Lunch in France

What can I say... this picture tells it all. Gisela and I drove up a winding, steep road to have lunch at the top of a mountain from which we could see Mont Blanc and other snow/glacier covered Alps. We sat outside and had a delicious salad and a carafe of red wine. It was so much fun to see the other folks there, many of whom were in the midst of a day hike in the area. They were all ages and several had brought along their dogs, including one pug! On the way back down the mountain, on a different winding road, we passed several herds of Swiss cows and heard the cowbells!

Opera night!

This picture shows me outside the Geneva opera house, wearing the first "little black dress" I've had in many years. This was another major highlight of my trip, something I'd looked forward to ever since Gisela proposed that we go to the opera on the evening I arrived in Geneva. The opera was Verdi's Il Trovatore and while the story is a bit strained (as in many operas) the music was marvelous. When the last scene ended, I immediately thought that I'd love to experience this opera again and see how another director would stage it. Before going to the opera, we had dinner at a French cafe across the street. All in all, it was a perfect way to end a lovely day that included the beautiful train ride from Zurich.

Arrival in Geneva

I am writing this from home now but wanted to post a few more pictures on this blog from my trip. I couldn't access the blog from Geneva so that's why I'm a bit behind on writing. This picture shows the colorful banners just outside the train station, where my friend's graduate student and I waited for the tram to take us to the University of Geneva which is celebrating its 450th anniversary (the reason for the banners). The ride from Zurich was beautiful, with many views of the Alps on one side of the train, and on the other side, I saw fields with light brown Swiss cows, Swiss chalets, fields of wildflowers, etc. The trip was only about three hours long and went by very quickly. Lunch was a tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich (with very good bread, of course) that I bought at a pretzel stand at the Zurich train station -- perfect!

The requisite food picture

On this, my second full day in Zurich, I certainly have eaten well! This picture is from a very fancy restaurant that is in an old factory. They've barely done anything to the factory site so it still has some old machinery, peeling paint, and dusty windows, but amazing upscale food. This was my dessert: a dense chocolate cake with sour cream ice cream, a very thin slice of dried apple and another very thin slide of dried orange, one blueberry and one raspberry, plus some whipped cream for good measure. Dinner began with a lovely salad with fresh greens, a delicious dressing, and very thinly sliced veal. My main dish was a Swiss classic called "rosti" which is basically some small fried potato pancakes. However, my dish came with sliced avocado, arugula, roasted red onions, balsamic sauce and probably a couple of other ingredients that I forget. Lunch today was at the psychology department, which shares a building with information science. They have a small snack shop, and a very nice cafeteria with delicious selections of real food. I made a salad and had that with a wonderful hard roll and the same kind muesili, fruit, and yogurt that I've been enjoying for breakfast. It was astonishing to find healthy, appealing food being made fresh and served to students and faculty in a university facility that has mostly faculty offices and a few classrooms. OK... enough about food!

I gave my presentation this morning and it seemed to be very well-received. I talked for a solid 90 minutes but was able to keep the audience with me. Afterwards, a theologian gave a reply, followed by questions from the chair of the psychology of aging faculty, a brilliant man I talked with more while sitting next to him a dinner tonight. He is good friends with Linda Clare, who I visited in Wales last year, so we connected on a lot of topics. There were at least three theologians involved in this meeting, the medical director of Zurich, and assorted psychology professors, gerontology researchers, and graduate students -- about 30 people in all. How amazing it was to give a psychology talk and reply to questions about eschatology!

Mike McCullough gave his talk this afternoon on his research on forgiveness and gratitude. He's a brilliant and very active scholar, now in a sabbatical after 7 years at the University of Miami. We chattered all the way from the hotel to the psychology department about music, because he plays a fretless bass in a 7 piece blues/funk band. We were talking animatedly about the Grateful Dead, Phish, Wilco, Patti Smith, and Leonard Cohen (who he saw on this tour while in Netherlands).

So, a little bit of rock & roll, a lot of solid gero-psychology/religion/spirituality, and much good food. All in all, a pretty good day, despite my sleep deprivation!

Hazy view of Alps over Zurich Lake

It's Day 3 for me in Zurich, the day I give my presentation and so far, the day has not been off to a great start. I woke up at 3:30 and didn't really get back to sleep. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I found that Boingo was no longer my friend! After several tries to access the internet, I decided to call the emergency number, using up precious cellphone minutes. After about 14 minutes of annoying phone music, someone finally answered and told me my account was deactivated because of a credit card problem. I have no idea what that was all about, but I gave her the information, and soon all was fixed. Another delicious breakfast lifted my spirits and obviously I'm back online so all's well and I'm definitely looking forward to giving my talk this morning. Thank goodness I'm the first one on for the day because I may fade a bit as the meeting wears on.

Yesterday was full and most enjoyable for me, as I had multiple intense conversation with psychologists doing all kinds of fascinating research. One group is studying teen religiosity and values formation in Switzerland and Germany, comparing a number of religions. It's fascinating to hear these folks talk about immigration and its impact on their societies. A Swiss woman told a story at dinner last night about how her 15 year old son is in a school classroom with about 1 other Swiss, an Italian, and 16 Albanians who haven't quite yet learned how to speak Swiss German. Another German scholar I met with is doing classic experimental cognitive psychology research, studying the relation between prospective memory and emotion (e.g., if you are trying to remember something in the future, does it matter what emotion is associated with it?). The morning began with a meeting with my host and a student of his who are doing work on people's religiousness, their use of health care, and their willingness to help others with help problems. Everyone is so kind and generous and I haven't paid for a meal yet. Lunch yesterday was in a lovely, upscale restaurant at the top of a tower at the University with a 360 view of the city; that's where I took this picture. You can almost see the Alps in the distance. Dinner last night was at an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel.

I've traveled all over the city on trams and trolleys. My host has assigned dear students to take me places and it's been fun talking with them, while admiring the marvelous public transportation system in this city. I understand there's even public transportation on the lake which would be fun to try, but I won't have time for that on this trip.

Now, I'd better get this day launched! I'll try to check in again tomorrow when I have one more morning meeting, and then get on the train for Geneva.

View from my window

After a 20+ hour journey, I arrived at the Hotel Sternen Oerlikon in Zurich and discovered this view from my third floor room's balcony. The darkening clouds brought a mix of hail, rain, and then bright sunshine while I walked around the oldest part of the city before going to dinner with Michael McCullough (from University of Miami), Mathias Allemand (of the University of Zurich -- our host), and Pearl (doctoral candidate -- didn't catch her last name). We traveled to this part of the city from our hotel on train and tram -- Zurich's public transportation is terrific! I forgot to take my camera so couldn't take pictures of the beautiful old homes lining the river, the church where Zwingli preached, the wet cobblestone streets, and the narrow alleyways lined with fancy shops. Suffice to say, it was a lovely way to be introduced to Zurich, all the while passionately discussing psychology with my colleagues. Pearl's work is looking at stress in prenant women and its effects on the moms and the babies. Mathias studies how forgiveness might be a process component of personality, and Michael's work ranges wide, but recently has been addressing forgiveness and gratitude. On the walk home, Mathias (guitar) and Michael (bass) discovered they both play in blues rock bands.

Today, I'm off to a full day of meetings with folks at the psychology department. There's much to write about but I'll end with a couple of random observations about "things done differently."

1. On the plane from Amsterdam to Zurich, there were "throw up bags" in the pocket behind the seats. I hadn't seen those in years.
2. My hotel room has buttons you push to raise and lower venetian blinds on the outside of the window and the door to the balcony.
3. The hotel elevator is teeny and is entered by opening a door and stepping in. There's no automatic door that closes like an Otis; the elevator just zips up or down and you open the door out to the hallway. I keep waiting for it to open automatically...
4. Breakfast this morning was the usual wonderful European array of yummy things: hard boiled eggs, grainy fresh bread, yogurt with "fruitti de bosco", coconut, and other good things, fresh orange juice, great coffee... there were other options like cold cuts, cheese, sweet rolls, but what I had was my perfect European breakfast.