There and Back Again: A Human's Tale

Observation Point, Giant Chess, and Camera Failures

2009-05-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

So I decided to go to the Lake again about a week ago to take more pictures of ducks and tourists. I did an alright job with the pictures, nothing amazing or profound, and a couple of days later Eva (one of the girls living with me) went out with me to walk about Zürich a bit. She had heard about this spot from which much of the town can be seen. I took some pretty awesome pictures from there, and then when I got home I realized that the entire time my camera had been set to take tiny, tiny 2.5 Megapixel pictures. SUCK. So I decided to just edit them badly, make them look retro, and post them on a website instead of making high-quality postcards out of them, sell them on the street, and get arrested.

So here we go:

Some flowers

Graffiti, which is EVERYWHERE in Zürich:

Me, contemplating jumping into the lake of DOOOM:

Hungry duckies:

The feet of this really weird woman who emptied a huge back of bread crumbs into the water, causing the water in some of my pictures to look icky:

Zürich from a vantage point!

A cool roof:

More cool roofs:

Tram 15:

GIANT CHESS BOARD:

An Austrian:

Building:

I had also been noticing these really shiny hubcaps on a car every time I walked to the grocery store, so here's a picture of that:

Cheers,
Asma

There, Somewhere Else, then Back Again

2009-04-27T11:52:00.001-07:00

In the time since my previous update, I have had an incredible amount of adventure (of course, recorded through my precious Nikon D80). On April 10^th, I made my way to Jordan, to visit my family on my mother's side. This was the first time I had met any of them. This was an interesting experiment in nature vs nurture--although some behaviours I had learned from my mother would be mirrored by her siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews, nothing prepared me for the extent to which I am similar to my family. One aunt in particular is so incredibly similar to me that I have decided I must be her clone.

On to a pictographic narration!

	A display of Jordanian English (source: Queen Alia Airport)
	The levels of a mall in the vicinity of my aunt's house
	One of my cousins' wife and two of their six children
	The bunny (Ernoubi) that I fell in love with and an aunt-in-law!
	Delicious food (makluba) one of my cousins made
	Mmm... almonds
	Two of my uncles with very characteristic facial expressions
	Kuku the parrot, who speaks only when being ignored, and who dances when I whistle at him
	Another uncle talking to my mother on the phone
	Crazy landscapes seen while driving to the Dead Sea
	And more...
	A camel at the dead sea
	Sunlight at the Dead Sea
	One of my cousins at the Dead Sea
	Me, having fallen into the Dead Sea
	Skin-healing mud at the Dead Sea
	All this is the Dead Sea



	A pond(?) above Istanbul
	Mountains above Switzerland
	Some random person's farm. I should let them know I took a picture of their place...
	Pretty airplane shadow!

Anyway, that was a fun trip. I was really happy to see my relatives and be in an Arabic-speaking country for once. I think I really improved my Arabic during the time as well as became connected with a family from which I had been alienated for 21 years. They were so generous and so incredibly kind to me. I haven't received so many gifts in my life--everything from clothes and make-up to not-so-inexpensive jewellery. They even plucked my eyebrows and my aunties cooked me the most delicious food I've had in my life. God, I would kill for some of those pickles...

I had a really horrible experience upon returning, however. While packing, I checked my ticket, which said I was allowed 2 pieces of luggage of 20 kg each. However, when I arrived at the Queen Ali'a Airport, the people behind the ticket counter said I was only allowed one piece of luggage and that I had to pay $250 (approximately 300 franks including the airport's monetary conversion fees) in overage charges. After lots of pleading, crying, and stuff, they didn't budge, and I had to give them the money. Also, when I arrived in Switzerland, they had broken the handle off my new piece of luggage. That was a huge mar on my trip, but overall I was really happy to go to Jordan.

And getting back into normal life, this is what I cooked today:

That is all for now.

Love,
Asma

Homesickness, Mark II

2009-04-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Boston, and I'm feeling down in the dumps again. Chocolate covered coffee beans do help, but it's too late at night and I'm ill. I haven't managed to do my homework for tomorrow yet. I don't think I'm going to finish it in time. My visit to Boston went really well. I was toured around Boston University, and I'm pretty psyched to go there for graduate school. I'm also really looking forward to living with my brother in August. I really miss him a lot. He introduced me to “Munchkin” while I was down there, which is a pretty awesome card game, similar to D&D without the role-playing or storyline. He also bought me a yomega x-brain yoyo (four-clutch), and him and my sister treated me to a haircut and a burger. And now... I'm all alone in my messy room. Just sitting here, not doing anything important, not accomplishing anything, just being a massively depressed loser.

Carefully Consuming Cheese, Coffee, and Chocolate

2009-03-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

Spring time is here, and with spring comes delicious food and flowers. I noticed these precious little guys popping out on the little walkway that leads down to my street.

Since my last entry, the weather has been much milder. The sun is shining more regularly, allowing me to be more awake and happy (although the chocolate-covered espresso beans really aren't hurting), and it has been warm enough to be cold without a coat and overheated with one. I have made some really nice friends. A couple of Saturdays ago, Eva (the tall Austrian girl to the left in the picture below), Sibylle (the shorter German girl) and I went on a grand tram tour of Zurich. We visited a large shopping mall that I hadn't known about earlier.

Unfortunately, Eva was tired from partying all night long with her co-workers, so we went to a Starbucks to chill. I got a Java chip frappaccino and a tomato mozzarella basil pesto sandwich. It was delicious. Amazingly delicious. And expensive. Amazingly expensive. After parting from Eva, Sibylle and I went shopping in the main station. We, of course, went right back into the chocolate shop I mentioned earlier (Merkur). This time a man was making a cute chocolate duck, and gave us samples of orgasmically dark chocolate.

The following day, the three of us went ice skating. It was the last day that the outdoor skating rink was open (apparently it's the largest outdoor one in Europe, although it really wasn't very enormous). Ice skating is really REALLY difficult! Of course, it was exacerbated by the fact that Eva and I accidentally switched ice skates. I wear a size 38 and she wears 42 (European), so this was enough to really hurt my feet. When we took a pause, we noticed that my skates were larger than hers and switched back. I was kind of pathetic--with Sybille grabbing one of my hands and Eva grabbing the other, I was able to make slow circles around the perimeter of the rink. I finally decided to stop being much of a hindrance, and after a short pause to rest my aching feet, I skated back and forth while holding on to the far wall. It got to be more and more fun the more carefree I was, but my posture still wasn't correct. I want to try again in the future. (Pictures pending--they were taken on Sibylle's camera.)

Last Tuesday, we had a fondue party in the apartment. Six of the girls attended. We melted cheese in a pot on the stove and then transferred it to this bowl on top of a little flame. And I folded the napkins into little boats (how cute am I).

We had little pickled cucumbers, pickled onions, salad, pineapple, and cut up bread into small pieces. Each girl dipped pieces of bread (or pineapple) into the cheese and ate. To be honest, I wasn't very fond of the cheese--it's really really sharp and my pallet can't take it yet. But it was a really fun time and the pineapple was delicious. Pictured here are Isa, Bille, Heike, Eva, and Eleonora, from left to right.

Also (this blog entry never ends...) Eva and I went to the movies last Saturday. We say "Marley & Me" in German. The movie theatre experience is pretty similar, except there's a short intersession in the middle of the film. It was a cute movie and I understood a good portion of it! I am happy to report that my German is actually improving enough that I am no longer totally afraid to talk to people in the streets and in shops and stuff.

Oh, and Sibylle insists that she's not a vampire, but I think she's really trying to get me off her trail. When I arrive in Boston on Thursday, I need to remember to buy a stake.

A Clear Day?! With Sunlight?!

2009-03-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

So the sun decided to come out yesterday. As we are nearly 50^o from the equator, surrounded by mountains, and covered in a perpetual layer of clouds, this is a rather momentous occasion. Elenora and I of course decided to go to the lake, as, unlike our room mates (who are apparently vampires), we are used to seeing the sun.

We first decided to shop a bit at Bahnhofstrasse. The main event there was entering the chocolate shop. We both have to shop for chocolate, as we are about to see our relatives (and my sister will kill me if I don't bring her back some of Switzerland's best). Immediately before entering, the sweetly heady scent of excellent chocolate wafted into the street. A lady with a tray of free samples offered us a taste, which we gladly took. Mine was a heavenly bit of dark mocha with the light touches of wafer. As we browsed the shelves of different chocolates I noticed some workers in the back stirring large melted pots of chocolate, some pouring them into bunny-shaped casks, and yet others cracking previously poured casks. These bunnies were being made fresh in the back of the store as they were being sold. I was taken aback by the endless varieties of truffles and pralines, everything somewhat expensive, but appearing to be very much worth it.

After a bit more window shopping, we went down to the lake. The sun was hovering just over the mountains, sending shimmering beams of light to dance among the ripples of water. After basking in the glorious sunlight, I began to notice the huge varieties of fowl that were apparently enjoying the weather as well.

Apparently this little orange-headed guy is called a Red-chrested Pochard. Isn't he adorable?!

A little further to the west, there is a strange statue of a man and a bird, the significance of which I don't quite understand. However, when trying to take a shot of him, a flock of something decided to fly by. I'm pretty sure the man, with his arm in the air, summoned them to scare me off.

The following pictures are taken from the opposite side of the street. Peering down where the lake turns into a river allows one to see downtown Zurich and some pretty cool landmarks which I have yet to visit.

I also have yet to ride the ferry, which will apparently start going across the lake regularly come April.

And this is how happy Italians are in the sunlight:

Love,
Asma

Co$t of ₤iving

2009-03-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

I decided to make some salsa and a sandwich the other day. I noticed that this meal (along with the fruit juice) covered a good variety of food types, and decided to take the opportunity to show how expensive groceries are in Zurich. The first column of the table gives the price as written on the foodles, and the second column is my conversion of the price into units that American people can understand.

Food	CHF	USD
Chili Pepper	18 / kg	7.44 / lb
Tomato	2.70 / kg	1.12 / lb
Orange bell pepper	4.30 / kg	1.78 / lb
Lemon	0.80 ea	0.73 ea
Cilantro	0.10 / g	2.6 / oz
Onion	6.2 / kg	2.6 / lb
Fresh bread roll	0.60 ea	0.55 ea
Turkey breast	35 / kg	14.46 / lb
Mixed lettuce	19.60 / kg	8.10 / lb
Fruit juice	2.30 / L	7.43 / gal
Mayonnaise	7.1 / kg	2.93 / lb

To be frank, things really aren't as bad as I thought they would be!

In other news, here's my first attempt at a panorama:

It really sucks; I intentionally didn't match up the contrast/brightness cause I think it kinda looks cooler this way. All the same, I am going to try to go back on a less foggy day and redo it. This is the view that can be seen on the way from my home to the ETH Hoenggerberg campus. When the lighting is right, all of Zurich can be seen beneath you. Unfortunately the sun almost never comes out! I might have to wait until summer to get great pics.

So here are some leftovers from previous photo-shoots that didn't make it in due to a lethal combination of laziness and bandwidth.

Some birds flying at the lake

A close-up of one of the cute birdies.

The opera house! "The Magic Flute" was playing on Sunday matinee for the last time. I really wish I could have gone.

I'm starting to really love Zurich. This is a gorgeous town; it's a big city but the air is clean, there's loads of green stuff (forests, mountains, water), and it has a nice feel to it. I love the public transportation, I love grocery shopping (even if it is expensive), and my flatmates are freaking awesome. I hope the rest of the trip continues to go as well.

Cake

2009-02-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

I had eggs left over from making chocolate-chip pancakes. I hate eggs. Therefore, I made cake.

What to remember when baking cake in Europe:

Different altitudes affect how things rise and boil

Celsius and Fahrenheit aren't the same thing.

The result of which led to a huge bubble in the middle of the top layer, and a lack of rising. I fixed it before the chocolate layer got too damaged, though. This is a vanilla/chocolate cake with raspberry frosting.

And just for fun, here's the view from Laubi Weg, which is a nice little brick path leading from my apartment up to where the trams come to take me places. I've given up on waiting for the sky to turn blue. The sky is never blue. Ever. Not even when it's sad. I have to figure out how to properly expose my photos so they sky works out with everything... I'm really unhappy with this photo cause the foreground is so dark and the sky so bright, but hey, at least the bricks look cool.

Classes are going well. They are much more mathematically advanced than classes at K-State. One of them is in German, and I don't understand the lecture at all. Poor me! It's a simple enough subject, though, and he posts his notes online, so I can read them slowly and then go to lecture, which is more effective. Hooray!

Lake Zurich

2009-02-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

Today I had a meeting with the study abroad lady at ETH, so I had to make sure to wake up early. For some reason, I felt like lingering in my warm bed--the sort of feeling I tend to get during inclement weather. Sure enough, I look out the window, and it's snowing. Now, apparently the people here rejoice at snow, but after a month of dealing with frozen wet toes due to trudging through the snow-infested streets of Boston (yes, it's seriously an epidemic over there. I mean piles 4 feet high? Come on!) any amount of snow is tantamount to torture. Anyway, I dragged my carcass out to ETH, met with Sandra (who was incredibly nice), and received loads of information that would have been really useful from the beginning. I decided to go straight back home and warm myself up with a soup rather than walk around with my new maps or explore campus.

A couple hours after I arrived home, Elenora (the Italian girl I mentioned) suggested that we walk around town a bit. I wanted to get pictures of Lake Zurich that I hadn't managed to take before (due to a dead battery), so we set off. As a result, I have loads of fantastic photos for you all. The first couple are from the main station. A river-like stream-like thing there flows eventually into the lake, so the first view is of buildings along that river.

This is a creepy statue that's right outside the Bahnhof. Zurich is full of these strange fountains, gargoyles glaring down at you menacingly from rooftops, and statues of boldly naked women with moss growing in a suggestive location.

We got back on the tram and made it down to Lake Zurich, which was incredibly beautiful. Here are the rest of the pictures from there, no commenting necessary:

Welcome to Zürich

2009-02-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

This blog is meant to update my friends and family on my trip from the US to Zürich, and if anybody else happens to find it helpful, that would be fantastic.

Day one

I left Boston on Saturday, January 31^st. Unfortunately, I hadn't packed, thinking that I would have enough time (as my flight left at 8pm). In my haste of departure, I forgot basically everything--a transformer, one of my coats, some clothing, a power strip, cables for my desktop, and unfortunately I also had to send back some of my textbooks (most tragically my Griffiths books) as my luggage was severely overweight. I didn't realize packing 70 pounds worth of clothing was actually possible.

At any rate, I had over two hours to kill once I had gotten through security (which, strangely, wasn't any more rigorous than that for domestic flights). I finally got on the airplane. The flight was pretty nice--the steward(esse)s had ridiculous accents, there were amusingly crappy in-flight movies, they served some excellent tea and a nice meal and gave us blankets and socks (random, eh?). As we approached Britain, we saw an incredibly vibrant sunrise:

... and I could tell we were nearing London when the clouds began to terrify me:

Upon arrival at Heathrow, I (and a large crowd of fellow passengers) followed signs down to a large open area that had tunnels for trams to the left and right. We waited there as the time passed. I checked my watch regularly, noticing that my closing time for boarding my plane was approaching. I repeatedly asked the guards there what I ought to do, and they said the shuttle should arrive any moment. Finally, they told us all to just walk (although when I asked earlier, the bastards didn't mention any mode of walking), and I had to go to a ticketing desk to catch a later flight into Zurich. Meanwhile, my cell wasn't working at all--I couldn't access the towers or the internet through it. The ticket guy gave me a small voucher and I ate a poppyseed bagel (mmm... opiates) and had a pretty fantastic coffee (mmm... stimulants) while I waited. The rest is pretty uneventful, mostly dealing with me finding the correct gate and dragging my incredibly heavy luggage up and down the streets of Zürich in a state of near exhaustion, but I did make it to my room in the end (69 Rötelstrasse).

Days 2-10

The rest of the week has been filled with periods of hiding in my room, in a somewhat depressed state of being, and other periods of exploring the city. To be honest, whenever I'm walking around alone, I feel somewhat terrified and lonely. Thankfully, one of the girls that's staying in the Wohngemeinschaft (a sort of dorm-like apartment, where, in this case, eight girls each have a room with a sink but share a kitchen, bathrooms, a washing machine, and showers) is from Italy and has nothing to do until her semester starts, so have walked around town together. I have yet to take my camera outside, but one of these days I'll post some pictures of the town. It's gorgeous, and when I'm not feeling homesick or shy due to language barriers (Swiss German is related to actual German only by an awkwardly large stretch of the imagination), I can appreciate its beauty.

I can also appreciate the differences between Zurich and the US, which, although minor, can be disconcerting. The keys are dimpled instead of serrated, and some of the spoons are serrated instead of smooth. The sirens on ambulances go waa-woo-waa-woo instead of weeeeeeeeeoooooooooeeeeeeeeeeoooooooo. The grocery shop has a little scale where you weigh your produce and punch in a number corresponding to the vegetable in question--it prints out a little sticker that has a barcode, weight, and price on it. There is absolutely no cheddar cheese to be found anywhere. The list goes on...

Basic lessons learned:

Don't forget a goddamned transformer/power adapter
Make sure to have some money in the proper currency
Figure out if the public transportation is free before you start squatting
You're not exempt from homesickness, no matter how much you think you will be
Meat, fresh vegetables, clothing, and fresh fruit are freaking expensive here.
Ask questions so you don't end up flashing the neighbourhood every night for a week before realizing the windows have shutters.

Love,
Asma