morning ride.

we're back to grind here in lausanne. howie back to classes and i to my computer. i think i should go to bed soon so that it doesn't burn a hole in my lap! i've been working on a couple of graphics projects and also started seriously planning our italy trip for july.

but this morning when i woke up i didn't quite know what to do. i thought about running, but my toes hurt from all the walking we did over the weekend. i looked at my bike and knew that even though i didn't feel like hauling it downstairs, it would be exactly the thing to start my week.

somehow i found myself all geared up and ready to go so i hit the road towards vevey. i didn't plan to ride the entire route, so turned around somewhere in the middle. the route is seemingly simple- ride along the lake. but occasionally there are small towns you can ride through or the road changes into a highway, or surprise roundabouts... just enough to make a simple ride a little confusing.

misty morning lake.

so my first mistake was riding up to the top of a steep hill after riding through a town, only to find myself arriving at a round about exactly at the same time as a car, who of course did not stop (maybe didn't even see me?) but luckily there was literally only enough room for the car, maybe about 6" clearance, me, and about 1" between my tires and the curb stones. somehow i managed to stay up and just rode right through it all with the passenger in the car looking amazed that i didn't stop. i'm just amazed that i didn't fall OR touch the car! later i realized that the car had come from a hidden side road and legally had the right of way, so i should have stopped, which also would have made me fall over :)  i think i'll just avoid this intersection in the future.

that's the road i was supposed to be on... 

second mistake was on the return trip as i meant to stay on the main road and avoid all small towns. i followed the biking route sign and ended up riding through a town. somehow i missed the signs back to the main road, and ended up following some signs which took me up into the vineyards. this turned out to be not such a bad mistake- but that path has many more hills, and the occasional car popping out from nowhere. also its actually a little scary as i felt like the wind would blow me right over the edge of the path. you can't really see whats below, so might as well be the lake! i wasn't on the vineyard path for very long, but i will have to try it again soon.

vineyards are finally green!

happy easter!

ok, well, it was almost one week of posts. it was a busy busy week for howie and therefore i felt busy too- staying up late with him and making sure he was fed properly. i also held another session of my quite famous chinese dumpling cooking class. i didn't realize it would be such a hit! my class was also featured on another partner's blog- Todd's 40x40 list. i might have to try getting creative with the dumplings, although you can never go wrong with the classics.

some other accomplishments of the week- i attended our weekly french lesson after having missed several weeks, and realized that i missed practicing french a bit. i need to figure out how to work it into my daily routine... (it would help if i had a daily routine!)

i also went to go see a doctor and got my prescriptions filled, finally!  it was quite difficult since the english speaking doctor who was recommended to me, also has an english speaking receptionist who is impossible to get on the phone. took a couple weeks of calling at different times of the day to finally reach her.

and we finished the crazy week with a picnic with a few IMD friends in the middle of the vineyards with an amazing view of the alps and good homemade food.

by the time you read this, we'll be relaxing in the Ticino sunshine!

ciao!

sketching in Romainmotier.

so it sounds a little sketchy, but i found some swiss sketchers on the internet and met up with them last weekend. i saw that they were heading to a town very close to lausanne to participate in the 31st worldwide sketchcrawl found through the urban sketchers website.

i hopped a local train from lausanne station and within 30 minutes was in the middle of farm fields and tiny towns. luckily nora came along for a few hours so i wasn't completely on my own. we walked 2km or so to the town of Romainmotier. a very tiny old town with a very beautiful abbey church. the main church that exists today was built in the 10th &11th centuries, and this nice plan diagram found here shows how the church developed from much earlier.

the church also had a traditional cloister which was removed during a period of religious reform. remnants of the old cloister still linger on the exterior walls and stones were laid to represent the original plan.

one of the most beautiful aspects of this church is the sandstone on the exterior- the color and aging of the stone is amazing. also, of course i love the way that there's still a taste of what used to be- ribs still sprouting from the exterior facade gives an idea of what used to be.

it was nice to escape into the countryside and listen to the music of cowbells for a few hours. it was also great to meet some lovely swiss sketchers who turned out to be just the kind of people i'd imagined.

Update: the sketchcrawl results from our group can be seen here!

escape to Zurich.

after howie's first round of exams he had the weekend off! of course i didn't really know about this until 2 days before, but somehow we managed to change a couple of plans and head to zurich for part of the weekend. it was so great to spend time together outside of lausanne. i think that even if we're out of our apartment its difficult to forget that we're here for one very big reason. so getting out of town really feels good!

we spent friday night wandering the city a bit. ate at Sprungli (scavenger hunt!), saw the largest clock in europe (scavenger hunt!) and also saw corbusier's last house along the lakefront. actually, the lakefront there is quite amazing. i'm still getting used to the byob aspect of life here, also the tolerance for pot smoking. so the lakefront on a sunny friday evening was packed with people having a beer, chatting with friends, lighting up and hanging out. we even saw two guys biking together- they looked like twins as well- one holding the hookah while the other was smoking (while riding bikes through the crowd!) amazing.

sprungli! 

this country is MAD about chocolate bunnies.

chocolate mousse & cappuccino. yum.

howie is free!

giant clock.

getting a little lost... true adventurers.

sunset orange

sunset pink

le corbusier 'heidi weber' house/museum

of course we found the famous bratwurst stand. i think i like the bun-less approach.

howie's head has not grown- his torso has shrunk :)

so many bratwurst! 

the evening was a lot more wandering. it was great to see people out, restaurants open late, and general liveliness.  we even stumbled on some sort of marching band bar hopping around town. then we saw a group of bagpipers playing as they walked through the streets. then all of a sudden we saw another and another. some were huge, like 50-60 people, then some were only 4 or 5 people. nobody told us it was 'battle of the marching bands'?!  we made up that name but either something was going on or zurich-ites really like drums, piccolos and bagpipes. made for an interesting evening!

saturday the plan was to stay as long as we could, then take the train home in the evening. lets just say we walked until our feet were about to fall off. we started with the design museum and saw an amazing exhibit about photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who was a very influential photographer with quite an amazing life. he travelled to china at the turn of communism, one of the first western reporters in russia, and witnessed the death of ghandi. he also survived a concentration camp during ww2 and once he escaped he dug up his camera he'd buried in the woods and continued to shoot. his work was so amazing and insightful.

we stumbled upon this market built under an existing train bridge in this industrial/artsy neighborhood. we stopped to eat some fish and chips (minus the chips) at this great little seafood stand. they also let us taste their olive paste and pesto. yummmm.

zurich Markthalle im Viadukt 

interior- the bridge splits and this is the space between

reminds me of minneapolis!

little restaurant in big arch

the next stop was the famous freitag store of stacked shipping containers. freitag is a swiss company that makes bags from old truck tarpaulins and seatbelts. every freitag bag is different, but once you start noticing these bags you see them everywhere!  too bad we can't really afford them at the moment- even the ipad case is 100fr. boo. i guess we did get to climb up to the top of the tower for free.

freitag store

a 'skyscraper' built from shipping containers

the view from the top

on our way down

the view from between the stacked containers

we saw a few more sights but eventually we just piled ourselves onto a train and called it a day.  i'll leave you with a few more photos from the trip!

chalkboard dust.

a little video treat for you! in case you didn't see this, howie and a couple of classmates put together this video for a contest about how MBAs can 'change the world'. he had a great idea for the intro, but of course needed my help :) so i made my first hand drawn stop motion video. congrats to howie and team for finding the time to put this together amidst their crazy workload. glad i could help and be a part of the fun. enjoy!

barcelona!

barcelona was a breath of fresh air! as much as switzerland is beautiful and lovely, barcelona is colorful and lively. i had often heard about the amazing atmosphere of this city, and all i can say is that it is so true! i arrived with a day to myself which i spent wandering all over the city. i ate some tapas at a steingraeber recommenndation and had free dinner at the hostel we stayed at while waiting for darin to arrive. lesson one from this trip: im too old to stay in hostels. i did meet a couple of finnish gals at the hostel who were quite friendly, but sharing a room with 7 other people does not make for enjoyable accommodations. although it was awfully cheap...

the famous 'ramblas'

santa maria del mar

darin finally arrived to save me from the teenagers and it was great to see a familiar face. we spent the next day roaming much of the gothic quarter, popping into many churches, finding interesting hidden courtyards, and fighting the mobs at the cathedral. the best part about this cathedral for me was the crypt in the middle of the nave of the cathedral with a large set of steps. once you walk down, you get an even more amazing perspective of the cathedral vaults.  we also walked along the beach, were highly disappointed by frank ghery's fish, but enjoyed the sights and smells of the mediterranean.

barcelona cathedral

barcelona cathedral- from the crypt

barcelona cathedral

yuck!

h.c. and arlene showed up the next day. we got breakfast at the market and to the joan miro museum, barcelona pavilion, (boo, it was closed for a private event!) and many other architectural wonders. my final day in the city was dedicated to the works of gaudi. i only studied gaudi a bit in leon's history course during the 3+ summer, so maybe for 1 or 2 hours max. but what amazed me about his work was not just the extraordinary forms and structures he designed but the integration and importance of material craft in his work. i was trying to imagine the construction of these buildings and imagining gaudi working with sculptors, iron workers, and even those laying ceramic mosaics.

the MN gang, family portrait style

gaudi! casa batllo

hexagons! love! (gaudi tiles)

gaudi- la pedrera

gaudi- doesn't leave a detail untouched

gaudi- iron work

gaudi- one of the famous models

gaudi- catenary arches

gaudi- la pedrera roofscape

gaudi- sagrada familia from la pedrera

i've got to get the self portrait thing down...

sagrada familia- closed :(

view of barcelona from park guell (by gaudi)

mosaics everywhere (gaudi park)

arlene, h.c., darin, me. la pedrera

the food was amazing. squid. octopus. olives. squid ink paella. tapas....  can't wait to go back with howie!

fresh seafood at the market

steingraber-recommended tapas and wine

next time i'll visit the maritime museum
this wooden submarine was hanging around

barcelona pavillion (mies van der rohe) closed! :(

caixaforum. cannot. remember. architect... japanese dude?

santa caterina market- EMBT architects

excavation of roman graves along ancient road to city.
excellent landscape intervention!

view from joan miro museum. always smiling.

burned to a crisp? no! squid ink rice dish! yum...