Travels with Tavish

On Tuesday (6/17), we took the train from Zurich to Munich, a four hour ride.  Upon our arrival, we located our apartment we rented through Airbnb, about four stops away from downtown on public transportation.  We walked around downtown Munich to work up an appetite then had a traditional meal of bratwurst and potatoes (in the form of fries) at a beergarden in the English Garden, a huge inner-city park.  We would return to this park later in our stay. We began Wednesday with a trip to the BMW Museum.  We had high hopes, but unfortunately the museum turned out to be 80% propoganda and only 20% cars/engines.  Found on one of the informational signs: "The design of a BMW M vehicle is the perfect symbiosis of power and aesthetics.  The intense relationship between the driver, engine performance, and the road is inerpreted as pure emotion.  The result is an athletic design that embodies both the power of the engine and motorsport as a whole."  After ...

We took it easy on Saturday (6/14) after our previous long day in Luzern.  I am grateful for the opportunity to sleep in while staying in Zurich—none of us has a pressing agenda.  We spent the morning fixing Seth’s freezer.  The freezer door did not close because of a huge ice buildup (due to the door not being fully closed).  It was a vicious cycle of freezer ice.  It took almost an hour to vanquish the solid ice blocks, and now the freezer looks great.  We then took a trip to the grocery store to gather supplies for dinner including some fresh produce.  We made turkey-and-vegetable curry.  The turkey had been in the freezer for months (it was mistaken for chicken when purchased) so it was good to use it up.  The curry was really good and full of vegetables.  It was also nice to throw some fresh produce into my Swiss diet 90% composed of bread, dairy, meat, cereal, and chocolate. On Sunday (6/15) we woke up early for a hike. ...

Seth and I went on a long hike on Wednesday (6/11).  We took a train and a bus to get to the canton of Glarus, southeast of Zurich.  The hike was my most difficult hike since Glacier National Park last summer—about 1300 meters vertical.  The last portion of the hike to get to the peak of the mountain consisted of an unmarked trail.  We could not find this trail at first and instead attempted to scale the steep grass straight up the hillside.  We climbed for about twenty minutes before deciding that we could not make it to the top continuing in our current direction.  We crab-walked back down the hillside and eventually found the trail.  It was a great view from the summit.  We had a well-deserved lunch of bread, meat, cheese, and chocolate before returning to the base of the mountain.  The lake near the bus stop was chilly but we took a quick dip before heading back to Zurich. Greg Hof, a friend from Seattle that lived with Seth at UW l...

I arrived in Zurich in the early morning on Saturday (6/7).  Seth met me at the airport and we took the tram back to his apartment.  He had warned me about the Swiss food prices, but the visit to the grocery store was still shocking after traveling in India for a month.  I consumed a multitude of foods that I had barely seen for a month—milk, muesli, white bread, ham, hard cheese, mustard, and lettuce.  The food is really good and “normal,” but it remains to be seen if Swiss food can top Indian food.  In the afternoon, Seth, his friend Michael and I carried a framed double mattress from Michael’s place to Seth’s place.  This included a walk down a big hill to the station, a ride on the train, the tram, then a short walk to Seth’s apartment.  It was an adventure, and now I have a mattress.  For dinner (after a nap), we went to the Zurichsse, the lake in downtown Zurich for a swim and some bratwurst. On Sunday (6/8), Seth and I hiked in Appenz...

On Tuesday (6/3) we traveled from Kerala to Delhi.  Our flight had a layover in Mumbai, so it was a long day of travel.  For some reason, we had to go through security again upon arrival in Mumbai.  We are still unsure why, but the best explanation is that flying domestically in India is much less structured/regulated than in the US.  We took our second flight and drove to our hotel in Delhi.  On the way, we drove down the “embassy road” where we saw the embassies of many countries next to one another, including the good old US of A.  I almost went out for street food with a few friends and my professor, but he said we should not lest we get sick before seeing the Taj.  We postponed for another night and instead ate at a really good restaurant. My group toured Delhi on Wednesday (6/4).  We began by visiting Gandhi’s cremation site.  It is a simple monument, “just as Gandhi would have wanted it” according to our tour guide.  Next we...

On Friday (5/30), we spent a night on deluxe house boats in Kerala.  The boat was pretty nice and the bugs were not as bad as my professor made them sound.  The group was split up into many smaller groups based on the size of the boats; my house boat included my roommate Eric, two other second-year University Scholars Rachael and Allison, and Dr. Iacono, the director of the University Scholars program.  We had a good time relaxing and chatting while the boat toured the man-made canals.  The food and service on the house boat was great—there were three “staff” for the five of us. The next day, we had breakfast on the house boat then drove to the Leela Hotel in Kovalam.  We stayed at the Leela from 5/31 to 6/2 The Leela is located on the southwestern coast of India.  It is in the running for the fanciest hotel I have ever stayed at.  The hotel had a private beach on the Arabian Sea and an infinity pool that overlooks the ocean.  I got my only ...

On Monday (5/26), we drove to Munnar, a small town in the tea- and cardamom-growing region of Kerala.  The estate we stayed at was incredibly nice!  Rooms were huge, delicious tea was complimentary all day, and there was a large boulder which we could walk up (60 steps) and get a great view of the hillside.  The tea plantations are beautiful.  The bushes are trimmed so that no individual bush is larger than approximately four feet across.  There are paths winding through the thousands of bushes along the rolling hills.  The climate—cool, foggy—and the agriculture reminded me of Ecuador.  We had a relaxing night at the hotel including a barbecue outside.  They served a really good ginger-lime sparkling drink.  Tuesday (5/27) began with a long class session that lasted into the early afternoon.  We had a couple free hours to shoot some hoops on the small court that was at the estate.  In the afternoon we took a tour of the carda...