I’m On A Boat! Our Hotel Boat In Stockholm

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Schwingen In Switzerland

He travels a lot for work so he appreciates hotel amenities. I really don’t care too much about my accommodations as long as they are clean and centrally located. I’m so cheap that I’m bad. Very, very bad. I’ve stuck him in all kinds of hovels. Stockholm isn’t a cheap city, luckily there are some great places that are easy on the budget, centrally located, have great views (see above and below), have a great on site pub and provide a unique experience. You can stay on boat hotels in the Södermalm neighborhood (both on the Riddarfjärden and the Stadsgardsleden sides of the link to Gamala Stan).

They had bikes you could borrow and cool lounges, but the best part was the amazing view from the seats (some of which were in lifeboats) on the upper deck. We sat there taking in the views, enjoying the sunset and singing The Lonely Island‘s (with T-Pain) “I’m On A Boat” from the movie Stepbrothers.

I give mad props to people in the Navy who live like this on a long-term basis. The room was tiny, but had everything we needed. We even had our own bathroom (It is something that he appreciates, but I have no problem foregoing. Just ask him about the hovel I stuck us in when we visited Dublin).

We had some new experiences in the bathroom. I’d never showered in a place like this. It was tight (so tight that you can see my toes standing on the toilet lid), but workable. Everything fit in there like a masterful game of Tetris. It was impressive and surprisingly easy to use.

The best part of the room itself was the view from our porthole. Amazing!

The Spaghetti Tree Hoax, Aka Happy April Fool’s Day From Switzerland

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Schwingen In Switzerland

Courtesy of the BBC

After a bit of research I determined that they celebrate April Fool’s Day in Switzerland. Although it isn’t a holiday like Swiss National Day, St. Bartholomew’s Day, Escalande, Fasnacht or Tschaggatta, so government offices and schools are open (or would be if it fell on a weekday), they do play practical jokes. I hope you forgive me for my last post on the southern Switzerland’s spaghetti harvest, it was a bit of an April Fool’s Day joke. Sorry.

One of the most famous April Fool’s Day Jokes involves Switzerland…in a way. The British news show, Panorama, broadcast a three-minute news segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland on April 1, 1957. The previous post was the story verbatim. People swallowed it hook, line and sinker. It generated an enormous response and became one of the most popular April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time.

In honor of April Fool’s Day, I thought I would explain how they came up with the idea and managed to pull it off so successfully. The spaghetti harvest prank was the brainchild of Charles de Jaeger, a cameraman for the BBC and jokester. Growing up, one of his teachers told the class, “boys, you’re so stupid, you’d believe me if I told you that spaghetti grows on trees.” How could he not turn that into a joke on film? He pitched the idea to several bosses over the years with no success.

In the 1950’s, Panorama was the BBC’s leading news program with ten million viewers. It aired every Monday night. When de Jaeger realized that April Fool’s Day fell on Monday night, he shared his idea with the writer David Wheeler who loved it. They convinced Panorama’s editor, Michael Peacock, to produce the segment (with a budget of only £100). Peacock agreed, but insisted it be kept a secret, fearing the BBC would veto the project.

When they went to Switzerland to film the segment, it was cold, misty and trees hadn’t blossomed. They traveled to temperate Lake Lugano in Italian Switzerland where there were evergreen Laurel trees. They hired some local girls in their national costume string 20 pounds of uncooked spaghetti from trees at a hotel in Castiglione. He filmed climbing ladders carrying wicker baskets, filling them with spaghetti, and laying it out dry in the sun. He also filmed his actors eating a spaghetti feast. The footage was then edited into a three-minute segment with background music.

At the end of Panaroma’s April 1^st broadcast, the show’s highly respected, eminently dignified and solemn anchor, Richard Dimbleby, introduced the segment, adding the necessary gravitas. He made a great straight man, without cracking a smile started the report with “And now from wine to food. We end Panorama tonight with a special report from the Swiss Alps.” They then showed the prepared footage. At the end, Dimbleby closed the program with, “Now we say goodnight, on this first day of April,” emphasizing “this first day of April.”

The BBC immediately began receiving calls about the segment. Some were complaints about such frivolity on a news program, some were to settle arguments about the origins of spaghetti, and still others were inquires about where viewers could purchase their own spaghetti bush.

The hoax worked for several reasons:

Richard Dimbleby was so distinguished, authoritative, and revered that people took everything he said as true.
At the time, spaghetti was not a widely eaten in Britain. When it was, it was it often came from tins. It was a foreign dish, an exotic delicacy.
It was pre-internet, encyclopedia Britannica didn’t even mention spaghetti and so it was hard to research and/or verify the origins of spaghetti.

Even the head of the BBC Ian Jacob, fell victim to the scheme. Nevertheless, like much of the British public, he was a big fan of the hoax. It became legendary and Johnny Carson even rebroadcast it. You can see it for yourself by clicking this link to YouTube.

In case you were wondering, to start your own spaghetti tree, place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.

Bumper Spaghetti Harvest In Southern (Italian) Switzerland (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)

The Mesmerizing Matterhorn

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Schwingen In Switzerland

Last weekend, we went to Zermatt and saw the Matterhorn! It was insanely beautiful, even mesmerizing. I am a child of the eighties and so I use the word “awesome”. More accurately, I misuse it. When you see something as awe-inspiring as the Matterhorn, you vow to use the word properly in the future so that words to describe such beautiful, moving things will have power and meaning.

We took the train up to Gornergrat (elevation 3130 meters/10,269 feet). It has a nice view of the Matterhorn and of the glacier.

From Gornergrat, we hiked down to Zermat (elevation 1620 meters/5,250 feet).* It was wonderful to see the Matterhorn over time and from so many different angles. We also liked seeing the change in vegetation on the way down. The weather cooperated. I don’t think there was a cloud in the sky. This late in the season meant that any snow that was going to melt had already melted. As a result, we could really see the geology of Switzerland’s mountains.

When I say I was mesmerized by it, I mean it. I took at least 300 photos of it. He made fun of me (deservedly so), but I couldn’t help myself.

Zermatt is in the valley below. I swear it looks closer than it felt going down. You can see the change in vegetation as we descended. The tree line slowed down my rabid picture taking.