Patric and I continue to complete tasks on our to-do list. We have done so much this week that I don't know if we will be able to catch Heiner up with everything at our meeting on Tuesday. After lunch, around 2:00, we started watching le Tour de France. Don't worry the computer I work on has two monitors so I was still working on one while I had the tour on the other. At 4:00, when I normally leave, it was down pouring outside. Not the best conditions for riding the bike back to Tscharnergut. Patric and I both stayed and watched the end of the tour. The rain let up some so I headed home. Of course I raced back as fast as I could from seeing the cyclist ride through the rain in the tour.
9th floor Tscharnergut decided to have a potluck for dinner! I made good ole American baked macaroni and cheese. Had to go to two different stores to find cheddar cheese and the store that had it only had one brand. And since it wasn't smoked cheddar I added some bacon to give it the smokey flavor. Turned out really well.
Here are the other dishes everyone else prepared. We have Swedish meatballs, Chinese stir-fry with sheep, Italian risotto with vegetables, Spanish tortilla, and German cheesecake. We also had some mojitos and wine to drink. Everything was delicious. It was the first time we've really spent some time together. It was a great night.
Friday...
Patric made some big improvements in his Matlab syntax (I helped a little). It's exciting to see how far we have came from the time when I arrived. We got the results we wanted to around lunchtime so called it a day. At night I played ping pong with Joel. Last time I won the overall series, but he was on his A game tonight which switched the outcome.
Saturday...
Kambly makes the most known biscuit (cookie) in Switzerland. The main Kambly factory is in Trubschachen, about 50km away from Bern. I heard if you go to the factory, you can sample every cookie Kambly makes...for free! And after you decide on a favorite you can pick up a big bag for a good deal. Once I heard about this lovely place, I had to go. To make things better, the route from Bern to Trubschachen is through the Emmental, a scenic region of valleys and countryside. I thought if I am going to eat a bunch of cookies, I should probably bike there and back with Heiner's bike (thank you Heiner). I took pictures with my iphone of the route I planned to take.The route was pretty simple and getting out of Bern should be easy since I have been living here. Turns out getting out of Bern was the toughest part. I missed a turn and once I finally noticed I turned around to backtrack. This caused even more issues as I took a wrong turn on the way back. I ended up nearly all the way back at Tscharnergut. So I started my trip again. At least this time I was warmed up from the 30min ride around Bern. After two hours of cycling through hilly, winding roads through beautiful Swiss countryside I was rewarded with the Kambly Experience (it's what their website calls it).
I ate at least 20 different cookies. I never thought it would happen, but I actually didn't even try them all.
Farming in Switzerland. I was going to take a lot of pictures of the route on the way back to Bern but right after this picture it started raining and thundering (even though it was still sunny). I left my room at 1:30 and got back around 6:30. In total I biked ~120km (75mi).
Sunset from the kitchen/common room balcony.
Reading about your potluck brought back many memories of evenings spent with my roommates while studying in Germany! Looking back, the evenings in which we all cooked and ate together are some of my fondest memories!
ReplyDeleteI'm also quite impressed by the dish you made, Trevor. Well done.
It's a memory I will definitely hold on to. Thanks for the compliment! The first time I didn't make macaroni and cheese from a box...I think the box days are over.
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