Schlagwort: switzerland

Above the Inland Sea III – Mountain

After seeing the mountain range across the lake from our appartement every day, we finally went there to take a closer look. The highest peak of this part of the Alps is the Säntis. We were conveniently taken up the mountain top by a cable car – the view was breathtaking. In the distance we could see Lake Constance …

 
Now and then, we could see mountain climbers in the snow, sometimes on top of dangerous looking cliffs. How happy I am that I don’t have to do that!

 
Sabine enjoying the view … (she had forgotten her sunglasses and had to wear old scratchy ones that we found in my car)

 
A trail was starting here … I took a few steps, imagining what it would be like … the snow was knee high, and very near that rope, there was the abyss … this kind of fun is clearly not for me.

 
Switzerland was the first country that invited refugees from Tibet when things got difficult there. Good to see a stupa here!

 
Going back down after a few hours in the sky …

 
oh, and on the way out we had this close encounter with an alternate reality …

20 New Friends


 
3 days in Switzerland, giving a ColdFusion training for three developers of a Zug based company. The training was a mixed affair – the participants weren’t beginners at all but a beginner course had been booked. On the 3rd day they were all researching on their own which is much more fun than being taught. Too bad I didn’t get most of their conversation – „Swiss German“ is very different from German.


 
Zug is not far from Zürich, a smaller town but also very rich and multicultural – I liked the place a lot. And then, they have the wonderful lake, the mountains … and the weather was just perfect. Too bad I only had two evenings for myself.


 
I spent the first evening walking through the old town and hanging out with the other tourists …


 
On the second evening, I took the cable car up the mountain right behind Zug, armed with a map for a 1-2 hour roundtrip hike that one of my ColdFusion colleagues had kindly given to me. I was rewarded with breathtaking vistas and a beautiful landscape to walk through. Wonderful!


 
On a meadow on top of the mountain I met a herd of twenty cows with bells – here’s what they sounded like:

The cows came towards me after a few minutes and surrounded me, clearly interested in my digital recorder. Or maybe they wanted to be close to me. I liked them and they liked me. When I turned around and continued my walk, they all followed me for a few minutes.


 
On the next evening, I got into a plane and flew home again … after a very nice mini vacation (although of course I had spent most of the day in an office building, looking at a computer screen and talking about programming). I’ll be back in July when I’ll do a second course.