Weeks 42 and 43 - Our first Christmas abroad

Last weekend was quiet because K had caught a cold/the flu/the plague. Regardless of what it was exactly, he was down for the count so we weren't able to go skiing/snowboarding as originally planned. We did make it to the library though, and K finally broke down and got a French-translation of his favorite science fiction author's novel. Despite the decent-sized English book selection at the Neuchâtel library, it has a relatively low percentage of sci-fi in English. His French vocabulary is good enough at this point that he can muscle his way through these books in French, though it helps immensely that he's already read them in English.

Also last weekend, we put up our small, fake Christmas tree that we've had for years and decorated it with Christmas lights we bought at the local home improvement store. The lights are pretty fancy; they have 8 different settings of flash/blink/twinkle that we can cycle through.

We also started our annual tradition of watching Christmas movies: Wish for Wings that Work, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (with Burl Ives),...

As can be imagined, work was relatively calm this past week. M brought in a bûche de noël (yule log) that she had made according to a recipe her French teacher had given her. It looked ok and tasted pretty good. We worked up through December 23 and went to the shops that evening to get groceries for Christmas dinner. The shops were open really late on Thursday; most were open until 9:30 to allow shoppers to get last-minute gifts.

Since Thanksgiving we've had a few cycles of snow (which sticks around for several days) followed by rain (that melts away most of the remaining snow), even though the temperature has remained low the entire time. Up-through Christmas Eve Eve, we were in a "no snow" period, but starting Christmas Eve morning, snow started coming down.

Also on Christmas Eve morning, M woke up with at least a smidge of what K had had. (She had a pretty bad sore throat and some muscle aches, but didn't seem to be quite as sick as K had been. Though as a friend has pointed out it may have been that K had a case of the man flu.) Even so, we walked into town in the falling snow to pick up an 11th hour package from the post office and also stopped by the grocery store for last-minute provisions. After spotting a pack of tortillas in the store, M was jonesing for tex-mex/mexican food, so we had black bean soft tacos for dinner. With the 5CHF 8-pack of flour tortillas as a safety net, M tried making a recipe for Texan flour tortillas from a foodie blog. To her surprise, they were pretty easy to make (although there was a small time investment waiting for the dough to rest) and were quite delicious. There will definitely be more soft tacos in the Bolton menu from now on. While we chowed down on our tacos, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life".

The presents under the tree Christmas morning indicate that Santa was able to transfer the Boltons' information from his database to Père Noël's without a hitch. K and M both got presents in their stockings and a couple presents under the tree. Major and Minor also received some presents. Christmas Day was spent lazing about, visiting with family over Skype and watching more Christmas specials online (Muppet Family Christmas, Garfield Christmas, Alf Christmas, etc).

On Boxing Day (Sunday after Christmas) we walked through one of the local "neighborhoods" to look at the snow and Christmas decorations. The sun was out, but even fully bundled up (hats, winter coats, gloves), it felt brutally cold. While we passed numerous Swiss dressed appropriately (i.e. bundled like Ralphie's little brother in Christmas Story), we also saw numerous folk more lightly dressed, with many bare-heads. Now, as everyone in the States knows, one loses 99.9+% of their body-heat through their melon, so this was simply shocking to see. The blood here must truly be thicker.

Lessons learned:

1) The average Swiss Christmas tree is no bigger than our fake 3 feet tree we bought from General Dollar. They cost about as much as a five or 6 foot tree in the states but look like they're straight out of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. It is possible to get a 6 foot tree, but there were not many of them and they cost a pretty penny/centime. I think the Christmas tree farm is a foreign concept to them.

2) Joking about the plague in Europe doesn't work quite as well as in the US. "Is K sick?" "Yeah, he's got the plague." "What! K has la peste?!?!?" I suppose the Black Death still seems a little too real to Europeans for them to understand hyperbole.

Weeks 40 and 41 - Marché de Noël de Neuchâtel (Neuchâtel's Christmas Market)

When we last left you, we were getting buried in winter. It snowed for almost a week straight. Snow was piled up everywhere, and it seemed like it wouldn't stop. We drove to our company Christmas party up in Snowville (a.k.a La Chaux-de-Fonds) last weekend.

It was unlike any other company parties we had previously attended. The theme for the year was the Caribbean. (Nothing too out of the ordinary there since we had had Lobsterfest with a Caribbean theme at our company back in California.) What was different was the costumes. First of all, let's ignore the fact that there were a lot of Hawaiian/Polynesian-style grass skirts and coconut bras at a Caribbean-themed party - the Europeans didn't seem to know or care there was a difference. The next "wave" of costumes were the pirates. (Nothing says Christmas like pirates, by the way..."Ho ho ho....Arrrr!") The pirate costumes included our facilities maintenance technician dressed in rather convincing pirate-wench-drag. Next, came the completely odd-ball costumes: an alligator (again, I wasn't aware that there are alligators in the Caribbean), a giant banana, and a purple-wigged mermaid (which was a pale, be-freckled guy in a very tight mermaid costume). To add to the debauchery, there was loads of alcohol and a techno dance floor where people were gyrating and jumping up and down. This year was supposed to be a little calmer than previous years. The party this year was supposed to end at 2 am; people were apparently upset because it historically has ended at 4 am. Due to both of us having had long weeks, we left a little after 11 pm.

The next day, Saturday, we had the biking group over for a beer tasting. Ken gave a lecture on how beer is made, and we supplied a variety of commercial beers to compare, in addition to ending with the piece de resistance: Bolton Brew. It was a pleasant afternoon with interesting discussion and good food and drink.

Sunday, we went to the Marché de Noël in Neuchâtel. The Christmas market concept really started in Alsace in France in the 1500s, and one of the most famous and oldest Christmas markets in Europe is in Strasbourg. However, nowadays Christmas markets are ubiquitous although the size and quality varies. The Christmas market is supposed to be where you can complete all your holiday shopping. Primarily, the market includes wares from craftsmen and artisans or local food/drinks (produits de terroir). In the Neuchâtel market, which is pretty small, we saw hand-made wooden toys, candles, puppets, jams, wines, sausages, ocarinas (yeah, those fat whistles on a lanyard), hand-knit sweaters, and giant metal bird lawn sculptures. We did try a couple different wines from some of the vendors and enjoyed walking around the market. Afterwards, we split the traditional spiced vin-chaud (hot wine) as we walked back to our apartment in the rain.

The rain signaled that a "warm" front had made it's way into the area. Temperatures climbed to the mid to upper 40s during the week, and all the snow had melted by the end of this week. Only at the end of the week did the frost reappear on our windshield in the morning.

After all the activity last weekend, we took it easier this weekend. However, we did start off Friday night with drinks at the Café du Cerf (the Irish pub) to send off a co-worker that is moving back to the US. Due to the long week, we both probably drank more than we should have, but we had a good time and enjoyed singing along to the band playing classic rock songs for a good portion of the night. The rest of the weekend was really just sitting in our apartment with the cats.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't park in the middle of the parking lot at the Christmas party. You will be blocked in.

2. In Switzerland and eastern France, there are two different old guys that have white beards and bring you presents: Père Noël and St. Nicolas. St. Nicolas comes on December 6, and Père Noël comes Christmas Eve. For anything big, you'll want to ask Père Noël, however, because St. Nicolas puts your presents in a boot you leave outside your door and usually sticks with small stuff like tangerines and peanuts.

3. Apparently, the Boltons talk too much in the car because they are finding a layer of ice on the inside of their windshield in the mornings. Needless to say there is a debate between us about who is breathing too much during our 5 minute commute.