Holidays - Swiss Style

Thanksgiving -
We didn't do anything special on Thanksgiving day since no one had the day off, but we did celebrate. The Saturday before the holiday, we celebrated with some friends from church. We had authentic food (turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes) and played some games. It was nice just to hang out and share our American traditions with others. We also had a meal the Saturday after Thanksgiving with the other American families that moved over here with us. We all combined our carefully hoarded American goods and put together a delicious Thanksgiving meal. We even had canned cranberry and green bean casserole! It was a lot of fun and since I'd spent all day in the kitchen, felt like the real thing. Tom even listened to the GT vs UGA game over the internet that night to fulfill the football requirement to the weekend.

Christmas -
While we will be in the States for most of December, we have done a little celebrating over here. We decorated our house, I made Christmas cookies yesterday with some friends, and earlier this week we put up a Christmas tree. I had resisted the idea, but finally relented and we got one on Wednesday - with just two weeks left in the country. It was a challenge to even find a tree this early in Switzerland! We went a few places and eventually asked at one place (in French!) and finally managed to bring home a short, squat tree barely taller than me. It was worth it though to pull out all our ornaments and relive the memories. The first official date that Tom and I went on was to dinner and then putting up a Christmas tree together and it has since become our tradition. This is our 6th tree together! While it doesn't quite look like what we're used to, it fulfilled its purpose. Anyone want a tree for December 11?

We had to raise it up on something so it didn't look so small. The cats like to bat at the ornaments and hid under the cloth covering the stand.

The Burgesses came over and helped us decorate our tree since they won't have one here. Kacey and are are reindeer - aren't we cute?

Cambelle even got into the spirit of things!

Visitors from the States

My parents came to visit for about a week and a half and we had a great time with them. We visited quite a few places in Switzerland and also went to the Bavarian part of Germany. Here's a picture tour through some of the things that we did.



Our first big adventure was to take a cable car up to the top of the Schilthorn - near Interlaken. There's a revolving restaurant on top of the mountain, so we decided that we'd eat breakfast there - a full buffet and as much coffee as you could drink - it was worth getting up early for! Breakfast was delicious and the view was outstanding. We had a perfectly clear day, so we had a 360 degree view of snow capped mountains. How cool! The restaurant is also where part of the film - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (a James Bond movie) was filmed. We got to see the relevant clips from the film and you could tell that it had been filmed where we'd been eating.

This is us on the ferry between Switzerland and Germany across the Bodensee. It was pretty neat - we drove our car on, walked around on the deck and had coffee in the cafe. It was cold and windy out, so it was good to be able to go inside.

Here we are in Germany at the site of King Ludwig II's Fairy Tale Castle (the white one in the distance). It's called Neuschwanstein and is the model for the Disney Castle. It was amazing - beautiful and extravagant. The king commissioned it to be built, it was worked on for 17 years and he died with the castle still unfinished. He'd only lived there 6 months. In this process he plunged his family into debt so they sold the place and it had it's first visitors about 6 months after he died. Crazy! The yellow castle in the picture is Hohenschwangau - where the king grew up. It was impressive as well, but much more practical (if any castle can be called that).

We also took my parents around our town of Fribourg. The above picture was taken from an old church that looks over a cliff into the town. We also went inside the big cathedral (seen to the left in the picture) and walked through the open market. They were impressed with how old everything is here.


Our last excursion was to Avenches - a city with Roman Ruins. Mom and Dad enjoyed the museum as well as the remains of the buildings. Above is me in what remains of an old theater (Tom told me to be dramatic) - dating to the 1st or 2nd century. Remains of a Roman bath, a wall that surrounded the city, an amphitheater and a Sanctuary are also found nearby. It was impressive.

So there's a snapshot of our most recent adventures. Let us know when you want to book your trip with Swiss Adventures!