After our Ticino weekend, Kara and I returned back to Zürich, since I had to get back to work. Kara spent the week taking day trips to Lauterbrunnen and Luzern and Bern and Geneva, while I spent the week working in the glove box, up to my elbows in black rubber gloves. Lovely.
Mid-week we got to meet up with Brian Patton, who was in Zürich working in the Google office here. We got a tour of the Google offices, which are pretty cool (just do a Google image search on the Google Zürich office and you'll see what I mean...). As a grad student, the whole working in an office thing is a foreign concept to me, so I think that offices are really interesting. Which may make me a dork, but it's true!
Kara left on Sunday, so we decided to take a hike in the mountains on Saturday to really do it up right. We landed on this hike from Amden, up to Speer, and then back to Amden by the Wallensee. My flatmate Georgie came with us, which was super fun. Since she is a PhD student in (sort of) geology, we got to learn about the different rock formations, which was so interesting! The rock formations in this area were pretty interesting, and I really like to understand the why and what behind all of the beauty.
The hike started out with a ski lift ride up from Amden to the start of the hike. We hiked around the back of the Mattstock into this beautiful little valley. Of course, it was sunny on the other side of the Mattstock, but on our side it was cloudy and occasionally rainy. It was still incredibly beautiful- the Swiss brand of green is just out of this world.
After a couple of hours, we decided to take the climb up to Speer, which was a steep climb. At the top, we were supposed to see over to the Zürisee, but it was super foggy and we pretty much could see nothing in one direction. However, the view towards the Mattstock was incredible.
The hike back down and around towards Amden was again super beautiful. The Alps are exhausting my store of adjectives- I'm mostly at a loss as to how to describe all of the beauty that I see!
We walked around a curve in our hike and were suddenly greeted with a view over the Wallensee and a paraglider just taking off. So gorgeous!
Mid-week we got to meet up with Brian Patton, who was in Zürich working in the Google office here. We got a tour of the Google offices, which are pretty cool (just do a Google image search on the Google Zürich office and you'll see what I mean...). As a grad student, the whole working in an office thing is a foreign concept to me, so I think that offices are really interesting. Which may make me a dork, but it's true!
Kara left on Sunday, so we decided to take a hike in the mountains on Saturday to really do it up right. We landed on this hike from Amden, up to Speer, and then back to Amden by the Wallensee. My flatmate Georgie came with us, which was super fun. Since she is a PhD student in (sort of) geology, we got to learn about the different rock formations, which was so interesting! The rock formations in this area were pretty interesting, and I really like to understand the why and what behind all of the beauty.
The hike started out with a ski lift ride up from Amden to the start of the hike. We hiked around the back of the Mattstock into this beautiful little valley. Of course, it was sunny on the other side of the Mattstock, but on our side it was cloudy and occasionally rainy. It was still incredibly beautiful- the Swiss brand of green is just out of this world.
After a couple of hours, we decided to take the climb up to Speer, which was a steep climb. At the top, we were supposed to see over to the Zürisee, but it was super foggy and we pretty much could see nothing in one direction. However, the view towards the Mattstock was incredible.
 |
| Some nice man took our photo. Apparently he missed the memo on the mountains. |
The hike back down and around towards Amden was again super beautiful. The Alps are exhausting my store of adjectives- I'm mostly at a loss as to how to describe all of the beauty that I see!
We walked around a curve in our hike and were suddenly greeted with a view over the Wallensee and a paraglider just taking off. So gorgeous!
