Trip To Switzerland for Larissa's civil Wedding

Getting There

1. Larissa is getting married to Hans-Georg in Zürich, Switzerland on November 24th! With that news, we begin making plans to travel to Switzerland. By the end of September, we have airplane tickets and a hotel reservation. (At this point, $.60 = 1.00 CHF)
   
2. Near the end of October I start waking up with a sore throat. I am not sure what's wrong, but generally a cup of hot coffee takes care of it. However, about a week before we are to leave for Europe, it gets so bad that the coffee does not relieve the symptoms. By the Monday before our planned departure, I am definitely not feeling well; my nose is running so badly I call in sick. My condition does not change much over my day off. However slowly, over the next several days, I start feeling better, and I think I'll be over it by the time we leave.
   
   However, on Wednesday Marilyn starts feeling bad, with the same symptoms, and by Friday she is too clogged up to speak, and she doesn't think she can face getting on a plane. She goes to the doctor, who gives her some really strong medicine. I don't think there is any way that she can leave on Sunday. But Saturday she starts feeling better and by Sunday morning she is feeling good enough to go. Both of us are really relieved.
   
   The main thing I kept remembering is how sick she got in London several years ago, and I did not want a repeat of that. I also wanted her to help me deal with the language and cultural issues. But most of all, we both wanted her to be present at our daughter's wedding!
   

After a long flight, starting on Sunday and ending on Monday, we arrived to a beautiful sunrise over the Alps. This is a picture of the Alps out across the wing of our aircraft. If you click on the picture, you can see the mountains in the distance.Monday November 19

1. We arrived in the early morning cold, just as the sun was rising, and were met by a nice young woman who took Marilyn in a wheelchair through customs. She knew exactly where to go and the best routes for getting there.
   
2. We met Larissa right outside of customs. We then waited a few minutes for Kenny's flight to arrive.
3. The next challenge was getting to the hotel. We went out to get a taxi but all of us -- and our luggage -- wouldn't fit in a single taxi. So Marilyn and I took the first taxi and Larissa and Ken took the second taxi.
4. We were staying at the Hotel Sofitel just a couple of blocks from the train station and the river.
5. Finally, after we were able to unwind, Larissa and I went for a walk through downtown Zürich. Here is the approximate path we took.
   

Tuesday November 20

What happened here? I have a total memory block for this day.

See comments at bottom for Larissa's description of what we did Tuesday.

Wednesday November 21

1. Train ride to Luzern.
2. Boat ride to Vitznau, the start of the rack railway to the top of Rigi mountain.
3. We rode the rack railway down Rigi moutain. We were hoping to have lunch at the summit but the restaurant was closed and also the conditions at the top were not too good. The final path to the summit is steep and has to be done on foot. The path was covered with snow and ice which would have been really hard for Marilyn and me.
   
4. Boat ride back to Luzern for a late lunch at the Hotel des Alpes, beside the lake, and a quick tour of the old central city.
   
5. Train ride back to Zürich.

Thursday November 22

1. Took a walk to Larissa and Han-Georg's apartment.
2. Ate at one of Larissa's favorite restaurants. We have Birchermüesli which is delicious.
3. Went back to Larissa's apartment to recharge cell phone and download the pictures from my camera. Unfortunately, I was not able to recharge my cell phone. I had the USB cable but for some reason it would not charge. I'm not sure if it was because the computer was a Mac or the cell phone driver for the computer was missing. So my phone usage was severely restricted for the rest of the trip.
   
4. Larissa and I took a long walk that followed roughly this path:
1. Milchbuckstrasse - Milk bucket street, where Larissa and Hans Georg live.
2. ETH - We took a path around the agricultural school.
3. Zürichberg - The Zürichberg is a wooded hill rising to 679 metres (2,228 feet), overlooking Lake Zürich. It is to the east of the city, between the valleys of the Limmat and the Glatt rivers. Its highest point is about 270 metres above the Limmat and it is part of a chain of hills between the Greifensee / Glattal and Lake Zürich.
4. We walked through the Zürich Zoo.
5. Stopped at the Fluntern cemetery and saw James Joyce's grave.
6. ETH Zürich or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
7. The University of Zürich.
8. Kunsthaus Zürich (Art Museum).
9. Walked down the HohePromenade to Niederdorfstrasse.
10. Walked along the Niederdorfstrasse to the Grossmünster.
11. Walked down to the river and caught the tram back to the hotel.
5. Hans-Georg's parents, Gudrun and Othmar, arrived via train from southern Germany.
6. Both sets of parents had dinner with their children at a traditional Bavarian Restaurant near the main shopping street by the train station.
   

Friday November 23

1. Ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant with Larissa, who was running pre-wedding errands. I picked up a voltage converter/charger with a USB port. It later proved to work fine with my GPS unit, but did nothing to help my cell phone.
   
2. Visited the the Zürich Art Museum with Hans Georg's parents, and saw a special exhibit of Félix Vallotton paintings and also some of the pictures on regular display.
   
3. Dinner was at a Chässtube Rehalp a Fondue restaurant in the suburbs of Zürich.
   

Saturday November 24

1. Here is a copy of the invitation.

1. Larissa and Hans-Georg's civil Wedding
   ^[1].
2. Post wedding lunch at the Restaurant Rigiblick.
1. Larissa do you have the menu? Could I put it here?
   

Sunday November 25

1. Hans Georg's parents went home this morning on the 10:00 train.
   
2. Sunday Brunch on Lake Zürich. We were on an elegant tour boat, that took several hours to go around the lake. (I forgot to start the GPS so the first part of the trip is missing.)
   
3. Visited the Christmas market in the train station (Hauptbahnhof)

Monday November 26

1. Kenny and I went down to the train station (Hauptbahnhof) and found where we could get bicycles for free. We had plans to ride for a short time. However, it was really cold and we did not have clothes that would allow us to ride and keep warm. I will have to remember to bring clothes that are good for riding on the next trip! It looks like there are numerous places to ride.
2. Bus tour of Zürich. We took the short tour of Zürich. We saw some of the following locations:
1. Train station (Hauptbahnhof)
2. Sihl river which passes under the train station. There is a lot of construction with a new addition to the train station.
3. Löwenplatz which is a less expensive shopping area of Zurich -- at least compared to Bahnhofstrasse.
4. Sasha Doll Museum.
   
5. The Red Castle
6. The White Castle
7. One end of Lake Zürich, with the circus set up for the annual Christmas visit.
   
8. Numerous banks and insurance companies.
9. The Odéon cafe where Lenin hung out, before he went back to Russia to start a revolution. Apparently he also tried to shake things up in Switzerland, too, but couldn't get very many Swiss people interested in his ideas.
   
10. Rode up to the University of Zürich and saw the main building.
11. The Zoo
12. FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) the international home of the world soccer association.
13. Rode though a nice neighborhood on a hills above Zürich where rich and famous people live, including Tina Turner, and (formerly) Johanna Spyri (author of Heidi).
    
14. The restaurant where we ate lunch after Larissa's wedding. Luckily it was clear so we could see what we had missed a few days earlier.
15. Than we went back to central Zürich to the visit the Fraumünster and to view the stained windows created by Marc Chagall in 1970. The tour guide described each window including where the artist's picture is on the window. This concluded the bus tour.



3. We walked through the area around the church until Larissa met us at a Starbucks coffee shop. For once, it was nice enough to have our coffee outdoors.
   
4. We concluded the day with a quiet dinner at the nice French restaurant just down the street from our hotel. Hans Georg treated us -- a nice gesture from our new son-in-law.
   

Tuesday November 27

1. Trip to Chur, Switzerland


2. Visit to the Sasha Doll Museum
   

Wednesday November 28

1. After checking out of the hotel (by this time, 1 CHF= $.90, so our costs went up by 30% during our trip!), we flew from Zürich to JFK in New York and Kenny flew the same route except on Swiss Air. He left from gate 23 half hour before Marilyn and I left from gate 24, so we had some time to chat.
2. The flight from JFK to Dallas was 2 1/2 hours late getting off. First the arriving plane was late due to bad weather then we could not take off for an hour after we boarded because refreshments had not been put on the plane during the pre-flight cleaning.
   
3. We missed the last connecting flight to Austin so the airline put us in a Ramada Inn and scheduled us for a 7:40 flight the following morning. This meant we had to be at the airport early. Fortunately, we were used to Switzerland's time so getting up early was no problem, although Marilyn had to go straight into work after we arrived.

[1] All the pictures of the wedding

This Weekends Efforts

I had big plans for this weekend but the sore throat that's been bothering me for several weeks got in the way of most of activities. Saturday I helped the Huntington-Surrey Robotics Team with their robot. Well, I stood around and gave a few suggestions. There were plenty of adults helping. The official start time was 9 AM, but I arrived about 8:30 AM at Dean Keeton Street and Speedway. Since I was riding my bike I was not sure how much time to allow. I locked up my bike and changed into regular cloths and waited for everyone to arrive. Right at 9 several people arrived and we spotted the UT student that is helping. He then took us to the UT Robotics Lab.

After this we brainstormed about what needed improving on the robot. The first and foremost problem was lifting the bottles and boxes with the robot arm. The motor that was attached to the arm did not have enough power. After much discussion and trials it was agreed that the motor would be attached to the arm though a pulley. This would reduce the speed but increase the ability to lift much heavy objects. Secondly the paddles would be redone to help them grab to bottle and boxes.

For the rest of Saturday we worked on the arms.

After I got home that evening my sore throat turned into a full thrown cold, with coughing, and sneezing. I went to bed early.

Sunday, the next day, I had signed up for a 10 mile run. However, when I woke up at 5 AM to get ready I was not feeling better so I decide to skip the run and went back to bed. Finally about 7 I woke up and started getting ready to go down and help with the Robotics Club. I arrived about 9:30. I hung around for about an hour and a half. There seemed to be plenty of adults present so I took my leave. I was still not feeling all that good and we had a lot of things to do before our departure next weekend to Zurich, Switzerland.

Wednesday Night's Easy Run (Sort of)

Wednesday night's run was interesting. Normally I run with my Wednesday group, but that is petering out now that daylight savings time is ending, the holidays around the corner, cold weather, etc.

Several weeks ago we met Amy and her friends on the Town Lake trail and they invited us to run with them. So last night I ran with Amy, Brenda (called Brenda tall) and Brenda (called Brenda little). It was really a good run, the pace was perfect. They ran slightly faster than I like, which is good. I have been wanting to up my pace and running with a group will help on that score. The pace was about 9:30 minutes per mile and we ran about 5 miles.

The main problem I had was getting the correct results off my Garmin GPS. I think it was because we stayed under the Mopac bridge. Next time I need to use the lap button when we start running and stop running. That way I will get meaningful data for the periods when we are running and perhaps I need to rethink the speed on the auto pause. I have it set it to a slower speed. Perhaps I should set it back to the default values. I had set it slower so it would not always be pausing when walking with Marilyn, as recently I have been running and meeting her along the way.

This was a good tempo run for me so I think I will skip Thursdays night's tempo run. Especially since I feel like I am coming down with a cold. At least I have a sore throat and I don't want to be sick with all the upcoming events. This weekend I will be helping the students who will be attending the state robotics competition in Lubbock, TX. The students attend Huntington-Surrey High School where my wife teaches. I will be there from 9AM through 3PM. In addition to that I will be competing in the EAS 10 mile run Sunday morning at 7 AM. Then the following week I will be heading to Switzerland.

Tuesday Nov 6 Interval Run

I had a real hard time getting going last night for the run. Yesterday it turned cold and I just did not feel like running. Finally about 9:30 PM I changed into my running cloths and hit the road.

Here is a table of the results.


It's interesting how my first intervals are very close to last weeks. I did run the 8th interval but I was very slow and went only about half the distance.

For some reason last night I was not able to hear the end of the interval. Normally I run until I hear the beeper on my watch. But last night I could not hear it. Also, the distances seemed longer. For example, I know where the interval is suppost to end on both the down hill and up hill portion, last night the end seemed to be several hundred feet up the road. Perhaps it was the cold air or how late I was out running.

Plans for Tuesday's (Nov 6) Interval Run

The Tuesday run will be very similar to last week's run. The main difference is that I will do 8 intervals instead of 6 and the min speed has been changed to 8:45 minutes per mile as opposed to 9:00. The workout is as follows:

1. Run until lap is pressed
2. Repeat 8 times
1. Run 0.25 miles at a pace of 8:45 to 7:30 minute mile
2. Go until hr drops below 105.
3. Go until lap is pressed.
3. Go 1 mile.
   

Susan Kormen Race for the Cure

The Susan Kormen Race for the Cure 5K was a great race in spite of all the difficulties. Details about the race can be found here, the official results can be found here.

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong in getting ready for the run. First off, the alarm did not go off at 5. Last night I very carefully set the time back to regular time. At about 2 AM the cell phone beeped and popped up a dialog which said to check the time. I checked the time and it was OK. The next time I woke up was 6:15. An hour and 15 minutes later than I would have preferred! I rapidly ate breakfast, dressed and drove downtown. Being this late, I required more time finding a parking space and had to walk further to get to the race.

Finally, after much time fighting through the crowds, I found the package pickup and got my racing tag. Then it was a several-block jog to the starting line. I arrived right at 8 AM. Just a few minutes later, the race began. I did not have time for warming up or stretching.

The support along the way was great. There were bands playing, cheerleaders chanting, and the crowd was yelling their support. It was great; the only negative was that toward the end I started running past the participants who were doing the mile course. They presented some problems in getting around them. I guess if I had been faster it wouldn't have been a problem.

Oh well! I did not expect a great race or a PR since the bike ride yesterday. Even then I did really well. It looks like I ran a little over a 10 minute mile.

Some more pictures and reports can be found here.

Tour de Gruene Bicycle Classic

Today I did the Tour de Gruene, starting in Gruene Tx. My day started at 6 AM when Mike picked me up for the ride down to Gruene. It took about 50 minutes to get there. The temperature at start time was a little under 60 degrees. I had worn my red coat but decided to leave it behind in the vehicle. I was also wearing my cycling shorts that extend below the knees.

We headed out at about 8 and rode along the Guadalupe River. It was beautiful, the sun was just coming up giving the sky a rosy color. Thorough the trees we could see fog banks and they caught the color of the rising sun. When we would get close to the river the water was a pretty light green. I wish I could have taken a picture or two but we were moving too fast.

Finally after riding for an hour we arrived in Sattler, where we got some food and took care of other needs, and hit the road again.

From here the road went uphill, with several climbs before we reached the face of Canyon Dam. This marked the furthest extent of the ride, and from here we headed back.

For the most part the road was down hill and we were able to really fly. By this time sun had risen higher and we could enjoy the beautiful canyon. Unfortunately, the traffic was heavier also. There was one period when I was following a pickup truck that could not get around the bicycle riders. A little later I rode beside a motorcycle who was waiting to pass some cyclists. I thought about trying to talk put his bike was noisy and he had on a helmet that would have been difficult to talk through.

Toward the end there were two significant climbs. The first was coming up from the canyon about five miles from the end of the route. The second was at the end itself. The last 100 yards of the ride was a real struggle for me, going from the river up to the Gruene Dance hall. This year I was ready for the climb, and I had the bike in a low gear before we started up the hill. It was hard but I made it. Last year it caught me by surprise. I had been going down the hill in high and was not able to get the bike into low. I made it but I was really worried. I was not sure I could get unclipped and catch myself before I coasted back into the river - not to mention into the riders that were following me.

After changing out of our bicycle clothes and inspecting the bikes at the Old Bike Show we headed into New Braunfels to for some catfish and shrimp.

Thus ended a perfect day of biking.

Here is the motionbased view of the ride. Also check it out using Google earth.

Physical Exam

I had a physical exam today. Dr. Hahn found everything okay. My cholesterol was about 179 which is okay, however, I will start taking Lipitor in a couple of days. This is based on the presentation I attended several months ago about cardiovascular health. The presenter had a compiling case for taking the drug.