Purchases

I bought a omafiets (grandma's bike) and slaapbanken (sleeper couch) right before my mom's visit.

The bike has no gears and no hand brakes; you brake by cycling backwards -- a very weird concept, but surprisingly not that hard to ingrain. I bought the bike from a legitimate dealer, used, for 119 euro. I also bought two heavy-duty bike locks for 65 euro. I could have bought a bike from a junkie for 10 euro, but I decided that at least my first few bike purchases should not support the bike thief industry. People tell me that I might change my mind after I've had my bike stolen more than 4 times though.

Last week I biked to and from work for the first time. It took me 45 minutes vs. about 35 via public transport. The bike paths are great. I hardly have to cross any streets and my route is mostly along the Amstel River. I won't be truly Dutch until I can do it in a skirt and high heels, in the rain, balancing my umbrella in one hand and talking on my cell phone with the other.

Did I mention that no one wears a helmet here? And they would definitely laugh and point if you wore black cycling shorts with butt pads. I've seen people cycling with a friend sitting side saddle on the back tire, or a rolled up rug on the front handlebars, or a bass violin strapped to the back. Today I saw a guy slowly biking with three beautiful dogs leashed to his wrist and trotting along beside him. One of these days, I'm going to spend the whole day sipping coffee and just photographing the bicyclists as they ride by.

As for the couch, it's comfortable. Come visit!

Another Sort of Stereotype

Two things I neglected to mention in my last post about Austria:

1) When I entered the country, the train conductor asked for my passport and flipped through it. She also asked me if the snowboard above me on the luggage rack was mine. I said yes it was. She looked at the snowboard and then she looked at my Amsterdam work visa (inside my passport). Then she asked whether I smoked. I said no I didn't. "Do you smoke other things?" Hmmm...what "other things" might she be talking about? She didn't believe me, I could tell. The combination of snowboarder AND living in Amsterdam is just too evocative. This blog should really be about reviewing the coffee shops, shouldn't it?

2) It dumped the night before I arrived in Innsbruck, so there was 2 feet of fresh on Stubai Glacier -- and hardly anyone else interested in it.

Racism in Austria

At first I wasn't sure if it was real. Maybe I was just reacting to a cultural tendency not to smile or laugh. After all, you can't expect everyone to be like Californians who smile at everyone and everything. Then it morphed into more of an instinct, a feeling of being unwelcome. But then after two incidents with the old lady cashier at Stubai glacier (the first was when I said "Hallo" and got the complete silent treatment, she just waited until I saw the price on the cash register. The second time, there were other people around, so she said the price, but then became very impatient when I was hunting around for exact change -- and glaringly dropped the change into my tray), something clicked and I realized that I was (and had been for days) experiencing racism in a very institutionalized non-overt form. The only other time in my life that I've ever experienced the same sort of racism was in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Don't get me wrong. I've experienced overt racism before, and that's not fun either. But at least then it is very obvious that it's racism. This type of racism is much more uncomfortable because it is subtler. It is a lack of eye contact, or a mocking tone of voice, or a rolling of the eyes. At first, you doubt yourself. You wonder if you did or said something culturally offensive. And also because you doubt yourself, you don't react as quickly. You spend precious minutes going over the conversation in your head, trying to puzzle it out, and by the time you realize what it was, the person is gone or the moment is over and you would look silly trying to respond.

It wasn't just the cashier. It was also several of the ticket salespeople at the main railroad station in Innsbruck, the woman at the hotel counter, one of the waiters in the hotel restaurant. The latter actually said to me that Chinese eat in the other room and pointed to a side room away from the main part of the restaurant. I told him that I wasn't Chinese; I was American. This confused him. Of course I was Chinese. To him, it was like an elephant claiming to be a bear. I think he finally gave up because I was obviously stupid, and he said I could sit here, there, wherever I wanted. I was too stunned to confront him on the real question, which was "why do the Chinese have to eat in the other room?"

My experience was validated after I got back from my 9-hour train ride last night. I googled "racism" and "Austria" and got a number of hits. These are the most interesting of those:

Extremist Groups in Austria
Racism on "Wife Swap"

Clearly, the blacks, Muslims, and Jews who have immigrated to Austria have it even worse. The Japanese and Indian tourists who arrive by busloads in Innsbruck are tolerated because they spend a lot of money there, but I'm pretty sure that after they leave they are talked about derisively.

I will probably never return to Austria, which is a shame because the town was lovely and a few people were extraordinarily kind. For example, the harmonica player who had invited my mother to Austria picked her up and dropped her off every day from her hotel 20 minutes away in order to give her free harmonica lessons. Then he and his wife drove her to Innsbruck and gave her VIP tickets to the music festival where he had been invited as a judge. They were both warm and friendly to us throughout the weekend.

Another consolation of all this is that on the train ride back, I had the thought that I really couldn't wait to get home -- and for the first time, I felt that "home" meant Amsterdam. Today I reveled in smiling shopkeepers and public transportation employees and didn't mind the rain one bit!

Uitje

"Uitje" literally means "little out" in Dutch, or in other words, "an outing". Every year the head of our site plans an all-employee team building day. It's always a surprise. In previous years, they drummed, painted, did a scavenger hunt in the center of Amsterdam, and went to a shooting range.

This year, we all piled into a bus and ended up at a charming cottage restaurant in the woods. From there, we biked to the beach and built a bridge made out of bamboo rods and rubber bands. Then we split up into groups to learn how to power kite and compete with each other in sand sculpture building, volleyball, shotputting, and javelin throwing. I don't think this is really a "Dutch" thing. But I just find the photos kind of funny. So these are the sports alternatives I have available to me here in Holland! You know, I could possibly get into the power kiting. Once I've mastered that, I'll only be 4000 US dollars away from a kite boarding kit and the opportunity to injure myself on the water instead of snow.

Oh and I'll go ahead and answer the inevitable question now: sorry to disappoint, but there are no photos are available of me in the blue space suit.

Scary Bridge Crossing at Keukenhof

Click on the photo to view the web album.

My mom was just here visiting for 4 days (my first US visitor!) and on Saturday we took the train to Keukenhof, which is a huge flower-themed park in Lisse. It was much more fun than I expected. I thought we were just going to see some pretty flowers, but the park designers were creative. There's a windmill, funky sculptures, a giant chessboard, a kickass English garden maze, a petting zoo, and all kinds of other good family fun. We took about a hundred photos between the two of us, but my favorites are of each of us taking turns to cross a roller-coaster shaped bridge over a pond. Hmm...Mom's probably not going to like that I posted these on my blog!

Oh yeah, there were pretty flowers too -- so I threw in some photos of these at the end, in case anyone wants new wallpaper for their laptop.

Go Orange!

click photo to view web album

Queens Day is off the hook! (yo...)

I spent the morning shopping (city turns into a giant flea market because sales permit requirements are temporarily suspended), the afternoon dancing (city also turns into a giant club, with a new DJ around every corner, and quite a few in the boat parade as well), and a lazy hour with my feet dangling over a bridge watching all the boats passing underneath.

I couldn't believe all the great stuff I bought for cheap -- including my entire Queens Day outfit, orange pants, orange t-shirt, and orange high-top sneakers with fur lining (3 Euro or about US $3.50 total, sorry no photo of the complete look!).

It was a fantastic day, especially since my apartment is a block away from a major Q-Day location and I could go back home whenever I needed to drop off purchases or use the loo. But now as I type this, I am looking out the window at some poor guy with his head in his hands, suffering from what is widely known as Amsterdamage.

I feel for you man...

"The Little Devils"

click on photo to view web album

Les Diablerets, or "The Little Devils", seems like a classic Swiss alpine village. It is French-speaking and earns most of its income via summer and winter tourists who come to downhill ski and snowboard, hike, cross-country ski, parasail, canyoneer, rock climb, "mudbike", and otherwise test their health insurance policies. The little devils appear everywhere, including the Cafe LeCroix, whose logo is a little red devil with big boobs and which advertises a special kids menu for the customers' own "diablerets".

I spend my only full day in the village shopping its two open sports stores, then walking 20 minutes along the river down to Vers L'Eglise ("Towards the Church"). I like this name, especially after I arrive and find that the church is one of only 4 buildings in the village (the rest of the village are houses scattered on the mountain above). I also like the name of the town where I change trains for Geneva. It is called "Aigle", or "Eagle".

Glacier 3000

Today I took the bus to...(to be said in a booming voice) Glacier 3000 (cue loud echo, cue soundtrack from 2001: A Space Odyssey). Glacier 3000 is well obviously...a glacier...in Switzerland. Perhaps the 3000 refers to meters? Anyway, every time I hear the name, I think of a glacier in the future, where all the snowboards are powered by little jet engines or maybe the glacier is virtually created and we ride it via stereoscopic head set and wired jumpsuit (since that seems to be the direction the world is heading, see Gore AL, Inconvenient Truth).

Actually there is a very fast cable car to the halfway point, and then another slightly-less-fast cable car to the summit. But then -- ugh -- you have to take a long catwalk to the bottom of what the Brits call a drag lift, and what we Yanks once called a T-bar. I say "once" because I'm not sure T-bars even exist in America anymore. Ha, maybe they should call it "Glacier 1970" instead.

I think I drove the old liftie a little bit crazy because I had such a hard time with the lift. He had to keep helping me pull the T-bar down (it's attached to something like a bungee cord that snaps up as soon as you let go of it). For most of the morning, it wasn't too crowded and I was boarding the lift alone. Then once when someone tried to get on the lift with me, I managed to get on it myself, but left the other guy behind, thus messing up the whole line because there were two waiting just behind him and you can't fit three on these things unless you have very advanced T-bar skills. Je suis desolee!

The next time there were two of us on the T-bar, the liftie broke protocol and offered the guy his end of the bar first because he clearly identified me as a T-bar idiot. Now with 2 of us on the bar, we got to ride up for 10 minutes, with our crotches and faces only inches apart. It is a strangely intimate contraption.

Later in the day, I tried to ask the liftie if the time on the clock was correct because it said 4pm, and I had to catch the bus at 5pm. "Le temps, c'est correct?" I repeated it more than once because I thought he just didn't hear me. But this really seemed to confuse the hell out of him. I realized later that I had been asking him whether the WEATHER was correct, not the time. Oops.

Though the lift experience was not ideal, the park was. It had three distinct lines of jumps including one line with my-size jumps, the sun was out, and the snow was nice and slushy. I spent all day there and would definitely consider going back -- perhaps with a bit more French under my belt first.

Jen discovers that fondue is not an entrée, and that entrées are not main courses

Click on photo to find out where the Swiss buy their tampons!

Montreux

It happened on Day 2 of my conference in scenic Montreux, Switzerland. After we piled into a two-car rack railway train up to Les Rochers-de-Naye, with gorgeous views of Lake Geneva, the woods, and the still snow-covered Swiss alps. We were served wine and beer on the way up. At the top, we were served a salad, followed by the best cheese fondue I've ever tasted, though the only item offered to dip in it was bread.

I was having a hilarious conversation with my neighbor, who was a French doctor who happened to switch to IT at his hospital in the middle of Paris. He was describing his "Viet Cong tactics" for persuading his colleagues at the hospital to adopt global data standards for clinical data (what the conference was all about). French government workers are notorious for hating change. His first battle involved getting his colleagues to name their files in a more logical way (e.g., instead of "final.doc" and "final_2.doc", investigator-name_date.doc) This took one year, and climaxed with his creating a bot to send 75 email messages a day to those who violated the policy. And now his biggest opponent has become a supporter of the new filename system!

Oh, but I've now seriously diverged from my story, which isn't really a story -- more like a revelation. It turns out that the fondue was the main meal. But I didn't know this until the dessert came, so basically I ate one slice of bread with cheese for dinner!

By the way, later during the conference I noticed that what the French call "entrées" are what Americans call "appetizers". What we call "entrées", they call "les plats principals" or they list them under food type (e.g., "Viandes"). Of course, this makes perfect sense when you translate the word; I had just never thought about it before. I wonder if it has to do with the American preference for huge portions. In other words, at some point some American must have said "You call that a main course? Ha! To us that's just an entrée!"

I amsterdam, what about you?

The tourist bureau here has a new advertising campaign (well, new since I was last here, more than 5 years ago) based on the slogan "I amsterdam", where the "I" and the "am" of "Amsterdam" are always shown in red, and the rest is always shown in white.

So I wonder what it means "to amsterdam". Perhaps I was amsterdamming today, as I took the tram over to the other side of town to look at a bike (it was too tall). Or maybe I was amsterdamming when I stopped for cheap Indonesian food in de Pijp (pronounced "de Pipe" -- it's in between the neighborhoods de Bong and de Joint). Was I amsterdamming when I took a nap on the grass in the Museumplein, surrounded by other nappers, tourists, football...er...soccer players, volleyball players, a bunch of guys having a loud conversation in Italian, and a couple making out like they were on the couch in their living room?

Speaking of which, I have begun my hunt for a sleeper sofa.

And a cleaning lady my landlord recommended came by this morning to discuss a regular schedule and prices. I think my jaw dropped when she told me the cost. 10 Euro per hour. She is going to come by every 2 weeks.

Bjork

I'm going to see Bjork! In July! In Amsterdam!

A Classic Bike Through the Tulip Fields

Leiden to Lisse

If you click on the photo, it will take you to a Picasa web album.

Excellent weather, excellent company! And the biking was brilliant. The bike only had three gears and most of the time, I stayed in 3rd. Never thought someone who loves the mountains as much as I do would see any advantage to all this flatness. Now I understand why you can bike without a helmet, in a skirt and high heels.

And I am starting to collect countries (via new acquaintances) the way my brothers and I used to "collect" states (via license plates) when I was a kid. This group was from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, Scotland, Italy, Singapore, the Netherlands, Canada, and Germany. There was one other American. I love it!

Terrible Sex

Today I roller-bladed along the Amstel River with some new friends from MeetIn Amsterdam. They are from Estonia, Germany, India, and the UK. I learned that the word for "cheers" in Estonian is "terviseks". Or you can say "terrible sex" and that works just as well.

"terrible sex!"
In the evening, I went to a dinner with a lot of French people (plus one Italian guy who is moving to French Congo in a few months). At this dinner, I discovered that I have forgotten all of the French I learned in high school. C'est la vie...

Art, ruins, and rhubarb crumble

We got April 9 off for Easter so I figured it was a good time to visit a friend in Bristol.

I hatched a clever plan to fly into London first and see some sights there, then take a train out to Bristol and fly back from Bristol. I didn't think Bristol had much to offer tourists, but I was utterly wrong about that. It also turned out to be quite expensive and inconvenient to add the London leg, although I enjoyed myself immensely while I was there.

First stop after arriving in London Saturday morning: the Tate Modern.

Click on the photo for more
about Carsten Höller
The ultra-modern metal slides winding all over the atrium were designed by Carsten Höller, are made of plastic and aluminum, and reminded me of scenes from the movie Brazil. They are also possibly the reason there were busloads of children running and screaming all over the place. The place was a mob scene. I decided to skip waiting in line for tickets for the longest slide, but right before I had to catch my train to Bristol, I tried the 1st floor slide. Then I wished I HAD waited for the long slide!

The other exhibit I went nuts over was a huge collection of work by Amrita Sher-Gil, an incredible female Indian artist who died at age 28 (click elephants for more about Sher-Gil).

Of course, the web doesn't do it justice. I was totally mesmerized by both her life and her art. She was beautiful, independent, and talented. I wish she had lived longer; she was already producing masterpieces at age 20. Who knows what she could have done with another 30 years!

I managed to secure a sunset ride on the London Eye (by reserving my spot a week in advance), though my camera battery died just before I stepped into the bubble car.

Then I hopped a bus to Bristol to see my friend Clare.

Clare and her family live in a lovely home with a nice view of Bristol, and I was lucky that it happened to be a gorgeous sunny weekend. So we spent most of it outside seeing the sights, which are best described as charming and quaint. And I mean that with no negative connotation at all!

We walked up the stairs of two different little stone towers on tops of hills, one of which had a camera obscura and the other of which had a stone balcony and looked just like the tower where Rapunzel let down her golden hair. We had drinks on more than one outdoor terrace, rode an old choo-choo a few blocks along the river for 50 pence, wandered around a gallery with really disturbing art, admired a Banksy (click here for more about Banksy), and bought some books (English-language books are at least double the price in Amsterdam). Then we went back to Clare's for a home-cooked meal.

At some point during the day, perhaps after I sampled some rhubarb and custard ice cream and pronounced it delicious, it came out that I wasn't quite sure what rhubarb was, even though I *think* I may have had rhubarb pie once or twice in my life. It turns out that Clare's dad grows bushels of rhubarb on his "allotment", which is kind of like a community garden in the States but with much stronger traditional associations. Anyway, Clare decided that I must have rhubarb crumble with clotted cream that very evening -- which I did and it was good.

Angels climbing Jacob's Ladder,
detail from main cathedral in Bath.
Check out that third angel!
The last day of my visit to the UK, we did a day trip to the Roman bath ruins in Bath, watched a puppet show, ate Sally Lunn buns, and sipped tea inside a fine establishment (white table cloths, string quartet) while just outside our window we could see 2 male street performers in nothing but tiger-striped thongs forming themselves into human sculptures. I wish I had had the presence of mind to snap a photo.

Chinatown

Until yesterday, I'd never heard of a Chinatown in Amsterdam.

Then my coworkers took the Americans there for dinner and what a revelation! I love Chinatown (which incidentally, should really be called "Chinastreet"). It's small but oh so cute. And I just got a great half-hour massage there for 20 Euro. These Chinese massages are way different from Swedish. Besides actual massaging, there's also a lot of slapping and pounding and shaking involved, even some pinching. Wacky yet somehow effective. I'm definitely going for a full hour next time.

And to continue my obsession with menu English and weird food here: a few doors down, the section of the menu subtitled "Vegetarian" listed dishes with translations "vegetables with pork", "vegetables with beef", "vegetables with fish", "vegetables with duck", etc. Well you get the picture. Of the 15 or so dishes listed, only one was truly vegetarian! It was "vegetables with tofu".

All-American

Today at the local sandwich shop, I noticed that the special was "broodjes filet americain" for 3,50 euro. I figured what the hell, I'm an American so I'm sure I'll like it. I was imagining it would be a hamburger patty or something with velveeta. Instead I got a french bread roll with a rusty-orange colored goop inside. I've seen the same sandwich before in my office cafeteria but have been afraid to try it. The texture of the goop is not unlike diarrhea. I couldn't guess what it was, even after I had eaten the whole thing and liked it. And I certainly have never seen it in the good ole U.S. of A!

I asked my coworkers about "filet americain" later, and they told me it was pureed raw meat. None of them knew what gave it that weird orange color though. Maybe paprika? Wikipedia says that it's especially popular in Belgium, France, and Switzerland.

Perhaps it's called filet americain because the burnt orange color is like a sunburned American tourist? Any other theories?

Last week, a work colleague came to visit and ordered a "Hamburger American". This was the largest burger he had ever seen, and when he took the top bun off, he found a fried egg underneath it.

Then yesterday at work, someone told me that I dress very European. I said "how's that?" "Well" she said, "you don't wear your trousers up to here". She indicated somewhat around chest level.

I have to conclude that Europeans have some funny ideas about Americans. They're right about Bush though.

Chicken farts and other surreal moments

All of the following things happened today...

I could not bring myself to order the Surinamese sandwich with the filling which was translated into English on the menu as "chicken flatulence".

Coming home from the public library, suddenly the sun came out from behind a cloud and illuminated a little plastic bag on the ground, marked with a picture of a leaf with five fronds and full of a pungent green herb.

I went to an Israeli avant-garde dance performance and was mooned three times by Israeli avant-garde dancers.

Buon giorno (and arrivaderci) Italia!

Today we are taking a quick little drive over to Courmayeur in Italy via the Tunnel du Mont-Blanc.
The tunnel in itself is an adventure. It's almost 7 miles long. One-way tolls for cars are about 32 Euro (US $42.80). Trucks pay over $200 Euro. It saves that much time. So we get from the motel to the resort in about 15 minutes and from France to Italy in about 10.

Wow, I love listening to Italians speak. Even "Informazione" sounds romantic. I am tempted to scrap Dutch and study Italian instead. The "g" sound in Dutch is about the least attractive sound I've ever heard in my life (sorry Dutchies!)

We take a series of gondolas, "bubble cars", and chair lifts and then finally, the Arp gondola. You can ride the Arp to the summit to take in the view, but you can only ride down if you are with a guide.

The whole crew at the summit
(assuming that Dan is reflected in Johnny's sunglasses)
We traverse, ride a wide open bowl that must be heaven on a powder day (but is more like purgatory today -- eh), pick our way down in a steep couloir that is mostly avalanche debris and ice, and then skateboard for at least a mile on a flat road to the lodge.

After lunch, Joe and I decide to split off from the rest of the group. Too much combat zone, not enough surfing, for our tastes. We dump all of our gear off and spend the rest of the day on-piste.

After 4 straight days of hauling a huge kit on your back while boarding, it feels marvelous to ride light again.

One heli of a day

click photo to view web album

My first heli ride ever!

The intro to backcountry and the backcountry freeride groups were combined together, so there was 12 of us plus three guides. We drove about 2 hours to Switzerland to the heli pad. There was a single heli transporting us, and only 4 could fit in a heli, so the heli had to make 4 separate trips to get us all to the drop zone.

The first scary thing that happened: when we were already way up in the air, the passenger door opened. Luckily Johnny grabbed it right away and shut it, then gave a little shrug to our helicopter driver. Oops!

Second scary thing: When the last heli arrived, and its passengers were getting out, 2 of them were crouched low, but definitely headed up the hill towards us even though the heli hadn't taken off yet. Apparently, they hadn't been given any instructions by the guide who was now too busy securing their gear to notice them, and the sound of the motor running was too loud for them to hear us yelling at them to stop. Someone standing next to me was becoming increasingly emotional and started screaming "you morons! you complete idiots! you're going to get your f#$@ing head taken off!" You could see this really confused look on Ed's face; for all he knew, we were yelling at him to come closer. Finally, one of the guides ran towards the heli waving his arms and the guys got the message.

For those of you who might ever ride a helicopter in the future: if you're not landing on something you know is flat, like the roof of a building, don't walk away from the heli even if you are crouching low. It's especially hard to detect contour in snow.

I think Ed was having a run of bad luck because shortly after the helicopter incident, he and Tim collided and Tim's pack smacked Ed in the eye. Well, at least we were told to leave our crampons at home today!

Johnny had warned us a day ahead that the Pin was likely to be tracked and also that we'd have to climb ladders at some point. The latter warning persuaded Joe to stay home; he has a strong fear of heights. We did climb some ladders, but Johnny was wrong about the tracks. The whole day was virtually trackless, and it was amazing. Even though it hadn't snowed for days, the snow was in great shape.

At the end of the day, we have some drinks at a local bar, which unfortunately would only accept paper euros (no coins) so we all ended up overpaying. Then back in France, after quick showers, my group goes into town for some celebratory curry with some friends of Ed and Joe (apparently, "going out for some curry" is the thing to do in the UK; one would never say "let's go out for Indian food"). It's hilarious to see the reactions of Ed's friends when they see his purple eye.

Incidentally, the heli was a great bargain. For 130 Euro ($178.86 US), we got one all-day heli ride plus the services of three guides.

From the Midday Needle to the Sea of Ice

click on photo to view web album

This is one of the classic backcountry rides in Chamonix, comparable to doing Half Dome in Yosemite.

We started off the day by riding the gondola up to the L'Aguille du Midi, which is about 12,600 feet above sea level. Then we immediately put crampons on our feet, strapped our boards to our packs, and were roped together by Johnny so that we could inch slowly down a steep ridge with about 30 others who arrived on the same gondola.

We rode a bit and then stopped. The moment I had been dreading. More hiking! We put on snowshoes, and this time, we were all roped together. This, I hated more than anything. Roped together with 5 guys who were all taller and fitter than me. For the most part, I was breaking my own trail. Instead of being able to step in their snowshoe tracks, I was forced to walk 3 steps for their every 2 at a much faster pace than I'm used to.

Johnny's a nice guy, but calling him "impatient" would almost be an understatement. There is no resting when he's leading, and everyone is marching too fast to chat. When you break for lunch or the bathroom, you know that you can't be dilly-dallying; you have to be very efficient. Because the second you finish your sandwich, he'll be clicking into his skis, and you'll be thinking wistfully of the dessert that you didn't have time to eat.

So basically, within a short amount of time, the rope between Ed and me became very taut and the rope between Simon and me became very slack. In fact, poor Ed was practically dragging me up the hill half the time. I thought maybe I'd end up pulling him off his feet. But he's a big gentle guy and didn't complain once about it. I was so frustrated with the pace that by the time we had our lunch break, I could barely speak. I just ate and plotted ways I could drop out of this course and join the Technical Clinic instead.

We boarded down into the Mer de Glace, which is a large valley with a glacier creeping through it. This was the first time I have ever seen a glacier outside of a photo. It's weird how man-made objects usually have to be symmetrical and perfect to be considered attractive. A glacier *should* by all criteria be considered ugly. It's rough and random, not to mention the color of Windex and toilet bowl cleaner. Yet somehow, it was staggeringly beautiful.

We stopped to take photos, then continued along an ice bridge (huge crevasses along either side), twisted and turned around a lot of rocks, and ended up at one of the major tourist attractions in Chamonix for those who neither ski nor board...the Ice Caves. These are man-made caves, drilled into the glacier. One of the caves contained life-size wax figures of mountaineers in various tableux. It also featured a room where you can have your picture taken with a wax Saint-Bernard, who has the stereotypical barrel affixed to his collar.

Because there was no longer enough snow to ski out of the valley, we ended the day by hiking up a long wooden staircase attached to the cliff walls. As we went up, we had to steer around tourists in jeans and sweatshirts and their passels of kids strolling down to view the caves. At the top, we waited in line for a cable car that took us to the train station. From there, we took a train back to the hotel for a well-deserved beer and a rest in front of the telly to watch a rugby game. The Brits had to interpret of course, especially as much of rugby consists of players throwing the ball backwards.