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.

Weeks 38 and 39 - M in Amsterdam and Arrival of Winter in Neuchâtel

Last weekend, Margaret went with two coworkers for a short trip to Amsterdam. She stayed home Friday morning, and that afternoon, the three of them drove to Basel for their flight to Amsterdam. After navigating through Amsterdam's mall-like airport, they caught a crowded train into the city center. After they found the hotel behind the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), they took a stroll through the old town, including the infamous Red Light District.

The Red Light District was filled with tourists pointing and laughing at the wares in the sex shops. Items for sale ranged from paraphernalia you would expect to find in an erotic shop to naughty Christmas ornaments. In addition to the shops, there were establishments with live shows that had explicit posters posted outside. The famous window displays, however, were a little separated from this.

Along one of the city's canals flowing through the area, there were buildings with large windows and women of various ages and physiques dressed in their skimpiest undergarments waiting for clients. Some sat and people-watched; others beckoned to potential clients coyly. In all, M found it somewhat depressing and preferred to focus on the swans and ducks swimming along the canal.

In additional to carnal pleasures, Amsterdam also offers psychedelic experiences. 18+ "coffee shops" were everywhere (not just the Red Light District), and it looked like few people were actually drinking coffee in them We did not step inside one, so we could not see the offerings, but we had no problem smelling pot from outside the doors as we walked past. In addition to the coffee shops, it was possible to buy psychedelic mushrooms and other substances all around town. Some of these items could be found in souvenir shops, which also sold t-shirts and Amsterdam snow globes and pretty much any drug paraphernalia you could think of. In all, Amsterdam seemed pretty surreal. One of M's co-travellers likened it to Las Vegas, but I don't think LV is even close.

Amsterdam isn't just about getting in trouble, however. With its canals, it is beautiful to walk through. It has good restaurants and several good museums. On Saturday, the travelers visited the Van Gogh museum. It was really well put together. In addition to the large collection of Van Gogh's own paintings, it also included paintings and drawings by his contemporaries, from whom he drew inspiration. The museum also nicely linked his art to his life history and had interesting anecdotes about the paintings. Afterwards, we walked around Vogelpark which was reminiscent of New York's central park or Munich's English Garden but smaller. Saturday evening, we had Indonesian for dinner. Amsterdam has a significant Indonesian population and is well-known for Indonesian cuisine.

The food was delicious, but a little too spicy for M. But she found it better than the Dutch food she'd eaten the previous night which had consisted of boiled cabbage, boiled leeks, boiled potatoes, hard-boiled egg, and butter in a bowl of water. Also Saturday evening, the group tried a local alcoholic specialty called Genever. Genever is a liquor that comes in a couple of flavors, but the original flavor is somewhat similar to gin but is more herby and less piney. The custom is to fill a small aperitif glass until the liquid bubbles over the top. You sip the liquid off the top with the glass still on the table until you can pick it up reasonably without spilling it everywhere. M thought this might be some ploy by the bartenders to make tourists look stupid, but she observed several Dutch also sipping hands-free on the bar.

Sunday, we took a boat tour of the canals. It was in a glass covered boat that went all around the city, including into the harbor. It was really interesting to hear the commentary from the captain regarding local monuments and history of the city.

One thing that was brought to our attention were the short guard rails along the canals which were installed by insurance companies a few decades ago in an effort to prevent cars from rolling into the canals. They supposedly paid for themselves in a year. Apparently, even today around 40 cars and bikes go in the canals each year. The rest of Sunday was spent walking around the city, going in and out of shops, until it was time to head back to the airport.

While M was galavanting through Europe's city of sin, Ken was brewing up his own trouble...literally. He took advantage of her being away to brew another batch of brown abbey ale, meaning he could waft in the delicious smells of barley and hops in peace.

This past week while friends and family back home got ready for a grand feasts and a few days off of work, the Boltons slogged through a normal work week. It doesn't mean, however, they missed out on the Thanksgiving festivities entirely. M and one of her old coworkers from California (who transferred to this site a couple years ago) decided to host a "real American Thanksgiving" for the project team of which she is a part. The lunch was to feature the old stand-bys of turkey (or a turkey-like bird), mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing/dressing, cranberry sauce, and, of course, pumpkin pie. Of course, we were missing several other important players like sweet potato casserole (with pecans and brown sugar, thank you) and cloverleaf rolls, but we couldn't make it too complicated. Keep in mind also, that we were serving this in the middle of the workday for lunch, so we didn't have all morning to cook. The coworker made mashed potatoes and gravy (veggie recipe provided by M) and bought half a dozen roasted chickens. That left M with everything else. The thing to understand is that there are no French's fried onions here, no Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, no Stove-Top stuffing, no Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, and no Libby's pureed pumpkin (let alone Mrs. Smith's pumpkin pie). Therefore, everything was made from scratch except for the pie crust, which M prefers to make by hand but she already had enough to do. To replace the fried onions, she deep-fried sliced leeks. The cream of mushroom soup was made ahead of time and frozen. Sliced sandwich bread was cubed and dried. Cranberry sauce was made with fresh cranberries (amazing that they were available) à la Alton Brown. And the pumpkin/squash was roasted, pureed, and strained by hand. It took a week and half the refrigerator space we had. However, the end result was...not bad. Some of our Swiss and French colleagues really liked the mashed potatoes and gravy and the stuffing. And the pumpkin pie (which actually was primarily pumpkin tart because we only had one pie plate) was a big hit. It was nice to share with our European colleagues and show them that American food is more than cheese burgers. However, with all the work, M's not sure she'll sign up to do it again next year. Maybe something with less people and more of a potluck.

Autumn appears to have let its guard down at the end of this month and got leg-swept by Winter. (Sweep the leg, Johnny!) Earlier this week, M had to go to a 2 day training in La Chaux de Fonds, about 20 km north and at a higher elevation. It was a winter wonderland, with everything covered in snow. She thought "it sure is nice that it's snowing up here in La Chaux de Fonds and not down in Neuchâtel" and then Thursday night happened. Thanksgiving night it started snowing pretty hard. When we woke up Friday morning, the hill side next to our bed room window was covered, and light was shining in the window off the snow. Then it took us 10 minutes to de-snow the car before driving off to work. Friday night a lot of the snow melted, but Saturday morning, the ground was recovered with a blanket of white. And all day Saturday, the snow kept coming down. Winter is definitely here.

Lessons learned:

1) Indonesian food is quite good, spicy.

2) Chocolate covered waffles rock! K and M had seen chocolate dipped waffles in Belgium a few months ago but had missed out on getting to try one. On the Amsterdam trip, however, M was able to get ahold of one of these delicious confections. It looks like a Belgian waffle, but it appears to be soaked in sugar and is probably fried. The donut/waffle is then covered in a fudgy glaze, very much like the chocolate glaze on a Dunkin Donut. Result is over-the-top deliciousness. M predicts some entrepreneur will make millions if they bring this back to the States.

3) Just because it snows more in Le Locle, don't think it won't snow in Neuchâtel.

4) Ski season is nearly here, but in our apartment, we don't have a good place to wax our skis and snowboard.

5) November is the month of the 13th salary which means we got a nice increase in our paychecks this month. During the year, you get paid 1/13th of your salary each month. Towards the end of the year, for one month, you get paid 2/13 of your yearly salary. Perhaps it's a way to try to retain employees for the entire year or perhaps it's to make sure that you'll have enough money for Christmas presents. Regardless, it is a bit of a morale booster.

Weeks 36 and 37 - Travailler en Suisse (Working in Switzerland)

The last couple weeks have been rather short on adventure. The Boltons have primarily been working. We've been averaging 12 to 13 hour days with some laptop work on weekends. Therefore, not a whole lot of chance to do exploring.

What we have noticed are Christmas decorations in the stores. It seems like in the U.S. that you start seeing stores trying to sneak out there Christmas items starting in August, but stuff hasn't shown up here until November. The chocolate sections in the department/grocery stores seemed to have exploded and are threatening to take over half the stores. There are chocolate-filled advent calendars, sampler gift boxes, and bags of liqueur-filled chocolates everywhere. (And believe or not, no Thanksgiving decorations out yet?!)

The weather has been kind of crazy. We've had a lot of rain lately, and the dark is continuing to close in. This past week, we had several days with temperatures very close to 0. In fact, Monday night when M went to pick up K from working (after she had come home to start a load of laundry), it was actually snowing up at the plant, a few hundred meters up hill from our apartment. We did seem to have (at least) a brief respite from the dreary and cold weather this weekend with mostly blue sky and highs in the upper 50s/low 60s.

Lessons in learned:

1. There are special attachments you can buy for your shoes to ensure better traction on icy surfaces. They're essentially crampons for high heels or fancy oxford shoes. Even K, who spent quite a bit of his time growing up in Michigan, did not recall such items being sold in the lower peninsula. I think this is foreshadowing what we're in for this winter.

2. Swiss refrigerated cookie dough is not made by Pillsbury. Don't expect the spread-out, chewy cookies. Basically, the cookies baked into these little 1 1/4 inch pucks the same diameter as the dough roll. Ah well, it was worth a shot. I think I'll stick to the Tollhouse recipe.

3. On our last post, we mentioned our eye-exams for our Swiss driving licenses. What we subsequently learned was that the Cantonal DMV takes your old license (not really a surprise) and in its place gives you a piece of paper that says you have a license. None of this late-20th Century technology, instant-print license nonsense.

Now, we are quite confident that this piece of paper will work fine within the French-speaking/reading part of CH. And it will probably work in the rest of CH. But with a business-trip to the US coming up, K wasn't so sure that Avis would be so accepting. K: "But it says right here that I have a license." Avis: "Sir, that's a piece of paper with some French writing on it. Do you have an actual license?" K: broken dance

So, we may stick a little closer to home until our new licenses arrive.

Week 35 - Visit in Switzerland

Monday, we headed to the airport and flew to Basel. On the train ride from Basel to Neuchatel, we saw plenty of snow on the tops of the taller hills, but fall colors still dominated the lower slopes. Note 1: there was no snow 10 days ago when we left for Florence. Note 2: it’s still October; that seems much too soon for snow. Note 3: for those still keeping count from the last post, we’re now at train, train, train, bus, train, plane, train.

We arrived home and immediately put our cats on a diet.

Tuesday, we explored the canton of Neuchatel with M’s parents. We visited Creux du Van (higher elevation= snow + wind + cold cold cold) and went on an unintended death march through the snow. Although it was crazy cold, it was quite beautiful, and we did spot some mountain goats, which had eluded us when we were there in the crowded summer. After the wintry hike, we drove back to town and visited the Chateau and church in Neuchatel proper, and wandered around town.

Wednesday, we drove to the Alpine foothills to visit Gruyères and to see some “very Swiss scenery”. We watched some guys make Gruyère cheese. We visited Gruyères castle. We looked up and up (but not at art this time) at the Alps; ski season is definitely close. And, of course, we ate fondue and Gruyère double-crème.

Thursday, we got up early to see M’s parents off for their train to the Zurich airport to start their travel to be with M’s brother as he gets married. By the time they get home, I think they will have traveled via: car, plane, car, plane, train, car, train, plane, plane, car, plane, car.

And then, we basically relaxed (and did some catching up on work).

Standard time (or “winter hours”) starts this weekend. It will be nice to drive to work with more light, but a total pain in the evenings. Back in June, K was really enjoying the long days (the sun was up by 5 am), but that same Northerly latitude is going to mean very short days soon.

One of our friends lived in Northern England for a while and referred to the winter as “The Long Dark”. We aren’t that far North (though we are further North than Michigan, where K has spent considerable time), but we can completely understand the expression.

Lessons learned:

1. Despite the green hills, it can be bitterly cold at higher elevations in the canton in October.

2. There appears to be a Thursday morning market in Neuchâtel.

3. The eye exam at the local optometrist for the Swiss driver's license is free. (We both read the letters in the viewer in French.)

Weeks 33 and 34 - Buon Compleanno In Italia

For M's 30th birthday, she wanted to do something big. So, for half a year, she had been planning a trip to Italy. She had an image of herself riding on a robin's egg blue vespa through the Tuscan countryside in between her pasta-making classes and playing bocce with the locals. That didn't exactly happen, but Italy wound up charming her anyway.

We started our trip early Saturday morning (end of week 33) at the Neuchâtel train station. This was our first long train ride in Europe. We would change trains in Bern and Milan before arriving at our first stop of the trip: Florence (Firenze in Italian).

Florence, a Renaissance town, is full of sculpture and paintings from some of the great names we all learned in school. Our B&B was near the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), so we had lots of chances to look at the old goldsmith shops lining the bridge. On our first day, we wandered around town and got caught in a rain-shower.We stopped into a wine shop to try a tasting (and to get out of the rain). We learned a lot about Chianti, Sangiovese (which we had met in Northern Cali), and black roosters. The rain put a bit of a damper on K's enthusiasm, so we didn’t do much more exploring in the rain. Which was good, because we would need a break before the art-ganza the next day.

On Sunday, we visited the Uffizi. While the Uffizi was incredible, it was a bit overwhelming. The Uffizi is considered to be THE BEST collection of Renaissance art in the world, and we saw pieces by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, and on and on, so we had a very full day of looking at art. By the end of the day, we felt worn out.

However, we can now recognize St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastien, and the Annunciation of Mary (who is also a saint, but none of the pieces were called the Annunciation of St. Mary. hmmmm....) in under 3 notes. Wearing a fur (debate between bear or camel), shot full of arrows, and being yelled at by an angel and/or vomited on by a dove, respectively.

The Loggia (a public, open-air sculpture “garden”) was one of our favorite places in Florence. The Loggia is right next to the Uffizi gallery, off of the Piazza della Signoria. In addition to the sculpture garden, there is a reproduction of Michelangelo's David, as well as Neptune's fountain. The area seemed to have a jovial atmosphere and was flanked by outdoor cafes. We even observed what seemed to be a gypsy band parading through the square.

New Pirate Joke: What did the pirate say after sacking Florence, but then accidentally dropping his booty overboard into the river? Aaarrrrrrrrrrr Nnnooooooo

After Florence, we took a bus to Siena, a medieval town. The myth/history is that Siena was founded by Remus, brother of Romulus the founder of Rome, so there are statues of human babies suckling from a she-wolf all-over town. The towns streets are narrow and curve around, and the town is incredibly hilly, not like Florence. We found numerous sign-posts pointing two different directions to arrive at our intended destination. K decided that we should always take the right turn when it was an option, because, well, why not (like a “your Delta Tau Chi name is Flounder” kind of why not).

The art/architecture highlight for us was the Duomo, a truly impressive gothic church from floor (and sub-basement) to ceiling to roof. What was possibly even better was that they had planned an expansion that would have turned the entire church into the short-arm of the expanded church. They have a few walls and arches of the expansion; it would have been incredible. Unfortunately, a plague that killed ~2/3rds of the town deprived them of money and manpower, so the expansion was never finished.

We had a great lunch soaking up sunshine in the big town plaza of Il Campo (I wanted to write town square, but it’s definitely NOT square; it’s more semi-circular). They hold two horse-races, called Il Palio, there every year which has to be a crazy experience.

Then we caught a train to Rome through Chiusi (for those keeping count, we’re now at train, train, train, bus, train, train). In one sense, our trip just kept going back in time: Renaissance Florence, Medieval Siena, Ancient Rome; but the Renaissance was very visible in Rome, so maybe we were just bouncing around thru history. By the way, anyone wondering what's in Chiusi: niente.

Once in Rome, we met up with M’s parents and then assaulted the city like Sherman and Atlanta.

Thursday was Ancient Rome: Imperial Forum, Palatine Hill, and Colosseum. We were definitely glad we weren't visiting in the summer because, with bigger crowds and heat, ancient Rome would not be so pleasant. It was fascinating learning some of the stories of the area from random tour guides walking around (the audio guide was crap), but it took a lot of imagination to picture how things would have looked originally. One of the things we learned was that the stuff that was best preserved had been reused over the ages, for example, ancient temples converted into medieval churches. Otherwise, new rulers tended to plunder for building materials for their new magnificent monuments. The 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) mentality is why the Colosseum is in as bad a shape as it is.

Friday was a visit to the smallest nation on Earth, Vatican City. We hit the Vatican museum(s) and St. Peter’s Basilica. More big names: Rafael, Boticceli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and on and on. The Sistine Chapel truly is inspiring, but the conventional wisdom that Michelangelo painted it lying on his back is bunk. He apparently craned his neck to look up just like we did. With all of the Renaissance art, there were also plenty of ancient artworks from Greece, Rome and ancient Egypt, along with more modern pieces (we saw a Van Gogh Pièta).

Saturday was a jumble: ongoing excavations of the Roman Fori (though K thinks it should be Fora, since the singular is Forum), Trajan’s column, the Pantheon (both ancient and merely old), Trevi Fountain (which included tossing coins into the fountain to ensure our return to Rome one day), the amazingly crowded Spanish Steps, and St. Giovanni in Laterano.

Sunday was M’s birthday, and we took it easy. In the morning, we walked around the ancient Roman baths at Caracalla, which had some preserved mosaics and tile work. Then we took a brief tour of the ancient Roman ramparts and did some general wandering aboot town.

The weather in Rome was fabulous compared to what we’ve had in CH. It was nearly short-sleeve shirt weather. Rome in the Fall was great with the mild weather and color-changing foliage.

The discourse thus far has been weak on culinary details, but be assured the trip was dotted with excellent food experiences. We learned a Tuscan custom of dipping your biscotti in a glass of Vin Santo (dessert wine) as an aperitif. Plenty of gelato was consumed (the lime and coconut mix was one of M's favorite flavors). We ate loads of pasta: from spinach cannelloni to fettucine with mushrooms. Had melanzane alla parmigiana (eggplant parmesan) and insalata caprese and arancini (fried rice balls stuffed with melted mozzarella). K had his share of exotic foods as well: polpo (octopus), veal, wild boar, and certainly some Parma ham. And of course, we had pizza. One of the best was pizza bianca (flavored with olive oil and rosemary).

Lessons learned:

1. The last bus from Siena to the suburb of San Dalmazio where our B&B was not at 8:00 pm. Turns out there is a bus that runs almost until midnight. Ah well, we got to bed early.

2. Although you are encouraged to order multiple courses in the guidebooks, we oftentimes found a plate of pasta to be sufficient. Sometimes they were Olive Garden sized portions. It was nice to try some of the veggie sides on the menu.

3. Italians tend to eschew toilet seats. Got a leg workout in the bathroom. Some bathrooms we came across did actually look spotless, they were just missing the seat.

4. The table bread in Tuscany was unfortunately subpar. It seemed better in Rome. However, the pizza was really good in Siena. Pizza at the Vatican...not so good...I think they just put toppings on giant communion wafers.

5. Your average Italian has no clue what a pasta drying rack is. In fact, I think they primarily use dry pasta. Sacrilege.

6. Despite the somewhat laidback attitude of Italians, don't think that your Italian vacation will be loosey goosey if you are planning on seeing the big attractions. Most of the museums require prebooking with a specified entrance time, and if you haven't prebooked, prepare for really long lines. However, if you can, do prebook (despite the 25% upcharge required for prebooking) because it is totally worth it. Both at the Uffizi and the Vatican we skipped insanely long lines and got in within about 10 minutes; lines into the Vatican can be up to 4 hours long! Also, if you plan to go to the Colosseum, go over to the Forum and Palatine Hill to buy your ticket there. The line is much shorter.

7. Yes. Italians really are crazy drivers.

Weeks 31 and 32 - The Swiss Cheese Awards

We had a brief respite from exploring before move on to our next adventure, vacation in Italy. However, we still had excitement here in Neuchâtel. Last weekend was the Swiss Cheese Awards.

The aim of the Swiss Cheese Awards is to name the year's Swiss Cheese Champion. Cheesemakers from all over the country gather for the event, and this year it happened to be in Neuchâtel (it was also the first time the Awards were open to the public). In addition to the town being filled with dozens of plywood stalls and

tents for tasting and buying cheeses, there was a gallery of cheeses, a big fondue eating tent, and livestock.

The gallery of cheeses was not quite like anything we'd seen before although it was reminiscent of the pies and produce shown at the county fairs. Each entry was artfully displayed on a pedestal with an enormous glass dome placed over the top. A block of dry ice (or rather some other really cold thing we couldn't quite identify) kept the cheeses fresh throughout their viewing and a security guard kept the cheeses from being nibbled. There was quite a range of cheeses presented: from gruyere, to a goat-cheese, to a brie-like cheese. And of course, there was a big hunk full of the beloved swiss cheese holes.

In the big tent, you could order fondue and other food while listening to a brass band or an alpen horn quartet. Being that we filled up on the free tastes at the stalls, we skipped the fondue.

We meandered through the town past a small corral with sheep, pigs, bunnies, and chickens to the big livestock. They had cows in a variety of sizes, included young veal munching down until the time to meet their maker. It was fun to pet the animals; it almost felt like we were back at Yolo County Fair.

In other news, autumn has arrived. All around the foliage is highlighted with bright yellows, oranges, and reds. And the fog has arrived. Whereas a few weeks ago we could see the Alps roughly 100 km away, now we can't even see the other side of the lake. The locals have cheerily informed us that the fog only lasts until December. Oh, good.

Lessons learned:

1. Three-day-long trainings in French are really taxing.

Weeks 28, 29, and 30 - Cycling around Lake Biel/Bienne, Beer Tour through French Belgium (Wallonia), and the Fête des Vendages

The last few weekends were rather busy. The weekend before last was another cycling trip with the J&J Neuchatel Informal Cycling Group. We biked around the Lake Biel/Bienne (the same lake that has Ile St. Pierre in the middle). It was mostly flat, and had good views of the lake. Two-thirds of the way through, we had lunch at a Swiss German restaurant on the north shore of the lake; it was rather expensive, but we enjoyed our fish and rösti.

Last weekend, we took advantage of the Monday holiday by driving to Belgium. Friday night, we drove to Nancy in the Lorraine region of France, about 4 hours from Neuchâtel and spent the night in an inexpensive motel. We had a low-key dinner at Quick, a European fast-food burger chain originally based in Belgium; their decorative motif looks remarkably similar to another well-known fast-food burger chain - McDonald's.

Saturday morning, we visited a little bit of the town of Nancy, which is known as a major center of Art Nouveau. We still had quite of bit of driving to do before we got to Belgium, but we decided to see the Place Stanislas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, proclaimed to be the "most beautiful place" in the world. Alright, now, that's hyping it up a bit, but it was pretty spectacular. The place is framed by gilded wrought iron gates, and gilded street lanterns dot the square. It has beautiful buildings on all sides and a fountain in two of the corners. After walking around the square, we walked to the Basilica of St. Epvre and found a patisserie and a small grocery at which we could buy breakfast.

With our croissants, baguette, cheese, cured meat, and orange juice, we headed back to the car for our drive to Chimay, the first Belgian beer stop. Chimay is actually named after the Prince of Chimay who gave the land for the monastery to the monks; the monks live and work at the Abbey of Scourmont. The actual sales are at a hostel near the abbey. We tried the Triple (Chimay white), Grand reserve (Chimay Blue) and a beer only available at the hostel made with malt but without hops - very interesting flavor profile for a hopless beer, K has no idea how they do it.

We left Chimay and were driving to our next destination at Hoegarden when we saw signs for Des Fagnes. As this trip is all about Belgian beer, who were we to pass up a perfectly good Brasserie. We stopped in, looked at their brew house and brewing museum, and sampled their blonde and bruin. It was also an opportunity to sit outside and enjoy some Belgian sunshine. It was more of a brewpub than a commercial brewery. The beer was fine, but we had other places to visit.

By now, it was later in the day than we had planned, so we did not continue on to Hoegarden, instead, we stopped at our 3rd planned brewery,

Caracole. This place was really interesting. The front part of the building is old and run-down, but in the back one can see modern, stainless-steel fermentation tanks. They regularly make 4 beers: Troublette, a wheat/whit/blonde (because blondes are trouble) with a great lemon nose; Saxo (named after the inventor of the saxophone) brewed with cardamom, very nice; the namesake, Caracole, an amber beer with a strong orange nose; and their bruin, Nostradamus (with a tulip glass, the aroma can be quite strong. Nostradamus is like a raisin punching you in the nose), the flavor was great but the nose was too strong for the glass.

We then headed to the farm near Namur where we were staying. After checking-in, we headed into town to find dinner. However, we had miscounted the weekends, and this was the big fete in Namur, so the town was packed with people. After spending far too long in traffic, we finally managed to get out of town, and simply headed back to the farm to eat car food and to sleep.

Sunday morning, after being awoken by the farm roosters, we met some of the other guests, who informed us of some local happenings, including a beer/cheese/bread festival in Durbuy (the tagline was "the greatest beers in the world in the smallest village in the world"), and the traditional stilt fighting in Namur.

But we had an appointment to keep at La Chouffe. It turned out to be a fabulous visit. The guide confirmed we were Americans, which earned us a free entry to the tour. The tour was narrated in Dutch, but we were handed papers with the English version so we could follow along. It turns out that La Chouffe is brewed with Coriander, so K is considering expanding his brew-spices. After seeing the brew-house, we drove 4km to the bottling plant. At the bottling plant, we were given La Chouffe glasses to keep. After the bottling plant, we drove 1km to a local tavern to taste the beer. 4 beers later, we were ready to head-out. Our next planned stop was Orval, but we couldn't pass-up the Durbuy festival, plus we needed some food.

The GPS-guided trip from La Chouffe to Durbuy was quite an event in itself. We got to see an old Belgian quarry and meet some mountain bikers, because the "road" was more of a bike trail. M commented that she didn't know we had purchased a 4wheel-drive VW Golf. We didn't get stuck, and I'm sure that we probably saved 0.2 km of driving distance. This is the 2nd, or 3rd, time the GPS has taken us down a path that isn't a real road; eventually we'll discover how to filter its directions but until then, it makes things interesting.

The Durbuy festival was great. More than 20 stands, with about half serving beer. And there was a marching band playing mostly old American pop songs. Several good beers tasted. It was a bit of beer blur for Ken who had 7 strong beers to try with the taster tickets he'd bought. We walked around the town a bit which is quite cute, and when it's not having beer festivals, is known for its topiary gardens. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and concluded our meal with a real Belgian waffle.

Monday we got up, again aided by the farm roosters, and made our way to the abbey at Maredsous. As K felt that 10am was a little early to have the triple beer taster, we simply bought a mixed pack of beers and got on the road to home (Monday is our assigned laundry day in the apartment building). About 7 hours later, we were home. Great weekend of exploring Europe and drinking some fabulous beers.

This weekend, there was no rest because it was the famous Neuchâtel Fête des Vendages. During the 3 day festival, over 100,000 people pack into this town with population 30,000. Festivities are officially scheduled from the afternoon until 4 am Friday and Saturday night and a mild 12 am Sunday night. Despite the origins of the fête, which was started to celebrate bringing the wine grape harvest, most of the vendors sell beer, shots of liquor or mixed drinks; however, if you look hard enough you can still find wine.

Christina, with whom we went to Annecy, took the train down from Basel to participate in Saturday's festivities; unfortunately, her husband Mike was too sick to come down. We had a blast walking around town, sampling foods from all the different stalls, watching a parade, and listening to band music. One of the food highlights was the spiral cut potato on a stick. It's fried and then coated with salt and your choice of seasoning. We got Provencale and curry, both of which were good. This definitely is one of those ideas we should import to the US.

One of the defining features of the fête is the confetti. In our otherwise clean town, the streets were coated in confetti. And just about everyone walking around had confetti in their hair or on their clothes. Not only do people have bags of confetti that they throw on random passers-by, but also the parade floats have confetti canons which pelt the crowd with confetti. We have never seen so much confetti in our entire lives. And one of the amazing things about this fête and the confetti is that, by Monday afternoon, the streets will be spotless.

Lessons learned:

1. Stilt fighting is another of those awesome European traditions that we should have in the US cause they're so awesome. Essentially, boys/young men try to take each other out on stilts.

2. Frites are actually a Belgian creation. Rather than french or freedom fries, we should call them belgian fries.

3. Most Europeans will not dance to the YMCA.

4. Barbe à papa (Papa's beard) is the French name for cotton candy.

Weeks 26 and 27-Six-Month Milestone and Cycling around Lake Morat

Week 26 was rather subdued, but it signified a personal victory for us: 6 months/half a year living in Switzerland. To celebrate, the Swiss Alps, which are usually obscured by haze, decided to pop out from the behind the lake to say Bonjour. We took a walk down to the lake, and M brought her camera to try to capture some of the splendor.

The last week of August, summer decided to skip town and autumn moved in to Neuchâtel. Temperatures have dropped, and there is that autumnal crispness in the air.

This past weekend we met back with our colleagues for an "easy " cycling trip around Lake

Morat (Murtensee in Swiss German) which straddles the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg. We drove with our bikes to the Bahnhof in the town of Morat/Murten on the southeast side of the lake and then rode around counter-clockwise around the lake. As with Lake Neuchatel, you aren't right next to the lake but do get view of it every now and then. After leaving the town of Morat and quickly traversing the hamlet of Muntelier, we found ourselves biking through a several-kilometer long forest, populated, according to the signs, by wild boar.

After the forest, we rode through towns replete with wine caves (well almost, when you consider there's about 1 cave for every four buildings). Wine caves are really just wine stores which often allow you to sample from some of the bottles that they keep open. A couple of the members of our group were eyeing the caves, but since it was around 10:30 in the morning we decided to press on.

All in all the ride was mostly flat, except for the very end of the lake loop where there was a teeth-gritting climb up a hill (a few members of the group-we won't name names-had to walk the bikes up the hill). We were rewarded with a pretty nice view of the Chateau de Morat in front of the lake right at the end.

By the time we got back in Morat (a roughly 25 km ride), M's hip felt pretty sore, but the group decided to go part way around the lake again to find one of the caves that we had missed earlier in the morning to sample some local wines. Just the thought of wine seemed to relax our muscles enough to make the ride through bumpy forest again bearable. At Il Grappolo cave in Sugiez, we sampled Chasselas and Pinot Gris wines from Vully. The owner then suggested a nice place for a lunch, a few kilometers down the road, right next to the water.

We ate at the Bel Air restaurant/hotel in Praz-Vully. M had the first tofu that she's had since being in Switzerland; it was a delicious dish of slabs of golden fried tofu with a cream sauce and veggies on the side. K had perch meuniere (lightly breaded and fried fish) with potatoes. K enjoyed this dish and felt quite sated when the water brought over the second half of his meal that had been keeping warm on a hot plate; the look on K's face was priceless.

After lunch, we biked back through the forest (again) and on to Morat. The town of Morat is quite cute, and we toured it briefly on the bikes on our way back to the train station. We will definitely want to come back and walk around it some more. As anticipated, M was barely able to walk the remainder of the weekend due to her sore hip. Perhaps someday she'll either get in shape or learn her limits.

Lessons learned:

1. Coors light is a "beer of the world". You know those 6 to 10 mixed packs of international beers you find in the grocery store? The ones that include probably Red Stripe, Dos Equis, and, if you're lucky, something quite good like Leffe? Well, our local supermarket Coop was selling an international pack of beers, one of which was Coors Light. That's right, Coors Light, not even Coors Original, the Banquet Beer. Of all the wonderful beers brewed in the US, they had to pick Coors Light. Sigh...

2. Figured out how to download French music from iTunes. Quelle musique!

3. A gîte is a French vacation home that can be rented out that is normally fully-furnished and self-catering. This term is used in the French-speaking region of Belgium - the Wallonie.

Weeks 23, 24, and 25 - More biking, Annecy, France, and swimming in the lake

Having not quite learned our lesson from being broken after biking to Yverdon, the next weekend we biked to Cudrefin. Although it doesn't look like it is very far from Neuchâtel around the lake and was in fact a primarily flat ride, it was really tough. The path took us relatively far away from the lake shore through fields. With the wind blowing strongly through the fields, it was tough to make progress. On our way back, we enjoyed lunch in La Tène, very close to the water. Despite better judgement, (this seems to be theme with her and cheese), M had fondue for lunch. The bike back was a bit uncomfortable.

Margaret had a relatively tough week at work with long nights, so she was really looking forward to last weekend. With Mike and Christina (friends from California also currently living in Europe), we had plans to go to Christina's favorite place in the world: Annecy, France. We have to admit that if you're going to pick a favorite place in the world this isn't a bad pick.

Annecy is a little less than two hours drive from Neuchâtel in the Haute-Savoie region of France, nestled in the French Alps. The town sits on Lake Annecy and is well known for its several canals that wind through town which has earned it the names of "Venice of the Alps" or "Venice of Savoy." The old town feels like it has been extracted from Disneyworld (although I suppose really it would be the other way around). The canals are clear to the bottom, buildings are painted in cheery colors, and the city is blooming with flowers. We entertained ourselves with eating lots of good food and walking around in the rain. Actually, one of the highlights was walking up to the cathedral on the acropolis, getting completely drenched. At the top of the hill, we had an impromptu party with a few of the local liqueurs we'd purchased in town while we got up enough courage to venture into the rain again for the trek back down. After a nice dinner, we rested up for the Sunday market. The market is full of not only foods, but also clothes, knives, and any other thing you might expect to find on a late-night informercial. We were so enamoured with the food choices (and lower prices), however, that we wound up doing some of our grocery shopping. Our visit to Annecy concluded with a picnic by the lake with some of the market goodies.

This past weekend we chilled in Neuchâtel and tried to take advantage of the good weather. (We've had a fair share of showers and storms recently, and the cool weather we've been having makes us afraid summer may be over very quickly.) Saturday, we walked down to the lake in the afternoon to read, and Ken decided that he would brave the cool waters of Lake Neuchâtel with a brief swim. He actually went in twice. It was quite chilly but pleasant when moving about. M might get up the courage to go swimming next year.

Lessons learned:

1. Biking several kilometers after a meal of fondue is not a good idea.

2. Straciatella is a delicious flavor of ice cream.

3. Drinking crème de violette (violet liqueur) is a lot like sucking on a smelly marker.

4. Flower rating in France: Le Concours des Villes et Villages Fleuris is a competition amongst French cities to attain a maximum four-flower rating based upon the beauty of the city (defined by cleanliness, amount of shrubbery and flowers, environmental friendliness, number of parks, etc.). With the four-flower rating, villages have a "touristic" advantage over neighbors.

5. To avoid offense, if you walk into an office of people, be sure to say hello to each person in the room even if they don't feel the need to raise their heads and make eye contact with you. Don't necessarily expect the same courtesy if you walk into a room. (Sigh...)

Weeks 21 and 22 - Da Vinci (Part 1) and Biking to Yverdon

After our whirlwind Austria (and Liechtenstein) trip, we took it easy the next two weekends. (Ok... to be honest, M wrote this sentence before this past Saturday's activities... more on that in a bit.)

Last weekend, we went to the Neuchâtel Museum of Natural History (Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Neuchâtel) to see the temporary Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit that closes August 1. The exhibit included posters of his drawings/sketches, as well as wooden replicas of some of his machines, many of which visitors were allowed to operate. Exhibited machines (remember fabricated from wood) included, but were not limited to, a bicycle, a piston, a water pump, a helicopter, a car, and a tank.

The overall impression from the exhibit was that Da Vinci was an amazingly intelligent, creative, and crazy guy. We'll hopefully get a chance to see more about Da Vinci during our Italy trip in the Fall.

In addition to the Da Vinci exhibit, there were also the taxidermical displays one would expect to find in a natural history museum. Being that Neuchâtel is on a lake, there was a very large bird exhibit, complete with push-button bird calls. Another highlight of the museum's permanent collection was the bug exhibit where you could examine specimens under a microscope.

During the week, we got an invitation from some co-workers to go biking along the lake. So, this Saturday morning, we met them in town by the lake with our bikes and started on a "leisurely" tour along the lake to the southwest. A month or so ago, we biked along the lake for a few kilometers, had lunch, and biked back. This weekend's outing, however, turned into a 40 km bike-ride to the city of Yverdon-Les-Bains at the other end of the lake as Neuchâtel. Portions of the ride are were pleasantly flat or downhill, but a good percentage of the ride involved biking up grimace-inducing, thigh-quivering hills. By the time we arrived in Yverdon, there was no way that K or M would bike the 40 km back; there was, in fact, only person in our group of six that was considering biking back by the time we arrived at our destination. After a picnic lunch by the lake in Yverdon, we caught the train back to Neuchâtel, with our bikes and all. Needless to say, we were filling a bit broken after the ride. Besides the obvious sore legs, M had a bruised butt despite her cushy bike seat with shocks, and K had a sore neck due to handle bar position on his road bike. On our tour, we were rewarded with beautiful views of the lake (although anyone attempting this ride should be forewarned that the ride does not hug the lake, but goes up the hillside for pretty vistas), and we may consider the ride again, but not until we've healed. Also, it may be a good idea to go on some more modest rides in between. Perhaps biking 4 times further than you've ever biked previously is a bit ambitious. Perhaps before we quit Switzerland, we will try to ride all the way around the lake.

Saturday night, we walked (or rather, limped) around Neuchâtel to wander through some of the festivities tied to Swiss National Day. Since Swiss National Day is actually on Sunday, some local towns were having fireworks shows Saturday night. We drove up to the Vue des Alpes and got to view two of the shows from above. Since we missed 4th of July fireworks this year, this felt like a real treat. Tonight (Sunday night) we have to decide if we will watch the fireworks over the lake from our apartment balcony or down at the lake edge.

Lessons learned:

1) Swiss National Day is August 1st to celebrate the initial alliance between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden in 1291, which signified the birth of Switzerland. The alliance was formed to fight against the Habsburgs, the leaders of the great Austrian empire.

2) K's maths (yeah...with an "s") skills have become a little distorted by his new-found language skills. Example, K says that he was in a work meeting where he spoke mostly in French. Now, normally, mostly means greater than 50% of the time. However, in this case mostly meant more than 25%. (But after K set off the alarm at work early Saturday morning, he spoke entirely [100%] in French to the nice security guard who came to investigate the alarm.)

Weeks 19 and 20 - Trip to Liechtenstein/Austria

Last Saturday, we started driving east for our trip to Swiss bordering countries 3 and 4: Liechtenstein and Austria.

The Principality of Liechtenstein (or Fürstentum Liechtenstein in the local German) is the 218th largest country in the world (according to the CIA World Factbook), with 62 square miles (160 sq km), about 0.9 times the size of Washington D.C. The tiny constitutional monarchy, sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria, has 35,000 residents and has the world's highest per capita GDP. First, we visited the capital "city" Vaduz. The highlights of Vaduz include the Postmuseum (Liechtenstein is renowned for its intricate postage stamps, which are miniature works of art. Many of the dies used to imprint the stamps are hand carved using a magnifying glass.) and the Schloß Vaduz, the residence of the country's royal family. You can't visit the castle, but you can hike up to it and enjoy a hawk's view of Vaduz.

After our hike up to the castle and back down, we ate at one of the restaurants in town. We had a delicious Traminer wine from the Prince's winery. Ken had enormous pork medallions, while Margaret ordered what she thought was a salad with two normal-sized cheese sticks. She was wrong. In addition to her salad, she received the largest piece of fried cheese she (or Ken) had ever seen. In a fit of poor judgement, she ate the entire thing.

After lunch, we drove to the town of Malbun to catch the daily falconry show at one of the town's inns/restaurants. We were in a bit of a rush on the drive up to Malbun (not wanting to be late for the show), but a narrow tunnel just before Malbun caught our attention; it was just barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and with a semi-circular cross-section, a truck would have to drive down the middle leaving no room for opposing traffic. After the falconry show, as we left Malbun, we noticed a traffic light outside the tunnel.

In K's haste, he apparently missed the light on the drive up, thereby explaining how such a narrow tunnel manages two-way traffic; it doesn't (at least not simultaneously). After the tunnel, we continued our journey into Austria, to stay in the Tirolian city of Innsbruck.

The night we arrived in Innsbruck, despite the enormous block of cheese M was still attempting to digest, we went to the vegetarian restaurant Chez Nico where M had made reservations. We had one of the most fun and inventive 7-course vegetarian meals (which started and ended with a course of strawberries and tomatoes-salty at the beginning, sweet at the end), and tried a delicious Austrian wine.

On Sunday, we were awoken at 5:30 am by the sun beaming in our hotel room window. After an awesome breakfast at the hotel, we drove from Goëtzens, where we were staying, into downtown Innsbruck. Our first stop for the day was the Alpenzoo, an amazingly large collection of alpine animals.The zoo took several hours to explore, and exhibits included snakes and lizards, fish, birds, ferrets, elk, deer, bear, and goats.

As we were looking for lunch, we saw the famed Goldenes Dachl (Gold Roof) in the old city square, and the beautiful Dom zu St. Jakob. The afternoon was primarily dedicated to the Volkskunstmuseum (Folk Art Museum) and the Hofkirche. It seems that every region we visit has a folk art museum, so it is becoming a bit of a family joke to see what "art" each of these places holds. ("Oh neat...more tiled stoves...oh look, another copper bundt...I don't think I've ever seen such an impressive shoe horn!") The Hofkirche is a fabulous tomb for one of the Austrian emperors, Maximilian I; very impressive and a bit morbid.

On Monday, we continued to drive east to get to the sprawling city of Vienna. This city is certainly fitted out properly as the capital city of an empire: amazing architecture, fabulous artwork, numerous theaters, etc. Monday night was capped off with a slice of the Original Sacher Torte from the Cafe Sacher.

Tuesday, we got up bright and early to visit the Hapsburgs' Schönbrunn Palace and its grounds (including one of Europe's finest zoos). From the Gloriette (a summerhouse with Roman ruins) on top of a hill, you have an excellent view of the lemon yellow palace and the seemingly endless city.

Wednesday, we visited the Kunsthistoriches museum (the Met in NY is probably the closest US equivalent). The museum building itself is amazing, and the decor and architecture were awesome (not the style, but the splendor reminded M of the Louvre in Paris). The museum houses a wonderful antiquities collection, as well as painting by the likes of Titian, Bruegel,

Raphael, Rembrandt, and Rubens. (Yeah, we didn't know who some of those guys were either.) We just managed to get to the Schatzkammer, the Viennese Imperial Treasury, before it closed. We also took in a Mozart/Strauss concert. Vienna is incredible. We could have easily spent much more time here, but we have an itinerary to keep.

On Thursday, we started driving back west toward our final stop: the city of Salzburg. We visited Schloß Mirabell, and its grounds, the Mirabellgarten. Salzburg is really known for two things by the rest of the world: it is the site of much of the filming of The Sound of Music, and it is Mozart's birthplace. Mirabellgarten is beautiful with intricate plantings and picturesque fountains; whilst there we treated by an English school choir to a medley of songs from...you guessed it...the Sound of Music.

On Friday, we toured Fortress Hohensalzburg, the largest medieval fortress in Central Europe, in the morning. After lunch, we visited the beautiful Salzburg Dom and spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing drinking Vienna-style iced coffee or cold Austrian beer.

Saturday, we drove home.

Lessons learned:

1. Einbahn means one-way in German.

2. Traffic in Vienna is horrendous.

3. Austria is the home of several good beers.

4. M likes ice cold radlers: beer and lemonade...mmm. Perfect for a hot day.

5. Summer time is tourist time. It was a little shock to our systems to hear so much American English.

6. K can only handle one foreign language. Though he learned German in school, the French he's been learning over the past 3+ months is displacing it. He kept trying to say things in German, but French words came out. Apparently the speech-controlling part of his brain has just two settings, English and Not-English, and lacks the ability for more "subtle" distinctions, like between French and German.

7. The Italian-Indian-Austrian combo restaurant is very popular in Salzburg (we passed by at least 4 of these restaurants). Also of note, you can get some quite good Indian food in Salzburg.