Two Years and 24 Weeks - Grocery Shopping in France and Short Trip to Ticino

K and C at Castello Montebello in Bellinzona, Switzerland

A few weekends ago, we decided to make a trek over to Morteau, France, just over the border, to go grocery shopping.   We've heard the prices are much better than Swiss prices, plus they have a different selection of foods.   This was C's first trip across an international border, but it was rather boring as no one appeared to be manning the borders.  Although it doesn't make sense to go every week due to the cost of gas, we definitely had some really good finds, which included Comte cheese, lots of pastry items and frozen macarons.  (The macarons must be thawed before eating, but they were delicious and relatively cheap.)  Unfortunately, we needed to move quickly through the two stores we visited as C was being fussy.  We'll definitely be going back to Morteau (or another border town with grocery stores) in the next month or two, so we can restock.

M and C in Ascona, Switzerland

This past weekend, we went on our first overnight trip with C to Ticino, the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. Upon the recommendation of a colleague, we decided to take the pass both ways and forego the Gottard tunnel. The drive was really beautiful although rather long. After crossing the pass, we headed straight for Bellinzona, a city well known for its three castles. We visited the middle castle Montebello, which gave us a great view of the Castello Grande in the town below. The castle had a fair number of nooks and crannies to explore, and there was a lot of room to run around the grounds. As C was fussing, we decided to call it a day and head to the hotel.

We spent the night in an albergo/restaurant in Mugena near Lugano. We had pizza in the restaurant downstairs for dinner and then turned in. The next morning after breakfast we drove to Ascona, a cute town next to the Ticinese capital of Locarno, on the shore of Lake Maggiore.  We parked the car and had a brief walk along the lake before we started our journey back to Neuchatel.

M and C on bridge near Gottard Pass

Lessons learned:

1. You can buy frozen sweet peas in France. Score!

2. You can also buy Nacho Cheese Doritos, green split peas (pois cassés), yellow orange American cheese (called burger cheese), condensed and evaporated milk, and Cheerios in France.

3. You are more likely to be able to go shopping in Ticino.  We were amazed at all the clothing stores open in Ascona.

4. A colicky 13-week-old in a restaurant still doesn't work...

Two Years and 20 Weeks - Visitors

Jardin Botanique

M's parents organized a trip to Switzerland to meet their granddaughter in person, whom they had only previously met via Skype.  They arrived just shy of C's six week birthday and departed almost 2 weeks later.  It was nice having them here to help out with C, who had turned into a bit of a fussbudget.  Except for a day excursion to Annecy, France, they pretty much stuck around Neuchatel.

Even though, we had received C's passport and residence permit just before the grandparents visit, we decided to stay relatively close to home due to Miss Fussy.  Around town, we visited the Neuchatel Botanical Garden and the Latenium archaeology museum.  We finally took a 1-hour boat tour on Lake Neuchatel, the first time we had been out on the lake ever (not counting being on the Coop wine boat); the boat started at the Neuchatel port, chugged over to Portalban, and then to Cudrefin before heading back to Neuchatel.  It was a sunny day, so we enjoyed the weather on the top deck with the inappropriately-dressed (think MTV Spring Break in Cancun) teenagers sipping beer and sucking on popsicles.

Old Roman Wall with Watchtower; M's dad at Gate

Since M's parents' previous trip had included Rome, we decided to drive over to the Roman ruins in Avenches, to give them some familiar scenery.  We stopped first at the amphitheatre which was set up for another play, and then drove over to the Roman theater.  We walked from the theater up to the old gate to explore the watchtower.  We also went on the walk/hike to the Areuse waterfalls.  M and C visited the Natural History Museum and Fine Arts Museum with the grandparents as well, while K was at work.  

Lessons Learned:
1.  Not the best idea to try to go out to a sit-down dinner with a colicky 7 week-old.  Thankfully there were a sufficient number of adults at the table who could take turns outside with the screaming baby.
2. Cloth diapers seemed like a good idea, but without a personal washing machine they mayjust be a pipe (poop!) dream.
3. US passport generation outside the US is much faster than inside the US (at least in Switzerland).  Got C's passport in about 2 weeks!

Areuse Gorges

Two Years and 16 weeks - Prague and other stuff

It has been an embarrassingly long time since our last post.  Since last time, we had one trip together (to Prague), K went on a business trip to Puerto Rico, and we added a new member to our family.

Call it an early Valentine's Day weekend, a babymoon, Beercation 2012 or just an opportunity to explore.  We decided to book a long weekend trip to Prague via the night train in mid-February.  Yes, we knew it would be cold in Prague in the middle of February.  What we didn't know was that Eastern Europe would be hit by a deadly cold snap.

The trip started with the night train to Prague, where we shared our "couchette" with two other people.  The train was fairly uneventful except that it broke down a few hours from Prague.  Most people got off, but we decided to stay on.  We started to get worried when the heat had been off in the train for awhile and we were getting cold, but fortunately, the engine was replaced and train was back on its way within 2 hours.

In Prague, it was bitterly cold, and M chickened out on quite a bit of sight-seeing, so K took the lead on scoping out the sites, bringing M back later.

Grounds of Prague Castle, with Cathedral in background

The guidebooks rave about the Charles Bridge because of all the statues that line both sides, and suggest visiting the bridge at dusk.  On an exploratory ramble, K visited the bridge in the daylight and did find it visually interesting.  However, by the time K and M ambled over that evening, at 6-month pregnant walking speed, Prague dusk had passed, and while there are spotlights on some statues, the Bridge is not all that interesting at night.  Plus, it was cold, so we just moved on to dinner.

The next morning, we caught a tram across the river and up the hill to Prague Castle.  Lots of buildings to explore (only a couple of which were heated).   We also visited Golden Lane, full of cheek-to-cheek tiny cottages, which was cute.  One interesting bit in the castle proper is the defenestration window, through which several councilmen were thrown during a time of unrest.

K at Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square) 

Prague is also famed for a 600-year old, still-working, astronomical clock.  At each hour, figures animate, and the apostles make a procession.  An interesting sight. Around the clock tower, the old town of Prague is just what you want from old-world Europe.  Lots of pretty, ornate buildings, narrow winding streets, lots of restaurants and shops.

 Several blocks over in the New Town, Wenceslas Square (really more of a broad pedestrian area with traffic on each side than a typical square) is home to even more restaurants and lots of hotels.  We didn't see any demonstrations; either everyone was too content to protest, or it was too cold for them to be out.

The big, historic Czech National Museum building at the upper part of the Wenceslas Square was closed, but the smaller, newer wing next door was open.  Upon entering, the receptionist informed us that only two display areas were open - however, these focused on science and engineering developments in the Czech Republic, so we were sold!  Who would have known that two Czech brothers developed a better kind of plow!  More impressive for two engineers working with pharma/medical devices, was the erector-set contact lens molding unit that a Czech scientist developed - it looked incredibly primitive by today's standards, but it was clearly functional and repeatable enough to not only prove that the contact lens idea worked, but per the informative sign, this little workcell was used to make production volumes of lenses!  There was also a big poster of Gregor Mendel and his pea plants.  Neither of us remembered Mendel being Czech, but we certainly remembered his name and his contributions to genetics.

One of the big drivers to visit the Czech Republic was the beer.  Czechs are the largest per-capita beer consumers in the world, by far.  According to a nice French book on beer from a coworker, Czechs drink 159 liters per person per year.  Germany, arguably known for heavy beer consumption (think Oktoberfest) weighs in at 122 L/person/year.  The UK, with its pub culture, is at 97 L/pers/year.  And the US is at 84L/pers/year.

There are many large Czech beer (Pivo) brands, and we saw several proudly displayed on signs in Prague.  By visiting different restaurants throughout the visit, and taking some rest-stops in our meanders through town, K had an opportunity to try several different brands.  Pilsner, originating in the Czech Republic, was a common style, but generally clean and well-done.

Traditional Czech fare is not the most vegetarian friendly, but we did find several traditional items for M.  At our first lunch, while K sampled different Pivos and had sausage soup, M had several non-meat sides, including fried bread.  We were maybe expecting something like texas toast, but it was a thick slice of bread fried rock hard in a deep fryer, served with several cloves of raw garlic; really not sure why this would be a regular part of any culture's diet...

However, we did eat at a great Thai restaurant (though K was a little the worse for wear later) and a nice little Italian restaurant near the Czech National Museum.

The night train back to Switzerland was about the same as the outbound train ride, except for one stop in Dresden.  Apparently, a large group of Neo-Nazis decided to stage a protest at the train station, a separate group of counter protestors also thought the train station would be a good venue, and a sea of police officers were present to watch both groups.  Lots of chanting.  Lots of people walking around.  LOTS of police.  The stop took about 2 hours longer than expected, but then we were rolling again.

K had a business trip to Puerto Rico the last week of February.  The heat and humidity seemed a nice break from CH winter - except there was a warm snap that week in CH as well!  K found some time early one morning to walk on the beach and dip his toes in the ocean, but most of the time was spent in conference rooms or at dinner with coworkers.  He did spend one entire evening at a Babies-R-Us, goggling at all the selection, and trying to find everything on the shopping list M had provided - and then arranging, and re-arranging, his suitcase to make everything fit.

M's pregnancy continued well as the weeks progressed, but the baby was in no hurry to leave the womb.   At 36 weeks, M was having a lot of contractions, and we went in to the hospital, but that faded and everything returned to normal.

The Swiss term is calculated at 40 weeks, but at "term day", baby was showing no signs of coming out.  The days continued to pass, and except for M getting tired of being pregnant (and being tired, as sleep was tough for her), no changes from the baby.

At 41weeks, we had another check-up, and everything was fine, but no progress, so we scheduled the induction for 2 days later.  However, the next day, baby decided it was time.  After some late night "cramps", we went back to the hospital early Sunday morning (01:39).  Just under 7 hours later, an exhausted M gave birth to a healthy baby girl, C.  M was relieved.  C was not so thrilled.   K didn't know what to think.

The girls stayed in the hospital until Wednesday, when we all came home to introduce the new addition to Major and Minor (they weren't very impressed).

In the past month, everyone has been healthy, though M is having even more challenges sleeping than during the 3rd trimester (though now the challenges aren't from internal discomfort) - on the bright side, we can walk around town for more than an hour without needing a pit stop.  And, the weather in May was unusually nice, giving some great opportunities to walk around town with C in a carrier.

C is growing well.

We're been Skyping with family quite a bit, and have been astounded at the gifts and well-wishes that keep pouring in from friends and family.

We have a lot to be very, very thankful for.

Lessons learned:

1. The couchette bunks on overnight trains really are not appropriate for 6 to 7 month pregnant lady who doesn't sleep very well.

2.  Tiring easily, having a low tolerance for cold weather, navigating huge icy patches and having to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes makes sight-seeing in Prague not as pleasurable as it could be for a very pregnant lady.
3. It is very common in Switzerland for practically everyone you know (including coworkers) to visit you in the hospital during your stay after you have a baby.  M declined, which wound up being for the best because the hospital environment stressed her out. However, that didn't stop the visitors for her roommate from coming and coming.

Recipes for U.S. Expats - 1 Year and 47 Weeks

We had a rather pleasant and quiet Christmas and New Year.  We originally planned to do some shopping in France, but M caught a pretty bad cold, so we just stayed in Neuchatel, except for a jaunt over to the Ikea in Lyssach to buy some home-organization materials (shelves, boxes, etc).

Things have continued to be quiet, although we've both been busy at work, and M has been going to a handful of doctor's appointments (K comes to the more-fun ones with the ultrasounds).  Everything seems to be going pretty well so far.  We've tried to sign up for a birth class at the hospital and will wait to hear when it's being scheduled.  K has almost figured out what kind of car seat we need to buy, and we found a consignment shop in the next town over that specializes in baby stuff.

With the time at home, M has been trying out some recipes for items that she misses from "back home."  With few other adventures to regale, she thought it would be fun to sum up some of the recipes she's tried:

"Poptarts"

1. Homemade poptarts:  Yes, the first question is what is so special about pop tarts that you'd want to make them at home?  You can hardly even call them food; they are really more of a food product.  However, like many items on the list, one of the things that makes them so special is that you can't get them here.  And let's face it, they are a very convenient breakfast food [product].  I found a couple recipes online, but decided on this one.  I filled them with a mix of strawberry jam or kiwi preserves each mixed with a little bit of cornstarch.  The final 'tarts were about twice the thickness of real Poptarts.  They turned out really well, but I think I liked them better without the frosting, which is not the case for real poptarts.  The icing tasted too much like powdered sugar.  I think maybe a royal icing might taste more authentic.

2. Velveeta shells and cheese:  Yes, yes, we know.  They have such great cheese in Europe; why in the hell would anyone want the plastic-y cheese food?  Well, lots of reasons; it is creamy (Velveeta and American cheese are awesome melters), and it is such a comfort food.  And sometimes you want to just scarf down a big bowl of this stuff.  Nobody wants to scarf down a bowl of mac and cheese, where the cheese was $30/lb+; that is a dish to be savored thoughtfully and slowly, appreciating every cheesy nuance.  So, I have found the best approximation to American mac and cheese so far.  Boil up whatever pasta you like, spoon a good helping of it into a bowl and then break up 2 or 3 wedges of Laughing Cow (La Vache qui Rit) cheese and mix them into the hot pasta.  Add a splash of milk and microwave for a little bit.  The Laughing Cow will not melt like Velveeta, but when it's hot you can kind of smear it around.  Add a bit of salt, and enjoy.

3.  Biscuits (au Ken):  We broke into the can of Crisco M brought back at Thanksgiving.  Ken made some of the fluffiest little biscuits thanks to the Betty Crocker cookbook.  They were so delicious that we requested another can of Crisco from a visitor that was coming to town.

4. English muffins:  M was hoping to be able to find English muffins, or at least crumpets, which are pretty close, but no luck.  She had found bagels, but they were more like California bagels than NY bagels (more bready than bagely) - still they were pretty good toasted with cream cheese.  She came across an Alton Brown recipe on Foodnetwork.com and decided to give it a go.  Without good temperature control, most of the them came out "highly caramelized."  Also, she didn't have a scoop so she had to estimate, and the first several were oversized.  They came out pretty close to the "real thing,"
but she thinks tired yeast meant that they didn't have nearly enough nooks and crannies.

5. Coquito/Puerto Rican Egg Nog:  Not normally a huge fan of egg nog, M had a bit of a craving for it during the holidays.  They don't sell egg nog here, nor do they sell pasteurized eggs, so with the pregnancy, M needed to find a "safe" egg nog recipe.  Having always loved the Coquito that Yvette would make for New Years, she searched the internet for a recipe.  She used this one, omitting the rum, save for a tablespoon, for a portion for herself.  (It does call for condensed milk, which we happened to have a can of that we brought back from the US.) It was pretty good and hit the spot, but wasn't quite as good as Yvette's.

Other recipes we've tried in the past:
Texas flour tortillas - Really liked these
Cranberry sauce - Made this for Thanksgiving 2010. Honey was a bit overwhelming, would want to make again with more neutral corn syrup, but I haven't seen corn syrup here.
Stove top stuffing - Not that complicated.  Just need onions, celery, parsley, stale bread, and broth.

Recipes we'd like to try:
1) Asadero cheese - This is also known as quesadilla cheese.  I am also waiting for an entrepreneurial cheese maker to make some American and/or Mexican style cheeses.  Really, they don't know what they are missing here.
2) Reese's peanut butter cups - M brought some back from the states on her last trip, and she is trying to make the bag last, but these really don't seem too difficult to make.  She'll probably try either this recipe or a close variation.
3) Graham crackers - We just don't know if we can find graham flour.  Also, although they sell molasses, it is mostly corn syrup.

Last weekend, while M was making pop-tarts, K walked the Sentier du Temps, where every meter along the path takes you a million years through time, with wood-carvings to represent the epoch.  K started at "today" and walked uphill to Chaumont traveling "back in time" [cue Huey Lewis & The News soundbite with Marty McFly].  Neuchatel experienced some strong wind-storms in early January, so there were a few fallen trees on the trail, but otherwise it was a nice walk on a brisk, sunny day.  Upon reaching the top, K took the funicular and bus back home.

Lessons learned:
1. For how snide Europeans can be about American food, they make a lot of crap food themselves.  It's not that there isn't a lot of great European food; there certainly is.  But just as Americans make some rather low quality food products, cheese in a can, McDonald's hamburgers, Doritos, etc, so do the French and Swiss.  Cases in point: gruyere melty singles (look and feel like American cheese, smell like Gruyere, and do not melt for crap) or Laughing Cow pasteurized cheese food or the famous Swiss mayonnaise salads (seriously it's half mayonnaise and cream and the other half some slaw cut vegetable and I've seen meals where they have two or three of these on one table) or the peanut flavored puffs (think cheesy puffs but with peanut flavor).  And yet, we also know that France and most of Europe also make wonderful food: from wonderful cheese, chocolate and bread to porcini, truffles, and pancetta.  And guess what, so does America. We just happen to mostly export the lower quality stuff.  My opinion is that we need to do a better job in educating the rest of the world about America's wonderfully diverse food culture, in which we make exquisite chocolate chip cookies, handmade goat cheeses, flavorful Tex-Mex burritos, Southern barbeque, New England clam chowder, San Francisco sourdough, etc.
2. There is an international analog to a notary seal known as an apostille.  It can be used between parties that have signed the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, which include the US and most of Europe.  At least some Swiss cantons require that US official documents (e.g. birth certificates, marriage certificates) contain an apostille to be recognized by the local government.   This is quite important to know as the marriage certificate and birth certificates of parents who are foreign nationals are required to register the birth of child in Switzerland.  The birth must first be registered officially in Switzerland before the consular report of birth abroad and the paperwork to declare US citizenship can be submitted to the US Consulate/Embassy.  (By the way, no, birth in Switzerland guarantees no rights at all to Swiss citizenship.)  According to the Swiss US Embassy, a child born abroad to two US citizen parents at least one of whom has resided in the US prior to the birth is considered a US citizen at birth (i.e. natural born).

One year and 42 weeks - M's Thanksgiving in the US, K in Belgium, and Visiting French and German Christmas Markets

Notre Dame of Sablon

K had a business trip to Brussels the week of Thanksgiving.  He arrived in Brussels early Monday afternoon, dropped off his luggage at the hotel, and headed into town to see some sights.  The hotel was a 10minute walk outside the inner/downtown area, so, with a little guidance from the hotel staff, off he went.

The Palace of Justice was an impressive structure, with large arcades, grand stairways, and a huge inner atrium, topped off with a cupola 100m above street level.  Per the guidebook, it took 17years to build.

Next was Notre Dame of Sablon, a gothic church with amazing stained-glass windows.  It was a sunny day, so there were splashes of color throughout the building as the sun shone in through the windows.

City Hall

Brewer's House

After walking by the Royal Palace, the official home of the royal family (who knew Belgium was a kingdom?!), K headed to the Grand Place.  The square is faced with the 15^th-century, gothic City Hall and 17^th-century guild houses; an incredible architectural collection.  One of the fanciest guild houses was the Brewer’s House, which was open, so K headed in to tour the Beer Museum.

After the museum, K wandered some of the streets around the Grand Place, discovering several other gothic churches, including the Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule, a beer store called the Beer Temple, the neighborhoods of Saint Catherine and Saint Gery, and also a little statue, famous world-wide, of a little peeing boy: Manneken Pis.  But enough architecture and sights, K was really interested in the beer, so he headed back to the Beer Temple to check out the selection.

Manneken Pis

 As Abbey and Trappist ales rank high on K’s beer favorites list, this was his first focus.  There are 6 Trappist breweries in Belgium (Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, and Westvleteren), and five of them distribute their beers fairly broadly, so K had tasted (or at least seen) all of the beers except Westvleteren.

When K and M took beercation 2010 to Belgium, we did a little research.  According to the Westvleteren abbey website, their beers are sold exclusively at the abbey store, only after making a reservation by telephone.  They’ll only answer one call per month from your telephone.  When making the reservation, you register your car’s license plate number.  The same license plate cannot return for 60days after the reservation.  As this seemed very daunting, we didn’t bother trying for Westvleteren.

So, K was delightedly shocked to find beers from all six Belgian Trappist breweries on the shelf in the Beer Temple.  The Westvelteren bottles were noticeably more expensive than their brethren, but available; it seems some Belgian capitalists have recognized the opportunity provided by the Westvleteren abbey’s tight control of supply, and there is a limited resale market.  There were two brews for sale, the blonde and the 8, so he purchased one of each; there will be a tasting in the coming weeks/months.

Parc du Cinquantenaire

The next few days were training for work, so no sight-seeing, but Thursday evening, class ended, and K headed back out to see more of Brussels.  He headed Esat to visit the Parc du Cinquantenaire; begun in 1880 to celebrate Belgium’s 50^th anniversary of independence.  25years later, the park, museums, and triumphal arch were completed.

Heading West back into the old city, he passed through the European Commission area, the capital of the EU.  Big, recent office buildings in the heart of Brussels.  Apparently, this was a high-rent district prior to the EU, and the government bought-out all the land-owners, razed everything, and built the capital right in the middle of Brussels.

Some further wandering brought K to the Brussels Comic Book Museum, filled with Schtroumpfs/Smurfs, Tintin, and other popular characters.

Friday morning, K headed for a whirlwind trip to Brugges.  He bought his train ticket at 0759 for the 0800 train; fortunately, the previous train on the platform was 5minutes late, so the timing worked fine.  Arriving at Brugges’ train station a little after 0900, K grabbed his guidebook and started walking.  For the next 90 minutes, K saw churches filled with art, the city hall with its enormous Belfry, narrow and winding streets, canals, fish markets, almshouses, a convent, and grand squares.

Brugges' Belfry

Brugges City Hall

Little wonder that this “Venice of the North” is a UNESCO world heritage site; it’s very pretty and worth much more time, but there’s no more time on this trip!  The walk brought K back to the Brugges’ train station at 1034 to catch the 1035 train to Brussels; followed by a walk in the rain, K arrived back at the hotel at 1156, in plenty of time for the 1200 checkout.

After lunch and a taxi-ride to the airport, K had an uneventful flight and train ride home to Neuchatel, where Major and Minor were waiting for dinner.

Thanksgiving in U.S.

While K was in Belgium, M decided to go home to the US to celebrate Thanksgiving.  She arrived Sunday evening and had a great time going shopping, seeing a friend also in town for the holidays, and spending time with family.  Thanksgiving day was great and started with a few minutes of watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade on television, driving up to her grandmothers for "The Meal", gorging herself on food (tried each of the 4 pies available), and watching a family slideshow.  One of her favorite parts of the trip was eating lots of Mexican/Mexicanish food.  

Last weekend, our friend Charlotte came to Neuchâtel on her way to Stuttgart for work.  She spent the night with us Friday, and then Saturday we all drove up to Strasbourg, France, the Capital of Christmas, to see their famous Christmas market (Marché de Noël) on our way to Stuttgart.

Vin cuit

Strasbourg Christmas Market Stop 1:
Wine tasting 

Even though Strasbourg is only 3 hours away from Neuchâtel, it took us a bit longer with all the pit stops for M.  We made it to Strasbourg just before lunch, and the first Christmas market village we encountered had a Wine and Baked goods theme.  (What a wonderful way to start a Christmas market stroll!) After Charlotte and Ken tried some local white wines and M drooled over baked goods, we moved along to the some of the other "villages."

We meandered past the stalls selling candles, ornaments, ceramic houses, and wooden decorations.   Most of the town was decorated, and the main streets within the Christmas market region all seemed to have a different decorating theme/style.  It was hard not to get into the holiday mood with all the decorations and people enjoying themselves.

Choucroute alsacienne

M and Charlotte with Neuchatel Santa

Every year, the market has a guest country of honor; this year's was Switzerland.  It was funny to see a bunch of stalls selling Swiss tchotchkes and selling raclette and fondue.  After winding around the stalls, we started to look for lunch.  By the time, we got to looking for food we were having trouble meeting the demands of having a vegetarian dish, having Alsatian sauerkraut for K, and the restaurant not being full.  Finally, we settled on a restaurant we had seen on our previous trip.  K and Charlotte split a double order of Alsatian sauerkraut (choucroute alsacienne) with 6 garnies.  Although this sounds like six garnishes, the giant plate of sauerkraut came with 6 different pork preparations (ranging from sausage to pork belly to pork knuckle) and some boiled potatoes.  

Strasbourg Christmas
light display chandelier

Strasbourg marché light display

After lunch, we meandered once again through the stalls, saw the outdoor ice rink, and went into the cathedral to hear the children's choir sing Christmas carols, primarily in English, and admire the stained glass windows.   After getting sort of lost, we found a stall that makes fresh belgian waffles on sticks and then coats them in chocolate.  (This was definitely one of M's favorite finds of the day.)   Shortly into our late afternoon meander, the daylight was already beginning to wane so the Christmas light displays were coming on.  (The street with the chandelier displays was one of the more breathtaking.)

After oohing and aahing at the pretty lights, we headed back to the car and started our drive to Stuttgart.  Our original intent was to spend a few hours in Heidelberg (a cute, old college town also known for its Christmas market), but we ran out of time and decided it would be better to save it for another day.  After about two hours, we got to Stuttgart, checked into the hotel, and went out to dinner with Charlotte and two guys that work for her.

Mercedes Benz Museum

Mercedes Benz Museum
Daimler's first motorcycle: 1885

The next day, we decided to use the morning to see the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart.  We went with Charlotte and one of the guys from dinner the previous night.  Drooling over cars is not really our schtick, but we actually quite enjoyed it.  The museum was five or six levels and went through the history of car design and the history of the Mercedes Benz company.  They had cars/vehicles from the 1880s to 2011.  

Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt

After the museum we headed back to the center of town to have lunch and to see what Stuttgart's Christmas market (Weihnachtsmarkt) had to offer.  It's claim to fame is being the largest Christmas market in Germany.  We didn't find it to be that much bigger than the Strasbourg market, but the drunken football fans waiting for the Stuttgart-Munich game that night did put a slight damper on the holiday atmosphere.  After the market we headed back to the hotel to get our car and begin our long drive back home to Neuchâtel.

Snow in Neuchâtel

M had a somewhat exciting week this week, with bowling with the Quality Engineering department on Monday night and a "Christmas" dinner with her project team on Friday night.  Saturday was spent grocery shopping.  There was also some excitement this weekend as Neuchâtel saw its first real snow of the 2011/2012 winter season.  

Lessons learned:

1. Brussels is cobbled.  This probably means the sidewalks will last forever and it’s quaint.  But after long walks, on constantly uneven surfaces, it gets tiring.

2. In the 14^th Century, Brussels was a walled city.  The one remaining gate, the Port de Hal, is a castle standing in a small park surrounded by the city.  As you walk along busy city streets, it’s a bit surprising to turn a corner and find a castle!

3. For all the fame, Manneken Pis is quite small.  If it wasn’t for the crowd around the little Pis boy, K would have walked right by.

4. Vin cuit can be red or white. The white stuff is a bit better than the red. 

5. English and American Christmas carols are not the same.  Many have the same words, but a different melody.  K found this out a few weeks ago when he went caroling in Neuchatel with a local English-speaking church.

6. Shortly after the first automobile, the Daimler folks put their engines into boats and aircraft.  The dirigible basket with a 2-way clutch (separate vertical propulsion and horizontal propulsion) from the 1880s was awesome!  Even today, that's a neat feat of engineering.

7. Many European McDonald's do not serve breakfast.  Important to know if you are looking for a place to make a pit-stop early in the morning.

8. The phrase "Montezuma's revenge" must not have the same cultural impact the world-over.  At dinner Saturday night in Stuttgart, the restaurant offered "Montezuma's ribs", ribs with Montezuma sauce.  Now, as a self-respecting, meat-eating 'mericun, K would rather have a side order of e-coli, than douse his plate in "Montezuma sauce".  The entire table, even the native Israeli, passed on this delectable delight.

9. A coworker gave M some coings, i.e. quinces.  After ignoring them for a week or two, a quince-paste-making-evening was held.  While peeling the quince seems to be the general rule (per the interwebs), M carefully saved some of the skins to get the extra pectin, but K quickly tossed those random skins with all the other "waste bits", so the quince paste isn't quite as thick as we'd expected.  But, it is interesting to learn that while quince paste is bright red, the flesh of the quince is white.  The cooking turns the flesh red.  So, the ultimate lesson learned for this blog: coing are related to homard, quince are related to lobsters.

One year and 37 weeks - The grand hiatus and adventure subpart b, around Neuchatel, and visiting Israel

The blog has been on a bit of hiatus over the last two months, part of the reason for which we'll get to in a little bit.  For the most of that time, we relaxed in and around Neuchatel, taking it easy.  At first, we were keeping things low-key as we had planned a weeklong trip to Greece for mid-September.  Unfortunately, the week before our trip, M fell ill.  She had been working on a team project with people from other sites for the week, and the team went out for dinner on Thursday night.  She started feeling ill at dinner and by Friday night, she couldn't keep anything down.  Thinking it was food poisoning or  nerves due to the upcoming trip (still anxious after the Spain debacle), she scheduled an appointment with a doctor to try to treat whatever it was before the Greece trip.  It turned out that the cause of illness was neither a bacteria, virus or mere anxiety; M was going to have a baby!

Feeling pretty awful and stressed out, we decided the best course of action was to cancel the Greece trip. M didn't think she could handle travel stress on top of constant nausea with 90 degree plus temperatures. We bit the bullet and cancelled what we could for the trip and ate the rest of the costs.  Instead, we took the following week off from work to relax.  Canceling the trip did allow us to experience some of the activities going on in Neuchatel, we would have missed otherwise.

As mentioned, 2011 is the 1000th anniversary (Le Millenaire) of Neuchatel.
  From 16-18 September, there were concerts throughout the town as part of the festivities.  K wandered down on Friday and Saturday to see some shows (Maceo Parker made sweet love to the town on Saturday night, despite some rain), and both K & M saw a Sunday afternoon show with plenty of dancing in the Place des Halles.
  The following weekend, the Swiss air patrol put on a show over the lake.  We missed most of it, because we had traveled to the nearby village of Le Landeron for their annual, giant flea/antique market. We have visited Le Landeron previously, and it was interesting to see the entire town converted into an open air bazaar.

  The Millenaire festivities ended with the 2011 grape harvest festival (Fete des Vendanges), the weekend of 23 Sept.  K went down to see the Guggenmusik parades and confetti cannons in full swing, as well as enjoying some wine.  Weeks later, he's still finding confetti bits in his shoes, jacket, and wallet.
  K and M went down on Sunday to check out the Midway, to eat some "ethnic" fair food, and deep-fried-spiral-cut-potatoes-on-a-stick (food on a stick that is subsequently fried, is a fair-gustation must; plus we had enjoyed the sticked-spiraled-fried-tater during the previous year while wandering the fete with Christina).
  Sunday evening finished the fete with a humongous fireworks display.  We watched from our deck, and the 35+ minutes of fireworks were truly impressive.  Bon Anniversaire, Neuchatel!

Walking the peat bog trail

  In October, K was driving to Le Locle quite a bit for work, and had passed through another valley, NW of Neuchatel a few times, and had noticed quite a bit of fall color.  About the same time, the local paper had an article on the fall color in the peat bogs in that same valley, so one fine weekend afternoon, we drove over to Les Ponts-de-Martel to see fall color and check out the bog.
  Having visited peat bogs during our Easter weekend in Ireland, some of the content was familiar, but we had never thought of Switzerland as a peat bog locale.  Decades after peat harvesting (mining?) activities had ended, one can still see the human impact on the valley.

  On 30 Oct, M caught an early morning train to Zurich, to then fly to Israel for work.  A few days later, K trained to Geneva, to spend the night in a hostel, to catch an early morning Easyjet flight to Israel, to spend the weekend with M exploring.
  The hostel was a pretty good deal, but two of Ken's "roommates" snored to beat the band, so it made a long night.  On the flight to Tel Aviv, K had a window seat, so was able to see some of the interesting topography passing below.  The plane passed near several Greek islands and over Rhodes.

View from our hotel

  K's map-less cross-city wandering, and M's drive from work, ended at nearly the same instant in front of the hotel, so things worked perfectly.  We spent Thursday evening walking around the area, finding and eating dinner, and spending some time in the local Irish pub where K enjoyed a pint of Guinness.

  On Friday (think Saturday as the Israeli work week is Sunday to Thursday), we walked to the big bazaar/market in Tel Aviv and marveled at the variety of goods on display.  We then continued down a nearby street through the Friday art market.  And after a short pause, we headed down the shore to Jaffa, to see the REALLY old port city and the bazaar there.  In addition for being really old, Jaffa is known for the being the site of several "historical" happenings.  Named after Noah's son Japheth, it is supposedly the location from which Jonah launched his trip which ended with him in the whale's belly, it is where Andromeda was tied to a rock by her parents as sacrifice to a sea monster after they had taunted Poseidon (fortunately, Andromeda was saved by Perseus), and St. Peter resurrected a widow there.

M and K in Jaffa

The city has traditionally been where Jews, Muslims, and Christians all lived together, perhaps not always peacefully.  We walked around the old city area where we saw some ruins, walked across (and wished on) the Wishing Bridge, and saw some great views of neighboring Tel Aviv.  

 After all the walking, M's hip was hurting (we probably walked about 10 km, some on hills), so she spent Saturday relaxing at the hotel pool, while K went on a "Bauhaus" walking tour of Tel Aviv to learn a little bit more about the relatively young city (founded in 1909 in deserted sand dunes next to Jaffa).

Jerusalem / Gold Dome
of the Rock

  Sunday, we got up early, picked up our rental car and GPS, and headed for Jerusalem.  The rental car and GPS folks clearly explained that we were not to head into any Palestinian-controlled areas, even to the point that the GPS would not work in those areas.  This was a problem, as we planned to head to the Dead Sea after Jerusalem, which means driving through some nominally Palestinian-controlled areas.  After discussing our itinerary, the GPS lady scrolled through the settings, to re-enable the maps, and even programmed in our waypoints, so we were all set to go.

  The drive to Jerusalem was uneventful, although getting to the Jaffa Gate and parking the car involved a fair amount of stop and go driving, uphill, in our compact, manual-transmission rental car (as well as trying to keep as zen as possible with the aggressive Israeli drivers).  We dutifully followed our Frommer's walking tour, and had a great time.  We saw the Dome of the Rock, but couldn't get onto the hill, as it was the week of the Hajj, so the area was closed to non-Muslims.  We saw the Western Wall (holiest place in Judaism), where K put on a "tourist yamulke" to get close (think of nice restaurants giving you a coat and tie to sit down to eat).  We saw the Mount of Olives, along with the Garden of Gesthemane.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

  Then, we walked to the Jewish Quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where under a single roof, they have the bedrock crack that held the true cross, the stone where Jesus was laid to be prepared for burial, and his tomb.  Where the Western Wall was fairly quiet and contemplative, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was busy and crowded.  The relics were vaguely interesting, but we were probably more struck by the decorations on the walls and ceilings, including some magnificent, sparkly mosaics.
  We had a quick lunch and then drove on to the Dead Sea.  On the way, the drive took us through pretty empty desert.  We did see some huts, and the poverty in the area is striking.  But, what struck us more, was why in the world anyone would fight over this empty, barren, desert.  After 30 minutes of desert driving (seeing some camels ready to pose with tourists), we caught site of the Dead Sea, and shortly thereafter reached our destination.  After changing, and reading all the warning signs (don't drink the water; don't get the water in your eyes; don't submerge your head; don't taunt happy fun ball; etc) we made our way down some steps to the shore.

Floating in the Dead Sea

  The Northern end of the Dead Sea is supposed to be muddy, and it was.  Lots of dark, dark, mud, but so fine it was like silt.  We both marveled as we bobbed around like styrofoam, with barely any part of us underwater.  While floating reclined, it was actually difficult to push a leg or arm underwater, as it would just pop back up, lacking leverage to hold it down.
  After climbing out, M felt the salt burning her, so we rinsed off and headed back to Tel Aviv.  We had to pass through one security checkpoint (also requiring stop and go driving up a hill, in the manual-trans rental car; with all that darned empty desert, K thinks that positioning the checkpoint at the top of a hill is an intentional jerk-move).

Western Wall in Jerusalem

Monday morning, the Israeli labor unions held a 2hr strike, causing virtually no real disruption, but Easyjet decided to cancel all flights for 28 hours, so K was "stuck" in Israel.  As there were some important meetings back in CH, we bought an extra ticket on M's flight and we had an uneventful return home (although we did have to go through 5 security checks at the airport; why in the world they make it harder to leave the country than to enter is beyond us).

Lessons learned:
1) Positives of having a baby in Switzerland: a) the basic, mandatory insurance in Switzerland covers a lot of prenatal care and the cost of delivery, b) maternity leave is quite good - our site offers a little bit more than what's mandated by the government - M can have up to 18 weeks of maternity leave with full pay
2) Negatives of having a baby in Switzerland: a) no good access to American food cravings - also forget it if you "need" something in the middle of the night-out of luck, b) not really negative, but there are no citizenship rights for someone born in Switzerland, c) only understand about 80% of what the doctor's are saying - a lot speak only a little bit of English
3) Israeli drivers are jerks.
4) The sand on Tel Aviv beaches is crazy soft, like baby powder.
5) The Dead Sea is considered the lowest place on earth: 423 meters below sea level.  According to Wikipedia, it is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean.  (As it is Wikipedia, I would take it with a grain of salt...pun intended.)
6) In Israel: Irish food - good (the Irish pub bartender even drew a shamrock in Ken's Guinness), Mediterranean food - good, Middle Eastern food - good, Italian food - good, Asian food (thai, japanese) - good, Mexican food - not so good (mozzarella is not an acceptable substitute for queso blanco or Monterey Jack, and parmesan does not go on an enchilada, ever - M's food tasted more Italian than Mexican, K's fish tacos were better)
7) Maceo Parker is incredibly funky today.  I can only imagine his stage presence decades ago with James Brown, Parliament, and Prince.
8) Neuchatel throws one heck of a birthday party!

One year and 26 weeks - Favorable exchange rates and hiking to Chaumont

K after his 2011 swim in Lake Neuchâtel

Two weekends ago, we walked into town for the 22nd annual Neuchatel Buskers festival.  Unlike last year, when M got drafted as an audience volunteer, this year, we just watched all of the performances.  One of the best was an Indian troupe that had tightrope walking and pole-climbing.  But we also enjoyed seeing musicians from the U.S. to Africa to Italy.  We were a bit disappointed to have missed the big brass hip hop band this year that some colleagues had seen.  Also, that weekend, K did his second annual swim in Lake Neuchatel.  He managed to get the swim in just before the sky opened up and there was a downpour.

During the week, we attended a Jazz/Dixieland concert.  One of our coworkers is the keyboard player in the band.  Nice night with lots of good music.  Not at all what we expected from a "Jazz evening", but very enjoyable.

Last weekend, Ken had to spend Saturday morning at work.  While K was out, M was called on by a visitor she'd never seen before: Mr. Fox.  She noticed a furry, cat-like object on the patio.  On further inspection, she saw that it was, in fact, a red fox trying to catch a nap on the sunny patio.  She tried to get some pictures and a video, but the fox wasn't really interested in performing, so most of the videos just focus on a large curled-up hairball that only moves every 30 seconds to swat at the flies buzzing around it.  On Sunday, there was more animal excitement to be had at the local ecofair up in the hills at Cressier.  We got to pet goats, sheep, and cows, and we got to see llamas, pigs, chickens, alpine cows, and rabbits.  There were demonstrations on fiber carding and barn bowling.  We enjoyed walking around to all the stalls to see the organic wares for sale.  We even got in a little bit of wine tasting.  For lunch, M had a solar-cooked crepe with cheese and tomato.

Our neighbor, Mr. Fox

As you may be aware at the moment, if you've been following global finance, the Swiss franc is incredibly strong at the moment.  While the US dollar and the euro get hammered by the economic crises, people have been buying up the Swiss franc.  This, in turn, has caused the Swiss currency to became very strong, to the detriment of local Swiss exporters.  In the mean time, contrary to logic, Swiss prices for goods, including imports, have remained high.  This means now is an excellent time to go shopping across the border. (Note: K complains that this will screw-up our US taxes; but M thinks he's a silly bugger)

Therefore, this past weekend, we tried to get in a little bit of sight-seeing, as well as stimulating the French economy in the French alpine cities of Grenoble and Chambery.   We drove almost three hours to get to Grenoble first, the "capital of the French Alps", a medium size city with a gritty French charm.  One of the main reasons we had chosen Grenoble was due to a particular store that sells travel bags, but as luck would have it, the store was closed due to the owner's month long vacation.  (That's as irritating as it sounds.)  We tried to let it go and spent most of the morning and afternoon strolling through the city, popping into stores every now and then, in fact, buying very little considering a good part of the reason for the trip was to shop.  What we were able to take advantage of was the weather which turned mostly sunny as opposed to the gloomy rain in Neuchatel.  We had a pleasant lunch outside, not far from one of the town's fountains.

Elephant  Fountain, Chambery, France

We decided to take the country roads to our next destination, Chambery, which turned the journey from a half hour to an hour, but saved us road tolls and allowed us to see some amazing scenery.  There were beautiful views of the French Alps, and the scenery switched back and forth between cute little villages, pasture land, and forested gullies.  Before entering Chambery, we had some fun picking out products to try in a local supermarket.  After the supermarket, our destination inside Chambery (randomly picked from GPS selections) was the Elephant Fountain, one of the most famous attractions in Chambery.  The fountain was built in the 1800s to commemorate native son Benoît de Boigne's exploits in India.  After the fountain, we wandered through town to see what there was to see.  Both Chambery and Grenoble have good sized pedestrian areas so they were pretty easy to walk through.  On our walk we found the castle, with it's semi-circle tower, and a petanque court adjacent to it. After walking around town, we went in search of dinner.  We decided on an Indian restaurant which we sorely miss from the US.  K got a prix fixe menu with tandoori quail, and M got the veggie menu with a korma curry.  We were stuffed, and as we walked to the car for the long and late drive home, we agreed we would have to do some exercise the next day.

Therefore, we decided to go for a hike in the area. We settled on heading for Chaumont, the local peak where we had gone with Mary and Jack to show them the views over the Three Lakes.  2.4-hour hike up, a lovely picnic in the sun, and then 1.5-hour walk back down (much less strenuous than the walk up); a great way to spend Sunday.

View from about halfway up our hike

We crossed the Sentier du Temps trail, a sculptural rendition of the history of the life on Earth.  From reading local tourist brochures, M was looking for Dinosaurs; but all we saw was a tree-stump carving of  stromatolites (blue-green-algae nodules), as we didn't follow the "paleohistoric path" but just crossed it from time to time.

Lessons learned:
1)  It only takes a month and a half to get a duplicate, replacement Swiss residence card from the Neuchatel Controle des Habitants.  And, we got our replacement VW car key!
2) M likes Wheat beers; the "introductory woman's beer" per craftbeertemple.com (our new source of beer-tainment)
3) Lightning storms over the lake are quite excellent! (Bill & Ted Rule!)  Last week, the hot weather came to an end and storms rolled into Switzerland (the same bad weather we were looking to avoid by spending a weekend in France).
4) Since we moved to Neuchatel, we have noticed that our fellow Neuchatelois have shopping trolleys (big fabric/plastic bags on wheels; like hiking-backpack big, but they pull along the ground on wheels).  Locally, they cost 80-130 CHF.  In Grenoble, we scored one for 30 Euro.  K spent the rest of the day dragging it around with a grin on his face!
5) K will now spend the rest of his time in Neuchatel dragging the afore-mentioned shopping trolley up the darn hill to the apartment.  Let's see how much he smiles then.  Sucka!!!!