I got a parcel at work today, its a reconditioned DVD drive for a Dell laptop I have refurbished and fixed.
I get quite a few parcels of stuff, this one had this big red label on it though as it was bigger. Its just advising if you were not expecting this item to ring the post office to make sure its not suspicious. Its written in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian.
I was helping out at a robotics event in Tel Aviv that encourages youth in learning technology and engineering.
Leaving the house early, we took this motorway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, I spotted something odd on this highway I have not seen this before.
It’s a little hard to make it out maybe, but it would appear you have to pay extra to use this fast lane, just in case owning and running a car isn’t hurting your pocket enough. There are already toll roads in some parts of Israel too.
When you take a trip on a train or get a flight, you have the option of paying a bit (actually quite a lot) more to get a better seat, or nicer food, etc, it seems that this business model is now planned for motorists as well maybe?
Back in the UK, I remember the government did an experimental idea to make certain lanes only usable for cars with two or more passengers, this would be a better idea to keep traffic down and get people to share cars, rather than have premium prices lanes I think.
For the last week or two there was rumoured to be snow here in Jerusalem,
I have been pretty cynical about this, although there is snow seen maybe on average snow here once ever 4 years maybe. There are some postcards you can get from tourist shops with the Kotel and the Old City covered in a blanket of white.
Its interesting that two days ago it was a leap year, I was joking this could be a perfect time to have snow, it ended up happening today after I got a text message from work in the morning telling me not to come in today.
This snow didn’t stay in a thick white layer outside my flat (I live 6kms from the centre of town) but it was a nice surprise to see.
Some of my friends who live close to town seem to have thicker snow in the parks from their Facebook pictures.
There was a lot of rain in the last week also, which has been a blessing, but some water has come through my flat ceiling in the last couple of the days, so I have moved the refrigerator away a bit, and had about 30 minutes of power cut which seem to affect my whole neighbourhood yesterday.
While I was very quickly getting some pictures on the balcony, one of my housemates pointed out the fate of one of local pigeons here that’s died on our garden furniture. I immediately thought of the homeless people who sleeps on the streets in Jaffa Street. This kind of weather must be very tough for some people here. Although there is a few people working in our food bank today I hope all different organisations around Israel are able to help those who will inevitably be hit hard by the temperature this week.
I am looking forward to March getting warm again.
This fountain below is quite a famous icon of Geneva.
It er, stopped suddenly. I asked the other tourists if they broke it? 🙂 There wasn’t any passing vessels in the lake, I guess there could be some water pressure issues maybe.
I am not sure how many Christians and Jews there are in French speaking Switzerland, I did notice this interesting poster on the tram for Hannukah though (this was first week of January 2012 I was there)
There is a large and interestingly styled synagogue here also. Not sure how old it is, but the road is named after the synagogue also.
Geneva is a great place to go shopping, but I didn’t find a great deal of interesting things, although I was only there for a day. There are modern shops for everything single clothing brand you can think of. They are all full too. No one closing down, or having any panic sale, unlike the death of so many retailers in the UK and US that is happening.
The famous red cross museum was shut which was recommended by a friend, apparently they need 2 years until its operational again. I would of been interested to see the UN headquarters, but I didn’t get time for this after all.
By the time I was leaving I was very skint, and used my last of my francs to get a train to the airport. My flight back to Israel was at a usual silly time of the night, and meant I slept for a bit on the floor there. By the time I had to leave, the staff there told us we had to do a swab of our shoes and clothes and put the samples into a briefcase shaped computer controlled explosives detector machine. Back to Israel for me to continue doing my volunteer IT work…
Lausanne is reasonably pleasant old town, but didn’t see much out of the ordinary.
As I mentioned everything in Switzerland is expensive, and prices of things do get quite ouchy.
In fact…
That’s name of the southern district of Lausanne, which needs a different (light rail) train to get down to this coastal part.
Theres some great shops to take a look around here. This place sells all kinds of things Swiss!
Cuckoo clocks! lots of them!
Shame that they had to tell me off for taking pictures after this one. Lots of wonderful souvenirs for sale here.
There is also this strange pink castle like hotel too!! (illuminated that colour, not painted)
The boat provides a way to pop over to France, of course, via passing through the building next to it, means you need to have a passport as you are going from a non-EU to a EU nation.
Lastly, off to Geneva…
The block to the right is just around the corner from the youth hostel I stayed at, during the week this car park is full, but on an early thursday mornings, there are some nice markets here.
With France as a neighbour on the other side of the water with an equally impressive set of snow covered alps, this is a rather pleasant place to take a wander around the seafront.
The next day the flea market is here with a lot of distinctly Swiss looking bits and pieces, ie: these cow bells.
As well as antiques here, you can see the vans in the distance are from a farmer’s type market of local food producers. Its good to know, despite Vevey being the ancestral home of food producing empire overlords Nestle, there is a still space to fit in some local chap selling cheese out of his van! 🙂
On the trains again, this time the more common or garden type ones, although with little bits of brief snowy scenery to watch, as I headed to Vevey.
After booking into the hostel there, I took a day visit to Montreux, a city world famous for its Jazz festivals. Now I am on the French part of Switzerland overlooking lake Geneva, sharing the water with France. Here this town has a few other interesting visitors who made this place a favourite….
Close to this wooden building there is a tribute to a rock entertainer Freddie Mercury closeby…
Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, an island off of Tanzania, and has a mixture of Indian and Persian background. I think he has one of the best voices of any male singer ever. Perhaps Kevin Max from US Christian rock band DC Talk has some resemblance in his vocals, but no one has ever manage to really come close to this unique legend.
Its now 20 years since Freddie’s death from AIDS and it so happens, that he liked to come and visit Montreux often, which the Swiss has their own Freddy Mercury day.
Here this was a reminder of what an amazing entertainer Freddy was. I think it would of been great to see overlooking the water and eat cheese fondue with the whole of Queen when they came here to record some of their albums.
I read whilst I was here in a French newspaper that another British artist, George Michael was dangerously ill, who seems unable to give up drugs and getting into trouble with the law for serious driving offences. I hope George manages to seek the right help and not get lost in destructive lifestyle that has affected so many musicians.
Next: lake side flea market…
The scenery abruptly disappeared into a tunnel and then there were two more stops until I could get to the summit of the 3’500 metre Jungfrau, its the highest mountain in Europe, actually there are mountains that 4’000+ its just this one you can visit publicly without any climbing equipment.
The two short stops are more like the halts you get when a train stops at a signal, we got out each stop for about five minutes and there is a glass window in the tunnel where you can see over at the mountains, I didn’t get any pictures of this, as the glass was dirty and pictures wouldn’t look that great.
All change…
Having a station inside the mountain is great!! its like a evil empire headquarters from a movie, there is a complex collection of tunnels that get you to varied different sights here…
Outside on this side is the ‘Sphynx’ a seperate peak with its weather station and outside platform – I guess the shape of the cliff face is a tiny bit similar to the Egypt statues of the same name.
Out here is a weather station, and the main look out post, which you can see…. er, not a lot. sky, clouds and snow, and not a lot to differentiate them.
When I came back to this part a little bit later you can now make out the valley tha’ts in between the different peaks.
Some very pleasant white Swiss chocolate against the mountain backdrop. No, this isn’t some crossword or soduko game, there is a long drop below the metal grid platform I was standing on, which has partially filled up with snow.
Above is facing the other direction, here more exposed to the elements, the weather is something in the region of 16 degrees below zero.
There is a lift that takes you between the middle of the complex, I think its roughly the vertical distance of 10 storey building which takes you to the shops and restaurants. There is a film where you can watch the history of this place and how the line was built, but I was disappointed I wasn’t able to see this at was booked for group.
‘Falling icicle’ seems to be a translation error I think! this view is closed because of an avalanche hence the mass behind the revolving door! The ice art show, the corridors of this maze like walkway are made of polished ice, just like various statues inside…
Later on, I headed back towards Interlaken, actually mistakenly taking a slightly different route back.
Actually this was a pleasant discovery, this small town, I am not sure of the name of, is so charming even the bus stop has a wooden chalet to wait in. The buses look suitably robust enough to deal with the snow with these chains.
The sign above gives visitors to the slopes a heads up of the weather conditions and what is safe to visit.
Was this worth the money? probably not, it was great to say I can visited the highest publicly accessible peak in Europe, but due to the huge cost of getting there, and several of the promised places were shut (not just weather but engineering works) but I am glad I got to do this journey.
If you haven’t been following previously, I took a break from my normal charity IT work in Israel to visit my friend in Switzerland and taking advantage of cheap flights that make landlocked central European nation a good stopping point in between coming back to Israel.
The railway that goes to the Jungfrau is an interesting one, not quite as radical as the Funicular railways, but this system is made of a mixed type trains for normal linear track and hill climbing, I walked about 3 miles to this station, and asked in the office for getting to the Jungfrau which is the highest mountain in Europe. Had to gasp and almost walked away, as it turns out this was the most expensive railway journey I have been on, 186CHF, which is about £130.
This ordinary railway stops halfway up at a stop called Wenger, then you change trains onto whats known as a cog railway, the carriages are quite spartan, they have wooden seats, probably because people are carrying skis and equipment with snow or moisture on them, and the interior of the train has to be durable to cope with this. The train has a third rail in the middle not for power (this is done by overhead wires) but is actually a ‘toothed’ rack, I think this provides better traction for the train to go up hill.
Second stop, halfway up, is the ski slopes of Grindelwald.
I realise now, was a kind of bit jealous of not being able to do any skiing after seeing so many people having fun whizzing around the slopes here, the path with the blue sign above it, is a slope for new beginners. It seems that like yachting or owning a horse, skiing is one of those expensive hobbies out of reach of a lot of us, as well extra payment needed for an actual ski pass, the equipment, (renting it, or shlep your own gear around with you) and very necessary insurance as well of course.
There seems to be a helicopter permanently hovering around the slopes with someone keeping an eye out for anyone that could of had an accident.
Normally the Swiss are polite and civilised sort of folk, although I think the driver of this sweeping type vehicle is deliberately clumsy with the spray of excess snow to any tourists not paying attention!
From right to left, a small skidoo (for the kids?), a nice clean snowplough (the Mrs? 🙂 ) and one that’s been out busy! (driven by a chap I think)
A few amusing sites to be found is the teepee shaped bar which I think its fab!! its also nice and warm inside!
On the right, is a place where you can get German style bratwurst sausages, notice the bottles of sauce are upside down attached the chains! I wondered how concerned the owners is about theft of condiments or people making a mess to have this kind of setup!
To be honest finding which trains and where I needed to change was not at all simple, it was only from asking a chap on the carriage when I left the first station, who was a British gent who comes here every year did I get to understand where to get the right train to get up the top of the legendary mountain.
Right: the Swiss are fun and outdoorsy, but like their peace and quiet in the evenings, this poster is a reminder to foreign visitors I think!
This oddball vending machine lets you lock your skis whilst you pop in for a beer, with a non-refundable 2 CHF coin.
Next: the strange hidden complex of tunnels inside the Jungfrau mountain….
Cycling home from work after lunch at work at about 2.30pm today (Friday 24th February)
Saw this nice sight near the park which is close to UN headquarters at the top of my street:-
Funnily enough, the curve is inverse of the valley that these four apartment blocks overlooks….
Brit In Jerusalem 