| Luzern | 1:07 PM |
I spent the day in Luzern and it was a perfect day! A co-worker recommended I go saying it was the most "Swiss" town in Switzerland. I didn't have a plan -- someone told me of a museum I should visit, but couldn't find it listed so I just wandered around all day. It hailed! It was on and off rainy today with bouts of sunshine breaking through. The first real bit of rain soaked my pants and included hail. It lasted for probably less than half an hour -- I should've sat in a cafe, but didn't know how long it'd last so I just kept wandering.
I love churches -- yes, the atheist in me hasn't gotten over my love of churches. So I'm naturally drawn to them when I wander and visited about 4 or 5 today, including walking into two services. I sat in one for about 15 minutes (it was in German) and left at communion (that part I understood). The Fransican church was my favorite -- very Gothic inside with the most amazing stained glass I saw all day -- the stained glass behind the altar is the most impressive. There is a gate, but they leave the door open so you can walk right up to the altar and gaze at the stained glass. I took a few photos and will post them when I have more time.
I also enjoyed the Lion monument and the Glacier Garden located just behind it. I didn't know it was there, but it was only 12 francs to get in (about $12 USD) so I did and I spent about two hours there -- I only left because they told me they were closing the watch tower which is where I ended up, overlooking the city. They have a ton of information and visulations about the glaciers melting and the pre-historical Luzern (the mediterranean oasis the site of modern day Luzern used to be -- before the ice age that is), but they also have this weird hall of mirrors in "Alhambra" style, as well as some historical rooms and furniture.
The train ride there and back was lovely -- I wanted to ride back while it was still light outside to view the other side of the country side I missed this morning. It's green and lovely. I saw some hairy and multicolored goats, and the cutest, crimp-haired, golden brown, adolescent cow. But my favorite sights were the communal gardens -- at first I thought they were cute little shanty towns with itty bitty houses. But those houses were garden sheds. A small plot of land mostly evenly divided into rectangles where people grew an assorted of vegetables and flowers -- it was lovely -- probably about 15-20 plots. I only wish I could've gotten to walk around in one.
| Spatially challenged | 2:47 PM |
I caught the right tram to go home but somehow it dropped me off somewhere and it wasn't my stop. It stopped one stop before my exit and jet lag hit me hard today so I was completely zoned out. We stopped at the last stop -- I'm sure the conductor made an announcement and I just didn't understand it. But I remember thinking to myself, gosh, a lot of people are getting off at this stop, then went back to staring out the window. It was 9pm by this point and still light outside and all I wanted was a glass of wine, then bed. The conductor came walking towards me and said something and then I finally woke up out of my daze and looked around and realized he was shooing me off :)
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So then I start walking in the direction of home. Except I clearly have no sense of direction because I went the wrong way and only after a few blocks did I have the sense to look at a map. I'm an extremely slow map reader, but I can usually figure things out.
Today was the first day the weather has been beautiful -- it's been raining and overcast since I arrived on Sunday morning. As I made my way back home, I saw tons of people filling up all the outdoor spaces, eating and drinking. When I got to the hotel just after 9:30pm, my lovely little outdoor courtyard was full of people having dinner. It wasn't the quiet peaceful retreat it was last night, but still a lovely place for a glass of wine and an email.
The saving grace of being lost in a new place, is that I don't mind :) No matter how tired I am, it's still a pleasure to see streets I haven't seen yet.
| The not so forgotten art of foot binding | 2:27 PM |
I just recently finished Rice Bowl Women, a collection of short stories from China and Japan as early as the 600s which, of course, includes stories of foot binding. Coincidentally, I had dinner at a friend's house recently and she was telling us a story about her Chinese friend -- a strong independent girl. Her grandmother had her feet bound (in my ignorance I hadn't realized foot binding happened as recently as the 1930's). One day, this young woman had her feet up in plain view and her father said to her, "Who's going to marry you with those giant feet!"
Everyone knows that the ideal of beauty is varied and diverse, but it seems to me that the idolization of these tiny, little feet must not have extended to the naked foot. If you do a Google images search on foot binding, you'll find actual photos of feet that were bound. I have a hard time imagining men found those deformed feet sexy. Surely men only appreciated the foot when clothed in elaborately embroidered litle shoes, no? But shoed or unshoed, the little feet were adored -- and apparently, that adoration hasn't been completely forgotten.
| I <3 Zurich | 2:55 PM |
I love the Swiss. There's a lock box in my closet for valuables (not that unusual), and a skeleton key to lock my closet (I've never seen that before). I used a porta-potty yesterday and it had a) a sink, b) it flushed, c) it had a trashcan and d) a toilet brush to clean the toilet (the only thing missing was soap). The bathrooms at work have (in each stall!) some sort of purifying cleanser for you to wipe the toilet seats down with. I love it when a country understands my need for cleaniness and sterility.
I'm staying at the Romantik Hotel Florhof (don't make the mistake of thinking the first two descriptive words are actually part of the hotel's name -- the shuttle driver that took me to the hotel from the airport chuckled at me when I said its full name, and all he repeated was the "Florhof" part of it). The service here is amazing. I called on Sunday night to say the LAN wasn't working for me. The guy wasn't especially helpful saying I should come to the lobby and use the public computer. But in his defense, he did say it was late and no one was around to fix it (it was near midnight), and b) at least they had a public computer for me to use should I be desperate. I did find one open wireless network with enough signal strength to do what I needed to do. The impressive thing was that the next morning, someone came up to my room to ask me about my internet connection and said she'd have someone look into it. And it was fixed when I got home.
I love the switch near the front door that turns on and off all the electricity to the room -- no fear of leaving something on all day. I love the inviting spaces in the hotel where I can have a drink at night and read. This bull is in the courtyard where I sat tonight for an hour or so after work til well after dark. The weather is a bit rainy, but it's still relatively warm.
There's something about being someplace new and realizing the things you take for granted -- like knowing how to cross at a crosswalk -- at home are things you need to relearn elsewhere. And maybe I'm simple and easily amused, but I enjoy the novelty of it all -- the feeling of not always being entirely sure of myself. I've been in other parts of Europe -- Germany, France, Czech Republic, Netherlands, but nowhere have I felt as inconspicuous as I do here. Maybe it's because I can get away with speaking English, but I think it's more than that -- it's really diverse here in terms of languages spoken and nationalities floating around -- more diverse than anywhere else I've ever been.
Everywhere I've eaten today there's been fresh, yummy, whole grain bread. It's a little bit like heaven. And the Zurich office is as good as I've been led to believe it was. The fire poles are a thrill, and the water room is luxurious and relaxing -- I slept off a little jet lag in there today :)
| First Night in Zurich | 2:15 PM |
I don't know why, but I'm completely enchanted with the bathroom -- it's so white and clean and sterile looking:
Unfortunately, I slept right through the middle of Sunday here, but I'd just arrived and gotten into my room after waiting 3 hours in the lobby (I got here pretty early) and I was dead tired. When I dragged myself out of bed, it was 8am my time.
I love new cities. I'm such an urban girl -- my first and most favorite thing to do is just walk around, wandering wherever I fancy with no destination in mind. I'm drawn to pretty alleyways, churches, architecturally interesting or historic looking buildings. Sometimes I walk towards the crowd and sometimes away. I was wishing I had my German boy with me today, but I love wandering around by myself too.
I love all the different languages. People here seem to know several and switch easily. My waiter at dinner knew German, English and Italian. The front desk here knows German, French and English. And who knows what other languages they may speak. I've heard lots of German and English, some French and Italian, and bits of Chinese and Korean just today in 4 hours of walking around.
I got a little lost coming home, but I never mind being lost in a new place. I wander around and don't pay attention to where I'm going. I used the two big churches near-ish my hotel as landmarks and finally gave in and used a map as it started to get dark around 9:30pm and I found myself walking through the quaint cobblestone streets essentially in circles :)
| My Lolcat addiction | 1:43 AM |
I'm completely fascinated by icanhascheezburger.com. I must visit the homepage, no joking, at least 10 times during the day -- anytime I'm waiting for some code to run, waiting for something to build, taking a break, eating lunch -- basically anytime I have a free cycle during the day, I'm looking at that damn site!
If you know me at all, you know that I often update my gmail status message with my current favorite lolcat. Most of them suck -- which you'd think would make me check the site less, not more, but I think every time I see a sucky one, I think to myself -- a good one is on its way, it has to be! My current favorite:
(click to see full size)
My son today said to me: "'god is your problem?' Aren't you going to offend aunt Jess?" (my status message says "god is your problem" and links to that lolcat.) You know, as is, ooohhhhh, you haz a ceiling cat....that's why you haz problums. Get rid of the ceiling cat, you'll be fine.
I took a poll of my friends once and asked them if any of them were as obsessed with that site as I was. Three male, three female. Two of the guys weren't even interested. One of them gets a kick out of lolcats, but answered "No" to 3 out of 4 questions. One of the girls didn't know what icanhascheezburger.com was, but the other two answered yes to most of my questions. Mabye it's cause the site is full of adorable, anthropomorphized little animals. The site literally makes me want to get a cat -- sometimes it makes me go browse real-life kitten listings and I fantasize about taking photos of it and making up cute little captions.
The whole lolcat meme is fascinating to me. I think especially because it's streaming into real life now. In San Francisco, they painted a lolcat mural, and then there's this flier that's been going around for a while now: Mising lolcat; responds to "cheezburger". My girlfriend (the one above who didn't know what icanhascheezburger even was!) saw that flier in Bernal Heights the other day and took a photo of it for me!
What is it about being able to make fun of the world and current events, and god and the devil, and everything in between with cats and dogs and hamsters and inanimate objects with faces that we all find so fascinating? It just must be true -- no one can resist the cute.
| The Subway Stripper | 1:18 AM |
I love this story! A subway stripper in Chile was arrested for trying to strip near the presidential palace. She strips on the subway cars; the media call her the "Metro Goddess". And she's doing it -- to make Chile a less prudish place.
I love this idea because I think sexual repression is unnatural. We're designed to procreate. I'm not a hedonist -- I don't think people should be running around trying to procreate however they can, but I do feel strongly that people should feel comfortable thinking and talking about sex. With friends, family, but especially with your partner. Think about it -- if you can frankly talk to your partner about sex, what can't you talk about with him?
And what about your child(ren)? Do you really want them growing up into their sexually mature years learning and believing what their school friends tell them about sex? Like how you can't get pregnant the first time you have sex, or how oral sex isn't really sex -- kids believe this shit! And the list of other things they believe is long -- here's just one page full of them.
I'm a big fan of education, openness, and honesty. Teaching kids and uninformed adults about sex, contraception, etc. so they can make educated and informed choices when they need to. I think anytime you try to make something natural seem unnatural, you end up encouraging secrecy and deception -- because if you make it bad, it's not going to stop people from doing it, it's just going to change the way that they do it. Another good thing about being comfortable with your own sexuality is that it makes it easier to accept other people's sexuality too -- whatever that may be.
So hurray to the subway stripper! I wish we had poles on the Bart :)
| You have the wrong email address... | 8:18 PM |
I'm amazed at the amount of mis-addressed email I get. I get a lot of spam, including email from places where people have signed up with my email address -- that's my favorite. Every week I have a few people trying to recover the password for "their" email address from gmail -- they clutter my inbox, but I can just ignore them. Then I get people emailing me just to see if the address if valid -- just ignore those as well. And then I get a lot of mis-mailed email. Sometimes someone has typoed the address, or left off the rest of the email address (like black.kat@gmail, or kat.kramer@gmail, etc), but the most amazing thing to me is people who email other "close" people with the wrong email address, or important emails that get mis-mailed to me -- like emails about insurance claims, rents not being paid, or all the business docs that people send me.
I got an email the other day from a poor mom practically begging her son to email her and dad. She said dad was bummed to not be able to get a hold of his son in his times of need. It was sad, but seriously -- how do you not know your own son's email address?! And really, his name is Kat? Maybe that's why he doesn't get in touch with you.
Sometimes I email people back and tell them they have the wrong email address. Like if it sounds like they're looking for some long lost friend, or it's a really cute and sincere email and I feel bad they won't get a response from whoever they meant to really email. Or if it sounds like something important -- business related or something like that. I had someone once explain to me, no -- you know -- the PG&E rebate for the air conditioner, after I told her I wasn't the Kat she was looking for. No, seriously, I don't have an air conditioner and you're emailing the WRONG address!
