Nice, France--December 30-31, 2006

Tires screeching. Steel hitting the ground. Man splayed out on the sidewalk. Welcome to France.

"What the hell was that?! I was just turning into the parking garage! Oh my god, I hit a man on a motor cycle!"

So here we were, in Nice France - jewel of the Riviera - to visit good friends and kick off '07. So we decided to end '06 by running down a Frenchman on a sport bike.

Ok, so not really intentionally, but it happened. We were in stop and go traffic along a main seaside strip in the heart of town. As our driving adventures have already been well chronicled on this site, you can imagine we were a bit on edge to start with. Knowing we were close to the hostel, we decided to go the "park-anywhere-we-can-and-walk" route. And so as we turned into a parking garage -- stop and go traffic, signal on, right hand lane, along side a chain link barrier and then a parked car -- there was just this awful sound of screeching and metal scraping on the ground.

Bonjour Christophe, welcome to Schwartz family history.

The story, the real story, is that he was illegally trying to pass us on the right hand side, didn't see the blinker and drove right into a turning car. This passing is not uncommon in Mediterranean Europe, at least the parts we saw on this trip. Aaron had been making cracks from day 1 about nailing someone on a moped, and now we had.

So with Christophe laid out on the ground, the hotel doorman and a couple of security guards came over to help out. He got his bike up and on the sidewalk and we pulled into a temporary parking spot. After being assured he was alright and inspecting our respective vehicles, we set about reporting the situation. (Interestingly, at no point did Christophe seem upset or to start yelling at us for hitting him. It was very unnatural, almost like he knew whose fault it really was).

Being Americans, our first instinct was to call the police, but were quickly told that's not how things are done in France. Naturally...

Jaren, bless her, did her best to communicate, and did well. However, they don't exactly teach you how to get into and out of a car accident in French class, and given the inevitable legal documents, we thought it best to get someone we knew would be able to help.

Olivier. Or in this case, SuperOlivier (like SuperGrover, but more French).


The whole reason we added Nice to the itinerary was because our good friends Olivier and Liesel would be visiting his family for the holidays. We quickly gave them a call and, despite some initial confusion, they made their way to us.

Meanwhile, back at ground zero, we were piecing together what happened with the doorman, Christophe and other observers.

"Constat. Constat"

"Jaren, what's a Constat?" we kept asking, but to no avail. Aaron, having taken traffic engineering classes (sounds gripping, really) was all about defending our case through pictures. For your consideration:


LEFT: Our AVIS rental car. CENTER: The bike. RIGHT: The scene of the accident


Very little damage to our car, only slightly more to the bike, but enough that it wouldn't start.

After an hour or so, Olivier and Liesel show up, realizing that we were not stuck behind an accident, rather we were in one. And Olivier, being our superhero, fills us in on the constat -- its a triplicate carbon copy form all French drivers are to keep in their glovebox to report an accident via their insurance companies. We had a Swiss car, so we didn't have one. Neither did Christophe. Interestingly, neither did any of the dozen or so cars passing by. So Olivier took off to see if he had one, and Jaren was told that one of the local convenience stores may have one so she bolted too. More waiting (at this point, we were up to three hours).

It was at this point Liesel started getting Christophe's side of the story, which did not really seem to jive with reality.

"They turned from the left lane and hit me"

Um, excuse moi? If I turned from the left hand, you would have gone over the hood. If I turned from the left lane, the scratches would not have been behind the passenger side wheel well. And if I turned from the left lane, this would not be stop and go traffic, it would be total gridlock as we would have shut off both lanes of traffic. As we've seen thousands of cars go by in the last few hours, I am confident in saying that did not happen. Nonetheless, I thought it best to let the insurance companies fight it off as they've got corporate attorneys on large retainers who are much better at arguing in French than lil ol me.

Constat shows up, Olivier helps us fill out our side, and because everyone was civil, we even gave Christophe a ride home to his posh suburb on a hill. 4 hours, no fatalities, we were in pretty good shape.

Finally, after dealing with our drama, we went to dinner with the Diolosas at the restaurant where they had their first date - a quaint family run Vietnamese place where the owner remembers our friends well and seats us at a table of honor. (The owner also happened to look exactly like a Vietnamese version of one of the Schwartz kids uncles, but we wont say which one).

The food, of course, was tremendous. Meats braised to perfection on hot plates at the table, creamy sauces and soups, great lychee wine. Just tremendous, and an honor to be there.

After retiring to the hostel, engaging in a laughing fit while trying to not wake our two other weary bunkmates we turned in.

The next day was all about sightseeing, with a whip through a centuries old market followed by a walk up a hill to take in the whole city.

Beautiful Nice, from the park on top of the hill.

And other views of Nice.
LEFT: The beach. CENTER: The Port. RIGHT: The Group.

And of course, a trip to the Cote d'Azure would not be complete unless you felt the sea. Here is Jennifer in the Mediterranean for the first time. Brrr. Isn't is cold?

Since we saw most of the lovely town of Nice, the Diolosa's suggested taking a little trip to the town of Eze. We piled into our cars and followed Oliver through the beautiful seascape of the Mediterranean. We slowly climbed our way up the rocks until we reached Eze.
LEFT and CENTER: Pictures from the town of Eze. RIGHT: View from Eze of the Mediterranean Sea at sunset


Truly breathtaking views from the top of the hill, colors and sights that can only be truly experienced with the naked eye. And after a quick pitstop, we were off to our next wonderful experience -- one truly off the tourist map -- a quick visit with Olivier's parents at their home in the country.

To give you, the reader, an idea about the surroundings, let me leave it at this -- you can look at the Mediterranean Sea, and with a 90 degree turn of the head, you can see the Alps. Not. Bad.

Their home itself was lovely, a classic Mediterranean villa whose beauty was only surpassed by the generosity of our hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Diolosa were some of the most open hearted people I've ever met, and having met them we can appreciate where Olivier gets his personality and charm. Heck, they even bought Coronas and made chicken wings because the Yanks were coming (to go along with other traditional local New Years delicacies such as caviar, pate, and salmon-topped crostini). Just a tremendous experience. And after an hour of visiting in Frenglish (the Diolosas spoke limited English, and Jennifer's French vocabulary is even smaller than her one word catalog of Italian), he headed back to wash up for the big night out...

For more pictures, click HERE

Florence--December 28-29, 2006

Thursday, December 28th
We had another interesting time finding our hostel in Florence. After nearly getting killed multiple times just driving into Florence (a traffic hell to start with) and not having a city-specific map, we parked the car while our saviour Aaron found some street names. He came back and we found one road on our little map. We drove in the direction of our hostel, or so we thought, according to Hostelworld.com’s map.

We decided to park the car and walk to the hostel. We walked in the direction of the hostel on our map, but we could not find the road or the hostel ANYWHERE. After asking for directions several times, we met some guys who were willing to help out a group of Americans. They pointed in the direction we needed to go. We got to a large round-about with 6 different streets we could choose. Aaron and Steve found a street map and were able to find one of the streets that corresponded to our “Mappy” (Europe’s version of Mapquest).

Long story short, we found our hostel and it ended up being closer than the 30 minute wait -for-the-train-to-pass, hike –up-a-hill, hike-down-a-hill way we went.

After unloading our bags, we went on a brief walking tour of Florence. First stop, the Duomo.

LEFT: The main entrance. CENTER: Campanile or bell town. RIGHT: The nave.
We went inside. The beauty of this 14th Century church is on the outside, not the inside. However, the grandeur of the building itself was impressive to the eye.


From the Duomo, we walked to the Medici palace. This is where the famous Medici Family ruled in Florence during the Renaissance period. Not only were the Medici the political authority, they were Florence's chief cultural influence They were the family that commissioned Michelangelo and other famous Renaissance artists to decorate their palace.





A short walk from the Medici palace is the famous Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge remaining from World War II. The bridge houses nothing but jewelry shops, mostly gold shops. And current structure was built in 1354. Absolutely amazing.





From the bridge, we walked back through town, through the Piazza della Republica to the Duomo where we found a quaint Italian restaurant to have dinner. We needed a hearty meal to energize us for the following day.





Friday, December 29th

First stop, the Galleria dell Accademia. After waiting in line for about an hour, we entered the museum and there he was standing under the copula - pensive yet poised, youthful but triumphant, large and nekked - The David. There were also other works by Michelangelo including unfinished sculptures of Tomb of Pope Julius II. For more information about Michelangelo, click HERE.




Second stop, Piazza Le Michelangelo. We crossed through town, walked over the bridge and hiked up the hill to beautiful park that overlooks the Florence cityscape.
After a hardy climb, the four of us got a bite to eat. We had the BEST pizza EVER. It was a pizza familla, which is like American-sized pizza, with black olives, sausage (or hotdogs), peppers, tomatoes, mozzarella, etc with Moretti’s to wash it down. What a meal.

With food in our bellies we had the energy to see it all. Next on the list was Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross, although the Schwartz boys kept mentioning Leroy Brown? ) a church that houses famous tombs and illustrations. After a day full of art, Aaron earned himself a little math, and in the case of Galileo, a chance to sing Queen in an inappropriate place. Here are just a few famous tombs.
LEFT: Galileo’s tomb. CENTER: Dante’s Tomb. RIGHT: Michelangelo’s Tomb.
Others include: Eugenio Barsanti (co-inventor of the internal combustion engine), Niccolò Machiavelli, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Renaissance artist) and Leon Battista Alberti (15th century architect and artistic theorist).

More on Santa Croce, click HERE

Having seen enough religious artwork for the day, we ventured through the famous Florence Markets in search of Aaron’s "special" outfit for New Years. More on that in the New Years Eve Post.

Our last memory of the city—the four of us sitting on the front steps of the Duomo sipping cheap red wine out of the bottle and eating chips.

“Duomo arrigato..Mister Roboto”. Ah, Florence.

And with that, we woke the next morning and started our journey to the French Riviera.

Venice, Italy--December 26-27, 2006

Bright and early, Boxing Day morning, we all hopped in our rented Opal Astra (aka our second home for the next six days). Not a bad car, certainly not the smallest thing we could have had over here.

Right off the bat we were enjoying ourselves. Within 20 minutes of leaving south from Geneva we were in the French Alps, and we hit them at just the perfect time. There was a low hanging fog through the area, and the sun was positioned just so that it looked like there was deep blue light pouring over the mountains. These pictures don't really do it justice:


Plus Steve got to hang out the window at 50mph to take these, which he enjoyed (much like a dog, that is).

Jennifer, who 48 hours earlier was taking an exam in Syracuse, just kept saying over and over "I can't believe I'm here."

Once we got high enough, the fog lifted and we had some pristine Alpine views. The whole lot of us were all sorts of jazzed.

After a quick whip through the Mont Blanc tunnel, we made it to Italy. The country side slowly became the northern Italian countryside, and we all soaked it up.

Flash forward 4 hours, we'd passed Milan and were on the outskirts of Venice -- and this is where things got interesting. Before leaving, Jaren had printed off detailed directions from a website called Mappy (Mapquest and YahooMaps are both spotty in Europe, and this was our only choice). Now, I could go into a verbose description of the directions, their faults and how they could be deceiving, but instead I'll just say they sucked. Sucked something fierce. Just terrible.

Add to Mappy our lack of a local map, and that our hotel was technically right outside Venice, and it was a recipe for disaster. So yes, we got lost. We wern't left instead of right, right instead of left. We crossed rivers and crossed them right back. This all culminated two hours later in a dramatic scene where Aaron -- at Steve's foolish recommendation -- went down a one way street. Slamming on the brakes and using a tone that was the opposite of the Italian sotto voce, Steve was instructed to "get the f%#k out of the car and find me a f!&*ing map."

And find a f!&*ing map he did. 45 minutes, several confused Italian strangers, six digital pictures of a map and 20 more minutes in the car, and we were there. Dropped off our stuff, freshened up and headed in town for dinner.


This picture is Jennifer's first trip on Italian public transport the next morning, but to appreciate it you have to understand what happened next. After (FINALLY) finding our hotel, we waited for the bus to take us into Venice. We waited, and waited...no bus. With five minutes until the expected bus, an slick Italian kid wearing too tight of jeans asked us (in Italian) when the bus was arriving. Steve attempted to answer the kid and that was a funny story in and of...ehhh...itself. The bus arrived and we had the exact change. 1 Euro, per person. GREAT. I give the driver the money and he says, "no, I need 2 more euros." We rooted through our pockets, but we were plum-out of change. He wouldn't take a 10 Euro. Hummm. We all stood there on the bus looking like fools and finally the bus driver, more or less, kicked us off the bus. That was the only bus for the next hour (remember, it was a holiday in Italy).

Long story short, we drove into Venice that night with the determination to make Jennifer take the bus the next morning. This picture was taken as she received a "hip hip horray" for over-coming her fear of the mean Italian bus drivers.

In Venice the next day, we did the easiest thing to do there -- walk around. Lots of small winding streets, with periodic stops for coffee and cured meats.
LEFT: Eating a snack on a random bridge. CENTER: A gondola. RIGHT: One of the many churches.

Oh, and it was about now that Jennifer discovered Nutella. A monster was born. And speaking of monsters, math tourism reared its head again. In this video, Jaren, Jennifer and Steve enjoy the ancient Venitian Square...



...while Aaron takes a deep interest in the installation of a new sewer pipe. "But it's a terra cotta pipe!" Um, sure thing dude.

LEFT: Rialto Bridge at night. CENTER: View of St. Marco Square from another island. RIGHT: St. Marco Basillica in St. Marco Square.

In a stroke of brilliance, we decided to forgo the gondola ride and hopped on a local water "bus" to get the seaborne experience. Sun shining down on the city, it was magnificent.
Views from our little ferry ride through the 5 main islands

The rest of the day in Venice can be summed up in more walking, more jokes and more fun. Dinner was delicious, and we were all satisfied.

Overall, Venice was cool and worth seeing, despite the fact that it felt more like Disney than a city with the off site hotel and single mainland entry point.

Still, a grand time all around. And with a good night's sleep, we were off to Florence.

For more pictures, click HERE

Christmas Dinner in Geneva--December 25, 2006

Back in Geneva, we encountered a particular problem vis-a-vis the sleeping arrangement -- Aaron was just too damn big for our furniture. What you see below was the morning stretch out, Aaron in his sleeping bag letting the blood return to his feet on our bed. In the foreground is our couch, and at the bottom left is the table he used to lay his feet on while he slept on the couch. Poor guy was 30% too large for the couch.



Jennifer arrived Christmas morning. You could say Santa brought her if you were willing do concede that his sleigh looked an awful lot like a Continental Airlines Boeing 747. Santa was the pilot, Dancer was the navigator, Prancer was the head steward... we'll leave it there before I say something really offensive.

And she brought presents of her own - a bag full of American goodies, most importantly 3 (Three!) bottles of Frank's Red Hot, the key ingredient in Buffalo-style chicken wings. I don't miss much food here in Switzerland because mostly the local stuff is so good, but wings are items 1-5 on the list.

See the joy!
Seeing as how this was her only day in Geneva, we tried to do a whirlwind walking tour. UN - check, Old Town - check. Lake - check. Here she is in front of the Doctors Without Borders building, as she has long said she wants to work with them once she finishes med school.


After our whip around town we made a proper Christmas dinner (roast chicken, rice and something green in form of Broccoli). We were also joined by Floriane, my English student/ French teacher. Floriane is a Geneva native who got all of her family time out of the way the day before, and very much wanted to chat with Aaron as this February she is moving to Chicago to begin a one year PhD fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Tichy family readers will also recognize the white drinks on the tables. Need a closer look?


Snowballs! The recipe was kept secret by Jaren, who refused to let anyone watch her make them, but the effect was on display for all to see. Who knew Aaron could do headstands?

Schwartz Boys in Zurich and Bern -- December 21-23, 2006

You may have noticed the Jaren and Steve-sized hole in the Internet over the past few weeks, and we promise it was not because we don't love you all.

We had houseguests, and unlike New York, they only had two legs. With the timing of the holidays, young Aaron Schwartz was able to take two and a half weeks off of work and thought it would be a good time to visit his brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law in Europe.

Through some really odd circumstances, he ended up with a plane ticket into Frankfurt Germany, where he then took a train to Freiburg in the Black Forrest (Schwarzweld for you German lovers), as Freiburg was the closest he could get to the Swiss border on his ticket. I (Steve) saw this as a good opportunity to see parts of Switzerland Jaren already had, so we made plans to meet in Zurich and work our way back across the country through Bern to Geneva.

Planning to meet in the train station (Banhoff), we arrived within minutes of each other and quickly went to the hostel to drop off our bags. On the way, Aaron gave me the good news that he is now project manager on a multi-million dollar golf course outside Chicago, so of course a celebration was in order.

The Zurich portion was pretty uneventful from a storytelling point of view, although that's not to say it wasn't interesting. Left to our own devices, we did one thing we both thoroughly enjoy -- drink beer. Ate and drank, ate and drank and caught up as brothers do, I'm going to leave the rest of the Zurich narrative as a blur, because that's how we both remember it.



Nursing some fierce hangovers the next day ( and a brief spell of vomiting outside a grocery store) we came to the quick conclusion that there was not much to see in Zurich from a tourist point of view.

We did, however, use the sunny day as an excuse to walk through the town and up to the University. After a brief tour of the Math department (more on "Math Tourism" in a bit), we made our way down to the art gallery out of what we can only describe as obligation.

Understand, for as excited as he gets abut math and construction, Aaron has an equal and opposite reaction to art and writing, so art museums are the second ring of hell for him. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo are only ninja turtles, and Monet and Manet might as well be the twin aliens on the Simpsons.

After making 40 feet inside the museum before security asked him to check his bag, we took that as god's way of saying "go to Bern." Glad we saw it, but no love loss for the Zurich and its famous gnomes.

Bern, however, was a different story. Old, stone, open rainwater sewers, captive bears in the middle of town and the one time residence of a very famous physicist, this place had fun written all over.


We happened to be there a few days before Christmas, so the Christmas markets were in full effect. And for two Jew boys who only knew Christmas history in the context of the Germanic St. Nicholas traditions, this place felt like Christmas. The markets full of wooden stalls selling everything from hot spiced wine to ornaments to wreaths and everything in between just WAS Christmas to us. Very cool.


After a bit of touring we tucked into an unassuming building for a bite, only to find out the place was far bigger than it appeared, and that it was a collection of Asian restaurants sharing space. Imagine a food court but much nicer. It was here that Aaron got his first taste of Indian food, and that we got to kick our feet up for a bit. After perusing a menu that was half hindi/ half German, we took the opportunity to just soak up the environment.

This was followed by a couple beers with a somewhat odd guy staying in our hostel and his none-to-enthusiastic-to-see-us-or-him Swiss girlfriend. Sensing the tension, we bolted back to the hostel of a nightcap and a much needed sleep.

Waking up the next day, we thought we'd kick things off the best way we know how -- imported Canadian grizzly bears in a pit. Bern, from the flag to the artwork, is all about bears as the area was once heavily populated with black bears. After centuries of urban growth and hunting, there aren't too many more indigenous bears around, so the town imported three Canadian grizzlies to fill the famous bear pit at the edge of town. Seeing as how this was right around the corner from the hostel, it was a logical first stop.

But for Aaron, the most important thing in Bern, possibly the most important thing on the trip to Europe, was to see the Swiss Patent Office. Sexy, I know, but you have to understand the history of the SPO and its particularly notable employees. You see, it was at the SPO in Bern that one Albert Einstein developed the fundamentals for his theory on relativity (E=MC2). Even more impressive, Aaron actually knows what it means.

So after getting directions from the girl at the tourism office (who was thoroughly confused as to why we wanted to go there), we began our walk. Of course, after I got us lost, we stumbled our way back to where we needed to be and found Aaron's holiest of holies.

I'll let the smile tell the rest of the story.


Nerd.

And with that, it was back home to Geneva, to Jaren, and to the next leg of the trip.