So despite what it may seem, I really have been getting work done. Today in particular was really productive--I only had one meeting scheduled for the morning, but ended up talking with two additional people from the group I was visiting. However, it's not possible to do interviews 24hrs a day (especially when dealing with the Swiss, who apparently originated "bankers' hours"--pretty sure they work 10 to 4 with a 2 hour lunch). Which leaves me with a lot of free time on my hands....and believe me, that free time is far more interesting to read about than my research! If you want to hear about the research, come to my AMS presentation or read the article/book I write someday on the subject. :)
Anyway....what have I done in my free time lately? Well, on Monday I went to Lausanne for some meetings with university students, then caught a train out to Chillon, a castle on Lac Leman, in the "Swiss Riviera." Wine country, lake, Alps in the background (not that they were visible...the weather was dreadful. Made Edinburgh look like paradise)...I could live there. And I have to say, as much as the Swiss fail at cathedrals, they can do castles pretty well. I was really there for the view, but since the weather didn't cooperate, I was happy enough with how cool the castle was. I also had an hour or so in Lausanne between trains, so I saw the cathedral there and wandered around (read: got lost and decided it counted as exploring). Then it was back to Bern to pick up my luggage and on to Winterthur....
Winterthur is boring as far as cities go, but I had contacts here and it's not too far from Zurich. Yesterday I did my site visit to the mosque in the morning, which was a complete and utter failure. Suffice to say that it's in the industrial part of town, I was the only woman on the street, and I didn't exactly feel safe, so I fled back to the bus stop. Unless one of the people there gets back to me in the next couple of days, that's going to be as much of a visit as I can do. Oh well. I met with someone from an evangelical Christian church after that--very interesting--then decided I needed to get out of Winterthur for dinner, so I went to Stein-am-Rhein, a beautiful little medieval town to the northeast of Winterthur (and, as you might be able to tell, on the Rhine) for dinner. It was pretty, but I prefer York as far as medieval towns go, and since it's the off season not much was open. There were some art galleries that looked cool, but they were closed, so all that was really left were souvenir shops and candy stores. So I had to go shopping for chocolate. Darn...
Anyway, today was one of my best days as far as research goes, plus I got to see an awesome library when I was done. I was in Zurich this morning for meetings, then caught the train to St. Gallen, the main city in eastern Switzerland and site of a medieval monastery with a fantastic library that has been fairly well preserved. The book collection, that is--the physical building was redone completely in the 18th century. The library is PERFECT. I wouldn't change a thing (ok, the Latin inscriptions could be in Greek--that's all). Totally overdone and ornate. Right up my alley. Plus they had an 820 copy of the Rule of St. Benedict (yay HIST 333!) that made me happy, and lots of medieval liturgical music that was kind of cool. It's nice that I've finally studied enough medieval history to appreciate these instead of heading straight for the illuminated copy of Plato (ok, so I may have done that anyway, but at least I look at the medieval stuff too!). Unfortunately, next door to the library is one of the most garish cathedrals I have ever seen in my life (Baroque, but it has this awful mint green paint for a lot of the embellishments, and it's just generally tacky and ridiculous looking, like it should be in Vegas or something) which kind of ruins the effect of the abbey, but the rest of the town is cute and medieval. All the old parts of towns are sort of starting to look the same--the same shops, same architecture, inevitably centered around the same sort of cathedral. But St. Gallen was worth the trip just for that library! They're pretty obsessive about not allowing pictures, but if I could manage to sneak pictures in the Sistine Chapel, I could definitely manage it here, so there are a couple in the album. I loved it! Seriously, best library ever.
And with that, I'm off to celebrate my birthday tomorrow. Just me and the Alps. Ok, and a thousand other tourists, but there are worse places to be. :) Just a few days left now...hard to believe!
A bientot,
~L
Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=315769&id=579896063&l=f96932a989
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