Luckily for my budget, for now I’m content to merely learn about watches and discover what my tastes are. As a graphic designer, it’s no surprise that I like watches with sleek, modern styling. I also like retro touches if they don’t interfere with clean lines. And I’ve also come to find that I love the idea of mechanical, not Quartz movements. I like the old-fashioned technology of mechanical watches, where the movement is winding a spring. Good-quality, modern mechanical movements are actually very reliable, especially Swiss-made ones. And while Switzerland is world-famous for amazing/crazy watches costing five figures, they also make movements used in watches priced as low as 500 dollars/Swiss francs.

A great blog I’ve discovered for my hobby is Wrist Watch Review, a new site for lovers of mechanical wristwatches of all kinds (plus some digital watches too). The editor is the well-known tech writer John Biggs, who says their goal is to:

open a forum of discussion about what William Gibson calls “the very finest fossils of the pre-digital age” and to bring our own experiences and intellect to bear on what, thus far, has been a closed cabal of high-end wristwatch manufacturers ($21,000 bling-bling anyone?) and, to some extent, high-end watch consumers who value flash over elegence and ultility. Why do I love wristwatches and where did my particular, and very recent, obsession begin to surface? Mechanical watches were the high tech of their age. The sheer complexity of involved in creating a small, perfectly functioning timepiece in a case the size of a few quarters stacked is amazing on many levels. To engineer, and eventually collect, a fine timepiece or even one that wouldn’t normally be considered a “quality” piece requires precision, intelligence, and a flair for the somewhat quixotic.

And by the way, you may have noticed that I’ve pulled the watch photos in this post from Pinterest, which is an awesome and fun website for collecting and sharing links. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should check it out. And if you’ve got a Pinterest account already, it would be fun to connect and follow each other.

This is what Zurich looked like a little after 8:00AM this morning: dawn comes pretty late in Winter. It makes it very easy to catch a pretty sunrise.

Instead the snow we expect this time of year, it’s been rainy. How did I never before notice how raindrops decorate twiggy bushes like this? Oh wait, it’s because I lived in Los Angeles, where if it did rain, I wasn’t outside walking around. After celebrating my second New Year’s Eve in Switzerland I’m now a member of the normal human race that does errands and goes for walks even if it’s raining or snowing. I’m becoming hearty.

It’s not all gray skies either, and there are little visual treats to be found everywhere. Here’s one of the ubiquitous construction cranes of Zurich sporting a Christmas tree (you can see it up there, on the left end). I wonder if this is part of the labor negotiations for crane operators. Two coffee breaks per shift: check. Hard hat with company logo: check. Christmas tree: check.

I’ve been carrying my camera around more often lately, because I’m in the mood to capture fun little things I see, and remember interesting little ideas, and then share them all here. It’s all part of wanting to create things and share them without worrying too much about how finished or professional or “good” they are. For the New Year, I find myself agreeing with this from Neil Gaiman:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes…. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things.”

The original post is here. Happy New Year everyone!

The center of town

Last month we went on a road trip through France, and out first stop was Beaune. This makes for a perfect trip since it’s an easy 4 hour drive from Zurich. Besides enjoying a lovely walk around the city walls, each day we had a few glasses of wine, tried a new restaurant, and then headed back to our hotel satisfied and happy. Two places stood out enough that I’d happily recommend them. (Click on the headings to go to listings on Trip Advisor).

Hotel Alesia

We stayed here once a few years ago when they had two stars, and we really liked it then: friendly, clean, and a good-quality generous breakfast. Their location outside the city is really easy to get to by car, and it’s not too long a walk into the center of town. Now they have three stars and the decor has been nicely upgraded, free WiFi is available, and the price doesn’t seem to have gone up at all. Handy tip: there’s an Aldi right nearby (you can see it from the hotel), which is a great place to stock up on bargain-priced provisions before you drive off to your next destination.

La Part des Anges

We arrived in Beaune planning to eat at two restaurants chosen from Trip Advisor reviews (La Ciboulette and L’incontournable), but being August, they were closed for summer holiday. Oops. On to plan B: wander around and choose by the old-fashioned educated guess. We liked the look of La Part des Anges, so even though the kitchen was closed, simple dishes were still available and we had a plate of smoked salmon, then a cheese platter, both accompanied by a couple different wines by the glass. Everything was perfect, delicious and lovely. We sat outside watching the world go by, taking our time, getting a little tipsy but not drunk, enveloped in that magical feeling of everything being just right. I saw from some reviews on Trip Advisor that it doesn’t always go that way here. But our experience was so nice that my recommendation is definitely give this place a try. Have a glass of wine. See how things go. If you’re not having a good time, move on. But if everything seems good, stay and enjoy la part des anges.

Beaune city wall

Wide bike/walking paths with trees and grass...

...wildflowers...

...and the occasional marker.

If you choose to return by skirting the east side of the Uetliberg you’ll  hike through forests and fields. There are so many ways to go, but I kept it simple and headed back to where I started.

Fill up your water bottle...

...and be sure to enjoy all the summery shades of green.

Here’s the route I followed:

View Larger Map

Come on up to the Lindenhof

If you are wandering between Bahnhofstrasse and the Limmat, head uphill for a lovely view from the Lindenhof (Google Map).

I really liked it. In the beginning when I was getting to know the characters they seemed a lot more modern than I was expecting. I guess human nature hasn’t really changed all that much in 160 years, and a good writer can capture the timeless truth about people. The story becomes more and more fantastic and the writing more stylized as the book goes on, until it’s very Shakespearean: filled with symbolism, grand drama and tragedy at the end.

Melville inserts a lot of explanation about whaling in between the progress of the story. They’re necessary to understand the plot and mostly very interesting, but sometimes they get a little dull. That was the only thing I didn’t enjoy.

But other than that, I was really happy to read it. I also liked recognizing a passage Stephen Fry quoted on QI! “Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for armholes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling.”

View all my reviews

A fresh layer of snow makes a pretty street even prettier

Over the past few weeks we’ve had regular snow, sometimes heavy and sometimes light. Sometimes it melted away in a day, sometimes it stuck around until it had melted and re-frozen enough times that it was more lumpy ice than snow. But every time a fresh layer of fluffy snow arrived, it always made the day a little more fun.

I had to go out this morning and since it had been snowing for hours, Zürich was a little thrown off from its regular schedule. The streets were covered in a few centimeters of the prettiest, fluffiest snow. The snow plows were going around regularly, but it took awhile for them to catch up and for the streets to be completely cleared. Since this snow was a little slippery, traffic was lighter than usual and the buses weren’t running their full routes. The bus I was on came to a slidey sort of halt at every stop. A friendly lady sitting next to me said something about us “just going through” rather than stopping. Passing a school I saw all the kids running around and making snowballs during recess, and grownups were either laughing and commenting, or were concentrating on keeping their footing. The snow made everything just different enough that you had to take notice.

Red berries and fluffy snow

cute little icicle

winter branches

The beerbird of happiness.

Maybe I’m imagining magical woodland pubs? It must have something to do with all the forests and trees here, plus all that Lord of the Rings and Hobbit reading I did as a teenager.

In any case I’ve just opened up a Cafe Press store named Zuritopia, and I’m selling this graphic on t-shirts. You can visit the US store here: www.cafepress.com/zuritopia, and the UK store here: www.cafepress.co.uk/zuritopia (although I think it defaults to whatever is closest to your IP address, they are clever that way). I’ll have some other designs and products available soon!