Thanks to a friend of mine, recently I learned about the “Brocki” stores all around Zurich. These are quite elaborate 2nd hand stores, many of which apparently have massive book shelves. A few weekends ago we went to Brocki-Land, which I think has the most amazing collection of books, since it has huge shelves in the main room and then also a separate book store. Safe to say one visit was not enough, I have to go back there again at some point. 😉
One of the more interesting events that I’ve recently been to, was the “Press Start To Play” at the Basel Toy Museum. The event that was hosted by the Webilea group, consisted of a tour of the exhibition, presentations by several game developers, and a good deal of play time. The venue was beautiful and altogether it was quite a fun evening.
My favourite presented game was “Ago“, a very nice game for Android. Currently installed on my tablet. 😉
My collection of pictures from the event can be found here.
Pictures from our photo walk / hike around Biel are finally online. It was a fun day and we managed to see much of the city. We do however need to go back there for a proper hike… 😉
The album is here.
On Saturday evening we went to Zurich’s long night of the museums 2013. It was my first time to finally manage to attend this, and I really loved it!
We started our tour from Uhrenmuseum Beyer [the clock museum], which to me was absolutely amazing, and among the best of what we saw this year. From there we went to Alterthümer-Magazin, where we looked at a large collection of old… well… everything! House appliances, tools…. Then we visited the Rathaus [town hall], which was also cool to see, and from there we headed to Kunsthaus. It was interesting to have a look at Kunsthaus’ pretty huge collection… However perhaps “everything mixed with everything” to that extent isn’t really for me. =P
Then we went to Museum Rietberg Zürich. Their special exhibition of the month is themed “Tibet in Comics”. From Tintin to Super Girl… that was absolutely awesome. We also had a look at their general exhibition, which is a truly impressive collection of artefacts from various ancient cultures. What was very impressive to me was that they actually had a small but nice Persian collection too.
After that the museums started to close down but there was of course parties at a couple of venues ’till about morning. 😉 For me this year’s museum night was a great experience and I think I will go again in the next years to see what I didn’t get the chance to see this year.
Pictures here.
Another hike that we went to a couple of weekends ago, was the one in the vicinity of Schaffhausen. We paid a visit to the Rheinfall on the Neuhausen side and to a boat around the fall. From there we hiked to Schaffhausen and went to the Munot castle. And then we went to a wine tasting event in the city.
For me, this was the first time visiting Rheinfall, and it was quite an experience. It was simply breath taking! To me this is the most beautiful fall I’ve seen so far [and I’ve seen a few, including Niagara… which I do not at all find interesting I might add. =P].
The wine tasting in Schaffhausen was also quite a surprise. When Gian-Andrea told me it was going to be all “local produce”, I thought it was going to a table with 10 – 20 types of wine. Well, the venue turned out the be a huge square each side of which hosted some never ending line of wine stands. I’m really not a wine person I must say, but I really enjoyed this one… Especially since apparently I finally figured out that I actually really only like the Rosé wines!! 😉
Pictures here.
So, I figured I should write these here for the friends of mine who were wondering exactly where I was in the past couple of weekends [as in, where those photos came from! ;)].
A few weeks ago we went for a hike in the Winterthur vicinity. We got on the train in the Zurich main station, and went to Effretikon. From there we hiked to Kyburg, and from there to Tierpark Bruderhaus [animal park]. From there we hiked to the tower of Eschenberg, and from there back to Winterthur.
This was a great plan for the day [organized by my friend Gian-Andrea], as it basically included everything I like. A good hike, a castle visit, a tower and even an animal park.
Photos here.
Sometimes I feel that no matter how long I stay here and how much like home Switzerland feels, in a specific way I will always feel like a tourist here. I simply never get enough of the beauty of this place! It doesn’t matter if I’m seeing something here for the first time, or if it’s a place I pass by every single day… the view here never fails to amaze me! =)
Last week I had a chance to have a nice walk around Zurich guided by my friend Gian-Andrea. Some things I had seen before, some I hadn’t… altogether it was a very enjoyable evening. Below’s a couple of pictures of that evening… and rest of the pictures are here.
Last week I took part in IoT Zurich’s city walkshop. Put simple, we went around the city making observations about various types of sensors collecting data about people and the environment, what kind of data was being collected and how open to public access these collections of data can be.
Regardless of the fact that it was raining frogs, the walkshop was very informative and quite a lot of fun. =) We even did a bit of snooping into CCTV feeds from various stores and such… 😉 Looks like Zurich is quite a smart city, but as to how accessible the data is in general…. I think some work needs to be done in that direction.
In case anyone would like to look into the rout we took, here it is. Definitely worth checking out. And here you can find everything about the walkshop.
And here’s our little group….