work for them. She said the government had even offered a financial incentive for each cat or dog brought in to be neutered, only most people can’t afford the taxi ride to get it to the vet.

And there are a fair number of cat lovers over here. There’s a café called the Purrfect Cuppa which houses loads of cats that just roam the place. The tables are armed with water bottles so you can squirt the cats with water if you don’t want them near you. I’ve never been there myself but several people say it’s a great place to go (if you like cats, I guess!). I can’t imagine that taking off in Europe, though!

El Andalous - New Camera

Sahl Hasheesh, Entrance Piazza at Night (Courtesy of New Camera)

I managed to get my credit card unblocked and in the mean time my camera started to work again. However, it took only one snorkeling trip and me taking the batteries out afterwards for the camera to decide it didn’t want to do it again. I think it’s just getting a bit old (a bit like me!); a little bit of water is visible when I open the battery compartment and although I leave it open so that it can dry out internally, I suspect some damage may have been done. Either that, or it always takes a few weeks for it to dry out completely but that’s just too long for me to wait.

I tried searching online for anywhere in Egypt that would sell me the camera I wanted (or indeed any decent underwater camera), but the only vendor I could find was in Cairo and seemed to be the same one that was selling it via souq.com (and thus sold out), so I didn’t bother.

I decided it might be interesting to go on amazon to look at the reviews of the camera I wanted and also to see the reviews of my current camera; to my astonishment, the amazon site for the product came up with the message: “This item can be delivered to Egypt”. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Amazon never used to deliver to Egypt at all (not even kindle books). This was a major step forward in life!

It did make some sense, since I’d noticed that souq.com now also had the amazon logo on its page and was somehow related to amazon.

I decided to give it a go – I ordered it from the UK site, my credit card was accepted first time (hurrah!), and the site informed me that the camera would arrive in 4 days’ time! Impressive. I wasn’t quite ready to believe it, so I waited for a message that my order had been cancelled but, no, instead I got an email informing me that my purchased item was on its way.

It actually took 6 days to arrive rather than 4 (for some reason it went via Germany and France), but that’s still pretty good for Egypt. I had to pay an extra 45 GBP import tax, which is quite a lot (about 15%), but it was well worth it!

I can’t explain how exciting it is to think that I can now order at least some things off amazon from Egypt. It’s up there with having a supermarket open in Sahl Hasheesh. I do try to buy locally, but some things are just impossible to get over here and more so since Egypt has fallen on hard times.

I eagerly went out on Sunday to try the camera out (it’s the first time I’ve ever had a top-of-the-category camera), but unfortunately, due to the Super Moon, even though it was an unusually non-windy day, the waves were large due to the pull of the moon (I guess). Trying to see underwater was like gazing through fog with all the sand that was being swept up with the waves. I was actually a bit scared of being thrown out onto the coral by the waves, so I stayed a respectful distance. I took some photographs, but although some of them were promising, they all suffered from the “fog” blurring the images. Hopefully the tides will have calmed down by next week!

El Andalous - One of Those Weeks

El Andalous - Hiding My Stress!

There seem to be phases in life where everything goes wrong. I had this just before I moved over here and now, four years later, it seems that it’s happening again. I hope that it’s just a week of things not going well and not months on end, like it was before!

I don’t really know where to start. My underwater camera has been playing up recently, so I decided to buy a new one. I thought it would be easy since I bought my last one over here, but it wasn’t. None of the shops seem to sell them any more – presumably due to Egypt’s lack of foreign currency and thus inability to pay for imports.

I eventually found one in a stall in Senzo Mall. On the box, it that that it was a high definition underwater camera, but when I opened it up after buying it, the leaflet inside said that some boxes may hold a low resolution model and this should be discussed with the retailer. What a con! And, guess what? Yes, my camera was a low resolution model.

I decided to buy one online on souq.com (Egyptian site) instead. Even they had only one high resolution underwater camera for sale, but it was the one that all the magazines were recommending, so I was happy and decided to swallow the cost. However, the website rejected all three of my credit cards; I have no idea why. 

Reluctantly, I decided to select the “pay cash on delivery” option and took half of the money out in preparation (it was too expensive for me to take all the money out at once). And then I got a message the next day to say that the item was no longer in stock. Now I had all this money in my flat that I didn’t really want to have in cash!

I took the low resolution camera that I’d bought back the next evening when I was doing my weekly shop via our free bus that runs every Monday at 7pm. I went into Spinneys first, bought some food, got to the counter, opened my purse, only to find that none of my cards were in my purse because I’d tried to use them for my online shopping. 

I scraped every last EGP out of my purse and I was about 7 LE short. It was so ironic considering all the money I had at home. The queue behind me was looking impatient and I was feeling very embarrassed. Someone even offered to pay for me so that it would be quicker! I asked the cashier to take off one of my chocolate bars from the bill, but that required the manager to come over…

The next day I had to have an unwelcome conversation with my manager about a complaint that had been made about me about my work in Zurich (first time in my life that I’ve had a complaint about me!!), but what was worse was that during this conversation, a loud clattering, thumping, and squealing emanated from above my kitchen so that I could barely hear. My rats had chosen that very moment to return. I think one of them must have got caught on one of the sticky mats used to trap them. It was hurtling itself all over the place and then (right in the middle of the conversation with my manager). I heard a squirting sound which I imagine was the rat spraying urine all over the shaft above my kitchen. Horrific!

I’ve also been too busy these last two weeks to be able to go swimming during the week, which annoys me, and then we’ve had cloud, yes, cloud, in Egypt!, over the weekends. I know there’s no sympathy for me to be had here because most of you are in the midst of winter, but I’m feeling quite sorry for myself. On top of that, I had a text from one of my credit cards to say that it’s now been blocked due to suspicious activity in Egypt (that was me!).

Please let this be just a bad week and not a bad month or more!

Hurghada - Snorkeling Trips

Where to Look First?

I’ve been on two boat trips to go snorkeling since I’ve been back. One was a 10th Anniversary celebration for a group called Lotus Ladies. This was originally set up as a social group for wives of Egyptian men, but has since turned out to be more of an expat ladies group. It’s really quite an achievement that it’s been going for 10 years – the group holds classes (creativity, Arabic language), charity events, and various trips. Joke (pronounced “yoka”) has handed over to other members to run it, but it’s still going. It must be one of the longest-running groups in Hurghada.

It was a windy day when we went, but it’s often breezy in the morning on the coast and then calms down later in the afternoon. I’ve described one of these trips before. This time, it was a lot easier to get in the water from the boat than having to go in gently and slowly from the beach at El Andalous. The water is still fairly warm, and that’s much more noticeable from the boat.

There were visibly many more boats out in the sea now than when I last went with the Lotus Ladies, so tourism must be picking up. Even the hotels in Sahl Hasheesh are quite well occupied at the moment. The downside, of course, is that all the boats stop at the same places to snorkel and then you’ve got other people around you all floating about in the same patch of sea. I often wonder what the fish think of us!

I’m sure the Lotus Ladies boat trips started earlier before, so I’m quite relieved that the starting time was 9am and we got back somewhere between 4-5pm. Lunch is provided on board – fried fish, fried chicken, potatoes in a sauce, aubergine salad, green salad, rice, pasta with a sauce – and is very tasty after you’ve just come out of the sea! Our boat is hired privately between us, so we stay just as a group.

For the birthday celebrations, we had a cake (well, two cakes) and also some quizzes, prize draws, and raffles. There were over 20 of us there, so most of the rest of the time was spent chatting; on quieter trips, I like to read a book.

The many different blues of the sea never fail to captivate me and, of course, I love to see the fish and to see if I can spot any new ones that I haven’t seen before. This is when I think that being in Egypt beats being in Switzerland!

Sometimes you can see dolphins when you go out into the sea, but we didn’t spot any this time. It’s a super thing to do at this time of year – come February and March, the water will be too cold (I dread February and March – I still swim, but I have to fight with myself each day to get in!). It’s also good to get a change of scene (and some different company).  I'm waiting to see if I can get another trip in before Christmas...

Hurghada - Eating out in Egyptian Style

Sheraton Street at Night (Hurghada)

In my absence a new place called Bus Stop has opened up in Sahl Hasheesh. It’s actually a fairly famous chain in Egypt which is part restaurant, part bar, part night club, and part games area (pool table). It has live music maybe on Thursday to Saturday, and two-for-one cocktails in the early evening.

I’ve been twice already since I’ve been back, although not to the live music sessions (yet). Their signature dish is steak, which I had on my second visit. Although it was expensive for Egypt (or so I thought; I’ve since been told that some places in Hurghada charge the same now – inflation is high over here, so it’s hard to keep tags of what’s a reasonable price), it was also one of the best steaks I’ve had. The meat was extremely tender and the pepper sauce was also just right. On my first visit, I had an Indian curry dish of some kind, which was also good, but not nearly as good as the steak. I heard today that their beef burgers are also chunky with a good helping of fries, so it’s all very promising.

Another new place (for me) that I’ve tried since I’ve been back is an Egyptian restaurant in Hurghada called El Dar Darak. It had come recommended by a lot of people on a Hurghada facebook group and my curiosity was aroused.

It took a while for our taxi driver to find it – they don’t usually eat out, and consequently don’t really know the restaurants, so you have to know where you are going in order to explain it to the taxi driver (in our case, by saying it was behind the shop T Data, which we didn’t actually know ourselves!).

We were advised to arrive early (5.30pm) in order to get a table because it’s so popular; it gets full very quickly. Apparently, it used to look a bit like a canteen, but they’ve since done it up a bit, so it is actually fairly presentable (but not grand). It became busy soon after and they also seemed to have a stream of people coming in to ask for a take-away.

The duck came recommended, but I ordered the lamb chops, which you had to order in terms of how many kg (or parts thereof) that you wanted. I went for 250g, on the assumption that this was what a large steak would be. There was the national dish of pigeon on the menu, which I was quite tempted to try, but thought I’d leave that for another time. The duck came literally as a half duck (in a single piece).

Behind us there was a table of about 10 Egyptian men and they seemed to be ordering food like there was no tomorrow. The waiters brought out a huge plate absolutely stacked high with cooked pigeons and then several other plates piled up with meat. It looked as if the pigeon was only a starter (it was relatively inexpensive at 50LE, so that’s just under 2.50 GBP at current exchange rates).

One person with us ordered “mashi” which turned out to be stuffed vegetables. I would order that as a side dish if I went again, as it was delicious. But you’d need to share it, because the portion was huge.

It’s always good to find new places. The Yemini restaurant I went to before has now closed, but other than that I’ve eaten out at some of my old favorites (the Heaven in the marina, and Il Gusto in Sahl Hasheesh). I hope I’ll have some more culinary adventures before the year is out!

El Andalous - Language Problems

National Bank of Egypt, Mamsha, Hurghada

I’d brought over some (not many) Swiss francs with me to change. I mentioned in a previous blog that I never managed to do this on my arrival because the taxi driver insisted I change it with his friend. It took me a while to muster up the courage to try again.

In the mean time, Kathryn and Stephen told me that they’d gone to the bank in Mamsha (aka Touristic Promenade) and that it had been really good. I was happier just going to the bank to change my money, so I took a taxi and went. I had a different driver this time – I’d complained about the previous one and I think Esmat’s making sure I don’t have him again.

Anyway, it was a completely different experience in this bank than in the main one in the bank area. I didn’t have to queue at all, the seats were more comfortable, the atmosphere was a whole lot friendlier. The man serving me was very helpful.

But all of a sudden, there was a huge commotion in the bank. The guy serving me stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down, and then asked me if I minded if he went because his “big mother” had just arrived. I understood that he was probably meaning “big manager” since the word for manager in Arabic (Mudeer) is quite similar to “mother”. I looked over and saw a huge circle of employees standing round this very smart looking gentleman. I nodded and said it wasn’t a problem. I quite liked the idea of everyone scurrying around because his big mamma had come into the office, though!

As it turned out, it was obviously not the correct procedure for him to abandon me, since he returned almost immediately and continued to serve me. I felt a bit sorry for him, because in the mean time all the other bank employees were going outside the bank to have a group photo taken with the manager while he was stuck with me. That’s service for you!

I will definitely use that branch from now on since I hate the one in the bank area – I always have to queue for several hours, the staff are overworked and don’t have time to do more than one task for you, and it’s not a very relaxing atmosphere.

Anyway, that language error reminds me of my own difficulty when I went to Senzo Mall on our weekly bus. I’d forgotten to put on my watch and I needed to know how much time I had left to do my shopping. I’m only just back, so I wasn’t really thinking clearly when I asked one of the staff in Spinney’s if he could let me know the time.

He told me it was 7.05pm, but I knew that was wrong, because we didn’t leave El Andalous until 7pm. He then showed me the time on his mobile, saying “5”. I looked at his mobile and got confused as the digital clock was showing V:00.

My first thought was that this looked like 5pm, which was even more wrong than 7pm and I thought it rather bizarre that he had his mobile set to Roman numerals. Then, when it dawned on me that it was in Arabic numbers, and I recovered from my sense of panic at having to read the foreign lettering, I was puzzled because it did look like 7pm, just as he’d said (V in Arabic is 7). I put it down to his mobile being an hour out for some reason. It wasn’t until about ten minutes later that I realized that what I’d seen as “00” was actually, in Arabic, “55” (5 is a bit like a 0 in Arabic numbers). Therefore, the time V:00 had been 7.55pm. The guy had been trying to say that 0 was a 5 but his answer had come out as 7.05pm instead. Doh!

On the one hand it was comforting, because at least then I really did know the time; on the other hand, I was shocked at my ineptitude. I still have a long way to go in learning Arabic, it seems!

El Andalous - Sorting Out Visas

How Most People Feel at the Visa Office?
(actually, it's a King Kong Sculpture at Sand City, Hurghada)

When I first arrived back into El Andalous maybe a month ago, I had some immediate admin to attend to. The most important thing was to get my visa.

The visa situation over here seems to have clarified a bit, although I have heard that there have been instances where the “rules” haven’t been applied. Generally, for most people, it seems possible to get a 6-month visa extension after you’ve got the airport visa and at the same time (for a cost) you can apply for a re-entry visa, which will allow you to go in and out of the country. If you don’t have the re-entry visa, going out of the country invalidates your last visa and you have to purchase a new visa at the airport each time. If you want to stay a year, you have to apply for a second 6-month visa, but you can’t get a re-entry visa for those last 6 months. After a year, you have to leave the country for one overnight and then start all over again.

Since I was leaving the country after only two weeks, I needed to get the visa sorted as soon as possible. Fortunately, it went fairly smoothly and was organised, although the system is a bit convoluted. You have to queue to get the form to apply for the 6-month extension. I asked for the form for the multi-entry too. However, I think the guy misunderstood me as asking if it could be for multiple family members, so he said it was included on the form.

Then you queue again at the same place to hand in your completed form with your required documents and they give you a slip to take to the cashier. This is when I found out that my re-entry wasn’t included because I happened to know that the price they were charging on the pay-in slip wasn’t enough to include multi-entry.

For the form for the multi-entry visa, I was told to go and queue in a different office (where they have to check that you’ve only just come into the country), then I had to fill out that form, queue again at the original counter to get my other slip for payment of my re-entry visa. Then you queue at the cashier to pay; they give you a receipt which they advise you to photocopy. You go to another place to get it photocopied and then you queue again when you go back to your original counter to show that you’ve paid the cashier. Then they tell you to come back the next day. And then the next day you queue to get your visa and passport back.

It helped that I knew roughly what the process was and that I managed to catch that they hadn’t charged me for the re-entry. Some other person applying for the visa latched onto me while I was there and asked me to explain the process because she didn’t really know what was going on and how to get the re-entry visa and where to get the forms. She also did not know what the rules were regarding re-entry visas (how long they last, when you can get one, etc). It felt quite strange to be someone who actually knew something!

However, I got it easily enough and I was really happy about that. I’m just so pleased that the re-entry visas are back at last!

I had a bit of a confrontation with my taxi driver, which is unusual, because my taxi fare this time was more than double what I used to pay. In the end, I think I just hadn’t realized that Esmat now charges if the taxi waits for you. Before, they would wait for free so as not to lose the business for the return fare. Also, the fares have gone up with petrol prices having risen.

As usual, there’s always something that’s a bit of a shock on returning!

El Andalous - Returning Again

Back on My Balcony Again!

When I returned to El Andalous a month ago, I was actually longing to be back in Egypt. It’s not that I didn’t want to be in Zurich so much, but I was missing the beach and the sunshine. I feel much more relaxed when I’m in Egypt than when I’m in Europe, despite the stress of things going wrong in Egypt, the crazy traffic, and the hassle of having to barter or to insist multiple times in order to get anything done. Somehow, the warmth just penetrates right into your very bones and before long, it’s impossible for your body not to succumb to a state of relaxation.

This time, just two weeks after I’d left Egypt again, I was much less in the mood to return. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come back, but I’d only recently breathed in some of my “home” (Egyptian) air and somehow that had been enough to feed my soul for now. Consequently, I would have been quite happy to have stayed in Zurich for another week or two. The weather in Zurich, with temperatures in the high 20s, probably also helped.

I’ll leave another blog to explain all the settling in that I had to do when I came back a month ago; this time, all that admin stuff had been completed, so returning this second time was actually very easy. In addition, in my absence, our management company finally replastered and repainted my bedroom wall after a leak (I think it’s taken about three years to get them to do this) and they’d repaired my balcony wall and ceiling as I’d requested.

I returned with a cold, so I only did some leisurely swimming and snorkeling rather than “serious” swimming for the first week. Surprisingly, for the first few days I was back, I pined a little for Zurich. It may be a bit like when you go on holiday and it takes you a while to switch off. Here, it just seemed that Sahl Hasheesh was very quiet compared with the hectic rush that was my last two weeks in Zurich. I was looking forward to the slower pace, but then when it came, I had itchy feet.

However, the sun is starting to eat its way back into my system, and I can feel my body entering a deep relaxation zone and I’m starting to feel blessed again for this laid-back lifestyle. On thinking about it, I also believe there’s something quite special about Sahl Hasheesh. A bit like the way some houses or flats somehow feel “happy”, Sahl Hasheesh, to me, as a place has a very particular feel about it. Even though it’s totally modern, it’s a tourist resort and not really very Egyptian at all, the air somehow holds a bit of Egyptian mystique to it, something that calls to me, to my very being, and embraces me in its warmth, welcomes me with the sand, the sea, and the mountains, if I only breathe it in and allow it to let me join its cocoon.

Possibly more than with expats going to France or Spain (or maybe not!), most of those who have chosen to buy here in Egypt and have stayed with their investment feel drawn to Egypt in some way, and seem to assume that others feel the same. I’m not sure I was ever drawn to Egypt, but I do feel it has now entered my soul. I feel it is now a part of me.

Zurich - Busy Schedule

An Autumn Stroll in Basel

And wham, that’s two weeks already gone.

I’ve hardly had time to think while trying to pack everything in I wanted to do.

Much to my joy, the Zurich Film Festival went on until 8th October this year, so I was back in time to see some films there. I don’t get the chance to go to the cinema when I’m in Egypt, so it’s a luxury I enjoy while I’m over in Europe. And, of course, at the Film Festival, you get the chance to see some non-mainstream films that in any case you might not usually get to see.

I saw one documentary about a rinpoche (reincarnated Buddhist monk) waiting to be recognized as the reincarnation he was, although it was as much about the relationship between the young boy (the rinpoche) and his uncle. The other two were films, one called Custody (apparently the word in French also means something like “kill by strangulation / stifling” or something) about a custody fight over their son; the other one was weird (I like weird!) and called Animals and blended the distinctions between space, time, dream, and reality with a basic story about a woman who thought her husband was cheating on her. I wished I could have seen more films but there are only so many hours in a day!

I also went to Cirque de Soleil’s Ovo, which, as ever, made me marvel at what the human body is capable of (not mine, though!) and how amazing it is that we are equipped with this wonderfully flexible tool!

It’s also been busy at work, which is why I’m over in Zurich, and I’m blaming the fact that we had to start a meeting at 7.30am, and the dinner out the evening before, for the fact that I’ve got a cold (which is also why today’s blog is a little bit late). I’m just not used to working these long hours any more!

As for food, well, I’d lost my appetite a bit when I returned to Egypt. I think it was the heat. But as soon as I arrived back in Zurich, I just couldn’t seem to stop eating. I’m sure I’ve eaten more than the two weeks of less food that I had when I was in Egypt. And I’ve had plenty of opportunities to eat – whether catching up with people at work over lunch, eating out in the evening before a film or show, going to a friend’s place for dinner to see her new flat which overlooks the lake, having a lovely bit of cake before embarking on a walk…

This last week it’s been unseasonably warm, but wonderful. The trees are all looking amazing this year, particularly when the sun shines, and I feel privileged to have been able to experience this again. I was a bit disappointed, but also happy, to discover that the plants on my balcony had actually fared better in my absence than when I was tending them. Several are still in bloom even though it’s mid-October. My neighbours will have to get the benefit of that.

And now I need to pack up and leave. It’s been a wonderful , if short, two weeks.

Zurich - Brief Visit

Zurich - Boats Closed for Winter

And so I’m back in Zurich again, but just for two weeks.

I’d been warned that the weather had turned colder, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and I was lucky that the day after I returned, it was bright blue sky. This time, coming back to my flat finally felt like home. After all the effort I’d put into getting curtains hung, sorting out my finances, buying extra furniture, arranging my internet access, etc, this time, there wasn’t really anything to do to the flat and I could settle right back in.

The flat itself was also surprisingly warm. My rental contract states that I have to leave the heating on even if I’m away, so I’d turned it all right down, but the flat was plenty warm enough. It’s sufficiently cold at night that I need to shut the windows, so I’m spared the noise of the planes now. I’m also using my duvet, but I’m sleeping pretty well.

There’s still quite a bit of admin that I wanted to get done and almost a week has gone and I haven’t made much progress. I sometimes feel that everything goes wrong for me much more often than for other people!

I’d applied for some credit cards with Swiss airlines so that I could build up some airmiles – and mostly, to take advantage of their 20,000 miles welcome bonus so that I could upgrade my flight to Miami in December (more about that later this year). The credit cards arrived, but my welcome miles haven’t been credited and my flights to and from Zurich to Hurghada also haven’t been credited, so something’s gone wrong there. Also, they require an MTAN (a code sent to your mobile phone) for you to login to their internet banking, but the MTAN is just not arriving to my phone for some reason. So one step forward (got the cards), and three steps back (need to get my flights credited, need to sort out the MTAN, need to get my welcome bonus miles).

Another thing that went wrong was my bike pump. I bought a new one when I was here last and took it back to me to Egypt, since I can’t seem to get my pump over there to work on my Flying Pigeon. I brought my hand-held pump with me back to Zurich to see if that would be OK for my Zurich bicycle. I pumped up my back tyre without too much problem, but when I did my front tyre, I couldn’t unscrew the pump from the valve afterwards. At the moment, the pump is still hanging from my front wheel as I just can’t remove it. I can only hope that if I try every day, it’ll gradually budge and I’ll get it off. I spent ages on the internet to see if anyone had a similar problem, but this seems to be fairly unique to me.

On the plane coming back to Zurich I wondered why I’d been so keen to come back to Switzerland so soon, but actually on entering my flat, everything suddenly felt good and the time too short. Time is always too short, wherever I am!

El Andalous - My Return

El Andalous and Bougainvillea

My return to Sahl Hasheesh was, as usual, a bit of a jolt as events unfurled to let me know that I was back in a different culture again.

One of Esmat’s drivers was at the airport to meet me punctually, which was a relief. I’d informed Esmat that I wanted to go to the bank to change some money before going to El Andalous.

Unfortunately, my driver started insisting that I use his friend to exchange my money, which I didn’t really want to do and I didn’t really want to tell him how much money I wanted to change. But it’s hard to say no, because he made it into an issue of me not trusting him. I was definitely back in Egypt! Fortunately, it turned out that his friend could only exchange Euros or USD and then I refused the next place he took me to on the basis that the rate wasn’t good enough. So, it ended up with me not changing my money after all and just paying more taxi fare for the longer journey to the exchange places. Only I couldn’t pay the taxi, because I didn’t have any money, but fortunately I knew Esmat wouldn’t mind if I paid a few days later.

Anyway, I arrived back at El Andalous. This time I hadn’t had any apprehensions at all about returning and it had completely escaped my mind that every time I come back, something always goes wrong.

So, the first thing that went wrong was that I entered my flat only to find it hadn’t been cleaned. I rushed out, initially thinking I would have to complain to Medhat, the manager, but then realized when I saw him sitting in the reception, that to be polite I would have to shake hands and exchange niceties. This gave him enough time to apologise for the flat not being clean and to arrange for the cleaners to come straight away.

It was a bit of a nuisance because I couldn’t settle back in straight away, but I unpacked a bit, put my swimming costume on, and went to the beach for a few hours while the cleaners did their job (it’s a hard life).

When I got back to the flat, after their working hours, I discovered that my kitchen tap was now no longer working. Well, actually, it had come off completely, although they’d balanced it on in place so that it wasn’t obvious when you first come in. That’s also very typical here – they always try to cover up breakages rather than letting you know about them.

Luckily, the plumber sorted it out the very next day and gave me a new tap, but unfortunately I still didn’t have money at that point to pay him.

I was a bit horrified at seeing all the water come out in a solid brown colour when I turned on the taps in my bathroom and for my shower, but it’s like this any time when you’ve been away for a while. It’s the sand that builds up while you’re away. I let the water run for a while and it was soon back to normal. I’d just completely forgotten about that.

Another thing that I soon realized had broken in my absence was my power bank, which I use with my solar panel to charge all my appliances, including my laptop. I suspect that the power bank just got too hot when it was left in the flat with no air conditioning over the summer. It’s still under guarantee, and I’m hoping to be able to get a replacement, but it’s not going to be easy because I suspect it will have to be delivered to the UK and I’m not planning on being there for quite some time. Electricity prices have risen a lot over the last year, so I had been looking forward to using it so that it could earn some of its cost back.

Otherwise, though, it wasn’t so bad. My internet purchased at the airport worked straight away, and my phone was still able to make and receive calls. I’m always astonished that my phone sim in Egypt just keeps on functioning even after I've been away for 6 months; most other people say theirs doesn’t work after they've been away. I feel like I have a magic phone! Anyway, I’m very grateful, because I would really rather not have more hassle with my phone than need be. My return journeys are definitely slowly improving!

El Andalous - Adapting Back

Back to My Other Lifestyle

It’s autumn, so it’s time for me to move back to Egypt. A different residence means different routines, and I’m really surprised at just how much I’ve forgotten.

My daily life for the first few days seemed to have been spent re-learning what it was I used to do.

One of the first things I did wrong, and I only realized after two days, was to make my ice cubes with tap water instead of bottled water. I think I’d got confused because my kitchen tap broke as soon as I returned (maybe a topic for another blog). Consequently, I had to constantly remind myself to get water from the bathroom and on no account to switch on the kitchen tap (which would result in water gushing out over the entire flat). I proudly filled up my ice cube tray with water from the bathroom thinking I was so clever not to have used the kitchen tap, only to realize two days later that I shouldn’t have used tap water at all. Oh well.

As it turned out, I haven’t got ill from using those ice cubes in my drinks, so I’ll just continue to use them up and then go back to using the bottled water afterwards. For those who are reading this and feeling horrified at my total disregard for my health, the water in my flat is filtered twice before it comes to me anyway, so it’s not too bad; I just don’t generally risk it though.

I’d also forgotten that it takes a while for my shower to produce hot water. Consequently, on my first morning, I stood under the shower and thought I’d forgotten to switch the hot water on. I dried myself off, clutched a towel round me in case anyone was looking through the window, and went to switch on the water heater only to find it was already on. Doh.

Another thing that I’m still struggling to remember is to clean my swim shoes after I come off the beach. If I don’t do this, my flat gets covered in sand from the shoes. I think I’m finally getting back into the habit but at the moment I forget more often than I remember and it’s annoying going onto my balcony every morning and seeing a pile of sand by my shoes.

I also have my established routines for the things I do frequently – such as going on the beach or working on my laptop. At first, I’d go to the beach and find I’d forgotten my kindle, forgotten my sports watch, forgotten my sunglasses, forgotten my shampoo for my goggles… these are usually all packed in a bag, although some things, like the watch, the kindle, and the sunglasses, have to be added in before departing because I use them also at other times.

Similarly, I’d get the laptop out, then realize that I’d forgotten the power cord, or my mobile phone, or pen and paper, or the lap table that I have for the laptop (so that it doesn’t get too hot on my lap). I’ve finally gathered all these things together and have them stored in a corner of my lounge, ready for me to pick up and take out on the balcony whenever I need them. It was just second nature before.

When I was in Switzerland, I’d often thought to myself that when I’m back in Egypt I mustn’t forget to turn the TV off as soon as I’m not really watching it anymore, because when I’m in Egypt, my TV usage eats up my internet allowance (and thus costs me money). I remembered this on returning and have been very good at turning the TV off straight away, but I completely forgot that I needed to set it to standard definition rather than high definition, as the latter also uses up at least twice as much of my internet allowance than the former. It’s taken me four days to remember this, so I’ve already used up a third of a month’s allowance now. But at least I remembered in the end!

I don’t recall ever having such a hard time of remembering my old routines, so I’m obviously long-overdue for having a stint in Egypt.

Zurich - Autumn

Autumn Sky

Autumn seems to have arrived very quickly this year; usually there’s a bit of a transition, but this time we seem to have gone straight from summer to autumn. We haven’t been given a chance to get our heads round the change.

I’m slowly adapting back to the rain. On the first downpour each year that I’m in Zurich, I’m always taken aback at just how wet I get. I exit the bus or tram, the rain drenches me immediately, my sopping skirt sucks itself to my legs and I feel like I’m barely wearing anything at all. How did that happen? Now, I’m just back to that state of resignation that this is just how it is for the next few months.

I’ve swapped back from dresses into trousers and am returning to that state of annoyance at all the effort it takes to dress in the morning and to wear all these clothes. I’m so used to life in Egypt where I just pull a light and loose dress quickly over my head and that’s it. Now, if I want to go swimming, it’s a right hassle with all these items (socks/tights, jeans, heavy shoes, t-shirt, cardigan, coat…). I swear it all takes a lot longer.

To my surprise, I’m now using a duvet on my bed. Last winter the flat was too hot because I couldn’t turn the heating down (that’s been sorted now), so I just used the bedspread. Then, this summer, I also needed only the bedspread because the nights were fairly warm (not hot like in Egypt, though, although I did miss having the air conditioning that I have in my flat in Egypt).

The open air swimming pools closed for the season this weekend, which also to me signifies the end of summer.

I’m suddenly getting mosquito bites for some strange reason. I think I must have one trapped in my flat that is using me as its sole feeding ground. I have all my mosquito repellent in Egypt – I’m not used to needing it here.

But along with this sense of a shift, I also feel the anticipation of events starting up in Zurich. Zurich is pretty good for having lots of things to do, but now that autumn is settling in, we have indoor events such as the Film Festival at the end of September / beginning of October, Cirque de Soleil is performing, the Blue Man Group are here, so are some dance events (I went to see Pearls of Ballet just the other week by the Singapore Dance Group). So, although outdoor options are dwindling, indoor activities are ramping up to see in the time between now and the ski season.

It’s this choice of cultural events that I miss in Egypt, but I guess a large part of that is due to the poverty in Egypt where most people are more concerned about finding money to eat rather than spending their precious resources on luxuries. I am lucky to live the life that I do.

Zurich - Mindful Triathlon

Wanderlust Mindful Triathlon in Zurich (photo (c) The Yoga Affair)

An event I booked a while ago was the Zurich Mindful Triathlon (5km walk/run, 90 minutes of yoga, 30 mins of meditation). I think this might be the first year it’s run, but I’m not too sure.

As usual when I book things, I spent the day before the event kind of regretting it – this time, I was sulking about the fact that I had to be there at 8.45am on a Sunday and I’d really prefer to lie in. I really do need to book things for myself because given the option on any day, laziness always wins.

The day started off rather stressfully – not really the aim of “mindfulness”! Firstly, we were supposed to be wearing company t-shirts to the event (work had paid for our tickets), but I’d left it until last thing on Friday to collect mine, and the person who had them had already gone home. I decided I could wear the company t-shirt that we had for a charity day a while back – it was bright orange instead of bright green, so I would be visibly very different, but at least I would have tried to be “corporate”.

And then I realized that actually I didn’t have any gym stuff at all. I’d left it all in Egypt. I’d meant to bring it across to Zurich since I never do the gym in Egypt, but I’d completely forgotten (I think I got too sidetracked into packing the bucket!). I could do the 5km walk OK in my skirt and t-shirt, but not the yoga. In the end I decided to use my pyjama bottoms. Very hippy-like!

And finally, the bus pulled away just as I got to the bus stop. This meant – horror of horrors – that I had to use my phone to inform my friends that I was going to be a bit late. It was all a bit of a shambles.

As it turned out, the others were also late and I wasn’t even the last one of us to arrive. I was surprised to see so many people on my train also heading to the triathlon but at least this made finding the venue easy, even if I was feeling a bit intimidated by their sporty appearance and possession of yoga mats.

It’s amazing how people can create events like this and people actually turn up. If I’d been organizing it, I’d have been petrified that it would fall flat on its face. It takes some guts. But I think there were probably about 1000 people there – apparently all tickets had been sold out.

Most people ran the 5km, but there were also a fair number walking. I don’t really do running but might have tried if I had the correct gear with me, but since I didn’t… anyway, I ran through the finishing line which is what counts but unfortunately nobody took a photograph of that. The run/walk was through a wooded area just by Sihl City and along the river, so it was also good to see a bit of Zurich that I hadn’t seen before.

Then there was time to look round the stands and there were a few other side activities. I tried doing the hula-hoop but I just couldn’t get it to stay round my waist. I’m sure I could do it as a child, so I don’t know how I’ve lost that skill.

The yoga, performed outside on a large field with a stage in front, was preceded by a quick warm-up of “breakletics” which is based on break dancing as a form of exercise.

I hadn’t done yoga for maybe decades now and I was a bit shocked at how demanding it was and how incapable I was of doing it. The weather teased us. It started to drizzle just as the yoga started and then it stopped, almost as if it had heard the collective “no!” that I’m sure all of us were inwardly whispering. At another point, it also started to rain, but again, it didn’t last long. I guess it was one way of getting in tune with nature!

You could choose which bits of the yoga you wanted to do and when you didn’t want to push your body any further. They also had people on the sidelines to correct you if you were doing things wrong. Despite having sat out at various points, I still ached the next few days, so it must have done something.

The meditation was a bit curtailed as we’d overran a bit, but all in all it was an enjoyable event and I somehow felt I’d achieved something. On top of that, it’s got me going to yoga every Thursday now, so you could say it was a life-changing experience!

Zurich - Rainy Day Activity

Glass Labryinth at Hergiswil (c)Mums:Tots:Zurich Blog

The first time Geraldine ever visited me in Switzerland, it was a September, she had glorious weather. Sunshine, blue sky, high temperatures – it couldn’t have been better. And, of course, it was never like that again on any subsequent visit.

So, we had some rain during her stay, but I did have some wet weather activities planned. Somehow, it’s always the children’s stuff that sounds the most fun and I got the suggestion of going to Hergiswil glass factory from a mother’s blog on rainy day activities for children (sorry, Geraldine!). Her blog is actually a far better guide to the factory than mine, actually, so do visit her site if you’re interested.

The factory is located right by the lake, so I imagine on a sunny day it would be really spectacular. It is located close to the Hergiswil train station and was well signposted. It’s a bit confusing when you get there because there’s a museum and then there’s the factory exhibition and there are arrows pointing in two directions.

It was a bit disconcerting when we first arrived because we were told to wait to one side while everyone else went in – apparently it was the next “sitting” which was going to be in English and the others were all German speakers. However, there were lots of people still milling about and we were scared (or I was, at any rate!) of missing our correct time to go in since we were totally reliant on the woman serving at the desk (who was busy).

But all was well and she signaled to us as to when to go  in. The tour was quite clever with doors suddenly opening out of nowhere after each historic scene played out before you, and you just had to hope that you were going to the right place each time. It felt a bit Indiana Jones-ish! They are very proud of the fact that they still use the hand-blowing methods, which is presumably part of the reason for the cost of some of the items.

We were able to watch people making items with the glass afterwards, although the area for the finer aspects of design was closed, so we didn’t see any engraving or animals being molded, etc. My ticket included the cost for blowing my own glass bauble, but the queues for this were long and were clearly primarily meant for children, so I skipped this in the end.

I agree with the mum’s blog that the best bit is the glass maze. You have to pay a small fee to go in and you have to wear slippers and gloves (provided) and leave your bags behind at the desk. You enter through a darkened door and then you find yourself in this maze of mirror and glass walls. Your aim is to come back out of the door that’s just next door to the one where you went in. It’s still fairly dark inside and I’m sure that when they change the lighting, some of the glass turns into mirrors and some of the mirrors turn into glass. You have to feel your way round gently as you can’t tell where the glass ends and a corridor begins.

I didn’t even think to try to get out, actually, as it was fun groping about. In the end, Geraldine spotted a father who she thought knew what he was doing and we followed him to get to the exit. My spatial awareness isn’t very good, so this isn’t the sort of thing I’d do well at anyway, but it was a lot of fun.

There were lots of other games to do with glass as well – from hitting the glass to see what sounds it made (I only noticed half-way through my enthusiastic hitting of it that they warned you not to do it too hard!), distorted mirrors, prisms, etc. Because it was raining, we didn’t do the massive “Kugelbahn” outside where you can buy marbles and roll them down the chute and they go through a whole massive obstacle course. That would also no doubt be a lot of fun.

There’s a seconds shop and a shop with premium quality items, so plenty of shopping opportunities too, if you want them. All in all, it makes a good rainy day activity for children and adults alike!

Zurich - Continuing with Arabic

Sample Page of My Book - Text and Vocabulary, Plus Exercises

Without really thinking about it, it seems that while I’m in Zurich, I try to learn Modern Standard Arabic and when I’m in Egypt, I go back to Egyptian Arabic. I’m not really getting the sense that I’m progressing, but I know I must be!

I dithered about taking classes again, but in the end I decided to teach myself via reading, since I’d like to be able to read fluently. I’ve been using the book “Easy Arabic Reader” to progress my skills. The cover claims “learn to read in Arabic almost instantly!”, which is, of course, a blatant lie.

I want to learn via reading because my French at A Level suddenly improved by leaps and bounds once I started to read novels in French. Unfortunately, I’m not finding it the same in Arabic.

I think there are several reasons for this (but I'm not reading a novel!) – firstly, Arabic has a completely different alphabet which means that I have to work a lot harder and I’m also reading much earlier in the learning process than when I did so for French. Secondly, whereas much of the vocabulary in French is similar to English so it’s easier to remember, there’s often no relation between the Arabic and the English: you’re just learning random sounds. Thirdly the grammar is more difficult or at least feels more foreign and I’m aware I don’t even know a lot of it (some of the ways things are phrased in my reader are really puzzling! And that’s even though I know, for example, that in Arabic if you put the verb first in a sentence, you no longer have to worry if the noun it refers to is singular or plural because you just use the singular). And, finally, Arabic is supposed to be one of the languages with the most vocabulary – since I’ve already learned three words for garden, the word for “not” changes depending on the tense, I know of about three or four words for woman, two words for “horse”, well, you can see how it all adds up and also increases the possibilities for non-comprehension.

Each time I read a new chapter (in reality, one short side of text), I feel thwarted. I need to go through it probably at least ten times, if not more, but weirdly on each repeat reading I understand more, even without looking up more vocabulary.

I’ll suddenly “click” what certain words are. Sometimes, it may be because I haven’t pronounced them correctly first time round and so didn’t realize what the word was, sometimes it’s because I’ve thought something is two words first time round and then realized that it’s just one word on my second or third reading. Written Arabic has this frustrating tendency to have spaces where you just don’t expect them to be or joins up words when you’re not expecting it, so I’m constantly getting confused. I do get fed up reading the same text so many times after a while and occasionally I’ll skip onto the next chapter just for some variation. On the positive side, I do both read and understand at the same time these days, which is more than I was able to do maybe a year ago where my whole energy was spent in just reading the words in isolation without being able to put them together.

But the book is well designed and repeats vocabulary as you go along to help you remember it and also so that you can see how one word can be used in different contexts. I'd really recommend it, since all my complaints are those of a beginner and not the book's fault at all. I carry the book with me everywhere so that if I’m waiting for my bus or need to take a long tram journey, I can delve into it. It also has some postcards in a more handwriting-type font, so that you can learn how to read that as well.

I’ve found a resource for vocabulary lists in English, Arabic and Egyptian Arabic (I’d forgotten to pack my book at the time), so I have a couple of them printed out for rote learning, too, just for variety. As if to highlight the greater vocabulary in Arabic vs English, apparently there is one word in Egyptian Arabic for a loud fart and another word for a quiet fart! I’m really not sure what that says about Egyptian culture. Don’t you just love learning languages?

Zurich - Quick Holiday in Mallorca

Cuevas del Drach
(photo (c).Candi... under a Creative Commons license)

I’ve been feeling in the need of a bit of a break recently. So, I got a travel agent (Kompas Travel – would highly recommend them) to find a short beach holiday for me for four days. It was fabulous. I gave them my dates, my desire for a beach holiday (suggested some locations, but they gave me another one), and my maximum price. They came back with two options, I picked one of them, and then everything was organized, including the transfers. This simplicity was just what I needed!

So, I ended up in Mallorca. I haven’t been there since just after my graduation (many years ago now!), when I went to a friend’s parents' holiday home in Porto Pollensa. I don’t really know why I haven’t been back.

The worst part was the initial flight time of 6.20am – it must be one of those many planes that fly over my home during 6am-7am. I had to get the first bus in the morning at 5,15am. This is one of the times where I’m glad I live near the airport.

I’d forgotten that when you book a package holiday, your transfer is bundled in with a load of other people, so on getting the transfer from Mallorca airport to the hotel, it was a huge bus that was subsequently delayed because some people had lost luggage. There was really no advantage to having carry-on baggage only. Also, although my flight back wasn’t until 10.30am and I checked in beforehand, I still had to have my pick-up at 7am to accommodate other people with earlier flights who also needed a transfer. But an hour’s taxi drive would have cost me quite a bit, so there’s always a compromise with a benefit.

To my surprise, I felt flummoxed when I went on the beach after arriving and saw all those people there – there were hundreds of them and I counted at least 80 heads bobbing about in the water, and I didn’t know a single person. In El Andalous, I’ve got so used to having the beach to myself, or knowing a few people by sight at least whenever maybe 6 or 7 others are there, and thinking it’s crowded when, heaven forbid, on the very occasional busy day, there are 20 people spread between the beach and the sea. So, it was a bit of a culture shock to see mass tourism in action.

To my delight, the water was really warm – I would guess around 28 degrees – and the beach itself was quite large. Consequently, although I am also not used to swimming where your permitted area of the sea is marked out for you with buoys, which makes me feel constricted, there was really plenty of space, particularly if I went over to the deep section (which was marked out as such with a warning).

On my third day, my body was telling me that I’d done a bit too much swimming (my arms were aching and my body was feeling floppy), so I took that day to do some excursions. In the late morning (it was my holiday, after all!), I went to see the Cuevas del Drach (Dragon Caves). I’d originally turned up the day before only to find that the tours for the next two hours were already sold out. I’d forgotten this was high season and that, unlike Egypt, tourists were everywhere.

Anyway, I bought a ticket for the next day, which was the third day of my stay. The caves were truly amazing and it was like entering the world of the Hobbit. Some of the formations looked like houses rising up out of the stone surface, some formed what looked like ornately-decorated columns but were just the markings of how the stalactites and stalagmites formed, some looked like a fine curtain pulled partly across; others looked like candles, or you could imagine trees. They were delicately lit up and then there’s the underground lake that reflects it all back again. It takes around a century for the stalactites to grow just 1cm, so many of them must have been hundreds of thousands years old; indeed some of the rock has been recorded as dating back 11 million years. It’s mind-boggling when you think humans have probably only been around for 200,000 years; the whole atmosphere to me was quite mystical. I could have cried at the beauty of it.

The tour ends with a 10-minute live performance of classical music with four musicians traversing the lake on a boat with the music reverberating in the cave. You don’t get an echo, but it’s been a tradition in the caves for 75 years now. But the real beauty is with mother nature herself.

In the afternoon, after a quick play in the water (rather than a proper swim), I took a boat trip (which itself included time for a 10-minute swim) along the coast. It was fun to be on a boat again and seeing some of the other beaches, it made me feel that the one at Porto Cristo was not so crowded after all! There were some bad reviews of the boat trips on tripadvisor, but actually I really enjoyed it – it all depends on your expectations I guess!

Anyway, after another day on the beach, and some lovely meals, I have arrived back in Zurich feeling suitably refreshed at having had a fix of proper sunshine and the opportunity to have had a few days where everything was done for me.

Zurich - Brunch at Uto Kulm

Uetliberg - A Planet on the Planetenweg

There’s no point in having a visitor if you can’t use it as an excuse to go for a brunch. The Uto Kulm hotel is situated right at the top of the Uetliberg – Zurich’s home hill / mountain – so it has great views over the lake and the rest of Zurich (and surrounding areas). I’d never had brunch there before so it was a good opportunity to try it out.

I booked in advance, so got a print-out of the ticket, which included the cost of travel all round Zurich Kanton for the entire day, so it was a good bargain. We arrived pretty much on time, but this is Switzerland so most people were already there. We climbed up the hill from the station wondering how many people were going to be at the brunch, but I think we were actually the stragglers.

It was packed (which I guess is a good sign). I’d asked for a window seat but we didn’t get one, but I didn’t have the energy to argue and I guess everyone asks for that anyway (and not everyone can have that).

It was a good brunch. At first I thought there wasn’t much there, but it later transpired that it came out in “courses”, so you really had to grab what you most wanted whenever it was on offer. It started off with a welcome prosecco and we could have as much coffee as we liked (including speciality coffees such as cappuccino, latte macchiato etc), but it was sometimes a bit hard to grab hold of a waiter.

But the food was good – it started off with a selection of breakfast items including pretty much everything you’d expect. There wasn’t a fresh egg station but they had scrambled and fried eggs for you to serve yourself, bacon, sausage, cereals, roesti, yoghurt, breads, cold meats, cheese, birchermuesli, etc. I was originally disappointed thinking that was it (although quite sufficient), but then they brought out the main courses. I can’t quite remember what they were now, but there were vegetarian options too, I was relieved to see (since Geraldine is a vegetarian). I seem to recall that there was a turkey and pork roast, some wonderful fish in batter, plus the vegetarian choices.

After this, they rolled out the dessert buffet, including chocolate and white chocolate mousse, I believe.

We decided to walk off at least some of our gluttony by going along the Planetenweg – it’s a walk along the top of the Uetliberg and they have models of all the planets, with the distance you walk being to scale with the distance between the planets (and the models of the planets at the side of the path themselves also being to scale). (Incidentally, apologies for the recent out-of-focus photos - I think my camera lens needs a clean! Either that, or I need to buy a new camera)

I was panic-stricken as we started the walk because the people coming up the hill that we were walking down were looking completely exhausted. They were wheezing! They were puffing! They were leaning on the handrail and taking a rest! And these people looked like they were so healthy and fit! So how would I be able to cope? We were going down steps and when we got to the bottom (but we were still on top of the hill, basically), it seemed that there was another path that wound its way up more gently. I think if I were going in the opposite direction, I’d take that route rather than up the stairs. Fortunately, it turned out that the way we went didn’t go up again, so I was spared the torture.

It’s a bit disconcerting as you walk, because once you start, there’s not really any option other than to continue. But you are rewarded with some beautiful views over the lake and Zurich and with the beautiful green trees and grass as you walk along. The paths are good, so you don’t really need any hiking gear as such, and if you start from Uto Kulm, you are spared the hard climb at the end.

We must have walked 6-7km in total and then got the cable car down to Adliswil. From there, to make the most of the free tickets we had, we took a bus to Thalwil and then took the boat back to Zurich, while the weather still held.

Again, I’d highly recommend this as a good Sunday activity for anyone looking for something to do in Zurich!

Zurich - Rheinfelden to Basel

Boat Coming Out of the Lock

It was a mixed bag of weather while Geraldine was over, but I had a list of things to do for all eventualities. Although I had a heavy itinerary planned, when it came down to it, neither of us had the energy to have a full-on timetable, so we mostly took it easy and then picked one thing off the list of options (and sometimes not even that).

A good weather trip was to take the train to Rheinfelden and then to take the boat for a couple of hours up the Rhine and end up in Basel. Even though Basel isn’t that far away, I’ve never actually taken Geraldine there. I’m not sure why I don’t go to Basel much – I think it’s because I used to go there a lot when I lived in Freiburg in Germany for two years and so I feel I’ve done Basel to death. However, that’s 18 years ago now, so really I should give it more time!

We had beautiful weather. Rheinfelden itself is a pretty town that sits right on the border with Germany; it’s even split in two, with part of it in Germany and part in Switzerland. We walked over the bridge across the river and into Germany, just because we could.

It was extremely quiet and, again, it felt like walking round an open-air museum with no visitors. There was a huge stork’s nest on top of one of the towers into the town – we had to look for a while to work out whether it was real nor not, since there were several things round about named after the stork (so it could have been historical), but it was indeed alive.

We found a restaurant that appeared to be attached to a clinic for the wealthy (there were some nice statues outside) and overlooking the river. We couldn’t have a seat right by the river because, despite the fact that no-one was in town, the riverside tables for lunch had all been booked, but we had a perfectly good view also from sitting just one row behind. When in Switzerland, do as the Swiss, so we started off with a prosecco and then continued on with a small lunch (I had soup, Geraldine had a salad).

It was then time to go to the boat station (only you have to call them ships in Switzerland or they get upset), where it said we had to get tickets in the nearby hotel. However, the hotel told us that since we had money-off coupons (I got them from the Coop), we’d need to buy our tickets on board. It was all very confusing, but it turned out that we could indeed just buy tickets onboard.

The trip takes you through a couple of very impressive locks – it’s amazing to see the water sink 15 metres as you just sit there. There was food and drink on board and plenty of spaces to sit although it was very hot out in the sun.

As we entered into Basel, we spotted a nice restaurant looking right out onto the Rhine. Several people were floating / swimming down the Rhine in their bathing costumes with their goods attached in a waterproof bag floating behind them. It looked fun!

We’d arranged to meet Steph and Nicolas in Basel (the trip was Steph’s suggestion), so as we came off the “ship”, Steph greeted us and, lo and behold, we ended up in the lovely restaurant overlooking the Rhine. It was a very posh place so when they brought the drinks menu, it was a huge tome bound in a black hardcover. But to our delight – it was all meant to be – their signature drink turned out to be a “petite Geraldine”. By the time we ordered, a table outside had become free, so they escorted us to our preferred location and we sipped our drinks in the evening sun; Nicolas joined us shortly afterwards.

Toward the end, it started to rain, and Steph and Nicolas had to go, so Geraldine and I went to a place recommended by Steph to eat. It was an indoor location with many different stalls each selling food from a different country and you just select which one you want to take (it reminded me of the Zurich food festival). I had really wanted to show Geraldine at least the old town of Basel, but since it was raining, we just ate and went home, but it still made for a very enjoyable day. I would recommend it to anyone as a day trip!

Opfikon - Welcoming My Own Visitor

Idyllic House and Garden in Opfikon

I’ve just had Geraldine over to visit for 6 days and one of the things she wanted to do was to see the area in which I am now living. Since I’d just had my welcome tour from the council, I thought I could try to re-do the bit in Opfikon (she’s already seen my work place which isn’t that exciting, to be honest).

All good trips start with coffee and cake, so we went to the local bakery for a snack before we began. The immediate area near me isn’t that interesting – a few supermarkets, a few take-away restaurants (which are few in Switzerland but I’m outside of the wealthy city centre now), a few sit-in restaurants, and not much else.

In the summer, the busy road bridge over the river Glatt is decorated with flowers (I’m sure the flowers would get torn out in the UK!) and on each side of the river, there is a cycle path and a pedestrian path. We walked along the river and then finally turned towards the hill and started our climb up to Opfikon.

It was good to take a visitor because Geraldine was astonished at how you suddenly end up in a rural village in the middle of the countryside when minutes before you had to sit by a busy road to have your cup of coffee. The contrast is quite extreme. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was a hot summer’s day. I’d been driven up by bus before, so it was quite a hill to get there – nothing too strenuous but enough to make you sweat when it’s so hot.

We marveled at a cyclist going up the hill and then felt a bit smug when he got off his bike, but then we were put back in our place when it turned out that he’d got off his bike because he’d arrived home, not because he was too tired. We were just judging him by our own standards!

As you may have seen from the last blog, many of the buildings in Opfikon are old and have traditional beams. On the outskirts there are some more modern buildings, but they mostly look fairly large and wealthy. It is a rural area, so there are also a fair few farms. We stopped by a stable and peered inside to look at the horses.

Geraldine has an allotment in the UK, so she couldn’t believe her eyes at the Swiss version on the edge of Opfikon. Each allotment had a little hut with curtains and a flag, clearly done out for living in to some extent. They are like beach huts in the UK and many Swiss people will go and spend a day in their allotment eating and drinking and passing the time away in the countryside. Each patch of land was exceptionally well tended without a weed in sight. It’s so perfect, it’s really a bit surreal.

We walked past an orchard (or was it cherry trees?) and at the end of each row of trees there were a couple of rose bushes just to make it look more decorative. There was a notice up explaining that the netting above it was to stop hail from damaging the trees and apologizing for its unsightliness. This is Swiss perfection for you.

The roads are quite narrow in Opfikon ; we were there on a Saturday and it seemed that nobody was about. A bus seemed to be following us about, which took up the entire road whenever it passed. It felt like we were walking round an open-air museum.

We got desperately thirsty at one point. We passed a farm shop and even though it looked closed, the notice in German on the door proclaimed that it was open. I tentatively tried the door and it led into a barn with various produce – fruits, honey, jams, eggs, and drinks. Nobody was there. A noticeboard hung on the wall where various people had posted their “I owe you” notices. Otherwise, an honesty box (milk urn) was in the middle for you to pay for your goods. We took a couple of Apfelschorle (apple juice with water), and dropped our payment into the honesty box. I’m not sure there’s anywhere left in the UK that operates such a system these days.

I took Geraldine to the viewing area on top of the hill and we noticed a huge slide (like a flume) going from the top to half-way down the hill and into a children’s playground below. I was half-tempted to go on it, but actually it looked too scary. The children no doubt love it.

Somehow, walking round this little village took us almost the entire day, although possibly we didn’t start until noon anyway, since neither of us were in the mood to rush about. We walked back down to the busy road below and it felt like we’d been away somewhere completely different.

Glattbrugg - A Swiss Welcome

The Newcomers Invade Opfikon

One really good thing they do in Switzerland – I have no idea if other countries do this (or even other Kantons other than Zurich, actually) – is that they organize an introductory day for people who have newly moved in to the area. You might think that this would be just an hour’s lecture and that would be it, but actually it is a fairly full-on itinerary, or at least it was in my case.

My one started off, I think at 9am in the fire station. This is just five minutes away from where I live, so it was very convenient. I walked up the road and could hear a brass band playing; there were balloons outside and people were wandering in. This was all to welcome us newcomers! You checked in and then there was tea, coffee and croissants available. At this point, I should probably say that, unusually for Switzerland, the whole event was free, including any drinks or food laid on at various junctures.

We were given a short talk by the fire station chief, and by various important people on the council, who explained their roles and responsibilities and what sections of the council do what. They played a short video – beset with technical difficulties (the band struck up again while we waited)  – and I was interested to see that they didn’t ignore the fact that this area is burdened with a lot of noise from the planes, but they did explain how much money the airport brought in (fair enough).

We had two huge buses and we must have been about 100 people. In Glattbrugg I think they run it just once a year; I got talking to one man who said he missed it last year and they let him attend this year’s one instead, which I thought was very good of them.

The buses took us round various points of interest. The first stop was the local library, which was actually my favorite stop, although we couldn’t stay there that long (I guess so that we didn’t disturb the users too much). The librarian explained what facilities they had and we were all presented with a year’s free pass. I even managed to find a book with dual text in German and Arabic!

We also went up the hill and into the centre of Opfikon, where I’d never been before and it’s actually a very pretty area, if rather small and not so easily accessible by public transport as where I am now. One of the farms had its entire roof covered with solar panels. From the top we could look over the whole area and our guide pointed out various landmarks.

We also visited the local football fields where a new bridge had been built across the river and they told us about little huts that you can rent out for events in the middle of the woods that were just across the road. We were given a while to wander, and I went to try to find these places, but I was too scared of losing the group to go too far, so I never did see them.

After that it was off to a children’s play area (not so interesting for me) and then, very weirdly, the bus took us to see the area where I work. I work in a fairly new area of Zurich (I think they said it’s been there 9 years) and it’s really not much to look at. However, it does have a canal just behind it and they’d set up a stall with free prosecco for us to have (I had at least two, maybe three). Soft drinks were also available, of course. It was a hot and sunny day, so perfect for sipping bubbles mid-morning!

We finished up at the local swimming pool, which of course I already know very well. The man I got talking to said it was going to be closed and refurbished soon since it was quite dated, which I didn’t know, but they didn’t tell us about that. We were treated to lunch there; a proper lunch where we were seated at tables and could go up to a buffet with various pasta dishes, I think we had a salad as starter, and fruit for dessert. There was a festival on in Glattbrugg that day so there was also a band playing in the background, too.

All in all, it was a very nice introduction to the area and it also gave you the chance to meet some of your other fellow new residents. It would be a good idea for this to be standard everywhere!

Northern Ireland - My First Visit

The Harbour in Donaghadee

For a blog about Switzerland and Egypt, this is beginning to turn into something more like a round-the-world trip. Anyway, as well as meeting up with my brothers, attending wedding celebrations, I was, of course, also going to Northern Ireland on two occasions to visit Pam.

I’d never actually been to Northern Ireland before. It’s one of those strange facts of life that you never visit anywhere that’s close to where you were brought up, but if you live abroad, you explore everywhere around you and it just seems so much more exciting than exploring your home country. And, so, I’d never been to Northern Ireland because it was just too close to (my original) home.

All the tales about the Irish being very talkative are completely true. I was a bit hungry when I landed, so I popped into the little (“wee”) store at the airport to buy myself a chocolate bar. There was an old man in the queue in front of me and even though I was obviously waiting to be served, the sales assistant just kept on talking and talking and talking to this man she was serving. She had all day. He had all day. Talk, talk, talk. If I’d have been in a hurry, I could have been annoyed, but fortunately I was feeling fairly chilled and just found it amusing. Also, I guessed the old man was probably glad of a bit of chit-chat.

Pam and I also joked about how everything is a “wee” this and a “wee” that in Northern Ireland. You buy your wee chocolate and the wee woman at the till puts it into a wee bag for you. Opposite my hotel window, there was a picture with “our wee country” written on it as if to emphasise the point.

It felt quite strange being in Northern Ireland and it reminded me of when I first went to Scotland. You can sort of identify it as being part of your culture (if you’re a Brit), but at the same time it felt distinctly different. It definitely wasn’t England. Also, like in Scotland, they print their own notes, so they have Bank of Ireland emblazoned on them, which, if you’re English, makes you panic because you wonder if you’ll get a whole load of hassle when you try to use them in England even though really you shouldn’t have any problem at all because at the end of the day it is the same currency. But the world doesn’t really work like that.

I didn’t really have time to do much sight-seeing. I took a bus tour of Belfast, although it was a bit confusing because there were several different ones to choose from and apparently my ticket allowed me to do two, but I had time only for one of them. I hadn’t realized before that the Titanic was built in Belfast, so the Titanic museum is really a must-see (but I didn’t!). I hear it is really good and the outside of the building is itself impressive. Apparently there were three ships built at the same time – the Titanic wasn’t unique.

The trip also took us to where the “troubles” used to be. I grew up with news of the IRA and bombs always on the television, so most of the names of the areas in Ireland and Belfast in particular are very familiar to me. They are trying to recover from their history and to show how much good there is in Belfast and in Northern Ireland in general. I guess that now there’s a whole generation behind me that didn’t grow up with it as part of their daily life. I lived near London, of course, and not in Northern Ireland, but the “troubles” often spilled over and targeted London, too, but I had no direct experience of it (thankfully), so it still seemed a little removed. There’s still a bit of a struggle to move on and to leave their history behind, but most people I met wanted to be working towards a peaceful future and not to harp on about the past (and here I am talking about it – sorry!).

There’s some really great shopping in Belfast and some even better restaurants. Really, we had some amazing food while we were there and the atmosphere was always buzzing. It was incredibly difficult to find a hotel at the last minute – some of the prices were outrageous, but because of the paucity of hotels, they are able to charge a fortune if you can’t book in advance. But it means that Belfast is thriving, which is a good thing!

The coastline is also beautiful – I sometimes miss the wildness of the sea that we have in the UK since the bay in Sahl Hasheesh is very calm and, of course, the lakes aren’t tidal. There’s an advert in Switzerland claiming that those who live by the sea actually get the most homesick when they see a lake, but I don’t really think that’s true.

Anyway, I would love to go back at some time and see more of it. I hear the countryside is beautiful and I’d love to see the Giant’s Causeway. I don’t know why I never went over before, but I’m glad that because of Pam I have been kicked into making at least a start!