In French, there is no word for "high five"

Last Saturday, I competed in the annual 20 km de Lausanne. As you might have guessed from the name, it is a 20km race (nearly a half marathon) through the streets of downtown Lausanne. As Lausanne is built on a fairly steep hill, the course involves multiple thigh-burning climbs designed to crush both mind and body. Fortunately for me, though, I'd been training for a couple of weeks, so I was not entirely out of shape for the race. Unfortunately for me, though, I spent Friday night in Geneva with a bunch of moral degenerates and thus was not entirely recovered for the afternoon race.

Fig. 1: The course layout. By my estimate, it passes within one block of 15 different apartments that I applied for and was denied.

Loren was kind enough to take the train from Grenoble to run the race as well, so I was not all alone (at least at the start of the race). He had not trained at all for the race, but on the other hand, he was smart enough not to have too much fun Friday night -- sort of the anti-Paul strategy. As we had been talking trash back and for for a couple of weeks, there was a lot riding on the outcome of the race and we were both tense with anticipation.

Fig. 2: Oh, snap! That is a stylish shirt on the man on the left. Where could I possibly order one online?

Of course, the competition did not last long. After a couple of miles, Loren was pulling away and by the halfway point he was well out of my sight. As I faded hard toward the end (Elf needs food, badly!), the whole thing ended up being my worst half marathon by a long shot. Loren stayed strong through the end and finished with a time he could be proud of whereas I was just happy to make it to the end. Still, the weather was fantastic and the views from the top were really nice. Had I been feeling a little bit better, I think it would have been a truly enjoyable experience.

One interesting thing: there were not that many people cheering along the sides of the course, but those present did a pretty awesome job. First, there must have been about 10 different musicians set up along the way. Not professional bands like in a Rock-and-Roll Marathon, but just small groups with no amplification or, more commonly, one dude with a Casio and a speaker. At many other places, people had just parked their cars and blasted their stereos as loud as they could. I went by one big truck that was blasting trashy Euro techno for a while, only to switch to "Take my breath away" after I passed. I'd like to think that the timing was more than coincidental.

Most impressive of all, though, was the level of enthusiasm of the little kids (and assorted drunk adults). Nearly every time you saw a little kid on the side of the course, they would have their arm outstretched eagerly awaiting a high five! As noted in the title, there is no direct French translation for a high five, but you could tell that these kids spoke the universal language of the high five. They knew deep down in their blood how awesome a high five can be for an exhausted runner (see my shirt, above) and they didn't let a silly thing like the failure of the French language get in their way. Without a doubt, I got more high fives in this race than in every single other race I have ever ran put together. It was a great experience and something I look forward to at future events here in Switzerland.

---

As you might have been able to glean from one of the above photos, I decided to grow a beard a few weeks ago. The reasons for this are unimportant now (let us just say that it had to do with a certain chronically underachieving hockey team that shall not be named here), but once it was time to shave it off, I figured that it would be a good time to try out different styles and see whether they worked. As for the beard itself, when I finally got rid of it not a single one of my labmates even noticed, so it probably wasn't that great a look in the first place. Maybe one of these intermediate styles will be more successful. I leave it to my vast readership to let me know if one of these looks is a keeper.

Style 1: The Relief Pitcher. All I need is a jaw full of chaw and I'm ready to shut down the side in the eighth inning.

Style 2: The Hipster. This isn't facial hair so much as it is an ironic post-proto-punk affectation.

Style 3: The Renaissance Man. A plumed hat and a frilly shirt completes the look.

Style 4: The Freddie Mercury. Classic.

That is all for now. I actually have lots more stuff to write about but have been extremely busy of late. Many more updates to come.

Achieving One's Goals

As a general rule, I think it is a good idea that everyone keep a mental list of things they would like to accomplish in life. Nothing formal or complicated; just a few things (easy or difficult) that would really make you happy to do. For example, one of my goals in life is to form an all-ukulele all-David-Bowie cover band called "We can be Bowie -- just for one day." I'm still working on that -- I will keep you informed of my progress.

Why do I bring this up? Well, after last weekend I can cross off one of my dreams in life. I'll get straight to the photographic evidence.

Fig. 1: Pretty much the happiest I will ever be in a photo, ever.

Last weekend, my good friends from Stanford, Rafael and Pin-pin, flew down from the dreary United Kingdom (where they are both doing post-docs) to visit Switzerland. As they were more interested in hitting the slopes than seeing the sights in Lausanne, it was up to me to plan some sort of outdoor adventure. After consulting with some mountaineering experts (i.e. Bernard, from Valais), a plan was hatched to visit the Col du Grand Saint Bernard -- the Great St. Bernard Pass!

As Wikipedia will tell you, the Great St. Bernard Pass is the oldest known route through the western Alps and thus has been an important crossing point for millennia. In the 11th century, St. Bernard himself built a hospice on the pass to aid pilgrims and travelers crossing the Alps. The hospice has been in continuous operation since then, having been expanded and rebuilt a few times over the years.

Until a tunnel was built in the 1960s, the narrow road over the pass was the shortest path between Martigny (in Switzerland) and Aosta (in Italy). Unfortunately, the road is snowed in between October and May and un-passable by car. Thus, the only way to get to the hospice in the winter is to make the 5 km journey (with 500 m of elevation gain) through the snow.

In order to cover this sort of distance in the snow, one has two choices: snowshoes (see my previous post on the topic) or skis. Skiing uphill? Yes! Called peau de phoque (seal skin) or ski de randonée (ski hiking), it is very popular in Switzerland. The idea is that you temporarily attach these strips of fabric with very uni-directional hairs onto the bottom of your skis: they allow you to slide forward, but prevent you from sliding backwards. If you want to go downhill, you just take off the strips and away you go. Presumably, the name comes from the fact that the strips of fabric (which are now made of some sort of space-age polymer) used to be actual seal skins. If you are a good skier, you can move somewhat more quickly than snowshoes uphill and -- of course -- way more quickly downhill. If you are a total novice, like me, it would probably be faster to go with snowshoes in both directions.

A couple of labmates (Marc: world-class rower and athlete; Serge: expert skier/crazy person; and Jens: German) and Loren (of Grenoble) joined us for the expedition, although Bernard (the initiator) and his wife were unable to make the trip as they both came down with the flu that morning. This would come back to annoy us later.

Fig. 2: Pin-pin, Rafael, Marc, Big Dummy, Loren, Jens and Serge.

Rafael and Pin-pin wanted to snowboard the next day, so they rented snowshoes. The rest of us went with the peau de phoque. The Hospice website suggests that the combination of 5 km of distance and 500 m of elevation in the mountains is the equivalent of 10 km of "effort." They also suggest that you start no later than 2:00 or 2:30, as it takes roughly 2.5 hours to make the ascent and it starts getting dark aroune 5:00 or 5:30. Thanks to the sporting goods store not being open from Noon - 2:00, we weren't able to depart until nearly 4:30. Nonetheless, we were confident that we would make it up just fine.

Fig. 3: Pin-pin showing off her snowshoes. These were probably the right choice for going up the mountain as they are both lightweight and mobile.

If you've never peau de phoque'd, I would describe it as such: it is roughly as efficient as you would imagine strapping big pieces of wood to your feet and trying to walk uphill to be. For someone like me, who has only been on skis once in his life, it was not a particularly efficient process. The rental boots didn't fit very well nor did I know how to adjust them properly, thus my shins were rubbed completely raw by the end of the hike. Also, this little excursion was the first time I'd exerted myself physically in about a month, so in retrospect, it probably wasn't the greatest idea. Thankfully, a dose of codeine at the bottom of the mountain and the dream of a warm meal at the top of the mountain kept me going and not long after it got really dark, we made it to the top.

Fig. 4: Serge (backwards), Marc, and Jens show off proper peau de phoque'ing technique.

Fig. 5: The views in the mountains were incredible.

The Hospice is run by chanoines (canons) which are like monks, for the most part. They provide dormitory style beds, hot meals, and mass five times a day for visitors. Upon arrival, one of the monks came up to us wanting to know what happened to our other two people (we made reservations for 9). We explained that they came down with the flu and couldn't make it. He was not pleased that we didn't call and change the reservation as it meant that they had prepared too much food. We explained that we were extremely sorry about the whole thing and tried to explain that we were really in a hurry to get going and just made an honest mistake. This did not go well with the monk.

Dinner was nice, and afterward we got to watch a nice propaganda film about the history of the hospice. There was a nice sort of living room, with board games, comic books, and other entertainment, so we passed the time playing cards and reading comics. Serge and Marc taught some of us foreigners how to play Jass, the national card game of Switzerland, so it was an educational experience.

Fig. 6: Card sharks at work. Pin-pin is reading "Tintin au Congo," a delightfully racist comic book in which the natives are so dumb that they speak worse French than Tintin's dog, Milou.

For the most part, the Hospice was really nice and I think we all would have had a great experience except for one thing: this one monk just would not stop harassing us about the fact that we didn't call to change our reservation. He must have hassled me at least 5 times about the fact, culminating in his insistence that when we paid, that we ought to consider all the expenses that we cost them in heating and food for the missing people and we should add to our bill "what our conscious told us" was a fair amount.

Needless to say, this didn't fly with some of our group and some fairly spirited discussions ensued. Most of us paid a bit extra, just to avoid a fight, but it really left a bitter taste in our mouths. I guess when you go spend a night with monks, you should probably be prepared for an extra large dose of Catholic guilt. Oh well.

The next morning, Serge, Marc and Loren set off for another peau de phoque adventure to a nearby peak, Rafael and Pin-pin took their snowboards and headed down the mountain to the ski station to snowboard all day, and Jens and I wandered around the hospice with the spare snowshoes. Fun was had by all, until it was time to leave.

Fig. 7: Rafael and Pin-pin, just before they slam some Mountain Dew, eat some Extreme Pizza Flavored Goldfish, and take it to the max!

Once ready, we had to take the peaux de phoque off of the skis and start skiing down the mountain. As mentioned before, I don't exactly have a glorious history of ski experience, so this was a bit of a challenge for me. Fortunately, Marc was an extremely good instructor and taught me many many things, and by the time I was at the bottom, I was doing alright. I only had a couple falls, none of the serious, and even though I didn't exactly bathe myself in glory, I didn't embarrass myself too badly, either.

Fig. 8: Another stunning view of the mountains. In general, the skies get bluer and more beautiful the further up you go. At the same time in Lausanne, it was gray and ugly.

Once we made it to the bottom, it was time for a drink at the restaurant, and that was the end of that adventure.

Fig. 9: Most of the crew relaxing after an exhausting weekend.

Oh, did I forget something?

Fig. 10: Is it physically possible for a picture to say "Come to Switzerland" more than this one does? Can anyone resist it?

The hospice at the Great St. Bernard Pass is probably most famous for being the home of the world-famous St. Bernard breed of dogs. Although during the wintertime, the dogs are not kept at the hospice, they are kept at the beautiful Fondation Barry, a short drive away in Martigny. Friday, before we made our ascent, we stopped by the foundation for a quick visit with the dogs.

Fig. 11: Who's a good boy? Are you? Yes you are!

Although there is a museum with all sorts of historical information on the pass and the dogs, the real draw is the puppies. For a nominal fee, you can see the puppies. You can photograph the puppies. You can take videos of the puppies. And you can pet the puppies. It truly does not get any better than that.

So, I can finally check off "Visit the home of the St. Bernard dogs and then see more of them in a single day than most people see in a lifetime" from my list of things to do before I die. If you come and visit me, you can do the same thing.

---

P.S. A lot more photos are available at my Picasa account here.

Winter Smorgasbord

Lots of old news to cover, what with me not writing an actual update in like a month, so away we go.

---

Way, way back -- before Christmas break -- I took the train to beautiful Grenoble to visit my friend Loren, who works there as a lab monkey, like me. Although Loren has made it into Switzerland (successfully) two times, this was my first trip to France to visit him. I had heard lots of talk about how awesome the city, so I was pretty excited about checking it out.

To most French people, Grenoble = the Alps. Located smack dab in-between three massive sets of mountains, Grenoble is known for its mountainy beauty. On the mountains to the north is La Bastille, a huge prison complex that was begun in the middle ages. Loren and I -- trying to recreate everything we knew about French history -- decided to storm the bastille. It wasn't the same bastille, but it was close enough.

Fig. 1: La Bastille, in Grenoble. Pretty much the ultimate snowball fort.

Grenoble hosted the winter olympics many years ago, and thus is left with a huge amount of "futuristic" looking stuff. Or, at least it was "futuristic" back in 1968.

Fig. 2: "Les Bulles" have been bringing a taste of the future to the citizens of Grenoble for 40 years. Like the Jetsons, really.

I also took this picture of a cafe that clearly had some sort of connection to the family. Immediately after I took this, though, the woman inside came out and started yelling at me. She said it was "Forbidden!" to take photos without permission. I told her she was "crazy!", she kept insisting it was "Forbidden!", I reminded her that was "Ridiculous!" A stalemate reached, she went back to the cafe. Loren followed her and took four or five more photos with his camera, but the excitement was over. What a weird experience.

Fig. 3: The forbidden photo. I'm not sure why they would forbid anyone taking a photo of their crummy cafe, but French people are a constant mystery.

One last shot of Grenoble, this one emphasizing its natural beauty.

Fig. 4: Would a rose in front of someone else smell as sweet?

---

During Christmas, I went back to SD and saw the whole family and whatnot. What can I say, it was incredible. I had an unbelievable time seeing everybody and all I could wish for was that it was longer. Even though I was home for nearly two weeks, for a variety of reasons I barely got to spend time with anyone. Oh well. At least I did get to spend some time with the Neph, who -- by the way -- is ADORABLE. Want proof? Here's a pic I took of us on the Mini-Railroad in front of the world famous San Diego Zoo. Alexander loved riding the choo-choo and especially enjoyed going through the tunnel.

Fig. 5: I have NO IDEA who that crazy person behind us is.

---

So, here's a weird story. Flying back to La Suisse, I went from LAX to London to Zurich. From LAX to London, I was seated next to an extremely stoned Australian guy who spent the whole trip sucking down those fake plastic "cigarettes" and chugging Courvoisier and Cokes (or Cro-vo-sser and Coke, as he said it). Anyway, it was miserable and I was happy to land, somewhere, anywhere. I wandered around the London airport for a bit, then headed to my gate for Zurich. As soon as the gate agent has looked at my ticket, I hear this voice say "What a coincidence!" I look up and it is none other than Andrei Garcia.

Andrei (a.k.a. "Drei2K") is a good frend from the McCullough basement crew at Stanford, and also holds the distinguished claim of being the person who took over the wheels of the Science Bus when I bailed. He was visiting his mother in Ireland, who had been working on a Fullbright scholarship. They were on their way to Salzburg for a vacation and it was just a bizarre coinicidence that we ended up on the same flight to Zurich. Fortunately, Andrei's mom let me switch tickets with her and Andrei and I had to whole flight to talk and share gossip. Here's an interesting piece of gossip: nearly everyone I know from Stanford has not left. Stanford people: what is wrong with you? Leave!!! (Not you young ones, you can stay).

Fig. 6: Me and Drei. Yes, we are dressed identically. No, that is not on purpose.

---

OK. One final thing. Once I got back to Switzerland, I was greeted at the Zurich airport by Christine and Patrick. We hung out in Zurich, came back to Lausanne for New Year's, and then set off for Eastern Switzerland for an exciting adventure. We went to Bergün, near Chur, to go Schlitteln! What is Schlitteln? Why, sledding, of course! But not just normal sledding on some small hill, no. The road between Preda and Bergün is closed off and you can sled the entire length. To get to the top, you just take the train. Crazy! Anyway, the sled run is something like 4km long and takes about 15 minutes, I'd guess, to go from top to bottom. With rented sleds, you can end up going pretty darn fast, which seems dangerous but really isn't due to the snow all around. The only real danger comes from other sledders, many of whom decided that stopping in the middle of the run was a good idea. At any rate, it was lots of fun, and one of the most scenically beautiful places I have ever seen. I took lots of pictures (no action shots, unfortunately -- maybe Patrick has some he could send to me) so, here they are!

Fig. 7: Me, Christine, and my sled. There's a reason I'm covered with snow and Christine isn't: she's a much better sledder.

Fig. 8: How's that for scenic beauty?

Fig. 9: Christine with some sort of shaggy animal.

Fig. 10: Downtown Bergün. That is an actual horse-driven sleigh coming toward the camera. For real.

Winter Wonderland

As I write, it is roughly 33 degrees outside my apartment and it has been lightly snowing all week. Earlier this week, it was really snowing. The only way I could describe it would be to say: it is like watching a Green Bay Packers game, except you got cold and wet, too. This isn't the first time it has snowed since I arrived here (it snowed on Dan, Chris and I a couple weekends ago), but it is significantly more intense this time. Of course, Lausanne is at fairly low elevation and is next to the largest lake in continental Europe, so the weather is almost certainly much more severe up in the mountains. Thus, the light snowfall we got a couple weeks ago corresponded to a huge amount of snow up in the Alps, which can mean only one thing: winter sports!

A couple weekends ago, Loren, Chris and I headed deep into the "Alpes Vaudoises" for some winter fun. Fortunately, there are plenty of mountain resorts in the French speaking portion of the country, so it was easy for me to call up a small B&B and reserve rooms for the three of us for a couple nights. The town that we stayed in, Leysin, is served by a dedicated small-gauge rail line that intersects with the main Swiss train system in Aigle, so it only takes about an hour to get to Leysin from Lausanne, all told.

The train from Aigle was packed, so we had to stand uncomfortably at the front of the car. Most of the seated passengers looked like Japanese high school kids (some in uniform), but as there was no obvious tour (or school) group, we had no idea what they were doing there. We didn't see them again that weekend, even though the town is pretty small. Standing nearby us, though, was a group of Swiss students speaking excitedly in French to each other. I wasn't really paying attention, so I wasn't really following their conversation, but totally out of the blue, one of the girls said (in English with a hilariously French accent), "Monster ... tentacle ... gangbang ... porn." It made me wish I had been paying attention to their conversation.

Before I left on this adventure, I got an email from my mother. She heard that I was planning on going "skiing" -- a dangerous sport surpassed only by bullfighting and russian roulette in her book -- and sent me a strongly worded message. I quote:

FYI, here is a list of dangerous forbidden winter sports for you:
Skiing
Snowboarding
Bobsledding
Ice Hockey
Rock Climbing

Here is a list of preferred, safe winter sports:
Curling
Ice Fishing
Building Snowmen
Toasting Marshmallows

Keep warm, my little pork chop.

Fortunately for everyone, we had no plans to ski, snowboard, or do anything else on the forbidden list. No, we had been drawn to the mountains by the allure of snowshoeing. We started off Saturday morning with a small map and a plan to hike as high as we could before we got tired or it got dark.

Like cross-country skiing but for uncoordinated people, snowshoeing is basically just hiking in the snow. The large plastic racket allows you to disperse your body weight over a large area, thus allowing you to cross deep snow without sinking in up to your knees. Although Loren and Moon (native Minnesotans, both) could have probably climbed a mountain in flip-flops, I found that the snowshoes really improved my grip on thin snow and ice, and thus were useful for the entire hike.

Fig. 1: Loren looking fierce. And stylish.

Fig. 2: Moon looking ... fierce.

The views were just amazing. I could post about a hundred photos that we took from the mountainside, but one will be enough.

Fig. 3: Just one of the many scenic views.

When we finally figured that we'd had enough, we took a break at an unused ski lift for a snack. Loren was kind enough to photograph me mid-chew.

Fig. 4: A bottle of white wine improves by about $10 worth of taste for every 1000 feet of altitude. We were at 4500 feet, so this one was worth about $47.

In a really well-thought out move, earlier that week I picked up a few "sleds" for 5 CHF each, figuring that we might be able to get some use out of them. As you can see in the picture above, the sleds were compact (almost exactly the size of your butt) and unusually shaped (they bore a certain resemblance to a well-known novelty item). They didn't have much in the way of steering or control, but you could go pretty fast and there was plenty of snow to crash into if you lost control. Here's Loren demonstrating the proper technique:

Fig. 5: Loren holds on tight.

When we had had enough fun sledding and hiking, we finished our evening the only way we could: fondue. As one of our rooms had a nice little kitchenette and Loren was kind enough to buy his own caquelon (which he took home with him to France), we had everything we needed for a party. Remember: if you come to visit me, this could be you!

Fig. 6: If you drop your bread in the cheese, you have to kiss the person on your left. I think after the fifth or sixth time, Loren was just dropping his bread on purpose.

Beautiful weather, beautiful mountains, good friends, and delicious cheese: can life get any better than this?