Europe Day 11: Italy, and the Italians Therein

Friday morning we had a presentation from several local retired Italians who had volunteered at the Torino Winter Olympic Games in 2006. They shared with us about their experiences as volunteers, and the effects that the Games had on the city of Torino.


It was interesting to hear about their experiences, but not the most informative presentation of the trip.
Following that presentation, we were joined by Stephano, an acquaintance of our professors, who had arranged much of our Torino schedule, for the walk to lunch, through what had been the Olympic village for the Torino games. We went across a massive bridge:


to a former Fiat manufacturing plant, which now houses one of the largest shopping malls I've ever seen.





Had some decent lasagna for lunch at a very large grocery store/cafe actually just outside the mall, called "Eataly."
After lunch, we walked again through the former athlete's village. Torino presents a sharp contrast to Munich regarding the legacy of the Games. Where Munich had a beautiful park left from the Games in 1972, and had their athlete's village converted into housing, Torino's athlete's village looked like a ghost town. It was creepy how empty and deserted the area was. It's hard to believe that the Olympic Games there were just 5 years ago.








Our next stop for the afternoon was a company called deltatre, which none of us had heard of before. Even the professors weren't really sure what to expect, as the company had been recommended to us as a stop by our contact at NBC Sports in New York.


It turned out that deltatre is a sports technology company, involved in internet sports content, television broadcast graphics and production, and other sports technology. For instance, they were responsible for the FIFA World Cup website, and they will be responsible for the London 2012 website during the Games.





This was probably my favorite presentation thus far, as they covered some of the technologies and applications of technologies that I have been studying as a computer science major. There were definitely parts of the presentation that only Brad, myself, and Aaron, the other computer science major on the trip understood, but I think everyone was impressed with what this company does. They showed us some of the software that they have developed that does things like track where exactly each player and the ball is constantly during a soccer match, and some of their custom interactive online video players. Finally, they took us downstairs to their operations center, where they handle live streaming and packaging of sports events.


My kind of place:


Also (and this was way more exciting than it probably should have been...), they had a Microsoft Surface table in the lobby of the building...first time I'd seen one in person. (Look it up)


I went back with a different group of people to the same restaurant as the night before, but made far better choices in ordering...pizza and split a bottle of wine...much better meal!


Ended the night with a ridiculously long hunt for the first gelato I've had in my life. Interesting fact about Torino: Everything in the city closes at 7, except for sit-down restaurants, which don't open until 6:30 or 7...It took us about an hour to find a gelato shop that was open...but we finally succeeded!

Europe Day 10: To Italy!

Thursday morning, we left early from the hostel and boarded a train for Bern, Switzerland, where we were supposed to have about 45 minutes to eat lunch at the station, and change trains for Torino, Italy. Unfortunately, our first train was about half an hour late (impressively, the only late train on the entire trip), so we ended up barely making our connection and didn't get lunch. The second train was another regional train without reserved seats or luggage room, but we all survived the trip. As an introduction to Italy, it was an interesting experience with a man being left at a station partway because he didn't have a ticket, and police chasing some boys through the train (we think they were panhandling on the train...hard to tell, since none of us spoke any Italian.) Finally got lunch late in the afternoon in the train station...


We found the hotel, where it turned out that the hotel itself only occupied floors 4-6 or so of a building. We carried our luggage up to the 4th floor, to the reception desk, only to find that we were actually in the next building over, also on the 4th floor...longest stair climb ever!


There was a lift (elevator), but it could only hold 3 people, and riding in it was one of the more terrifying experiences of the trip thus far...


The hotel itself was rather a disappointment as well. Some of the rooms were fine, but the room I was in was clearly a two person room with a two extra beds stuffed in, which left essentially no floor space. The doorknob on the bathroom was broken, the shower curtain (yes, curtain, not door...) was moldy, and the electrical was about as scary looking as the elevator...also, we ended up spending about $500 out of the contingency budget for group transit passes that were apparently not included with the hotel, regardless of what the hotel website led us to believe.


On the positive side, our room did have lots of closet space, our group had the entire floor to ourselves, and the free breakfast (in a room on our floor that we had entirely to ourselves) turned out to be excellent.
After walking around the neighborhood, a group of us went to a restaurant called 8 3/4, where I made the foolish choice of ordering something I had no idea what it was (Risotto, which I probably should have known). Was not very good...also discovered that they do not serve tap water at some places in Italy, so I somewhat accidently got a bottle of water for two euros. We also learned that it's standard to have a cover charge in Italian restaurants for bread at the beginning of the meal...another 2 euros. Good day overall, but a lot of frustrations...

Europe Day 9: Cathedral and University

Wednesday morning was on our own, so I woke up and went on my own back to the Lausanne Cathedral, where I paid two Francs to climb the Cathedral tower. Well worth the money and the climb. Fantastic view, and just a great peaceful feeling being alone in the cathedral. The tower itself was also quite impressive, especially considering the age in which it was constructed.














Had some cheese and crackers from the grocery store for lunch, then we went as a group to the University of Lausanne for two presentations. The first presentation from a professor at the university was on the structure of the Olympics and the IOC. Interesting presentation, but I think most of us had picked up most of the information through the course of the course so far.


Side note: during the break between presentations, we also found what seems to be the only bubbler / water fountain in the entire continent of Europe:


The second presentation was from a professor who was actually from the University of Ottawa, Canada, but was on sabbatical in Lausanne. His presentation was on the general topic of Olympic marketing, with an emphasis on "ambush marketing." Most of us had never heard of this concept, but it was actually quite fascinating. Much of the funding for the IOC comes from sponsors, specifically the 11 or so participants in the TOP sponsors program, such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola. Each of these sponsors has guaranteed exclusive marketing rights in a product category, for which rights they pay in the neighborhood of $100,000,000. After the $100 million licensing rights, each company usually spends 2-3 times that amount on activation of those rights, that is, actually doing marketing. Confusion arises when an athlete or team has their own sponsors which are not Olympic sponsors. Ambush marketing specifically happens when a company that has not paid to be an Olympic sponsor attempts to obtain some of the benefits of being an Olympic sponsor.

For instance, Subway ran a tv commercial with Michael Phelps swimming through the land towards Vancouver. The ad clearly was implying something about the Olympic games, but Subway did not have the rights to mention Vancouver, Olympic, Games, etc, so the ad very carefully just showed a map of Canada, and mentioned that Phelps was swimming "to where the action is." Does the ad give the appearance that Subway was an Olympic sponsor? Yes... Is that bad/deceptive? Possibly... Is it illegal? Actually, yes, in Canada during the Olympics, as Canada had passed a rather vague bill specifically to protect Olympic sponsors. Anyway, it was a fascinating topic and discussion.





We concluded our day with a group dinner at a cafeteria type restaurant, where I had a very large pizza made in front of me...
Craig handing out dinner money:



Dinner:

Europe Day 8: Olympic Museum

Tuesday morning we went to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, home to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).


The museum was very impressive. We started with a group guided tour, which was somewhat interesting, but not nearly as interesting as just wandering around on our own was.


I learned a lot about the history of the different Games...if anyone is ever in Lausanne, the Olympic Museum is a must visit place...





Had another kabob from another Greek fast food place for lunch, which was again quite good...then we had the afternoon free...so I took a nap. Much of the group went on a lengthy walk to a tower that apparently would have been much cooler if the weather had not been so foggy.

For dinner, I went to a little tea shop with a couple people and bought a rather dry, lousy sandwich, then went with a different group to a Chinese place near the train station, which was much more satisfying. That pretty much covers Tuesday...

Europe Day 7: Lausanne

Monday morning, we left the hostel in Interlaken, and traveled the few hours by train to Lausanne, with a brief layover in Bern. The first train was fine, but the trip from Bern to Lausanne was interesting...it was a local train, and we were on the upper level, which was clearly not designed to hold both us and our luggage. Fortunately, it was only a short trip...


We dropped off luggage at the hostel in Lausanne, which was conveniently just up the street from the train station, but awkwardly just up the hill from the sex cinema...and apparently there are not any laws regarding what can be shown on posters on the street in Switzerland...yeah...little bit awkward...
Lausanne also is located in the French speaking region of Switzerland, whereas Interlaken had been in the German speaking region. I hadn't really realized how many little German phrases I was starting to recognize (mostly in context on signs) until suddenly everything was in French! Anyway, after dropping off luggage, we went on a walking tour of the old city in Lausanne, with Craig and his iPad acting as tour guide:


Lausanne had two cathedrals that we went into. These were an interesting contrast to Munich. Since Lausanne is in Switzerland, home to the great reformer John Calvin, both of these cathedrals, originally built and decorated as Catholic, were stripped of all decoration during the Reformation when the Calvinists took over. Even the stained glass windows in these cathedrals was removed during the reformation, so what is there now was added in the late 19th century. Apparently I am a good Protestant, since I felt much more at home in these bare buildings than in the somewhat gaudy Munich cathedrals. Interestingly, the Calvinist opposition to decorations apparently doesn't extend to the organ, as the organ in the Lausanne cathedral was beautiful and massive. According to Craig's guide, the organ was actually American made, and purchased at a cost at the time of over four million Francs (1 Franc is about 1 US dollar).











These were located around the wall of the church. I'm unclear if they are actually tombs, or who they represent (inscriptions in French...), but they certainly add a somber air to the sanctuary...





The cathedrals were the highlight of the walking tour, although we also walked around some of the classy shopping area of the city.


Also, we discovered that Lausanne is a ridiculously hilly city. Hills. Everywhere. Yeah...
Ended the day with a dinner. A group of 10 or so of us walked downtown to find cheap food, but we had somewhat of a disagreement over the definition of "cheap," so some ended up going to a pizza restaurant, while the other 6 of us made a fantastic life choice and went to a delicious (and cheap) Greek fast food place where I had a kabob...then we had a 1.5 hour conversation on religion and religious denominations. Great end to the day!

Europe Days 5-6: Europe Has Really Tall Hills

Saturday and Sunday are getting combined into one blog post, since the main focus of both days was skiing. About two thirds of the group ended up going skiing (with two or three going snowboarding). A few "aggressive" skiers went with Craig on the first train at 7:30, while the rest of us went with Brad on the 8:00 train. It took about an hour to get from the hostel to a ski area, a process that included a bus ride to the train, to the cogwheel train, to a gondola. Our group went to Mannlichen (all Swiss spellings tentative), a nice area at the top of a mountain with several red (medium difficulty) runs, some black (difficult) runs, and 2 blue (easy) runs.


Most of the group I was with went down the first blue run, where we quickly discovered who was better at skiing...My entire skiing experience before this consisted of two trips to Sunburst Ski Area in Wisconsin, so I was pretty nervous about this whole experience. The run ended up taking about 1.5 hours for the three of us lagging in back...the rest of our group did it in about half an hour. I discovered that Mom was correct: you CAN sideslip down an entire mountain...after that very stressful, icy run, the group ate lunch, and I and another girl who was having leg cramps ended up just waiting inside and wandering around a bit until the rest of the group was done skiing.
Our group on a mountain:



Why all the little Swiss kids are so ridiculously good at skiing:


We did have one unfortunate incident on the mountain. Although I succeeded in my dual goals of making at least one ski run and not dying, Aaron in our group did get hurt and ended up laying on the ski run for almost an hour before getting picked up by the ski patrol. It turned out that he tore his MCL and strained his ACL, so he's on crutches right now.

Mountains - sponsored by Coca-Cola:


The group of about 8 of us headed back to the hostel at about 3:00. While 2 of us had done only one run, several others had done that same run...6 times. Had a bit of an adventure getting back to the hostel when we missed our bus, then missed our stop once we'd caught the next bus half an hour later, but we eventually made it back. We went to a nice little Italian restaurant for dinner, which turned out to be extremely expensive, but decent food.

On Sunday, all of the skiers, minus several who were too hung-over from the night before, left on the 8:00 train and we all went to a different mountain, to the town of Wengen. After staying together for a couple minutes, the aggressive skiers gave up and left the 9 of us behind...this run was very different than the day before. Where Saturday had been basically open areas down a mountain, this run wound around and down the mountain through some forests. This run took about an hour, and was way more fun for me...many thanks to the group for waiting for me to catch up several times!

My major improvement for the day was a change from sideslipping down most hills to snowplowing down most hills, until I had an impressive wipeout towards the end of the last hill...I stayed down in the town while the rest of the group took the train to do the run again. Following a nice lunch from a little snack shop (apparently in Switzerland they put the hot dog inside a roll, not a bun), we went on to "First," yet another mountain.


A long walk and long gondola ride later, a couple people did one more ski run, while 3 of us did the First Flyer attraction, which was basically a giant zip line down part of the mountain. Moderately terrifying, but a lot of fun (and included with our ski passes!)








This time, we made our way back to hostel with much less difficulty, knowing that we needed to (a) get on the bus immediately after exiting the train, and (b) actually push the stop button when we got close to our stop, not after it.

Feeling poor from the expensive dinner the night before, about 12 of us chipped in for some homemade spaghetti, courtesy of the Coop grocery store, and Tim and Mari's cooking. 2 Swiss Francs per person...far more reasonable than 20 a person at the restaurant!
After dinner, I watched (via iPod video streaming) the Packers win their wildcard playoff game against the Eagles, and finally went to bed at 2 am or so...fantastic weekend in

Oh, and yes, we were skiing in the same region that will be hosting the World Ski Cup next week. We saw them setting up some of the runs.

Location:Alpenstrasse,Interlaken,Switzerland

Europe Day 4: Observations

Random observations from the train as we're leaving the Stuttgard station on Friday morning:

There are construction cranes everywhere in Germany. There were tons in Munich, and it seems like every city we go through has several.

German countryside is very picturesque...I can't actually get good pictures at the speed we're going in the train, but it's beautiful looking out...especially going through the mountains.

There are churches everywhere. I have no idea how many are active, or historical, but every town has several...and they all have steeples.

Our train:


Also, everywhere we go there is graffiti...a lot of which is very artistic and well done. I'm not sure how much of that impression of a lot of graffiti is just because we're using public trains everywhere, but I'm rather surprised by the sheer quantity of graffiti around.

Smoking is far more prevalent in Germany than in the US...

Annoyances: Public toilets, except in the subway station, cost money to use...also no bubblers anywhere.

Lots of things are made of glass...many more glass walls and doors than I'm used to.

Update at 1:20 pm on the train...we thought this train was going to Interlaken, but Craig just found out that it's actually stoping in Basel today...so we should be able to switch trains there...hopefully...we'll see how that goes. We should be at a station in about 10 minutes, and we'll see what happens.

2:04 We had a brief false alarm where we tried to get off our train in Basel, Germany instead of Basel, Switzerland, which is 10 minutes farther down the line, but a nice German gentleman corrected us. Now we are on a substantially less nice train, but we are all pretty sure it is going to Interlaken, so it's all good.

Rest of the day:
We did eventually make it to Interlaken, found the hostel (very nice...substantially better than the one in Munich...not that that one was bad), and got equipment for skiing. Then, we drove very high on a mountain, took a gondola even higher (which was moderately terrifying), and went night sledding.


Night sledding consisted of sitting on these sledges and going down a very steep, curvy road...several people commented that it felt like Mariokart, where you should be able to drift around corners...Sledges are harder to steer in real life! Unfortunately, it had been raining, so the night sledding, while still being a lot of fun, including a large amount of night walking through slush while pulling a sled. We ended our night with a fondue dinner at the bottom of the sled run, and went back to the hostel