Blog #12: Weekend with Jamison

Blog #12: Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel and Glarus, Switzerland (6/17/2005 to 6/19/2005)

For those of you who do not know Jamison, he is a friend from school in Tulsa who is finishing an internship in London. I actually met up with Jamison in London in March, on my way to Zurich for a weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland. This last weekend he came to Zurich to hang out. I was just arriving on a night train from France when I went to pick up Jamison at the airport on Friday. After running home for a shower, I made him wander around Zurich for a few hours while I went to class. I know: I had a friend in town, it would only be logical to skip class… but when you only have class one day a week it is a little hard to justify skipping.

Friday night we met up with Sulley, one of the other guys from TU studying with me in Zurich, and Jacqueline, our Swiss friend who studied in Tulsa last fall. We went to dinner at an outdoor place on the Lake of Zurich. The weather was pleasant, the food was great and at a surprisingly reasonable price. Being the wimp that I am, I hit the sack early and let all the other boys and girls stay out all night partying. I think Jamison said he slept better on the bench at the Central Tram Stop than he did on my floor.

The next morning came too early for some of us, but we finally made it out the door to Schaffhausen. We went to the waterfall I visited last month with a group from Vinzenz, the place where I live. I took a few more pictures because, if you remember a previous blog, this was when my camera died and I could not take all the pictures I wanted. We enjoyed the excursion and, being the efficient guys we are, were done in less than two hours and headed back to Zurich.

Jamison and I headed from Zurich to Basel, a city situated in Switzerland and on the borders of both Germany and France. After a short walk around the city, we met up with Yves, a friend from one of my classes. He was home for the weekend to visit his parents, who live in a small town outside of Basel, Liestal. Yves picked us up and we went to the Novartis Family Day. Granted, none of us work for the pharmaceutical giant Novartis, but Yves scored some free passes because his sister works there. She even has a chauffeur for work… she may share him with others, though. Anyway, these people blew massive amounts of money for this event. They had a few different themed tents with free food and drinks, as well as bands and other sorts of entertainment. In the first tent we had schnitzel and pommes frites (French fries), the second had a Latin American theme and we ate Chili con Carne. Along the way we had Cokes, Rivella (an excellent Swiss drink with milk serum…), some Elmer Fudd drink reminiscent of Sprite, and a beer or two.

We spent the night at Yves’ parents’ house. It is a really nice place and has a great backyard patio area where we ate breakfast on Sunday. Of course we had two things to see when we were at his place: his Porsche and his gun. Yves has apparently done well for himself in a little website design company he had after high school and decided to indulge in his dream car. Unfortunately, his cherry red beauty was side-swiped by some guy and has just been repaired. Jamison and I were also interested in Switzerland’s compulsory military service and were talking about it over dinner. After one year of service, all Swiss men keep their rifles and have about three weeks of training every year, in addition to their marksmanship qualifications. This was no ordinary pellet gun. Although we were informed that this is not a fully automatic rifle, it still fires off 20 rounds a minute. Next time I get the urge to invade a country, somebody out there please remind me to cross Switzerland off the list.

After our outstanding breakfast, of course with a healthy selection of cheese, we headed to Jacqueline’s house in a town southeast of Zurich. We saw her home and met her parents while waiting for Sulley to meet up with us. They also had a really nice balcony garden area with a great view. I am beginning to think that is a prerequisite for houses in Switzerland. The interesting thing we learned about, however, was this milk serum (milchserum in German) in Rivella. I always thought it was whey, the leftovers when making cheese. It just sounds like a non-wasteful, European thing to do. And, if you learn nothing else about Switzerland, know that they take their dairy products very seriously. When one of our TU professors, Dr. Burgess, visited last week to treat the three of us exchange students to dinner, he said he would not drink Rivella until someone could finally tell him what milchserum is. After searching far and wide, I finally found a Swiss person with our answer. I was right. Of course the whey is filtered a little bit, but I was still right.

An interjection from our dinner with Dr. Burgess and his wife, Ellen. We had a great dinner in Zurich at the end of their European vacation. They had been traveling for about four weeks around Switzerland and Greece. I can think of worse ways to spend my summer. Here is a bit of advice, straight from me to you, that I received from these experienced travelers: “The clothes don’t change, the people do.” I think the only implied constraint is the sniff test. If you wear it too long, you must decide to burn it or wash it.

Back to the afternoon with Jacqueline. Sulley finally caught up to us and we headed to the lake. I have posted some great pictures from our trip out there. We roasted some bratwursts and laid out in the sun at the side of this beautiful lake for a couple hours before we had to head for the train station. We were back to Zurich in plenty of time for Jamison’s flight and our whirlwind tour of Switzerland was over.

Pictures of the weekend: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2124952532&code=16706575&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite