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!!!!

One year and 23 weeks - Business trip to Hamburg and Swiss National Day

Following our not-a-complete-disaster-but-nearly trip to Spain, we were quite keen to be homebodies.  On the weekends, we just hung around the apartment and walked down to town to do errands.  During the week, we started the process to replace the items in the stolen bag.  M went to the US Embassy in Bern to submit the application for her new passport to replace the emergency one she got at the Consulate in Barcelona.   She applied for a replacement drivers license and her Swiss residence permit card. We ordered new car keys and got new credit cards.

Less than two weeks after we'd gotten back, M had to fly to Hamburg, Germany for a training at a sister site.  She was completely stressed and guarded on the trip, sneaking glances at her luggage every 3 minutes.  Unfortunately, it was not possible to get down to the city of Hamburg during the trip, so visiting the city will just have to happen on the next trip (whenever that may be).

M came back to Neuchatel for the start of a 3-day weekend, Monday being the Swiss National Day.  Because of the holiday weekend, some coworkers had gone out of town and had asked the Boltons to pet-sit.  They left early, so Ken started caring for the animals Thursday night.  The menagerie included two black labs, one old kitty, and an aquarium full of fish.

For Swiss National Day, there were lots of festivities by the lake:  beach soccer, an American football demonstration, tight rope walking, a bmx track and games for the kids going on all weekend. The actual night of Swiss National Day, there were fireworks displays going off all around the lake.

Lessons Learned:
1. Germans eat some pretty odd dishes.  One lunch dish in Hamburg consisted of a small plate of boiled potatoes and a large plate covered in herbed cream.  It was reminiscent of the cauliflower "incident" on our honeymoon.

One year and 20 Weeks - Spain and the recovery

Two round trip tickets to Spain on EasyJet .............................................................  215 CHF

Spanish / English phrasebook..................................................................................     8 US Dollars

Limonada and una cerveza in Parc Guell.................................................................    6 Euros

Walking around, outside the crazy Sagrada Familia................................................      Free

New emergency passport at the US consulate in Barcelona..................................... 135 US Dollars

Bowl of Andalusian gazpacho on the Rambla de Poblenou.....................................    5 Euros

Two adult tickets to the Prado Museum ...................................................................   20 Euros

Early Sunday afternoon at the Reina Sofia...............................................................   Free

Tortilla de patate, patatas bravas, una cerveza, and jamon Iberica ............................  15 Euros

Jar of Sangria in the Parque del Retiro, Madrid.........................................................    3 Euros

Replacing all M's identification, keys, cash, credit cards, and other random stuff in her stolen bag................  Priceless

We'll be spending a nice, quiet weekend at home this week to "recover" from our vacation.

Lessons Learned:

1. Barcelona is ranked as the number one worst location of pickpocketing by TripAdvisor.com.

2. The Spanish are not early risers.

3.  The Spanish diet is heavily reliant on potatoes, eggs, ham, and fish.

One Year and 18 Weeks - A visitor and Roman ruins in Switzerland

K and Charlotte at Nestlé

The weekend after our trip to Aosta, we got to play host to our friend Charlotte who was between business trips to Israel and Germany.  After picking her up at the train station in Neuchâtel Friday night, we had a homemade fondue and salad and stayed up late chatting.

Saturday, we drove down to Broc to do the Nestlé-Cailler chocolate factory tour and had a light lunch of panini and crepes in Gruyères.    On the way back, we stopped in Avenches, to the west of Lake Murten, to see the Roman amphitheatre there.  The amphitheatre is still in use today, and there was actually a very elaborate rotating stage in the center which had been constructed for an upcoming opera.  We had heard that there were other Roman ruins in the area, but we did not have time to go exploring as we had to be back in Neuchâtel to meet some people.

Amphitheater at Avenches

On our way back to Neuchâtel, however, we decided to stop briefly at one of the local wine tasting rooms in the Vully region.   It took us awhile to find one that was open.  The first one that we found that was open didn't have very good wine.  The second one we talked our way into, as the proprietor had forgotten to remove the OPEN sign that was posted in front.  The wine at this one was much better.  While we drank the wines, K and M tried to converse with the man in French.  While Charlotte was able to catch a few words, K and M did only marginally better as the man spoke very, very fast.  When we finished our tasting, we bought a bottle and headed to downtown Neuchâtel where we met up with Sarala, Claire, and Sacha, coworkers that also know Charlotte.  We enjoyed the early evening in the Place des Halles, sipping local wines, and then Sarala and Claire joined the three of us for dinner at the Cardinal Brasserie.  Dinner was delicious- M and Sarala had constructed veggie plates and the other three each ordered big buckets of mussels.

Cigognier Sanctuary

Sunday morning was leisurely.  M made scones for breakfast, and then we went for a walk down by the lake.  Unfortunately, halfway through our walk, the sky opened up, and we wound up in the middle of a downpour.  By the time, we had dried up a bit it was time to head back to the apartment and take Charlotte to the train station for her trip to Stuttgart.

The following weekend, on Saturday, we caught up to a lakeside pub crawl sponsored by some members of the Neuchatel International Club, of which we were members last year.   We were about 2 hours behind the start, but we managed to catch up near Auvernier and stopped at 3 places with the small group before we took the tram back to Neuchatel.

Roman Theater

Sunday, with the gorgeous, warm weather, we decided to picnic down by lake.  We stuffed a bag full of radish and camembert sandwiches, chips, and cold white wine, and biked down to the lake near the big pools.  We had a wonderful lunch on the grass under a shady tree with the lake and the Alps laid out before us.  After lunch, we met up with Sarala and Claire and biked, mostly along a canal to Le Landeron, a half kilometer from Lac de Bienne.  We had ice cream and beer before we biked back to Neuchatel.





This Friday night, after a long work week, we went over to our coworker Lindsay's apartment (building next door) for a wine and cheese tasting party.  We had a great time, had Swiss, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish cheeses and an equally varied selection of wines.  Additionally, there was American-style spinach dip flavored with imported Ranch seasoning; what a trip!  It was a really pleasant evening with the food and drink and chatting.

This past weekend, we decided to go back to Avenches to find the rest of the Roman ruins.  The village of Avenches overlaps with the ancient Roman city of Aventicum, the capital of Helvetians.  Today, there is a Roman archeological museum in the tower behind the amphitheater that houses many of the findings from the area.  The Roman archeological monuments of the area, which include the amphitheater, the theater, thermal baths, and the city wall, are open to the public.  Most of them are within easy walking distance of one another.  We started again at the amphitheater and then walked from the Cigognier Sanctuary with its two standing columns to the Roman theater (at which an Alpen horn ensemble was practicing) to the East Gate.

M at the East Gate of Aventicum

The East Gate includes a portion of the city's walls, as well as a tower known as Tornallaz, which is known a conglomeration of Roman, medieval and early 20th century architecture.  You can climb up on the wall and in the tower for a nice view of the area.  After we played and explored the wall and tower for a bit, we headed back towards the theater and across the corn and wheat fields to find the covered thermal baths.  The baths are enclosed so you can't play in them, but you can see parts of the tiled floor and the columns that supported the floor for the hot and warm rooms.  You can walk around and get a feel for the different areas of the baths.  After the baths, we walked through another field to the road and then headed back to our car.

La Tornallaz

Sunday we lazed about the apartment with the cats.  Ken managed to get a pretty nice sunburn across his stomach from a leisurely day of reading outside.

 Lessons Learned:
1.   Black currants (cassis) and red currants (raisinet or groseille) are two very different fruits.  The black currants are considerably larger and have a piney, astringent taste.  The red currants are tart and sweet and are considerably softer than the black variety.  We prefer the red currants.

2.  Even when it's not that hot out, you should still make sure you have on sunscreen when you are outside in "high-altitude" Switzerland.

Ken climbing up Tornallaz

One Year and 15 Weeks - Roman Ruins in the Vallé d'Aoste, Italy

Yvderon

We had a three-day weekend due to Pentecost and Whit Monday.  After all the recent traveling, we decided to limit our exploring to day trips.  Saturday, we drove over to Yverdon, the city on the western tip of Lake Neuchâtel and terminus of the infamous 40-km bike ride.  We wanted to check out some prices in a local sporting goods store but figured we'd take the opportunity to have lunch and stroll through town as well.  The sporting goods shop (Athleticum) was in a strip mall of sorts, and we were happy to come across Boissons Center (read Beverage Center) adjacent to Athleticum.  It had an excellent selection of beers, wines, liquors, and sodas; it was almost worth a trip to Yvderon alone.  After purchasing some beverages for later consumption, we headed to Yverdon proper to find lunch.  The Lonely Planet guide from the library suggested a crepe "diner" in town so that's where we headed.  The crepes were pretty good (M really liked her fig, goat cheese, and honey crepe), but the service was really odd.  The waiter either intentionally didn't understand us, or was arguing with us; it felt like he was trying to trick us or something.  It's a good thing for him that he doesn't work for tips--though perhaps service would improve.  After lunch, we walked about town, through the main square and by the castle, and stepped in and out of shops (including a chocolate shop!).  We even came across a rummage sale along several of the streets and had fun looking around at the "treasures" for sale.  We managed to head back to the car only a few minutes before the parking expired and the rain started.

Swiss Alps on the way to Aosta 

Sunday was the big adventure day.  We drove south to the Vallé d'Aoste (Aosta Valley) in Northern Italy.  This  region is another of the lingual anomalies in Europe.  Along the Rösti Divide in Switzerland, there are people speaking Swiss German and French.  In Alsace, France, you have people speaking French, Alsatian, and German.  And in Vallé d'Aoste, you have Italians speaking French and Italian, and supposedly a provençal patois.  A significant percentage of the signs are French and Italian, and many of the village names look much more French than they do Italian.  The region is bordered to the north by Switzerland and to the west by France.  It was ruled by the House of Savoy until the late 1800s.

To get to Aosta from Neuchâtel, you have to cross the Swiss Alps using the Great St. Bernard Pass or Tunnel.  Unlike the Goddard Tunnel, the St. Bernard Tunnel isn't free (30 SFr one-way or 48 SFr round trip), so we opted to take the scenic route.  As expected, the Pass was a chain of harrowing switchbacks with a rock wall on one side and a cliff edge (with or without a guard-rail) on the other.  One fun thing was that many of the guard-rails were made of wood logs instead of the standard steel.  Along our drive, we had beautiful scenery, with alpine lakes, snow drifts, rocky peaks, wild flowers, and waterfalls.

Roman Theater

Some of the main tourist attractions of the region (besides the beautiful scenery) are the ancient Roman ruins in the city of Aosta, the principal city in the valley.  The city was the site of a Roman colony, the Augusta Praetoria Salassorum, sometime in the first century BC.  The ancient town walls are very well preserved and a good portion are still standing.  The old south gate of the town, known as the Porta Praetoria, is a double arched gate in the center of modern-day Aosta.  After we parked our car near the large Arco d'Augusto, built in 35 BC to commemorate a victory over the ancient local peoples, we walked down one of Aosta's main streets to the Porta Praetoria.

M at the Roman Theater in Aosta

From there, we followed the ancient wall until we reached the roman theater.  It was surprising to see how well-intact one of the walls was, and it seemed strange to see Roman ruins up in the Alps (I generally associate them with more mild or temperate climes).  The site is open free to the public, and we were able to walk around on the footpaths cutting through the site.  Next to the theater is the Tour Fromage (named after a family, not cheese).  It was one of the original Roman towers, but what seemed most interesting was that it houses a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci; unfortunately, we couldn't seem to figure out how to get inside or if it is even open to the public ever.  So we walked around it and looked at its exterior.

Town of Aosta

We had lunch at an outdoor Bruschetteria in Piazza Chanoux.  It included a mixed salad, a vegetarian bruschetta (the largest piece of toast I have ever seen with pizza-like toppings on it), and a plate with locally produced cheese, including a fontina cheese known as Fontina Val d'Aosta.  In addition to enjoying the view of the surrounding mountains, we had fun watching the biker gangs pull into the piazza while we sipped our fizzy red wine.

Aosta Cathedral

After lunch, we stopped in the cathedral, which originally dates from the 4th century but which has a 19th century neoclassical facade.  The cathedral had several vibrant frescoes and houses a treasury museum (which was closed).  We then rambled through the Roman cryptoporticus next door.  The cryptoporticus is all that's left now of the old Roman forum.  The part open to the public consists of three long, practically subterranean hallways with arches cutting each hallway lengthwise.  They had great mood-lighting in the tunnels/hallways, and it was neat to think how old the structure was.   M was a bit disappointed that photos were not allowed

Castello di Fénis

We wandered back through town, grabbed some gelato (green apple for K and biscotto for M), and headed back to the car.  Since it was a rather long drive (3+ hours) to Aosta, we wanted to take the opportunity to see a little more of the region since we had plenty of daylight left.  We decided to see one of the many castelli in the valley.  We decided on the medieval Castello di Fénis, a 15 minute drive east of Aosta.  Once we arrived, we waited about 20-minutes for the tour to start.  Then we followed the Italian-speaking tour guide through the open parts of the castle.  There were plaques/signs in the rooms, some in Italian and French and some with English.  But it was really difficult to figure out what the guide was talking about.  Upon further reflexion, we probably should have asked some questions in French to get a little more out of the tour.  Regardless, we did get to see interesting rooms within the castle.  The highlights of the castle included several frescoes (one featuring St. George slaying a dragon and rescuing a princess) and artisinal pieces of period furniture.

K in the Alps

After the castello, we decided to start the long, winding drive home.  On the drive over the Alps, we stopped to walk around a little bit and play in the snow.  We stopped at a turnout, and then climbed over the rocky terrain.  While K dipped a finger in the snowmelt stream, M felt she needed some refreshment so imbibed some fresh Alpine water; we'll see if she gets any intestinal parasites...  As M was taking her chances with Alpine cholera, K scrambled up a mountain hill and spotted a marmot.  Once M finally figured out where K had run off to, she scrambled herself up the mountain hill.   We both watched the plump furry creature bounding on the snow and rocks until he disappeared into a crevice.  We found the easy way back down to the car and made our way home.

Monday, we chilled at home and did some "spring cleaning."

Lessons learned:

1. You can get gelato on a stick!
2. St. Bernards are no longer used as search and rescue dogs in the Alps.  However, you can buy a stuffed toy dog all over the St. Bernard region, from Martigny, Switzerland to Aosta.