City of Mozart, No Longer Prized for Salt

Ah, Salzburg! Where the sun was shining and the air was... bitterly cold and dry. There was snow on the ground with no inclination to melt; as such, all the feet passing over it at the outdoor Christmas Market had turned it to the color and texture of sand. Despite the temperature and the fact that you can see everything of interest there within 2 days, I really liked Salzburg.

The best view of the city came from high atop the Hohensalzburg Fortress's viewing platform, where I got a great 360 view of the whole city, thanks to the audio tour.



Salzburg also held some of my favorite cathedrals I've seen to date, with the detailed, pleasantly-colored ceilings of the Dom (Dome) and St. Peter's putting them into my top 2, in that order, and Franziskaner not working it's way into my favorites but still providing a huge, impressive (though somewhat gaudy and vaguely cultish) golden altar centerpiece... thing.

The whole town is packed with history, mainly regarding Mozart, which means lots of classical music concerts and impromptu street musicians. The royal Residenz, where Mozart gave many concerts in his all-too-short career, hosts some really amazing woodwork on it's floors; hundreds of years old and still looking great, and so detailed! (Stupidly, I didn't take any pictures of the really cool star artwork on the floors, though that might have been due to the museum workers constantly breathing down my neck.)
But really, the main reason to go to Austria is to eat excellent pastries. My new favorite is called Creme Schnitt, which is Austrian for "vanilla layer cake with sugary glaze on top that suits madam just fine." In addition to all kinds of cakes and strudels, Salzburg is known for a strange creation called Mozart Kuglen, or Mozart balls, which are chocolate-covered balls of marzipan (possibly with some pistachio added in). I lucked out in that both my Creme Schnitt and Mozart Kugeln came from Fuerst Cafe, which is supposedly one of the best in Salzburg. However, after just 2 days of exposure to all the delicious sweets, it took another 2 days to be able to touch chocolate again. Just in time for Christmas, thankfully.

2 Things

Firstly, snow! And lots of it!

Over the past 2 or 3 weeks, there have been a handful of days in which it snowed. The first big snow we got was a couple inches and actually messed up the bus and train schedules (the bus schedules royally, and the trains only a smidge). Earlier this week we just got a dusting, though definitely enough to close schools in Chattanooga. Last night it snowed a lot more, though, so we're back up to a few inches, with temperatures well-below freezing to keep it around a bit.

Secondly, cooking! Super-sweet stuff from scratch!

I wanted to expose the European heathens to a traditional batch of homemade Christmas candy, including peanut butter fudge, chocolate-dipped pretzels, and divinity. However, if you know anything about candy making, you'll realize this list holds a serious problem for me: about half of the ingredients for these candies simply don't exist in Europe.

So in addition to the final products, which remain to be seen, I've already gone about making some of the basic ingredients, namely, peanut butter, "corn syrup" (or super-saturated sugar syrup), and marshmallow creme. It sounds like a lot of work, but really I'm the winner in this situation, because the marshmallow creme is fantastic.

Sennentuntschi

Last night I saw the movie Sennentuntschi, and then I didn't want to fall asleep. There is talk of it being released in an English subtitled version, possibly under the name "Killer Doll" or "Thank God There Are Subtitles Because this Movie is Entirely in Swiss German." I, of course, was not so fortunate to have subtitles, but knowing a little German helped immensely, though I had to have a few gaps explained to me after the movie.

This movie is supposedly Switzerland's first real entry onto the horror movie scene, but what it really is is messed up, and some of the imagery near the end is particularly creepy, burning itself into your brain. As the movie focuses on some killings that take place in a nice little village in the Alps, many Swiss were worried that tourism would suffer after the movie came out, but I doubt the movie will be that popular worldwide.

As for the movie theater experience itself, it was fairly standard, with plenty of overpriced popcorn and a small, cozy theater. Americans, take note: if you ever find yourself attending a movie in Switzerland, you have an assigned seat, theatre-style, none of this "pick a seat, willy-nilly" nonsense.

Before going to the movie, I got to see a little bit of Zurich's Christmas market (the third of it that's inside the train station, because it was really freaking cold). There are tons of little stands there selling everything from hats and candles to spiced wine and sausages. Also, there's a pretty tree covered in Swarovski crystal decorations. Yes, every one of those little dots hanging from the tree is a Swarovski.

The Ugliest Hilton in the World

... lies in Basel, Switzerland.

Getting to Basel (or Bal / Baal, as the French Swiss call it) is not a particularly scenic trip, unless you like craptastic views of industrial towns, quarries, and nuclear power plant towers. Once I arrived in Basel... things still didn't look much better; the sunshine and "warm" weather I'd been expecting had failed to materialize, and my day in the city was grey, cold, and damp. But once you manage to get past all that, Basel actually has a few cool offerings.

Most important, there is this little creperie tucked away off a main road in the Old Town area. It's a little hole-in-the-wall type of place, but Swiss style, meaning it has lots of cute, cozy seating inside, eclectic decorations on the walls, and paper plates to serve their very delicious crepes.

Post-crepe, it's easy to stumble upon the Rathaus (city hall), which happens to be very red and covered with murals and golden statues, and the Muenster church, both within the Old Town section.


If you're lucky, not only will the Muenster provide you with a break from the grossness of Basel, but it will also have organs playing and choirs singing in some of the little chapels as you stroll through and imagine you're a monk. (That's what you're supposed to do when you walk through churches and cathedrals, right?)

Couple these sites with two museums (Cartoon & Comics Museum and the Tinguely Museum, which was crazy and awesome and very bizarre all in one) and I filled a whole day there, with no time left to cross between the borders of Switzerland, France, and Germany that meet on the northern section of the Rhein river. Overall a nice trip, but Basel isn't winning any beauty contests in my book.

Of Castles and B.B. Kings

Two weekends ago, as I was in the grip of the European Tonsillitis of Doom, I took the time to go infect other locations in Switzerland, namely, Luzern. Normally I would be all too happy to nurse a sore throat by lying in bed with some soup all Saturday long, but this particular weekend was special. It was the start of the highly-respected Luzern Blues Festival, and the entrance to the first night's show was free. When you combine those two phrases ("blues music" and "FREE!!!!!"), there's no keeping me away.

So Simon and I took the train to Kussnacht and hiked 3 or 4 hours along the lake to Luzern. Kussnacht to me embodies all the elements of what makes a town Swiss: a lake, mountains, rolling green hills dotted by a few houses, a bus station, and of course, happy Swiss cows.


Along the way was a castle with a vineyard, rather closed for the season but still impressive to look at.

Once in Luzern, we met up with friends for Thai food (cheap by Swiss standards at merely $20 an entree) and headed to the show at the Schweizerhof hotel. The show ended up being far from free once you included the cost of beverages from the bar, but the venue was lovely, and while the music wasn't B.B. King (or Kim Massie, for that matter), it was a good show with an actual blues band imported straight from the U.S. Though I'm not sure what they were thinking when they played that polka..

Becoming "Culturally Aware"

How many times have you used the phrase, "I'm hungry enough to eat a horse"? Well, this week in the IBM ZRL cafeteria, you had that chance. On the menu was horse, or Pferdesteak. While a few members of my group were quite pleased with their equine lunch (served with a side of fries), others found the idea less than appealing; this polarization wasn't confined to specific countries, with people from different places and backgrounds chiming in for different sides. Even among the Swiss IBMers there were different attitudes towards eating horse.

While I personally find the idea of eating Secretariat rather horrendous, I also acknowledge that part of my revulsion is based on American cultural taboo that differentiates a foal from lamb or veal. The whole situation made me think back to a different lunchtime discussion about being "culturally aware," a term IBM had coined in its sensitivity training but that was jokingly turned around to mean that if you find something offensive or unlikeable, you must not be "culturally aware" enough.

Then I reflected on things I've found surprising or unlikeable while in Switzerland. A surprising thing is that Swiss friends kiss on the cheeks when meeting or leaving one another. Not to be outdone by the French, they take it to the extreme, with 3 alternating-cheek kisses. This fact wasn't particularly unlikeable, merely very surprising to a "hugs-only" American. Other surprises include blatant nudity in the evening papers and on television, which in the US would be covered by a black censor bar or just banned entirely.

Then there is the less desirable eating of foals, and funnily enough, a matter related to swing dancing. Apparently in Switzerland, it's expected that one dances at least 2 dances in a row with a single partner before moving on. Bailing out after the first dance generally implies that the dance was just terrible. For so many reasons, I dislike this unwritten requirement, though I'm at least aware of its existence now.

So I guess I will remain blissfully "culturally unaware" about things like horse meat and "required-dances" swing dancing, but if that's what bothers me most about Switzerland, I'd say things are going pretty well. So how culturally aware are you? Would you eat a horse?

A Little Taste of Home

Prepare yourself for a shocking and controversial statement: Nutella is not a suitable substitute for peanut butter.

I know, I know, you might say, "Just because it's made with a different nut doesn't make it inferior. You're just a dirty anti-hazelnut American!" .. and any part of that may well be true. However, I'm not a Peanut-Supremacist; far from it, in fact. I openly embrace nut butters of all types, particularly of the almond-variety, and quite frankly, I didn't even think peanuts were all that great in the first place. But that doesn't change the fact that an entire jar of Nutella contains less protein than a single Snickers bar.

One need only take a look at the nutrition facts on a jar of Nutella to see that it is far from a real nut butter. The first ingredient is.. sugar. Followed by plant oil, cocoa, and finally hazelnuts. Don't get me wrong; I'm not being anti-Nutella here. On the contrary, I think this ingredient list qualifies it as a fabulous breakfast topping for toast. (Keep in mind that this is coming from a girl whose breakfast of choice is, unapologetically, an Eggo topped with chocolate chips.)

Needless to say, the lack of good nut butters in Zurich is somewhat of a death-blow to vegetarians. Sure, they have Barney's Best, which is apparently like the German version of Skippy, but I was hoping for something a little more fresh-ground and a little less sugar and oil-filled. So yeseterday, stuck at home sick, I decided to make some peanut butter from scratch. Turns out this process isn't so hard, especially if you have modern conveniences like nut crackers and food processors. Sadly, I possess neither, but it's still a pretty easy process.

So I went through the grueling process of shelling my pre-roasted peanuts until I could shell no more, which was disappointingly short. Then I used a crappy hand-blender (that only works during the half of the time it's not sparking) to grind and mix them, to delicious though poorly-photographing results. (Seriously, the pictures of it on my phone just kinda look like throw-up, so I'm not gonna post them.) With a spoonful of honey mixed in, this peanut butter might just be my food of choice for the next few days straight.