Author Archives: Where's Zoe Now?

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About Where's Zoe Now?

Late-20s Australian working in Italy, blogging about travel+food+daft adventures.

Notes from a week in the mountains

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  • Probably it’s for the best that the american lady on the bus through the Mont Blanc tunnel who was loudly discussing how she finds australian accents “sooooo sexy” didn’t hear me turn to my colleague sitting next to me and dramatically sigh “why does no-one take us seriously?”
  • Until now, when people said they quite like snow, I always thought they were a bit funny in the head. It’s wet! It’s cold! There’s mud everywhere! But having finally seen thick, fluffy, pretty snow, I start to understand:

    No slush in sight!

    No slush in sight!

  • Skiing: ahahahahahahaha. Not my forte at all. As predicted, hilarious. Picture a 76-year-old french winter-ski-instructor-summer-mountain-guide who’s just come off his cigarette break yelling “snowplow! wider!” and me yelling “I’m so sorry!” as I nearly mow down a row of small children who at age 4 are better skiers than me. Speaking of which, the small children body count from a 2 hour ski lesson: 1 collision, 1 accidentally closing the chairlift barrier onto a kid’s leg.
  • Apparently, there is a St Bernard dog museum near Les Houches, which we didn’t get a chance to see. This must be rectified. (A museum about dogs!)

Grand Canyon, November 2011

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Another “where was Zoe?” post. This time, a tale of surprise, disappointment, and triumph… ;)

When I’d arrived in Phoenix, Arizona the week before, it had been so hot I’d immediately gone and bought a pair of flip flops to wear instead of shoes. And here I was, seven days later and only a few hundred miles away, trying not to slip on the ice at the edge of the Grand Canyon and regretting not having  pair of serious winter boots. Yeah: it turns out that the south rim of the Grand Canyon, being around 7000 feet (2000m) above sea level, does actually get cold. As in, snow and ice and everything:

Not what I'd planned.

None of the photos on the official website looked like this.

To make matters worse, the rim of the canyon was at approximately cloud-level, so visibility was only a few metres. Huddling in an enclosed lookout for warmth, I read a sign that showed me all the things I could have seen on the opposite rim of the canyon, and felt a twinge of envy when I overheard the couple nearby talking about the rim-to-rim hiking trip they’d made the year before. Hiking was out of the question that day, since all the trails into the canyon had turned into a gloriously slippery mix of mud and ice.

Since I’d already paid for my non-refundable room in a nearby hotel that night (yeah, shouldn’t have booked that without checking a weather forecast first), I decided to stick around and drink expensive bad hot chocolate at the cafeteria and hope that the clouds lifted. Which they did, sort of:

Something that's not grey or white!

Something that’s not grey or white! 5 minutes later, the cloud was covering this again.

In the end, I called it an early day and headed back to Tusayan to warm up with a serving of kitsch-mexican from the restaurant across the road from my hotel, and to drown my touristic disappointments in a slightly flourescent margarita.

I’m tempted to leave the story here, as a cautionary tale about checking weather forecasts before making travel plans, but the next morning, I woke up with the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains. Of course the day I had to get back to Phoenix to catch my flight was going to be glorious. I rushed through breakfast so I could get back to the Canyon as fast as possible. I only got an hour there, but it was totally worth it:

BLUE SKY!!!!

There really is a canyon there.

Notes from the beach in winter

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Near Nervi, a quartiere of Genova

Near Nervi, a quartiere of Genova

Last time I was on the Ligurian coast it was August, and stiflingly hot and crowded. Now in February, I’d made a spontaneous day-trip, trying to escape the feeling of claustrophobia I was developing as a result of living inland after growing up in a city known for its sea breezes.

Despite being february, the sun was warm on my face and the breeze was cold, but pleasantly so. I unzipped the collar of my jacket and loosened my scarf. Dark clouds were coming in from the south east however, and the water was turning from blue to green-grey.

The beach itself wasn’t as empty as I’d expected. A mother was reading a picture book to her young daughter. A middle-aged couple wearing ear-muffs walked past me. He wanted to get an icecream, she wasn’t sure. A group of children were skimming stones in the water, and I heard one of them laugh with delight: she had just managed four bounces.

Day walk in Altmühltal Nature Park, Bavaria (August 2012)

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Another catch-up post of the “where was Zoe?” variety. I spent a week in Germany last summer, and one day I went for a walk in the countryside.

The most fabulous hikers ever?

The most fabulous hikers ever?

I set off quite early, leaving my hostel in Nuremberg at 9am to catch a train to Treuchtlingen. I’d seen on the internet that there are hiking and walking trails between a series of villages in the Altmühltal Nature Park, but that was about all the planning I’d done — in fact, Treuchtlingen was earlier than I’d intended to get off the train, but I saw a bunch of hikers and cyclists get off there, and I figured they were probably onto something. Google maps suggested the walking trail was always close to a local railway line, so I figured I’d walk until I got bored and then hop back on the train, probably around lunch time.

As it was, lunch time came and I’d walked maybe 10km, mostly over low hills, along the edges of fields with little patches of woods for the occasional bit of shade. So there I was, sitting next to a village bakery, munching away on the apple cake I’d bought, and feeling a bit like a hobbit what with all this Shire-like farmland and good food. And I thought, “why not go on to the next town? There’s a train station there too,  it’s only 6km away, and it’s a beautiful day.” So on I went.

Farmland, blue skies, sunshine, ahhhh.

Farmland, blue skies, sunshine, ahhhh.

If you’ve hiked much, you can probably guess how this goes — on flat ground, as long as you keep moving, you don’t quite notice that you’re tired until you stop. I think I said “one more village” about 3 times, until suddenly it was late afternoon and I was exhausted. And slightly sunburnt (oops).

In all, it was a great walk: the train stations every 5-10km made it low-commitment, the walking was not at all strenuous, but the scenery was very pretty, and the trail was low-traffic enough to feel like the world was your own, without feeling isolated. I’m glad I ended up giving it a whole day — it really made my week’s holidays in Germany feel like a proper break from my city routine.

Things I learnt at the Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace)

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On the weekend, I visited the Palazzo Reale, which was first built in the 1600s, and was lived in by the kings of Sardinia and then Vittorio Emanuele II for the first few years of Italy being a nation (the early 1860s). Some things I discovered:

  • There were zero comfortable-looking chairs in the entire building. Being royalty=not so great after all?
  • I can only assume that the habit of making dogs wear vests is derived from the tradition of armour for war horses:
    This was one of the less freaky-looking horses.

    This was one of the less freaky-looking ones.

     

  • Based on statues, king Carlo Alberto had the best moustache.
  • Of course, the time to be told that photos are not allowed in the museum is just as you’re about to get a shot of a statue with a killer mo.

Glasgow, May 2011-March 2012 (A day in the life)

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Another catch-up entry.

I lived in Glasgow 11 months, during which time I finished my phd thesis and wrote a bunch of journal articles and therefore didn’t do very many interesting tourist-y things. So, since whenever I say I’m a physicist I get people saying “what do you even do all day?”, I thought I’d sum up my time in Glasgow via an imaginary-but-realistic day:

  • 6-6.30 am: wake up. In summer, this would be hours after it got light (whoo blackout curtains!). In winter it would be hours before it got light (ugh).
  • 7 am: I think I can see how to fix the chapter I’ve been trying for a week to make readable, so I skip breakfast at home and go to a cafe near campus with ok-ish coffee and decidedly mediocre pastries, but no wifi so I can actually get stuff done. Stay there for about an hour, or until I get dirty looks from the staff for taking up a large-ish table for too long having bought only a small americano.
  • 8:30-ish. Go to my (shared) office. No-one else will arrive until 9-ish, so in theory this is prime working time, but in practice I check my email and facebook and then check facebook again just in case someone did something interesting in the past 5 minutes. Get an email saying I need a form signed, attempt to find supervisor, who isn’t in.
  • 9-12.30. A mix of chatting with office-mates, replying to emails from collaborators, checking up on simulations that I’m running to get better data for one of my thesis chapters, staring out the window, procrastinating on the internet. Try again to find supervisor, who is now in a meeting. Come back later, supervisor has disappeared into thin air.
  • Of course, morning tea at 11, where I plan to just duck in and say hi and make a cup of tea, but in reality I hang around far too long and get caught in a discussion with other phd students about which professors would come out victorious if we instituted a physics department death ring, in the style of a roman circus.
  • 12.30-1-ish. Lunch. Let’s imagine this is one of the 3 sunny days per year, in which case lunch involves sitting out in the beautiful university grounds, enjoying the view. (More realistically: duck over to Marks & Spencer through the drizzle, buy sandwich, eat at desk because the office is the only room with decent heating.)
  • After lunch: Much like the morning really. Finally find supervisor on 5th attempt, get form signed. Get into discussion about how to arrange the 6 subfigures and insets of a figure for a paper we’re writing: for space reasons, we can’t split it into 2 figures. Fail to convince supervisor that it is not physically possible to make all the subfigure labels larger while making the overall figure smaller. Go back to office, open image editing software, despair of life, decide to go home, make note “to do: fix fig 2 :(“.
  • 5.30. While walking home, decide to go for a run this evening. Upon getting home, decide that watching videos on youtube is more appealing. (Actually, to be fair on myself, I did end up running ~2x per week while I was living in Glasgow, as opposed to 0x per week now.)
  • Invariably, I’ve brought home stuff to work on, but oddly enough, I struggle to find the appeal in spending time after dinner trying to read a paper I’ve been attempting to understand for the past 3 weeks. Read trashy blogs instead.

Austin, Texas, March 2011

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I thought I’d write a few “catch-up” posts between when I last regularly updated here and the blog revival. Maybe I should rename the blog “where was Zoe in 2011/2012?”

View to downtown Austin from the footbridge near South Lamar Blvd.

View to downtown Austin across the lake (apparently it’s a lake? it looked a lot like a river to me…?)

I made the mistake of going to Austin without a car. It’s got this reputation of being a crazy, left-wing (read: less right-wing) town, so I figured it would be like New Orleans or San Fransisco, where getting around without a car is feasible or even preferable. Yeah, not so much. I dunno. Maybe if I was really into bars I’d have been more excited by my car-free few days in Austin, but as it was, it turns out that most of the things I would have enjoyed doing involve being able to drive out of town.

However, to be fair on Austin, I would seriously consider going back with a car if I was in the area again: the lake is quite beautiful and good for walking along; I seriously spent half a morning in the Whole Foods flagship store which makes me hungry just remembering it; it’s easy enough to get a decent coffee, which is not to be underestimated in the US; the hostel I stayed in managed to be clean and not noisy at night and friendly; and I had an AMAZING Korean-Mexican fusion burrito from a van near the State Capitol, the calories from which I think I finally burnt off last week.

Turin snapshots

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As I mentioned, I’m now living in Turin (Torino). It’s not famous as a tourist destination, but (therefore?) it’s a great place to live. And (ssh! don’t tell anyone!) it’s actually pretty great from a tourist point of view, too. Some snapshots from the past 9 months:

Piazza Vittorio Veneto

Piazza Vittorio Veneto, looking much as it did in the 1800s.

Ponte Isabella

The river Po is just east of the historical centre. This is the Ponte Isabella in spring.

The #7 tram

The #7 tram. I hate to use the word ‘cute’ to describe part of a city’s transport infrastructure, but is there a better word for a tram like this?

La Mole

The Mole is Turin’s most famous building. It used to be a synagogue, but now it hosts the cinema museum.

View from the Mole

If you’re in Turin and the weather is clear, the one thing you should do that costs money is to take the lift up the Mole. Just look at the view!

Blog revival!

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When I last posted (in, um, 2011), I was in Italy. So it’s quite convenient that I’m in Italy now, and I can pretend that I’ve maintained some kind of continuity of blogging…

Mountains through the bus window

I’m living in Turin, which is a fantastic city in a fantastic area — just look at the view you get on the way there from Milan Malpensa airport! (disclaimer: you have to be lucky to get a clear day like that) I’m hoping this blog will be a good place to show off where I live, as well as some of my travels.

Some goals for this year:
– maybe attempt to learn to ski (this should be hillarious)
– see more of Italy! I’ve never been south of Rome, so I’m pretty excited to have booked some tickets for the easter weekend to go to the Naples area
– have some actual conversations in Italian (“can I have a kilo of apples?” “here you go” “thank you” doesn’t count, nor does “ciao! come va?” “tutto bene” *switch to english*)
– keep in better contact with friends and family around the world – hence this blog.

Miscellaneous notes

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  • We were talking at lunch the other day how ‘bistecca alla fiorentina’ has to be rare – nowhere with a self-respecting chef would ask you how you’d like it done. I was reminded of the fact that in Australia, hamburgers are just hamburgers, even at hipster burger places, but this isn’t the case in Texas. Which lead to conversations along the lines of “I’ll have the burger, please.” “Sure, how would you like it?” “Uh, with a patty in a bun and some sauces and maybe vegetables– oh, that’s not what you’re asking, is it?”
  • People who write about these sorts of things say that a few weeks/months into being in a foreign country you start to notice everything that’s wrong with it. I seem to have avoided this so far, until making hot cross buns this afternoon. I’m okay with having to make my own because they aren’t sold in the shops. I’m okay with the language barrier that means I’m not entirely sure I have strong flour and I nearly bought bicarb rather than yeast. I’m okay with not being in my own kitchen and having no way to accurately measure quantities. What I’m not okay with is not being able to find mixed peel pieces without cherries included. I just spent fifteen minutes trying to separate the orange citrus-y bits from the bright red/green cherry bits. Dear Italy, when you don’t have normal mixed peel in the baking section at the supermarket, you are DOING IT WRONG and you should be ASHAMED of yourself, regards, Zoe.
  • A week from now and I’ll be in Glasgow. Tme flies!