My ICBM

Hello everybody! Let me first excuse for the long blogging hiatus during this summer. Things in my life have been getting very hectic these last months and I didn't have any time to blog. I didn't quite anticipate it to get as stressfull as it did or else I would have put my readers on notice. Things are still very stressful until the end of September but at least I'd like to give you a short update and tell you about a recent trip to Berlin:

There, I met Californian fellow blogger The Drama Queen aka R. She contacted me about three weeks ago, on very short notice, and told me that she would come over to Europe for a couple of weeks on a multi-city trip on a tour boat. We thought that it would be nice to arrange for a meetup an decided to meet on August 27th in Berlin.

Now of course, Berlin does not exactly lie on the sea, but it was the destination of a day trip the boat party made from the East Sea harbour city of Warnemünde. So we both travelled to Berlin by train. I took the overnight train from Basel, Switzerland to Berlin on the evening of Wednesday the 26th, arriving in Berlin the following morning at 7:18.

> My German railway night train compartment.

What happened on the train ride and later on during the following morning reminded me a little bit of a spy story; check it out:

As I already mentioned, I came to Berlin to seek an ICBM*; On the night train, I was joined by two slightly suspicious looking Eastern European guys; luckily though, the two didn't try to kill me like in the James Bond movie "From Russia With Love". When I got up the next morning, I soon arrived in the futuristic new Berlin Main Station where I was waiting for my American contact person R., an "occupational therapist" from an unnamed American State Agency. Misteriously, R. didn't turn up though and strangely enough, my cell phone didn't work either. When I finally fixed my (no doubt sabotaged) phone, I was happy to reach R. (who was alive and well) on a very bad (tapped?) phone line and set up a new meeting point at Checkpoint Charlie.

I jumped into a cab and ordered the driver to hurry up to Checkpoint Charlie; Checkpoint Charlie was one of three border crossings between Western and Eastern Berlin and the only one who was reserved for diplomats and officials. It therefore was a frequent point for the exchange of captured agents between the Eastern and Western Blocs and thus a very fitting location for my little spy thriller.

> The Berlin Wall at Bernauer Strasse.

While the taxi sped alongside the Berlin Wall, I found out that my driver was actually an Arab. (As I checked for potential followers in the rear view mirror,) I exchanged a few words in Arab with my driver. The conversation came to a halt when we approached Checkpoint Charlie and I began to notice a heavy police presence in the area. The driver told be that this was due to a state visit of the Austrian Prime Minister but this was an all to apparent misinformation since a) Austria does not have a Prime Minister and b) the police presence was far to strong for such a low level state guest.

> Historic sign at Checkpoint Charlie.

As I got out of my taxi, I saw that all streets near the checkpoint were cordoned off and that a police helicopter was hovering over the place. I quickly proceeded to met my contact person R. - just in time to witness a convoy of black limousines and police cars rushing by. As we were soon to find out, the state visitor indeed was the Israeli Prime Minister. My readers will be interested to learn that my taxi did not contain any bombs despite its Arab driver.

> Agent R. at Checkpoint Charlie (photo size limited for secrecy purposes).

R. and I proceeded with our mission which led us to the area of the "Bundeskanzleramt" (Seat of the German Chancellor) and the Swiss Embassy. By the time, the convoy of the state visit had arrived there too and I soon noticed several snipers on the surrounding rooftops. Allegedly, these were police snipers securing the state visit (but as a secret agent, one can never be sure not to be targeted by an enemy agent). To be sure, I shot one of the snipers who was aiming at me (with my camera). For security reasons, we then quickly decided to move to another location...

> Federal Chanecellery with rooftop snipers (with inset blowup of the right-hand corner).

This is the official part of my spy story - the rest of it is classified...

*O.K. back to reality; In my case, ICBM stands for "Intercontinental Blogger Meetup"; I am not a spy (as far as YOU know), and neither is R. (as far as I know). Of course, the Iron Curtain no longer exists nor does the Eastern Bloc. The rest of the story (including the snipers) is basically true.

We went to Berlin to meet up and to explore the city which none of us both knew. Since I know some of the landmarks and history of Berlin "from the books" and since I speak German (being a Swiss German) I was nevertheless able to serve as some kind of tourist guide (apart from my, erm rather bad urban map reading skills...). It is kind of strange that this should be the first time I actually visited the former communist eastern part of Europe.

> Brandenburg Gate and the Television Tower from Strasse des 17. Juni.

> Brandenburg Gate today is a symbol for the reunification not only of Germany but of Europe as a whole.

> The Bundestag (German Parliament) was burned down by the Nazis, bulletmarked in the final days of WWII and rebuilt after Berlin again became capital of the unified Germany.

So we had a great (but short) day visiting the landmarks of Berlin and finally getting to know each other personally. We visited Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, The Bundestag (German Parliament Building), The Bundeskanzleramt (Seat of the German Chancellor), remnants of the Berlin Wall, saw the Television Tower (from afar), ate at the futuristic Potsdam Square and went shopping for tourist souvenirs.

> Potsdam Square with some remnants of a hotel bombed out in WWII.

Unfortunately, neither of us could stay longer than a day so the whole thing was very short but it was a nice thing to do anyway. Im looking foreward to welcome R. in Switzerland or meeting in the US when I get over again some day.

Oh, and by the way: I hope to soon post more about what happened this summer during my long blogging hiatus.

Define Irony

The cover story of the current issue of "The Economist" treats "Europe's new pecking order". On the front page you can see a beaming Sarkozy of France on a (winners) podium, a somber Merkel of Germany on plain ground and a probably not very happy Brown of Great Britain sinking(?) into a hole in the ground.

The picture exemplifies the current success of the dirigist "socialist" economic model of France over the more centrist "social democratic" social market economy model of Germany and the "capitalist" free market economy of the Anglo-Saxon countries.

So far so good.

The irony is in the fact that the leader of the most "capitalist" of European countries is the leader of the British Labour Party whereas the leader of the allegedly most "socialist" European country is a free market fan and leader of France's conservative party...

Huh???

------------------------------

P.S.:

(Add to that the fact that the leader of a unified Europe (Topolanek from the ex-communist Czech Republic) recently criticised Obama's "socialist" spending policies as "road to hell".

Now imagine telling this to somebody who passed the last 20 years in a coma. Picture the confusion?

Now add to that that the USA are broke and owe their asses to the Chinese whereas the Russians are swimming in oil revenues...

Weird, huh?

Hehe.)

Obama's First 111 Days - My Review In A Picture

Happy Europe Day

May 9th is Europe Day. This year it is 20 years since the iron curtain came down and (so-called) "western" and "eastern" Europe began to reunite.



Hear the Version with Lyrics:



Latin Lyrics of the European Anthem:

Est Europa nunc unita
et unita maneat;
una in diversitate
pacem mundi augeat.

Semper regant in Europa
fides et iustitia
et libertas populorum
in maiore patria.

Cives, floreat Europa,
opus magnum vocat vos.
Stellae signa sunt in caelo
aureae, quae iungant nos.

+ + +

Rhymeless Literal English Translation:

Europe is united now
united it may remain;
our unity in diversity
may contribute to world peace.

May there forever reign in Europe
faith and justice
and freedom for its peoples
in a greater motherland.

Citizens, Europe shall flourish,
a great task calls on you.
Golden stars in the sky are
the symbols that shall unite us.

+ + +

Lyrics: Peter Roland
Music: Ludwig van Beethoven

> European Integration (source: Wikipedia).

I'm Too Old For This Sh*t...

Hey everybody. Again, it's been almost two months since I last posted and I will try to post a lot more frequent again now.

Since the last post, spring has really come to Switzerland; all the tree foliage is out, everything is in bloom and judging from the swallows that are careening through the skies again, summer is soon to come.

In these last couple of weeks, I had more stress than is healthy to me; I had to pull numerous all-nighters to get things finished (I'm talking work here) and I'm completely worn out and in bad need of some sleep now.

Furthermore, I just recently had a nasty flu, but not that flu. It's not so funny if you have to ride the train and everybody is coughing around you when there's a potentially deadly other flu around too. And yes, Switzerland is also one of the countries that has reported a confirmed case of the Swine Flu.

> Extent of Swine Flu at May 7th. Red: death cases, Orange: non-lethal confirmed cases. Infographics from "Blick" daily newspaper.

Moving on to more cheerful news now. My little nephew had his baptism and if you read my last entry, let me tell you that it really came out the way I feared: the little bugger commented his baptism with all kinds of funny noises and I really had to struggle not to crack up during the baptism mass.

> My nephew BlueEyes during and after his baptism (a.k.a. the legal waterboarding) with his two godfathers (me and CameraGirl's brother) and his godmother.

More recently, I went to see the Swiss Ice Hockey Team play against the Russians in Bern. The 2009 world championships are being currently held in Switzerland and my brother gave me the ticket as a birthday present back in January. Unfortunately, this year the Swiss played really lousy and didn't even make it to the quarter finals. They didn't win against Russia either, even though that one was quite close. Still, watching the high-powered match was a delight.

> Scene from the match (Switzerland plays in white). Photo from the IIHF web site.

> Me, my brother and 11'000 of our closest friends watching the match in Bern Arena. I'm the one above the letter U wearing the black coat with white stripe, my brother is to the left of me. Photo from the IIHF web site.

Peek-A-Boo I'm Back Again

Wow. I just checked my blog and realized that I haven't blogged for almost two months. That's probably the longest blogging hiatus since I started blogging. I'm sorry for those of you who have eagerly awaited the next entry for so long.

I'm just having an incredibly busy time and it won't be any better until summer. Basicly I have to wrap up my post-grad studies this semester, pass all the exams and work 60% all at the same time. Plus I have some other stuff to organize too. Argh!

So let me give you an update on what's happening in my life and over here in Switzerland in general:

- As you may know last september, my nephew was born. Not only am I a uncle now but I was also asked to be his godfather and in about two weeks, his baptism will take place. The little bugger is so cute; he's got the biggest and bluest eyes I have ever seen, he has already developed quite some character since he was a newborn and now he has started to eat solid food. Also he's already theething and has begun imitating all kinds of things. Some times ago I've started grimacing at him because I realized it makes him giggle but now I have to stop it because he will imitate just about anything. It would probably be a little awkward if he pulled out his tongue at the priest at his baptism...

> Picture from his mother, CameraGirl.

- Meanwhile, my two living grandparents on either side of the family had both to move to a pensioner residence these last couple of months. They are already in their 80ies and were mentally and physically fit until very recently when the age has been getting to them. I hate retirment homes but we really didn't have a choice. Now we have to organize the clearance of the appartments which is quite some work. Worst of all, my grandparents had to be separated from most of their personal belongings of a lifetime which is really heartbreaking.

- As I've already mentioned, I'm really busy right now. I can't wait for the summer to come and for the whole stress to be over. These last couple of weeks I had a teaching stage at a "Gymnasium" (like a good prep school in the USA). I have to teach geomorphology and the whole thing is quite some fun; I like to chatch the attention of students with weird but interesting experiments; for example I nailed jelly to a panelling lumber(!) in order to demonstrate a point on mass movements, friction and cohesion...

- In other news, we recently had carnival here in Switzerland which for me is on par with christmas. I think I havent missed one Basel Carnival since I was a little kid (with the only exception of the year I had a severe pneumonia).

> Basel Carnical 2009. Picture from www.fasnacht.ch

- Wheater-wise spring has finally arrived here in Switzerland but in many places in the Alps there are still several metres of snow. For example, whem my parents went skiing in January, they had one metre (three feet) of snow during their weeklong stay; this of course in addition to the two metres (six feet) they already had...

O.K. so much for now. I will add more news (hopefully) later on.

Swiss Team Are European Ice Hockey Kings

The ZCS from Zurich just won the Ice Hockey Champions League with a 5:0 win over the Russian team of Magnitogorsk!

> Copyright Foto: Keystone

Good Riddance

The worst US president ever is history.

Cool Switzerland

In the night to monday, Switzerland registered it's coldest temperatures so far this winter. In Neuchatel, where I live, we had -7° Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit) in the last two nights and just -4° C (24.8 F) during the day. In La Brevine, which is situated in the Jura Mountains near Neuchatel and which is dubbed Switzerland's Siberia, -27.8° C (-18.0 F) were recorded last night!

By the way: if you think -27.8° C is cold let me tell you that the official record of January 12th 1987 was -41.8° C (-43.2 F)...!!!

Check out actual weather conditions and temperature curves from sites all over Switzerland on the website of MeteoSwiss

As you can see in the picture, after two weeks of below zero temperatures, some small lakes in Switzerland are frozen, allowing people to ice skate (or take a shortcut...).

> The Lac de Joux (copyright picture: Keystone)

The conditions on the roads and streets here are difficult; when it snowed two weeks ago, the snow was mixed with sleet and rain, resulting in a 5 cm (2 inch) thick ice layer on the ground below the snow. While the snow could be easily removed by machines, the ice on the sidewalks remained for days and had to be painstakingly removed with picks and shovels. Salt didn't really work since it was too cold and the ice is so uneven that it is extremely hazardous to walk.

Since I've been going to Zurich, I have taken to walking from my apartment to the train station in the morning and back in the evening. This takes approximately 20 minutes each time and thus helps me stay fit as well as to save some time 'cause unlike the city buses I can walk a direct route. However, since there's ice it takes more time and I have already fallen three times right on my butt...

War, What Is It Good For?

On Saturday, I was attending a peace rally in Bern. On the same day, similar demonstrations with tens of thousands of participants were held in many cities across Europe.


Yesterday, an opinion poll on the subject was published in the sunday press; here are some of it's results:

- 53 percent of Swiss show some understanding for the Israeli intervention, while 39 percent have no understanding for it.

- 46 percent of Swiss rate Hamas either as an organization of freedom fighters or as a political party rather while 38 percent rate it as a terrorist organization.

- 72 percent of Swiss do not believe that a destruction of Hamas would increase chances for peace in the Mideast, while 15 percent do so.

- 90 percent of Swiss call for a two state solution while 2 percent each do not believe that Palestinians respectively Israelis are entitled to a state of its own.

- 62 percent of Swiss call for UN peacekeepers, while 29 percent are against such a troops.

- 58 percent of Swiss think, Switzerland should try to negociate peace in the Mideast while 36 percent think Switzerland should not meddle in the conflict.