the next 10 days we are taking part in a spiritual journey through ireland. really kind of a pilgrimage, a christian pilgrimage to be precise, by bus (not a lot of walking involved, unfortunately) to the places of the old, celtic irish church. the whole trip has been organized by the akademie st. paul — and it’s the first group trip of this kind that i’ve ever participated in and i’m not too sure whether it’s going to be to my liking. let’s see.

starting point is dublin airport which we reach by way of —- yes, unfortunately — plane to catch the 9:20 swiss flight from zurich to dublin, we take the 6:59 train from einsiedeln, necessitating getting up at 5:00, sigh. we make it in time and get to zurich airport, manage to get our failed web-check-in sorted1, even manage to get two seats next to one another2 — and have a punctual and fairly calm flight (big relief on my part).

we are the first part of the group to arrive in dublin. once we’ve had a coffee (me) and smoothie (mrs d) we position ourselves directly opposite the arrivals area and hold up our sign and wait…

and wait…3

and wait. finally at around 12:30 the first few folks of the remainder of our group trickle in and by 13:30 we are almost complete. it’s an, err, interesting mixture. our bus driver for the next 10 days collects us and after a small problem with luggage (luckily quickly resolved) we are on our way into dublin city center.

our pilgrimage’s guide, mr tambour from akademie st paul, evidently has done his homework and gives us a rather well-informed running commentary of the stuff we see already from the bus, and, once we are ground-bourne again, a tour of the temple bar district and, the highlight of the afternoon: christ church.

i’m not sure whether i’m cut out for this group travel stuff — i find that i need time for myself and, also, that i actually enjoy the immersive part of travelling alone (that is, either really alone or together with mrs d) and being forced to interact with the “natives” (so to speak) and take part (at least to some extent) in the culture that surrounds us. travelling in a group of germans takes that part away, it’s like travelling in a shell, in a bubble, a bit isolated from the country you want to experience.

we get to our hotel, the stand house hotel by a 18:20 and have a bit of time to settle in (we are going to stay two nights here), then it’s a rather nice dinner followed by some blogging

let’s see how this all works out

1. the swiss international air lines web-check-in took us through all the stages of the check-in process and then refused to display the boarding cards. hmph. ↩
2. which the aforementioned web-check-in also refused to do. ↩
3. i do notice that some folks have rather interesting signs: “his royal highness”, for example. perhaps i should try my private twitter moniker, dr who, next time i’m being picked up4? ↩
4. yes, however unlikely that may be. ↩

looking through drscofield’s twitter messages of the past couple of days i noticed @pixelq’s twitter about “watching the world” and i had to head over to youtube to watch this 3D internet masterpiece once more. IMHO it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of art (and it’s a pity it wasn’t on display in basel recently) — have a look yourself:

almost makes you cry…

content.

if you thought my post about felsenputzing was a joke, think again. courtesy of avid tagesanzeiger reader, mrs d, the link for all of you who want to become expert felsenputzer: register here.

the kunstmuseum in basel is hosting an exhibition of vincent van gogh’s landscape pictures and we had been planning on going up to basel and having a look at them. so, as this sunday had more or less non-stop rain forecast, we had an early sunday breakfast, skipped church, grabbed our rail network cards and hopped on the train from einsiedeln to wädenswil, and changed into the IR train to basel. after about a bit over 2 hours we got to basel main station, changed to the tram and got to the kunstmuseum in just about 5min or so.

yesterday evening i had tried to figure out how much the tickets would cost us — and had found out that entry was timed: you could only buy tickets for a specific entry time period. not fully trusting SBB to be as reliable as we wished it to be1 we had decided to “risk it” and not bought any tickets in advance. guess, we were lucky: just 10 persons in front of us in the queue for a ticket and we don’t have to wait long either. getting in is a 3-step-process (not counting the ticket purchase):

1. london underground style barriers where you have to insert your newly purchased ticket (supervised by no less than 2 security ladies)
2. we are now in the main entrance hall where we can let go of all our belongings (no cameras, no mobile phone, no clothing…ok, made that last one up), at the end of which is check #2, where you have to show your tickets once more (and again 2 security persons)
3. in front of us is now a huge staircase that would do any temple proud, climbing that we finally end up on the second floor2 where our tickets are checked once again.

we queue once more to rent an ipod each as the guided tours are already booked out for all of sunday. then we finally (ticket check #4) get to see vincent’s landscape pictures!

…and i’m really impressed by them. i especially like the ones where van gogh starts experimenting with complementing colours (the flower beds one), pictures from his paris period (like restaurant de la sirene, which unfortunately the kunstmuseum didn’t have as a poster) —

— but also the picture of the sailing boats in the mediterranean sea.

as usual with these kind of art exhibits i’m a bit irritated by the whole hoopla and “oh, this is so important” kind of affected behaviour, by the church of art exhibitions — very aptly summarized by mrs d: “the pictures are beautiful, the whole shebang surrounding it just gets on your nerves.”

we purchase three posters along with proper poster rails to hang them3 and after a late lunch sitting outside on the banks of the rhine are on our way back home. well worth the visit if you ignore all that high-priests-of-art stuff.

1. yes, even swiss trains can be unpunctual  ↩
2. mainland european counting, ground floor not counting. ↩
3. …and we do hang them the same evening! a first!  ↩

at lucerne verkehrshaus i disembark one station earlier than planned, trying to catch the voralpenexpress train back to biberbrugg. with a bit of, let’s say, fast-hobbling i manage to catch the train and am on my way back home.

at biberbrugg i meet up with mrs d who has just been dropped of by fredi and is tired but happy from a fantastic day out. together we hop on to the train to einsiedeln and walk/hobble home

picture links:

• my pictures from today’s tour
• mrs d’s pictures from her tour today

the post bus ride from ibergeregg pass down to schwyz was, well, exciting if not adventurous. in contrast to the more gentle norther approach from oberiberg, the southern approach really takes you into the alps with breathtaking views across lake lucerne, up to the huser stock and hengst mountains — all the way constantly going back and forth, left and right, most of the time with no space for two cars, let alone a car and post bus, to pass each other. the way down thus turns into an almost constant post bus horn concerto and i’m glad that it’s not me who is doing the driving a fantastic ride!

we get to schwyz in time for the bus to brunnen, ship station and i get there with 20min to spare unitl the 12:50 steam ship to lucerne departs. from the south more and more cumulus congestus and cumulus nimbus clouds make their way north and i wonder what the weather in the gotthard area is like and whether mrs d can enjoy the panorama or is stuck in the clouds.

the steamship uri, an old paddle steamer, arrives right on time and departs right on time. i make my way up to first class and the restaurant, where i can share table with an elderly couple from nidwalden (as it later transpires). over lunch we chat a bit about living in switzerland, rüschlikon (he grew up there) and the beautiful lake lucerne area.

later i go outside and watch the scenery slowly go past. switzerland seems full of beautiful places.

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sound of the steamship “uri” on lake lucerne

first stop on my tour through the swiss alps by public transport: ibergeregg pass.

the post bus from oberiberg wound its way up the pass road navigating lots of curves and bends each time sounding its characteristic swiss post bus horn: dah-dee-doh-dah!

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sound of the ibergeregg–schwyz post bus

right at the summit of the ibergeregg pass is a pub-cum-hotel with a nice terrace providing a fantastic view of the alps! i’ve got until 11:40 for the bus to schwyz and settle down for a cup of coffee and some mountain and motorbike watching: the pass road is very popular with both bikers and motor bikers and over the course of half an hour you get to see motorbikes of almost any shape and make: those tiny ones with barely enough power to make it up here — isn’t there a law against mistreating small mopeds — up to real monster bikes that threaten to eat the whole pass in one go, road, mountain, pub, the lot.

then there are the racing cyclists: mostly men in their late 50s (the younger ones are probably already at home again), sometimes accompanied by a younger woman, always in what appears to be the latest racing outfit, almost all happy to reach the summit.

next stop: schwyz.

having hobbled to einsiedeln station, i’m in time for the 9:05 post bus to oberiberg — the weather is fantastic and i do envy mrs d for her snowshoe hike from the gotthard pass up to fibbia, a tour i’d been looking forward to very much1, especially as it is guided by fredi kälin from bluedimensions (if you want to do really nice walks or snowshoe tours: book fredi!)

instead of moapping around at home, however, i’ve planned a little mountain and lake tour myself — using only public transport i intend to go from einsiedeln via oberiberg to ibergeregg pass, have a coffee break there and enjoy the panorama, then on to the capital of our canton, schwyz. next stop is going to be brunnen where the plan is to switch to the steamship for lucerne. from lucerne it’s back by train via arth-goldau and biberbrugg to einsiedeln again.

1. another mental note to self: do put on walking boots when intending to take a walk around here! it’s not the north german plane… ↩

lazyrelaxed.

originally our plans for the pentecost weekend had been to do a two day walk in the napf area, a rather nice walking area between lucerne and berne. originally…

well, two weeks ago we set out to find the “across einsiedeln” geocache — which was supposed to be a rather simple one in easy terrain. as the weather was quite warm i didn’t put on my mountain boots but instead went in sandals — had i but known… we did find the GPS location of the “across einsiedeln” geocache, but didn’t find the cache itself. looking around i spotted a rather nice hiding place up a slope, climbed it, checked the spot, found nothing, then went back down to mrs d waiting on the path — and, hitting a muddy patch, slipped and twisted my ankle terribly! it hurt quite bad, and we returned home immediately, me grinding my teeth, mrs d trying to support me as well as possible. needless to say we cooled the ankle all afternoon and evening and on monday morning it did look better already.

having worked from home on monday, i decided to give it a try and went to the lab on tuesday — tuesday evening matters were worse: the left foot swollen and hurting like hell. so, wednesday morning i hobbled my way to the A&E at einsiedeln hospital: luckily nothing was broken, but the diagnosis was: torn ligament no walks for the next three weeks, and a brace to wear 24×7 for the next two weeks

so, that kind of spoiled our plans for the pentecost weekend. the foot is improving, luckily, and as of tuesday i’m allowed to drive again. as the weather was fantastic today (grumble, had i but worn those boots), i decided to finally tackle the gardening experiment i had meant to do all along: grow some vegetables and herbs on our balcony. the wooden container i had already assembled during last weekend’s enforced stay-at-home sunday and it was now time to fill it with a mixture of clay spheres (to retain the water) and soil — and, of course, some vegetables and herbs!

a trip to the local garden center (the “landi”!) later i had soil, clay spheres, and a green tomato plant, a san moreno tomato plant, a basil plant, italian parsley, english mint, an oregano plant, chives, french carrots, and an assortment of colourful radish seeds.

here the container once it was filled with soil:

a pixture of my buxus buxus along with the lavendel — which we planted four weeks ago:

at the landi i also bought a sheep, can’t have agriculture without sheep, really:

and here is the final result of my groundforce afternoon:

now i’m really interested in what this will turn out to be: vegetables in 3 months time or compost in 3 months time? hoping for the vegetable option…

since monday afternoon i’m in bed with flu. not particularly pleasant. fever wouldn’t retreat really until yesterday evening. went to see my very capable physician yesterday who did a very thorough check including a CRP blood test, all in all, revealing that i was probably suffering from a viral infection but on the way back to the living again. he told me to stay at home until friday (which i’m doing).

since monday i had ample opportunity to compare the results of my assortment of thermometers: i’ve accumulated over the years

• a mercury-in-glass thermometer
• a digital thermometer in the same form factor as the mercury-in-glass thermometer (and used in the same way)
• a digital in-ear thermometer (whose head you poke into your ear canal)
• and yet another digital thermometer, this on to place on your forehead

it turns out that the mercury-in-glass thermometer and the digital thermometer are the most reliable. the other two thermometers produce widely varying readings depending on the angle you poke it into the ear (in ear thermometer) or depending on where exactly on your forehead you place the forehead thermometer — and the trouble is your are unlikely to be able to repeat the next measurement with the same level of accuracy: trying to get two consistent readings in a row with either the forehead or the in-ear thermometer proved next to impossible. both would often report my body temperature as 35.6°C or some other bogus value when both the mercury-in-glass and digital thermometer would tell me that i’d have 38.1°C…

the best one in my opinion is the digital thermometer that replaced the mercury-in-glass ones: it works under the tongue (as does the mercury-in-glass one) but is faster to take the reading: within 90secs you’ve got a reading of the state of the nation (and it beeps a couple of times to alert you that it’s finished taking the reading). the mercury-in-glass has the advantage of being completely analogue and not requiring any batteries, but has the drawback of taking quite a long time (up to 10mins until the temperature had stabilised in some cases).

so, now you know what computer scientists do when they are bed-ridden with the flu…