Once more I went to the top of Üetliberg to show you Zurich and its surroundings. We have lovely 20°C and the days get longer with sunset around 8pm so there is time to explore the environment during daylight.
I hope you have some great times as well!

The weather on the Faeroe Islands wasn’t great at all but we were very lucky and got to see the solar eclipse between the clouds. It was worth the long drive to Hirtshals (Denmark) and the 30 hours ferry-cruise to the Faeroe Islands. Smyril Lines Norröna is a nice ship and the food was awesome.
On top of all I’ve seen a little polar light which was spectacular!

look from the north on the Shetland Islands

northern lights

lighthouse in torshavn

Next to Zurich is ‘Uetliberg’, a really lovely mountain. Its top is only 871 meters above sea level. From there you have a beautiful scenic view over the city, Lake Zurich and the Limmat Valley all the way to the panorama of the Alps.

But now it’s winter here and it snowed when we walked to the top. The visibility wasn’t that great but the continuing snowing was awesome too and makes the forest even more magic.

There were people sledding, building igloos and snowmen or just walking in the snow, taking pictures, throwing snowballs and enjoying life like us.

Even the Sun (one part of the path of planets, which lays out the sizes and distances in the solar system in a scale of 1:1 billion) was covered with snow. You can see it on one of the pictures. 🙂

Being a nurse I get to hear a lot about people’s health issues. As usually in the beginning of a new year many people say that they would like to lose weight. A friend told me that he lost a lot of weight just by quitting the consumption of sweet drinks like ice tea, coca-cola and others.
As a good advice I can say this too. Stop drinking sweetened beverage and switch to water and tea will help you loosing weight. Of course you don’t have to completely quit drinking everything you like, but its an easy way of improving your health. With the saved money you could buy something to make you feel good with your body, like a nice soap, fragrance or cream.
However, it’s necessary to do some exercise or just move a lot in daily life. Being in average fitness helps you to like yourself and sport is a good way of spending time on your own and getting a good feeling from what you’ve done.

Reading about Coca-Cola I got inspired to try an experiment that I’ve seen on youtube. It shows what is left over after boiling out all the water of 1.5l Coca-Cola. There is 159g sugar in 1.5 litres of Coca-Cola, that’s about as much as 40 sugar cubes.
Seeing the pictures below might help you think twice if you’d prefer clear water, tea or something else.
Talking about this special product I don’t want to talk just for Coca-Cola, it’s just an example and I still like a glass of it from time to time.

I wish you all a great new year, lots of great experiences and good health!

Winter has been pretty quiet here, we’ve only had a decent amount of snow for a few days.
Some great ways to spend the cold time here are thermal bathing, going to the cinema or doing other indoor activities.
Not to forget going to the mountains to ski, snowboard, sled or just take a walk and enjoy the awesome view.

I went to Cailler, which is one of the bigger chocolate factories here in Switzerland.
We took a course in creating Rochers de Cailler. They are chocolate covered almonds which were covered in Schnaps and powered sugar and then baked for a few minutes. The difficulty is to heat up the chocolate to the right temperature so it gets a nice shine after cooling down. We also made some chocolate pieces decorated with ginger, coffee, raisins, cherries, pistache, peanuts, hazelnuts and other things.
It was a great visit and definitely worth the drive there. Our creations were so yummy, they didn’t last for long!

Today I came home from Paris, which I find is a very interesting City with so much to see, especially the amazing Eiffel Tower!

I’ve been there for only few days but I’ll go back for sure. But next time I’d rather go in spring or summer. We had bad luck with the weather and I didn’t take that many pictures. Despite the weather we had a great time in Paris and I really enjoyed it. (except the challenge of the public transport: metro, trains and buses) The reason we went there now was the concert of Yusuf Islam, also known as Cat Stevens. Once more he was awesome!!

Anyway below are some impressions.

The Eiffel Tower (324m high)

Metro (Underground Trains)

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur

Colourful Cafés

The Louvre Pyramid in front of the Louvre Museum

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Galeries Lafayette: view to the top

Galeries Lafayette: view to the ground (Not quite my natural environment 😉 )

Today we went to Neuchatel and visited the company Spectratime, which creates atomic clocks that are used for GPS systems among other things.
The light from a rubidium discharge lamp shines like bright purple fluorescent light, it’s pretty fascinating! Apart from that I’ve learned a lot and realized how much effort it needs to test something (for months) before it can be sent into outer space! http://www.spectratime.com

And finally I got good news: I’ve passed my post-graduate studies and am getting my diploma as a ward-leader in January 🙂

Yesterday was a lovely day with a foggy morning and a wonderful sunny afternoon. It’s autumn here now and sun sets around 5pm looking from my balcony. 🙂

So I took the chance to make a visit to “Papiliorama” in Kerzers. That’s a little indoor paradise with lots of butterflies! It has a Nokturama and Jungle-Trek as well. I can definitely recommend going there! http://www.papiliorama.ch

In the afternoon I went to Murten which is known as one of the prettiest towns in Switzerland.

Rainbow Tucan

I love that chimney! (The picture was taken from the townwall)

Murtensee (Lake Morat)

People know that I’m not a big fan of zoos, but today I had to say that I like Zoo Zürich.
They are continuously improving the Zoo and building better areas for the different kind of animals.
Recently they’ve opened the new “Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park” which is pretty impressive.
Another great part of the zoo is the Masoala Hall. It’s a little rainforest in the middle of Switzerland. It even has a short treetop-walk!
Furthermore on 17. of June an elephant was born. His name is Omysha and he’s pretty cute.
The spectacled bear on the picture below was born on 16. February this year.
So if you’re interested in Zoos, have a look at this one. I’d say it’s worth supporting it. (http://www.zoo.ch)

It’s already a week since our holiday and work kept me busy. Here are some last impressions of the wonderful Valais in summer.
Valais is also a great area for skiing holiday in winter!
So enjoy your weekend and don’t forget to visit new places 🙂

Lac de Derborance – a true paradise!

Walk off the track: great hike!

Barrage de Moiry at 2250m

Because of the “Grand Raid” (a mountain-bike race) there were a few helicopters. Seeing them made me want to fly one! 🙂