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!

A Swiss Vista

One of Tom's co-workers took this picture on his walk home from work back in October. This place is about 5 minutes from our apartment. We thought it was so typical Switzerland that we just had to share it.

Axalp Air Show

Tom went to another air show about a week ago. This one was unusual because the attendees had to drive to a town near Interlaken and then hike for 2.5 hours to the viewing site. You can see the line of people hiking in the picture to the left. He went with a few of his co-workers and really enjoyed the show, even though it ended early due to too much fog. Tom and Michael can be seen posing above the clouds below.

We Named Our Cat....

Cloé!!

We actually named her about a month ago, I've just been slack in posting about it :) It's pronounced like Chloe, but we liked this spelling better. My dad sent me some name suggestions, one of which was Clotilde (a queen of France who was born around 475) who is know for converting her husband to Christianity. I thought the modern version of the name was cute and it stuck. She just keeps getting bigger and bigger. She's into all sorts of mischievous things - scratching up the walls, scratching up our hands, pouncing on our feet, shredding Kleenex from the trash, etc. She's adorable, though. Maggie is starting to get along with her, but it is still slow going - she still doesn't know quite what to think. Below are some additional pictures of our kitty for your viewing pleasure.

Here she is in one of her rare cuddly moments. She sat with me for a long time while I was reading. Below she's in a more typical pose - ready to pounce!

Charmey

There was a festival in Charmey (about 30 minutes from us) the last weekend in September to celebrate the cows descending from the mountains. While we were on our way, we ran into one of these processions. The cows were so close to our car that we could have reached out and touched them!

Once we got there, we saw more decorated cows and even some sheep and some goats. We also poked around the little markets there and bought some delicious dried fruit and fresh, home-made caramel. The whole time, we could hear local music -some even included alphorns.
After the festival, Tom and Dave went on a hike. It had just snowed in the mountains earlier that week, so they saw snow at the top of their hike! It was a fun day and we felt like we experience some Swiss culture.

Dayhike in Switzerland

Tom talked me into taking a hike with him on Saturday and it wasn't quite what I expected. I was thinking that we would hike 2 (maybe 3) hours of moderately difficult terrain and eat about an hour into the hike. Boy, was I wrong!

We got to the start of our trail about 2:30 since we had slept in and then needed to go to the store for some hiking food and a map. Note: if you know anything about Tom, you know that he can't stand to be anywhere without a detailed map of his surroundings! Anyway, we started out and were immediately challenged with a rather steep climb. After awhile, we came to a gate. I didn't know this, but apparently in Switzerland, you hike all over land that belongs to others and they don't really care - as long as you securely latch the gates behind you. The ever-present yellow trail markers point all through personal property. Beyond that gate, we were in cow land. Not only did we walk by cows for the next few hours, we also hiked through the evidence of cows. Let me just say that cows must eat a lot...

After about an hour of this, Tom said - look, you can see the top (of this part)! I missed the latter part of his comment. So, that wasn't so bad...rather steep and a little messy, but I'd survived. Let's eat! Then we turned a bend and I saw what we were really trying to get to the top of - oh my. We finally made it to the top of the ridge a little after 5 and it was time for dinner. It was a really pretty place to picnic, and the food was very welcome. Now nourished and rested, we were ready for the descent. We made it back to the car in about 1.5 hours after passing through quite a few more cow pastures and one full of sheep. The moon came out on our way down and was just beautiful. All in all I got a 5.5 hour hike and learned that Swiss hikes usually come with a lot steepness and quite a few cows! We had a beautiful day for a hike though and Tom was a good encourager and patient with my slow pace. We ended up ascending (and then descending) about 2,500 ft, though, so it was a rather significant climb. It was a nice afternoon overall, but I propose we visit the chocolate factory next weekend :)

Oh, I almost forgot - my favorite part of the day was when we saw "the cows come home." This time of the year, the cows are brought down from the higher pastures in preparation for the winter. It's a big tradition and both the cows and the people herding the cows dress up for the occasion. We were driving when a guy on a motorcycle waved us to the side of the road and behind him were about 20 cows - all decked out. What fun!

Baby Kitty

After much debate and some good searching, Tom and I finally brought home a new kitty. She's a 6-week-old, long-haired calico and absolutely adorable! She and Maggie are still learning to be friends, but we have high hopes that they will be best buds someday soon. If you have any names suggestions, we're all ears. We were thinking something that sounds French would be appropriate, but are open to anything.

Tom is smitten with her :)

Our cat search story: It was much harder than we expected to get a cat here. After we decided we really wanted one, the search began. I assumed that we could just call the humane society, go visit and pick out our new cat. Wrong. After our neighbor called the SPA (the equivalent of the humane society here) for us, we went to visit Romeo - the one cat they said we could have. Though they had over 200 cats up for adoption, based on our criteria, he was the only one that matched our situation (we have a 2 year-old cat and don't let her outside). Well, Romeo was a nice cat, but he was very large - probably 20+ pounds, so 3x Maggie's size. He was also very quiet - not what we thought would fit Maggie's active inclinations. The SPA also told us that, if we adopted from them, they would come visit the animal every once in awhile until it died. After we heard that, we weren't too sad not to adopt from them! So we drove the 45 mintues back home without a cat.

Our neighbor made a few more calls for us since we are not yet fluent in French and German and found a few more leads. However, after one promising conversation, the woman never called back and then another place sounded like they had restrictions similar to the SPA. Argh! We then mentioned to some friends at church that we were looking for a cat. It just so happened that their friend's cat had just had a litter of 4 kittens. We went to visit them and, viola, we had a cat! We've had her since Thursday and are looking forward to getting to know her and see what kind of personality she has. Just let us know when you want to come meet her!

Welcome, Cambelle!

Cambelle Grace Burgess was born on August 29 in Fribourg, Switzerland!

Congratulations Dave, Lu and Big Sister Kacey!

Interlaken

Tom and I took a Saturday and ventured to Interlaken - about an hour away from where we live. There is an area near there called Lauterbrunnen known for its numerous waterfalls. We did the touristy thing and went to see lit-up waterfalls inside some caves. It was overpriced, but neat. It was really cold inside the caves since the waterfalls are made up of melted glacier water!

After the interior waterfalls, we found a place to go hiking. Having never hiked in big mountains before, I had no idea what I was in for! Going up was tough, but coming down was even harder. The views were spectacular, though and on the way down we even passed a group if hikers singing - almost like they were out doing Christmas carols. I'll have to get in better shape if I'm going to do much more hiking in the Alps - I was beat after just 2 hours.

For dinner we picnicked and then headed for Tell-Freilichtspiele - an open air theater production of the history of William Tell. It was all in German, but we still enjoyed it. The set was amazing and the cast included over a dozen horses that constantly galloped on and off stage.

This was our view while we climbed - notice the glacier in the center of the picture.

Here's a picture of the impressive stage. Click on it for a link to better pictures, including those of the cows, goats and horses that were up there!

More picts

Bellinzona

Last Wednesday Tom had the day off, so we made the most of it and took a day trip to the Italian- speaking part of Switzerland. To get there we had to go through the longest tunnel in Switzerland - 17km long! I'm sure it's nice in the winter, but I preferred the view outside of the tunnel!

When we got there we looked up a few important phrases in Italian since we didn't know a single word! We had to figure out the number 7 so that we could pay for our gas. Fortunately it's close to Spanish and seems much easier to pronounce in French, so we did alright.

The main attractions in Bellinzona are 3 very well restored castles: Castelgrande, Castello di Montebello and Castello di Sasso Corbaro. We enjoyed poking around each of them. I loved the fact that they fit into my stereotypical picture of what a castle should look like. The weather was great - sunny and hot! After lots of rain and chilly weather, it was a welcome change. We didn't have time to eat dinner there, which really disappointed me, but there's always next time!

A view of Castello di Corbaro (at the top), Castello di Montebello and some of the wall from Castelgrande.

Castlegrande (left) and Montebello. Tom and I climbed up to the highest towers in both castles.

More Pictures

Garden/Closets/Cooking

I've really enjoyed our little balcony garden, small as it is. We're growing some herbs (thyme, green and purple basil, rosemary and parsley), a cherry tomato plant, a pepper plant and cat grass. It's fun to use homegrown spices in our food and Maggie loves the cat grass!

One thing that is different over here is the lack of closets. So, when we moved here, we had no where to hang our clothes (or store random stuff). We looked around and finally decided to get our wardrobes at Ikea. Here's a picture of what they look like - a little different from what we're used to!

On the suggestion of a Swiss woman, I subscribed to a cooking magazine over here called Betty Bossi. I tried one of the recipes this weekend. It took awhile to translate it, but it seemed to turn out pretty well. It didn't look quite like the picture (when does it ever!) but tasted quite good! It's fun to try Swiss recipes and nice to have the ingredients given in metric quantities.

Le Premier Août

The first of August is Switzerland's fête nationale (national holiday) which dates back to 1291. We are living in an old country! They celebrate their "independence day" similar to how we celebrate ours: lots of flags, food, fireworks and bonfires. We celebrated by going to our neighbor's party on Tuesday evening and then going camping on Wednesday night. The party was fun, though it is very difficult to make small talk when everyone is speaking either French or German. Many people spoke English, though, so we managed to communicate to some extent.

The next day we went South to the mountains in the Valais area. A couple we met at church (Dan and Rosalie) invited us along, and we made a group of 12! We had a good time. We helped build a dam in a FREEZING cold stream (ok, I barely helped and just put my feet in), ate delicious food, sang praise songs and set off fireworks. I even got to light a few off - my first ever! We were in a valley, so we could see numerous bonfires all up the mountains around us and were surrounded by fireworks. That night it started to rain, but our tent kept us nice and dry. However, the next day was rainy, so instead of staying another wet night, we came home. It was a good time to get to know some other people in the church.

Both Dan and Rosalie's parents stayed in the bungalow to the left. It was nice to have somewhere dry to retreat to when it was raining as well as have a real kitchen (since we were cooking for 12)! And check out those pretty mountains.

Just a pretty view! I believe that the house is an actual place people lived many years ago.

The camping grounds - notice how close the tents are to one another! Our tent is the red 0ne - Tom noted that it matches our car. The rest of the group was staying in the the yellow tent.

Link to more pictures...

Spiderman?

One of Tom's new co-workers, Peter, is an avid climber. As he is new to the area as well (he's from Britain) he asked Tom to go climbing with him one afternoon after work and Tom talked me into going to take pictures. We went to a
place the guide book suggested, and it turned out to be holds drilled into the support of a bridge! It's a well used bridge (on top) and I suppose someone decided that the bottom of it shouldn't go to waste. There were lots of people there (all decked out in the latest gear) and then us. We felt a little conspicuous, but pressed on anyway and the guys did well. After abandoning an attempt on a really hard section (it wrapped around a 90 degree corner) they found one that was straight up. They fared much better on it and ended the day tired but happy.

It was fun to watch the two of them and the other people - they made it look so easy! One guy was even trying the up-side-down part of the course! The area was also enjoyable. We were outside and the sun was setting over a river right behind us.

Early Morning Visitor...

Our most recent adventure came early (5:30) Friday morning. I woke up to Maggie going crazy out in the hall and grudging got up to go calm her down. However, when I reached her, it was obvious (even in the dim light) that she was after something. Though I didn't have my glasses on, I could make out a dark shape swooping through the hall which I took to be a bird. After retrieving my glasses, Maggie had managed to corner the bird in the spare bedroom, so I opened a window, hauled her away (against her wishes!) and shut the door. By this time the commotion had roused Tom, so he came out, looked in the room and said, "Katie, that isn't a bird, it's a bat." Eek! For some reason a bat in the house worried me a lot more than a bird. Tom was brave, however, and went in to open the remaining windows so our unwelcome visitor could fly out. Then we went back to bed with Maggie standing guard at the closed door. The bat was still flying around the room when we got up and then found a good place to take a nap. It finally left, though, to my great relief.

We did learn a few things from this experience:
1) French for bat is chauve-souris meaning bald mouse
2) Apparently bats can get in through our windows, though they are only cracked open
3) Maggie is a good bat alarm
4) Per one of Tom's co-workers, bats in your house here are analogous to mice in your house in the US

Hiking L'Argentine

Today Tom went hiking in the Alps with a guy he met at church. He's really been wanting to do some intense hiking, so I was more than happy for him to go with someone else! They hiked about 10 miles and came home sore but happy. They ended their hike by wading and dunking their heads in an cold glacial river. Tom said their feet got numb after just ten minutes.


I spent the day tending our little garden on the porch and enjoying the sunshine. It has been cold, rainy and windy here for the past few weeks. Since Thursday, the sun has been out and temperatures have gotten into the 80's. I've been soaking up the heat as much as possible in preparation for the winter!















The views here are just incredible ... I still can't believe that we live here!

I thought the flowers were really pretty - Tom says the picture doesn't do justice to how blue they were.

After his hike, Tom and I went downtown with Dan and his wife, Rosalie to enjoy the Jazz Festival. Even in a small town like this, they have a two-week long music festival. It was neat. We listened to some music, got some food from the street vendors and finished off with an ice cream cone. I'm not quite sure why it is caled a jazz festival though, the music we heard was not jazz, but fun to listen to all the same.

Pictures of the Car

Tom picked the car up yesterday, so here are pictures!