boredom and cleanliness in pokhara

pokhara is a really boring place. but it's just what i needed after 21 days walking all around the annapurna massif. there is basically only 1 street to (the tourist part of ) pokhara, and only a few types of shops gracing it - travel agencies, book shops, clothes shops, cafes and tibetan handicraft shops. the confusion is that each type of shop is identical, so walking down the street is like being in a cheap cartoon with a repetive backdrop. the ready availability of quite delicious pizza, apple pie and coffee somehow makes things quite managable though. the most entertaining thing is the traffic dodging the 2 holy cows stoned in the same place in the middle of the road for at least the past hour now.

the annapurna circuit was sensational. from bessisahar on the southeast end of the massif we headed up the river valley from rice farming communities, up through subtropical rainforest, dry pines, and eventually to the high valley of pisang and manang. here was the most spectacular scenery of the entire journey, when we took the high route from lower pisang to manang, which took us 600m up the north wall of the valley for unbelievable views south to the north faces of the massive massif from gangapurna, annapurna II to glacier dome. the mountains just filled the entire sky. we waited in the relative luxury of manang for a few days as shell recovered from a nasty cough she'd picked up from the friendly dungdust of kathmandu before taking it slowlyslowly from 3500m the 2km (!) up to the 5412m thorung la (pass). being effected by altitude is quite a bizarre feeling. breathlessness when you don't expect it is at first quite scary, but soon becomes strangely normal as you adjust your walking speed to slightly faster than a holy cow in downtown kathmandu traffic. getting up to pee every 2 hours through the night as a side effect of staying properly hydrated, and having the most bizarre paranoid dreams are also rather undesirable. up and over we went though, and down into the desert landscapes of mustang. the next few days were a bit forgettable, down the flat, dusty windy and dry riverbed, but once we reached kalopani the reason for the jomsom trek's popularity was clear. the town sits at the feet of dauhlagiri, tukuche, nilgiri and annapurna, with quite amazing views of them all. there's even a new housing estate on the outskirts of the town. tatopani's hot springs were the perfect antidote for a couple of week's worth of accumulated dust and grim, but unforrtunately an hour on the trail the next day put us back to where we started. there's no staying clean! but of course as long as all around are of similar cleanliness and smelliness it's really not a problem. dawn on new year's day saw us on top of poon hill with a postcard panorama of mountains we'd been walking around and beneath, and was quite the spectacle. with plenty of time to spend, we also popped up to annapurna base camp in the "sanctuary" enclosed by the central peaks of the massif. the whole trip we were amazed not to have less than perfect weather, and that has held up to now, when we sit in pokhara under hazy and cloudy skies. i'm very glad we saved the wading through waist deep snows for some other time!

after more than enough relaxation in pokhara, we're back off on an exciting local bus to kathmandu tomorrow, and then on to india!

missing cows in the swiss national park

i really didn't want to, but shell forced me.

it's always a struggle getting up early on a saturday morning, at the expense of sleeping in, eating pancakes, and drinking lots of coffee, but the mountains and sun were acalling. so off we went to the engadine valley in the southeastern corner of graubünden for a weekend of pleasent strolling.

after dumping our still spiffy new tent at the local campground, we were off upwards. the swiss national park was established a bit over 100 years ago, in a region that had been totally deforested, overgrazed, and overmined, so much so that leaving it as a "wilderness" was about all that could be done. impressively enough though, it's bounced back pretty well, and there are apparently the largest herds of gemsen and steinböckli in switzerland there now - especially in the hunting season. and even a bear at the moment! we only spotted a friendly deer or two, but the cow-free hillsides were quite a novelty.

back in zernez for the evening, we filled up on bearpizza (spinach, berries and baby sheep) and checked out the nock circus that was the big hit in town for the weekend. zebras really look like fake painted ponies.

the best thing about sleeping close to the mountains is that it's possible to sleep in and start walking early. perfect. after checking the paper for the tour result (impressive for cadel evans to be so close to the spanish drugcheat) and some coffee with gipfeli we were again up and away. two ascents of 1500m in two days is a bit much for the legs, but the lakes of macun were very pretty. it's cool to be able to see into the beginnings of the italian and austrian alps as well.

arriving back in zernez on the train from lavin, we had a scanty 16 minutes to race to the campground, pack up our tent, get back to the station, buy tickets, and jump on the train. it was close, but our efficiency was very impressive, and we were able to relax all the way back to zurich, where it had been raining all afternoon. so i wasn't really all that mad with michelle.

hola for the weekend

what's a short working week for except to morph from french back to german and into spanishimeancatalan? sorry, that's another silly question of course. the week was over in a flash, and off we were to sunny party city barcelona! actually, it was warmer, sunnier and drier in zürich than northern spain over the weekend, but that matters not. we stayed in an apartment-type place just west of the old city on gran via, which was perfectly located for journeying through gotic, ribera, barcalonetta and la rambla, but not too busy itself. that filled saturday.

sunday we spent our indoor time in the picasso museum. interesting perspective on his early work, which, as i had not realised, just shows he could have painted everything "perfectly" had he so chosen. after lunch at a very yum traditional catalan restaurant we headed south up onto montjuïc, to the site of the 1992 olympics and apparently a quite nice park area. actually it was mostly construction site, although the views over the industrial port were high. maybe we somehow just missed the best bits. after the long stroll back along gran via to our apartment, searching in vain for gelato, we had to siesta to recover.

monday was gaudiday. first stop - sagrada familia. quite a bent building. i like this gaudi chap "...the great book, always open and which we must make efforts to read, is the book of Nature; the other books are based on it and have the mistakes and interpretations of mankind ...". after touring the vertigous twirly towers off up the hill we were to park güell. the lizard is quite cute, the smooth curves of broken porcelin quite soothing, and the leaning towers perfectly disturbing. we finished off the afternoon with some successful camper shopping. they make shoe shopping feel like a nightclub. rarely is spending money such fun.

warm sunny afternoons, cosy cafes, small relaxed pubs, fresh croissants, tasty coffee. barcelona's not such a bad spot.

bonjour Frühjahr

easter long weekend. 4 full days of glorious spring weather. is there anything else to do but walk from lenk to montreaux? what a silly question!

it was, as always, touch and go getting ourselves out of warm bed early on friday morning, but again, as always, once up under the towering bernese oberland peaks, there was no doubt we'd made the right decision. we headed up west from lenk towards the trütlisbergpass, and it was almost hot walking! crazy spring. not to worry though, once above 1600m the snow kicked in. luckily we'd been planning and had our borrowed snowshoes to kick back. still it is remarkably hard work walking in snow, and it got up to 1m deep up towards the pass. exhausting, spectacular, quite perfect.

downhill towards lauenen was also quite fun. weeeee! all the way down. until the snow stopped at least, and then there were lots of pretty spring mountain flowers to keep us company. we popped briefly along the main street, before heading up shortly out of town to a lovely miniplateau overlooking back on our afternoon's pass. we could even see our tracks down from the pass to remind us of the fun! it got a wee bit chilly over night, but nothing too painful nor permanent, and we were all raring to go in the morning.

the best thing about walking in the swiss mountains is the sheer convenience. mountain pass, snowshoeing, then a short 1 hour downhill later we were in gsteig for fresh gipfeli, berliner and cappuccinos. quite ridiculous really. there was a bit too much snow on the next bit of our planned route, so we headed up the valley instead, over the col du pillon, loomed over by the les diableterts massif. quite an evil looking mountain, until we looked more closely and saw the spiderwebs of gondolas and skilifts covering the whole sheer face...

it really is strange to walk from german into french. all of a sudden people stop saying grüezi and start up the bonjours! but being switzerland the convenience of francs, perfect organisation and flawless english remains everywhere.

next morning, next cupofcino. it is tough. more lovely mountains, great weather. almost a bit boring really :) this night we found a superb spot to camp though. head of a valley with all the alps still closed for winter, fields of early spring flowers tentatively poking their heads up through last year's cowpats, and the limestone peaks shielding us and our small valley from the rest of the world.

long through walks are fantastic. we felt quite alien strolling into the early summer montreaux, filled with trendy french icecream lickers, wearing our mountain gear, carrying our snowshoes and smelling of 4 long mountain days. i like it.

9am day over

i was up rather early this morning, on a mission to collect gipfeli to distribute on behalf of shin, after his progress report. unfortunately, zürich (and also much of northern europe i gather) chose last night to dump a rather incredible amount of fresh snow. so i had great fun wadling and wading through the decimeters. little did i know that it was only after making the pickup that the fun really to begin.

i jumped on the tram at berninaplatz for the 5min trip to milchbuck. 20min later i was finally at the platform, since all the trams in zürich had decided to have a party at milchbuck, and were refusing to move on. such is life with slippery snowy tracks... but i was all happy again when i ran into flavio. (and he i, since i had the gipfeli). since no buses were running in any direction up to the hönggerberg either, we decided to take a wintery stroll through the käferberg forest up to uni, where we arrived only bitzli wet and sniffly. stillness in the air as the snow ate the city sounds away. just in time for morning coffee and gipfeli. mmmm.

that was really quite enough for the day already at 9am.

snowshoeing on the churwurstli

sun glimmering on the fresh crystalline snow, under the watchful gaze of the 7 pyramidal peaks, the trusty band of comrades marched and frollicked through the brilliant late winter day. what fun is snow shoeing in perfect weather on the sides of the upper toggenburg valley! all of this necessitated a much-too-early start from zürich, but we all made it to hb in time to beat the good-weather-weekend-ski crowds, and head off towards alt st johanne. a very pleasent little village. an unexpected encounter with the lab secretary silvia and her border collie flo. a gondola ride up from the frosty snowfree valley floor in search of snow. a mountain cafe coffee to start the journey. and we were off.

most of the time the snow wasn't really deep enough to warrant snow shoes, but it lent quite an air of adventure to the outing. after meandering through quiet forest groves splattered with sparkling glimpses of the churfirsten/wurstli/fister (depending on your accent, desire or fluency), we had lunch on an pointy spur wind cleared of snow, overlooking the säntis massif, and overlooked by all 7 pointypeaks.



after lunch, frollicks were highlighted by a series of exciting cornice leaps and steep slope slides. face planting in deep snow is really much fun indeed.



we descended back down into spring.

alt st johanne had a most convenient migros, selling ice tea, chips, chocolate and bargain calanda, which tempered our hunger and thirst and kept us entertained through the many s-bahn changes back to hb.



exhausted as we were, paola and stefan were congenial enough to invite us all back to their superstyled new apartment in höngg for pasta dinner. their madagascan geckos are so friendly (being well trained in the correlation between people and food), and did rather seem to enjoy their night-time rain storm/water spray before tucking up in between their favourite leaves for a snooze. and the company was not so unfriendly either.

sleep was good.

pictures

got gotye fever

i have, recently converted gotye faN. so much do i love like drawing blood that i've listened and danced my way through at least 1 play per day the last week. which is enough to put me in the lastfm #1 gotye fan place! go me! and if you haven't heard yet, please do yourself a favour and go listen.

now i'm lost

what is it with lindt these days. ?. they had a real winner with orange intense. and now they have to bring out not only chili intense, but simultaneously mint intense! it's enough to ruffle the feathers of even the most sincere chocolate connoisseur. one intense is more than enough surely? i'm really not sure about the chili thing, although the mint is growing on me. orange is still truly the original and the best, though. mmmmmmmm.

swedes, still summer and climbing!

first. gunnar hansson visited zürich! for the unfortunately uninformed, that's the ex-supervisor of my previous supervisor, and concurrently a previous job offerer. so of course i had to not only be present at his (most interesting) seminar all about muc2, but also speak some swedish with him afterwards (inte så svårt igentligen) and then, of course, attend his nachsitzung. lots of networkingwork and so.

then it was time for the weekend! since it's such great summer weather these late autumn days, shell and i had to follow reto up to braunwald for a most relaxing weekend. all with the goal of turning off the water supply to the hut for the winter. mission accomplished! (along with some most impressive tödi watching, sleeping in, and waterfall touring).

climbing! i'd almost forgotten, but reto had bought himself a shiney slinky stretchy new climbing rope! and on monday night we finally got around to trying it out! off to schlieren we were, and most impressed we also were with our 5 lead climbing efforts. not so hard, it's true, but fun indeed! yay for more climbing in the weeks to come!

no snow, sherlock

here's cheers for global warming! today, in late november, shell and i were able to walk from meiringen (home of sherlock holmes, meringues, and very little else) to grindelwald, over the 1962m grosse scheidegg pass, and had to hunt for some snow to be able to throw snowballs at each other. late november and still alpine walking is quite crazy methinks. but very fun! it was touch and go, as usual, to get ourselves out of warm bed into the dark swirling fog, but once in meiringen, the weather was perfect all the way over and down. granted it was quite chilly, with a heavy frost pretty much the whole way, but that made it all the more impressive to gaze up at the awesome 1.5km high wall on the north faces of the wellhorn, wetterhorn and eiger. wow. and thanks to wintertime, the walk finished early enough that even after the 3 hour train trip back to zürich, there was still a relaxing evening to be had!

things are more real on tv

...or in a photo. sometimes i catch myself watching the big screen rather than the actual muscian at a gig, or looking at pics i've just taken on my camera rather than the scene in front of me. so i found this flickr slideshow (linked from boingboing) quite amusing and shouldertapping.

any excuse for lunchtime champagne!

well, it's not every day i'm on a science paper!

it actually wasn't too hard either to get the rest of lab out for a mini-apero celebration of mike, shin, mario, my, nico, eva, ina, and markus's _very_ interesting science paper, out today. you can read the abstract and article, the science editor's summary, and more about it on the eth microbiology site, or in ETH life (in german) where markus talks about how cool it is that we have such an international and collaborative lab. which it is actually.

drinking at lunchtime makes work in the afternoon a bit challenging, so it's lucky i've got fabienne, my semesterstudent, to take care of me these days. and i reckon that since mike, shin and mario are all equal first author, that counts me as second author for sure.

at last, bara sahib

for all you last.fm scrobblers out there, or even if you're not, go listen lots to this:

bara sahib - this is just the end



it's fun, good for you, and free!

happy birthday shell!

yesterday was shell's 30th bday! for such a momentous occasion, much celebration was of course called for. she started the morning by ripping the wrapping paper off a variety of exciting presents, and getting loads of phone calls from well-wishers.

pause for largely normal day.

then in the evening it was time to get busy. we dropped in at pippa scott (most confusingly of the uq vet school, but no relative of shell scott)'s housewarming party. she has a very nice spot. an apartment squeezed in between two pubs just off escher-wyss-platz in the middle of zürich's party district, but still amazingly spacious and quiet. only a brief stop there though before it was off to les halles. as opposed to lasalle right next door - also most confusing. there was a bit of additional confusion as too how much we all had to eat and pay for, but we sorted out the kranky boss and friendly confused waiter who didn't work there anyway, and got stuck into our pig buffet. all sorts of pig products were on offer, as it was metzgete (the pig slaughter festival, not the bike race). speck, rippli (yum), leberwurst, rauchwurst, and the very impressively disgusting looking blutwurst. it was all a bit much really, and i'm still quite full 20 hours later. the heads of the pigs were very tastefully on display just near our table too. they looked very happy with their floppy ears, snuffly snouts and cherries for eyes.

but anyway, lots of people turned up to wish michelle all the best, and much fun was had by all (except for the cranky boss, but you can't please everyone).

happy birthday shell!

happy halloween

ina decided to hold a halloween party. i really had few ideas for costumes. going with michelle as buffy and spike would have been a favourite, but chopping and bleaching the hair would have been a tad extreme. so instead reto and i came up with the sensational ideas of pippy long-stocking and superman! perfect for halloween costumes! reto had all sorts of fun on monday night going shopping on the langstrasse for colourful stockings and skirts, but unfortunately i already had all the ingredients for my costume. it's amazing what can be done with running tights, thermals, a towel and some boxers. i think we looked quite stylish in the end.



vadim, on the other hand, was truly sensational.


i'm not sure that ina was so impressed with our pitiful efforts to maintain the halloween mood, but i had fun at least! and at least we had costumes, unlike some.

borat is back!

yay for more ali g! I hadn't realised this was he when it circulated a few years ago, but now things all fit together...


and in other news, this is really gross.


[Update 20061108]

a contingent from the lab managed to get tickets to the film tonight (it's insanely popular at the moment), and i must say i enjoyed it immensely. more a series of sketches than a coherent story, but that's what sacha does best. 'liar liar panties on fire' he he he :)

brian, warewolves and too much walking

mmmm. tell me, is there anyone who doesn't love brian? if there is, i don't think they count as being a real one anyway. but enough already of my completely normal obsessions. placebo on friday night is a perfect start to any weekend, and shell and I got suitably excited at the hallenstadion. how do they rock so hard and stay so damn sexy? very impressive. and i did love how they pulled 'running up that hill' out of its 80's synth shell.

saturday was time (finally) for some pancakes and cups of cino. it's been a while. too much good weather and holidays! some sucessful shopping and labbing, and then all too soon it was time for shin's 31st birthday party! hippo birdo two ewe shinsan. although the party was most fun, and cristina's bub mateo was incredibly cute, werewolves (the game) is clearly the highlight of any evening. so much fun. so much intrigue! do play it sometime if you get the chance.

partying saturday night with little sleep is the perfect preparation for a massive mountain pass walk sunday. yes, i do promise this is true! 31km with 2000m ascent and almost the same descent. recommended by lonelyplanet as a 3 days medium/hard outing. yes! that sounds perfect for a hungover tired sunday! actually, it was brilliant. platten to disentis across the alps in a day. i was quite concerned at the outset, but the high glacial valleys on either side of the firn below the oberealpstock were simply stunning. and being quite late season, completely deserted except for us and some sheep falling off cliffs. apparently. we had to run the last 4km to make the last train, but of course it was alright in the end, and it is very nice having something truely impressive to show off about on a monday morning.

emotional heidelberg

the nominal purpose of my 5 day trip to heidelberg was to attend the 3rd international meeting on fungal cell walls. mmmmm.

luckily i had a few other side projects to keep me entertained. hiren now calls the hberg home, and reto and i did my best to keep up with his evening pub tour schedule. mum, dad, and shell were also up for the weekend, and we all had fun exploring the historic town and surrounds. i think we did pretty much all the standard tourist activities on offer - old town tour, castle tour, fireworks ooo-aaa-ing, pub tour. the local tourist guides made sure we remembered the key point in heidelberg history - that the french bastards kept burning the place down whenever they had the chance. bastard french.

it was most entertaining meeting some of hiren's embl friends. they were doing their best to keep the pace in the heidelberg soap well up. table-top dancing, ellicit photos, best-buddies falling out in the middle of pool games and storming out of pubs. it was really quite a bit much for our delicate swiss sensibilities.

and amongst all that reto and i managed to make it to (almost) all of the sessions of the meeting. actually, fungal cell walls are really interesting things. really, i promise!

haldensteiner calanda for sore legs, calanda bier to make them better

earlier on in the week, the order for the weekend had been rainy, windy, cloudy and unsettled, so we were very excited when friday afternoon's forecast for saturday was sun! after the past weeks of rain-enforced sleepins and laziness, it was great to have to get up predawn to head down to a train out into the depths of the mountains.

meeting reto at hb, we headed through bad ragaz to vättis at the base of our goal - Haldensteiner Calanda 2000m above. i think the first part of the climb was the steepest forested slope i've ever walked up - an ice axe would have been quite handy in parts! as we rose (very quickly!) the views across the valley to the pizol massif became even more impressive.



after being severly threatened with ominous rain, wind that was trying to blow us down back into the valley, and 2 "passes" that turned out to be only pretending, we finally made it to the teufels chilchli (the devil's church), and views down to the rhein valley, chur, and further into graubünden. after a wet and windy lunch break, we headed up to do some peak bagging, amazingly without a drop more rain, and even some brilliant sunshine!



having reached the local heights, we gradually descended back down, our horizon eventually shrinking to the handelsteiner village square. (but not before meeting some very friendly locals :) )



the Haldensteiner Calanda looms over the chur valley, and i knew that i'd feel proud of visiting her top from now on every time i train it home after a weekend of graubünden mountains behind me - calanda beer in hand of course.

(more pics)

big is small again

yes, it's mid august in zürich, which means it's time for street parade. as in years past, the event was big. but when the music's stuck in the early 90s; and most of the crowd just watches, needs too much alcohol to have fun, or is wearing way too little, i get confused as to whether it's the event or me that's getting too old.

that said, i like their manifesto:
"Make your dreams come true – discover your personal 'set of tools' for a more fulfilled life. Grasp the opportunities that life offers you. Don't just watch. Take action, and help others. Standing still is moving backwards: move yourself – move your mind and your body!"

anyway, lots of pics, or news.