Zermatt - Sunnegga Winter hike or summer hike?

http://www.zermatt.ch/winterwandern/Winterwanderwege/Winkelmatten-Sunnegga

A winter hike turned into early summer hike this Christmas. I have been hearing a lot about lack of snow this winter, and it has been really sunny. But I did not realize the extent to which this has affected real life till I decided to go on a winter hike in Zermatt which turned into an early summer hike with only patchy snow.

In an attempt to find some real guaranteed snow, I decided to go all the way to Zermatt for a winter hike. Zermatt stands at 1400m and the mountains around at 3000m+, which means the town is typically snow covered by Christmas or at least you can find snow in mountains. This year the story was very different. There was very little difference between what we saw back at peak of summer, and now in middle of winter.

The hike starts from Zermatt church. There are couple of ways to get to Sunnegga. We took the path through Winkelmatten which seemed shorter and simpler. There was no sign of snow in the town or on the trail. Though once the trail leaves the town there were many icy patches on trail. These were covered by grass, stones and fallen larch leaves which were providing perfect traction. The trail was clearly very well maintained.

Matterhorn was constantly in the view. As we got higher, it became clearer, along with other mountains around it. After a while the trail does become covered in snow, which is still easy to hike on. Once at Findlen the ski lifts are visible. The small ski village has many restaurants. Here it was clear that a skiing slope has been created out of no snow. There was a road of snow surrounded by clear ground. View of Matterhorn is just amazing from here. The Sunnegga point is only 30 - 40min away from here. We stopped on the way at a perfect spot just short of Sunnegga to have lunch in clear view of Matterhorn.

At Sunnegga there is a small area where people were learning to ski. After hanging out there for a while, we returned back. I was a bit apprehensive about the initial icy patches on the trail, but there was no need to worry. People who made the trail knew what they were doing. Great end to a perfectly sunny winter day.

So this does happen ...

Yesterday I was on tram in Zurich and a guy comes and sits next to me. He looks at me again and asks - do you speak English. I say yes. Then he fetches something from his bag. I thought maybe he wants me to read something, and I am thinking I cannot translate it in German! He shows me a 2016 calendar - "for you" and I notice that he has bag full of those in many languages. I say, thank you - is it from your company? He said - no its for Christ - or something like that. I am flipping through it, its nice calendar and I don't mind what's written on it. I still say thank you.

Then he starts saying something about - our God died for humanity .... one true God. Something that I am not really interested in following, I have other things to think about. So I try to return the calendar and tell him - I am sorry I cannot take it, I am Hindu. Then I add I am not Christian, just to make sure he gets the message. He insists keep the calendar and then adds something like - you know ours is true religion because our God dies for sins or something like that. First I am surprised, then I am thinking should I keep the calendar? Then I read a line from calendar which could very well have been a line from Geeta about loving human beings. So I show him the line and say - all religions say the same, you have your belief and I have mine. He is still muttering something about someone died for something. Its my stop, so I getup, decide to keep the calendar, say thanks again and leave.

This is the first time ever that I have had such encounter. I often see people near hauptbahnof distributing calendars, papers about God. They don't stop you because they can see you are not least interested. Here I was a captive audience, and of course I accepted the calendar in first place, so can't blame him. I found it quite amusing in the end. 

traveljo - why do we travel ?

After cancelling 2 trips - New Zealand which was on top of my bucket list, a dream trip, and Barcelona which was falling perfectly during Christmas holidays, I have come to realize that I have lost my traveljo. I have started using expressions like "quality over quantity"! Which does not make sense for travel, its all about quantity of visa and passport stamps and borders crossed. This was a perfect summer, and instead of running off to Alps every sunny weekend day, I was comparing "pay-off".

All this got me thinking why do we travel? Is there something like too much travel? I wonder how many people travel just to escape the realities of life. When you are at a strange place, strange people, life's problems also become estranged. At that moment there are simpler problems like where to eat the next meal, when to catch the next bus, where to go and where to stay - roti, kapda aur makan aur transportation. Where is the line between traveling to relax and traveling to run away?

Or are travellers just this set of people who are on quest for more knowledge, more information, to know the world! Or is it just about bragging rights. Of course I want to believe the second - its all about quest for knowledge, knowing the different cultures, how people live, knowing the world. Most avid travellers don't stay locked in 5-star hotels, following set itineraries. They venture out, mingle with locals, enjoy the different way of life going around them.

As I prepare to spend a restless (travel less) Christmas week for the first time, I hope 2016 brings more travels for me, even if it is to escape life's problems.

Switzerland - you surprise me - still!

While I have written before how I have been surprised by Swiss efficiency again and again, today I have to write the opposite - the Swiss inefficiency in dealing with online anything. The surprising backwardness of Swiss in embracing the new technology - the internet (yes, the new part was sarcastic). Today I decided to create an online account for my health insurance so that I can check what's going on, bills and stuff. First I was surprised that there was an option to do so, knowing Swiss I thought there won't be. Well, so far so good. I fill out all the forms, sign the agreement, create user id, password blah blah. And then guess what - I get a screen telling me that they are going to snail mail "something" to me so that I can start using the account. Is this a joke! I created account in hope to pay off and get things faster, now I am sitting and waiting for some snail mail thing to reach me.

Why I left Google

When someone asks why I left Google, I usually give many different answers because there is no one big reason. When I first started my job search for leaving Google, I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was very unhappy and frustrated by the way my then manager ran his team and managed the people. There was rampant favourism and too much politics. I had lost trust in all things Google. I just wanted to get away from that environment. Then I thought of all the wonderful years I had on different teams and decided to switch teams to give it another try. I managed to move to a team that met all my expectations of exciting work and great team environment. 

Something was still amiss though. There were still moments of frustration that made me feel I am not entirely happy. On positive side I could talk about that with my managers now, on negative side I felt despite their best efforts and intentions I was not seeing a satisfactory growth plan ahead for me. My previous job search had also set lot of wheels in motion both in my mind and on linkedin. So when a perfect opportunity knocked my door (CTO at a local startup), I could not resist. I started playing with the idea of leaving for real. 

Engineer at heart I made spreadsheets of pros and cons, best case scenarios and worst case scenarios. I could not really answer the question – why should I leave the best company and a great team. But I realized that question was not “if I should leave Google”, but “am I willing to let this opportunity go”. I was ready to move from an engineering driven job description to strategy driven job description, and it was becoming clear to me no matter how successful I am at my non-eng leadership tasks, I will not be fairly rewarded at Google. The new position provided exciting new challenges and opportunities. So I jumped in, it felt good, uncomfortably exciting. 

Looking back, I am very happy that I decided to give Google another chance by switching teams within the company. I left at a very positive note, knowing that I was willing to tradeoff security of Google for risk of startup even if the best case scenario at Google materialized in future. My decision was driven less by anger and emotion and more by rational thinking. I don’t have a one sentence answer for why I left, but lets say I had outgrown the engineering driven job profile Google had to offer and wanted to put my time and energy into leadership that I did not believe would be rewarded at Google. 

I think Google is still an awesome company to work for. The only criticism I have is the company repeatedly fails to develop and reward the people who are willing and capable to grow into good leaders. Instead it often throws great engineers who are unwilling or unable to switch to leadership mode into managerial positions. It often reminds me of the time when Sachin Tendulkar was made captain of Indian cricket team. A seemingly logical choice, but disastrous for the team.

Installing kafka / zookeeper

Its almost a month since I left Google and joined the startup, and its been 30 days of new challenges every day, some I handled beautifully and others strugglingly. Today after a very very long time I got to work with actual linux machine. I had to install Zookeeper and Kafka on 3 AWS EC2 machines. Of course these being well known apache projects had instructions everywhere. But when was the last time open source project instructions worked flawlessly! It was great to finally get the system working, hack away into the /etc/hosts files, try different things.
On to next challenge tomorrow - convert the 3 single-node machines into a single cluster.

This s*** just got real!

If you are into weird hollywood movies, you know what that expression means, and sometimes some expressions no matter how fowl just express a situation well. So this is what happened. I left Google 2 weeks back and joined a startup in Zurich. The decision, last few weeks and then joining new company just passed by with express train speed. I always knew this is where I was headed, like I knew form 6th standard that I will be working at Microsoft in US (ok that did not exactly happen, but Google was close enough), but when where how - I did not know.

When the opportunity to join startup came, right in Zurich all stars seemed to align. I don't have to move, I was in perfect position to try something new - and I took the leap of faith. As Peeyush Ranjan said in his linked in post - Google is like a university, you learn learn learn, but at some point you want to take that learning and do something else with it.

So why it just got real -
http://www.kleinreport.ch/news/softwaredienstleister-mediahead-mit-neuem-cto-81811/

https://www.adzine.de/2015/07/mediahead-verstaerkt-team-mit-ex-google-managerin-tulika-agrawal-adtechnology/

Ironman Zurich

Yesterday was my 3rd time volunteering as course marshal for Ironman Zurich. This gets more and more inspiring every time. Especially the part towards the end where you see real heroes emerge, people who finish in 12+ hrs, who are really pushing their limits, are going through mind-and-body struggle and winning. They are the real winners of Ironman. This year I met a couple of people who had come all the way from India for this. I cannot imagine training for an event like this in the heat and pollution of an Indian city, and after that coming to a cold climate like Zurich to run. There was a Japanese guy who walked most of the marathon with a cramped leg. Every time he passed us, he had a goal to make it to finish line by 10:30pm, and I was sure he is going to make it. That is true will winning over body. There was also the usual stream of 50+ years old who can put all of us who are half their age to shame. Many of the athletes you can see were running in a trance, not caring about form or time, but just putting one foot in front of other to reach the finish line. There were of course few graceful exits who had done all they good and decided to give up, and few broken hearts who did not want to give up but were just not going to make it in time. Every year I see this, my resolve to try something like this becomes stronger, right now I am to the point where I want to try the olympic distance which is ~1/3rd of the full Ironman distance, though not with Ironman brand because I clearly have an issue with their brand name :)

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South America trip

It was my dream to do a 3-month trip to South America. Somehow over the years I covered most of what I wanted to in 3 different trips :) So not sure if that dream is fulfilled or it was about 3-month long trip! Here is what I ended up doing -

Peru: April 2006

This was very early, we had just started hiking / backpacking, no concept of trip yet!
7-days
Flew to Lima, and then to Cusco.

• Stayed there 2 days, saw local site, should have stayed a bit longer to acclimatize.
• Did the Inca trail - 4 day trek
• Spend a day in Lima - had trouble finding vegetarian food.

Ecuador: July - August 2010

With some more travel experience under our belt. This trip happened due to a conference.
12 days

• Started in Quito, spend one day walking around.
• Took local bus to a place called Chucchilan to do a somewhat famous circuit. Loved our little hostel.
• Did some day hikes there, hiked to Lake Quilotoa at 14000ft. Loved the place.
• Public transport back to Latacunga and then off to climb Cotopaxi. It was a bad time to climb and we were hit by worst snow storm of the season.
• Then off to a small town called Mindo at start of cloud forest. Stayed at Hotel Ruby or something, little old house with MANY dogs, but loved it!
• Spent some chilled days there - Rappelling down a waterfall, Ziplining, seeing butterfly century and just walking around. Very relaxing.

Chile - Bolivia: December 2013

This was a consolation 1 month trip instead of 3

• Started in Santiago, spent a day and then flew to Punta Arenas, then over to Puerto Natales by bus
• Stayed at Erratic Rock, awesome hostel before start of W circuit in Torres del Paine
• 5 day 5 night backpacking there, cut short 1 day due to weather.
• Came back to Puerto Natales and stayed extra day at Erratic Rock as it was just so cool!
• Over to Punto Arenas. Stayed at some hostel.
• Took a 1-day trip to Isla Magallenes to see Penguins. Awesome, turned out to be great day. Also saw dolphins on the way.
• Then off to Santiago, stayed couple of days there, walking tour, cooking in hostel, chilling, making further plans. Skipped rest of Chile to go to Bolivia which sounded more lovely.
• Flew to La Paz.
• Spent couple of days there.
• Did a day hike to Condorini mountain for acclimatization with a local guide we found walking around in La Paz. Guide was great.
• Change of plans here, to avoid any Christmas complications, went to Uyni first instead of Copacabana with local bus to do salt flats tour. Going to lake would have been better for acclimatization.
• Booked the tour at Uyni, turned out to be quite good, did not need to book ahead.
• Stayed at rufugio near Licancabur at end of tour to climb the mountain.
• Climbed the mountain (with a terrible guide)
• Driven back to Uyni.
• Took bus back to La Paz.
• Spend few other chilled days here - loved La Paz
• Bus to Copacabana / Lake Titicaca.
• Loved the lake, spend couple of days here just chilling, doing nothing, eating good food.
• Back to La Paz, flight to Santiago, and then return.

I heart swiss immigration system

Let me post this before things start going wrong!
For now, I love the way swiss immigration system is working, its almost a shock (good one) after dealing with US system for 9 years.
Day 1: My work permit is expiring in 10 days, I want to renew it.
Response: Don't worry, it will come automatically.
(OK, though that was wrong!)

Day 8: Panic! It has not arrived, work permit expires tomorrow!
Response: Just bring this form and passport tomorrow and we will apply.
Me: Still in panic! But permit expires in 2 days.
Response: (no response, she did not understand its an issue)

Day 9: Go to office to apply for extension. Number of documents required: 1, Time required: 15min, cost: 204CHF. Time to get extension: 2 - 3 weeks.
Me: Still in panic! But the current card expires tomorrow, what can I do.
Response: Its fine, the new card will arrive in mail in 2 - 3 weeks.
Me: Oh! I need to to travel in 2 weeks.
Response: Its fine, its in the system.
Me: But I need proof.
Response: Ok (if you insist), wait for 2 weeks, go to immigration office on last day and get a temporary visa.

Me: Totally unsatisfied with the answer, still in paniced mode, but reluctantly left. It was shocking to me how they were not at all worried by the fact that my work permit so to say expires tomorrow and I am still living and working in the country. They just said sit back and wait for the new one to come in snail mail. So if I am not travelling it does not matter.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Eliezer Yudkowsky

I picked up this book thinking that either its an alternate plot or its trying to rationalize or use science to show how things in Harry Potter books are possible or not possible and how its not all magic. I am sorry I laid eyes on this book. It does talk about an alternate plot, one where Harry's adopted parents love him, but very soon writer's total lack of creativity shows up making the book unbearable. Writer has tried to sell the book by sensationalizing - 10 year olds plotting crimes and how to get away from that, it made me sick. There is no sense of time in the book, 2 people or 2 objects argue same senseless points till end of world and time does not pass. Everything is completely over-analyzed scientifically to the point that you want to pull your hair out.
Final conclusion - stay away from the book if you value your time.

12km day - conquered the hills

... ok, not exactly hills, but some parts with some upward inclination which we won't even consider a hill back in Seattle.

Today was 12km (7.5miles) day. After last weekend's tiring 9km, I was not sure we can do this, and this time I wanted to add the "hills" that Zurich marathon course has. So off we went, starting @10:10 from Tiffenbrunnen. The day was perfect, perfect temp around 8C, partly cloudly, could not ask for a better running day. We started slow, making sure everyone is together which was a really good thing. After everyone else left, we decided to speed things up a bit and face the dreaded hill. So we ran a bit faster and kms went by fast, and soon we were at the point of return. hmm, no real hills, what happened. Last year when I was cheering runners there looked like a terrible hill. We had gone through all of that and still going strong! I am sure it was the effect of slow start that gave time to warm up. All the statements about for best time start slow, make second half faster are true afterall. Quite pleased with the run today, looking forward to a strong 15km later.

Weekday run

Its that time of the year again when mountains are in snow (and so are cities) and you want to get out and train for next long run. I am trying to keep weekday runs on treadmill creating, and since I got the five-fingers, there is a new enthu to run on treadmill. So here is today's weekday run -

Theme was  hill workout -
3 min warmup to reach 7.2 km/hr pace and then maintain that pace for whole workout.
2 min @ 0.0 incline (rest)
1 min @ 4.0 incline
2 min @ 6.0 incline (stress)
Repeat the above 5 min sequence then,
2 min @ 6.0 incline (stress)
1 min @ 0.0 incline (rest)
Repeat the above 3 min sequence 2 more times.
Cool down for 3 - 4 min.
Total time ~33 minutes

Finally gave into fad for shoes

After a long time resisting the fad for five-finger shoes, I finally gave in and bought these (yes in pink!) - http://www.rei.com/product/835034/vibram-fivefingers-kso-multisport-shoes-womens-2011-overstock
Lets see if there any truth in all the "awesomeness" of these shoes or chappal or whatever they are.

Also spend the weekend doing touristy things - eating at interesting places, all recommended by locals -
Shana Thai
Sakoon Indian
Banana Leaf Malasian
Madras cafe
(2 more to come before the weekend is over)

But I earned it all by going for a 6 mile run on Stevens Creek trail and then hike up Mission Peak ~6miles RT, 2000ft elevation gain.

Fastest zip through US immigration

Today I was very pleasantly surprised by US immigration, a totally rare event. I was asked just one question - which I answer wrong anyway. What type of visa you have - I said H1 though I have a B1 :), old habits. Then just right hand fingerprint and photo, and you are done! In general it felt like line was moving quite fast, perhaps they are learning from Europe! Of course Switzerland still holds the record for efficiency, out of plane and on the train in under 20 minutes!

Me, snow and love

I love snow, I am scared of it, I still love it. Any day I getup and see the rooftops covered with snow, it makes for a great day. This year winter in Zurich did not disappoint, we had feet of snow in December before I left, and there is still some on ground now, and this is just middle of winter. It feels so awesome to be covered in overcoat, gloves, scarf, hat and winter shoes and go out walking in snow with temp under 0C as if its just another day. I am still not so comfortable walking on snow, but its perfect here where elfs always come in the morning and anytime after snow to clear the walkways. Looking forward to doing some snowshoeing this year, and maybe finally take out crampons to try something.

If Tomorrow Comes - Sidney Sheldon

Somehow I found this book in my collection left back in India and decided to read it out of boredom. The book turned out to be a surprise, I might or might not have read it earlier, but its a real page turner. It starts out with the central strong female character becoming a victim. As you are reading, its quite clear that you feel her foolish and pretty much expect what's going to happen. Soon though it turns into a real surprise and in the end you have a completely different feeling from when you started. There are of course some naive incidents in the book which you are bound to say - really! it does not happen that way. But then again if everything was totally realistic, then it would not be a work of fiction. So pick up the book and enjoy it, a really good read.

In US again

So back in US, just visiting, and have a different prospective now. 2 years in Europe and now I can almost see why Europeans keep complaining about US. Still love the office and people, but its outside that I am starting to see differences. People's habit of waste has not changed, and I always disliked it, and dislike it even more now that I can see its not a rich country thing. Like Europeans, they can also learn to reduce waste.
But its other things, like yesterday just sitting in office shuttle and looking outside, everything felt bland. Its like houses had no character, one dabba after other, such a far cry from flower covered houses in Switzerland where each house has its own design. Of course we live in a apartment building there also, but still its somehow made in such a way that it appears pleasing. The colours are so completely missing from landscape here.
Then comes the food. I had always complained about food here, but now it just feels even more bland. No vegetables have any taste, everything feels so heavy, full of idk what, but definitely not taste and nutrition. Its so hard to make healthy choices here, can't just each fresh veggies. People say keeping away from wheat is hard in Europe. I say the opposite. Its much harder here because nothing else really taste like anything. I made the mistake of taking what they call cottage cheese at breakfast the other day, and it literally tasted like cardboard! No wonder I never liked cheese here. I did not know what cheese was! The only cheese they can do is string cheese, yum!
Still a trip to US office is always very refreshing, make you believe in life and friendliness again. People are so nice and chatty :). Starting from shuttle bus driver who wished me good weekend, to car rental pickup driver who told me to drive safe and have fun. The girl at car rental this morning, told and asked my whole life history because we were both in Redmond at some point. She was so nice and friendly, that it made my day, something that can happen only in US.

Zurich Ironman

Yesterday for the first time I was part of Ironman. No, not at participant, but as a volunteer. I volunteered to be course marshals. The task - simple, make sure only racers are on track and open the blocks safely to let spectators cross. But Ironman is not just about the run or the bike or the swim, its about endurance, its where racers make personal history. I started around 3:00pm at the marathon course. The beginning was great, there were the strong Ironman veterans navigating the course strong. The course was a 4-10km rounds. There were some racers who were exhausted from second round and I wished they make it, and it was great watching them pass by again still going strong. Then came the rain, like a real storm. The day was literally replay of Zurich Marathon day, rain and shine and rain and storm.

I knew that Ironman is not a race like marathon, its all about finishing, especially the run is a run or a walk or a crawl, probably time to shut down the brain and just keep moving to finish line. I was close to water / food station. I could see some runner's face light up at sight of hot soup, fruits, water. Some hung out, browsed the selection, ate, some just grabbed a handful of something and carried on. Then there were others for who each round was painful. You could see the exhaustion in their whole body. We tried our best to cheer them, tell them they are doing great. By 8:00pm when racers had already been on track for 13hrs., we started seeing the really exhausted ones, those who were in true sense testing their limits. Some runners just had to sit down for a min and we would tell them last round, you can make it! There was one guy who had 2 rounds to go, completely exhausted, thinking that its over. He asked someone - I still have 2 rounds to go, I am not going to make it, am I! It was most likely that he will not make it, but you don't say that, and of course miracles do happen, second wind is true. So I wish he made it, though I don't remember seeing him at the station again. 

There were no more spectators at this time, so we slowly joined in the water/food station. It was run by a group from a Fraungymnastic club. We slowly made our way in and became incharge of a waterbooth. They were all wondering and asking each other who these people are :) Finally someone got the courage and asked us - who are you! It was kind of funny. So we told them we are freewilangers and we were at the pedestrian crossing, but now its all empty so we came to help. Most of them did not know English, so it was great time to practice German. 

By 9:00pm, the final stragglers were pouring in at the station. They still had 2hrs to run / walk the last 10km. We were all cheering each runner, telling them its the last one. By 9:45, all runners had passed our station and were in their final round. So we packed up and went over to finish line. I was hoping to see lot of those who we were cheering in last hour. There was a Malaysian man, somewhat older. I saw him at first round, and second, and then around 9:00pm at the third round. He still had ~10km to go and was barely walking. It was awesome to watch him finish just in time! One guy proposed to his girlfriend at the finish line! That was some drama. In the end it was a lot of fun. The analogy I give, for me Ironman is like Everest. It would be awesome to do it, but I know I can't. Marathon is like Basecamp. So the event at least inspired me to not give up on running and do another marathon next year.