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 5 weeks - Visitors!

Mary and Jack touring Neuchâtel

Last weekend, we had our second set of visitors arrive in Switzerland.  We picked up Mary and Jack, friends from California, at the Geneva airport last Saturday night and had a dinner at Les Brasseurs (the local brewpub).

Sunday, we gave them a mini-tour of the canton.  We walked down the hill and then back up to the chateau and the collegiale.  Then we strolled through town past Neuchatel's famous painted fountains.  We walked along the lake and enjoyed the views and played on the dangerous playground equipment.   In the late afternoon, we drove up to the Creux du Van for a short hike.  The weather wasn't great; it was cloudy and rainy which meant that it was quite muddy.  But we enjoyed our walk, especially when we got to see the chamois mountain goats.  There were two adult females and two yearling goats.  The goats were primarily interested in eating grass at the cliff edge and seemed unconcerned with our presence; they let us come within only a couple meters from them.   It was wonderful to be able to watch them from such a close vantage point.  Sunday night, we had fondue at home.

Monday morning we tried to visit an absinthe distillery in the Val de Travers but had neglected to see that we needed to book in advance.  We did, however, have a nice drive through the hills and valley.  Next, we took our visitors to Gruyères where we visited the fromagerie and the Nestle/Cailler chocolate factory.  We decided to skip the castle this time but did drive up to the town of Gruyères to souvenir shop and to walk along the old ramparts.  This time at the chocolate factory we arrived early enough that we were able to take advantage of the chocolate tasting at the end of the tour.  M was the only one that powered through all the samples, but, needless to say, she had a belly-ache later.  After returning to Neuchâtel in the evening, we headed up to the local peak, Chaumont, and the observation tower, to look over the valley de les trois-Lacs.

Luzern, L to R: Mary & Jack at Verkehrshaus, Swans in front of the
Hofkirche, Kapellbrücke & Wasserturm

Tuesday, we went to Luzern (Lucerne in French).  We started the day with a trip to the Verkehrshaus, also known as the Swiss Transport Museum.  Though the entrance fee was steep, the museum was pretty amazing especially for four inquisitive engineers (though M is slightly less inquisitive than the other 3).  The museum was comprised of multiple buildings, each filled with a mode of transport: trains, cars, boats, and aircraft.  It had cut-aways of a train and a steamer boat, a car crash-test demonstration, flight simulators, a giant photo map of Switzerland, and a courtyard with razor scooters to play with.  It wasn't quite as awesome as the Deutsches Museum in Munich, but it was close. After the museum, we parked in the city and walked to the lake.  We then threaded back and forth over the Reuss River on the series of bridges, one of which was the Kapellbrücke, or Chapel Bridge, originally built in the 1300s and restored after a fire in 1993.  Next to the bridge is the Wasserturm, or Water tower, dating from the 1200s.  The town is quite pretty, particularly with Mount Pilatus towering over the lake, but Luzern is also full of tourists.  We stopped at an English pub by the river and enjoyed the late afternoon.

Geneva, T to B: CERN building,
Yvette and Sean

Wednesday, we headed to Geneva, but first stopped for a tour at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherce Nucléaire, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research).  Things got rather technical in talking about particle colliders, and, well, M got kinda bored.  (In her defense, there was a group of Dutch teenagers that wouldn't shut up making it pretty hard to follow the technical explanations.) K, Mary, and Jack were enthralled.

  In the afternoon, we met up with Sean and Yvette, more friends from California, now currently living in Wisconsin, who had arrived for a day in Switzerland to accompany Mary and Jack to Italy on the next leg of their journey.  After we had everyone in tow, we walked around the city a bit to see the Flower Clock and the Ile Rousseau.  We were also able to see the Jet d'Eau this time, which had been off during our last visit.  Since we didn't have enough room in the car for 6 people, we split up.  The girls took the train back to Neuchatel, and the guys drove.  The final meal of the visit was another fondue.  There was lots of fun conversation and laughter so it was with reluctance that we turned in close to midnight.

Thursday morning, we bid "adieu" to the gang at the Neuchatel train station as they caught their train to Italy.  Then, we headed to work for a short week.

This Saturday, we had a somewhat unexpected guest.  We learned midweek that a friend from California, Joseph, now living in Chicago, was in Zurich for business.  We invited him to Neuchâtel and gave him a tour of the town.  The weather was wonderful (t-shirt weather), and we walked by the lake and through the market which was full with people out enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures.  In the late afternoon, we decided to head up to Creux du Van for the second time in a week.  Though we saw no chamois this time, the view was awesome.  The skies were blue, and we could see the Alps behind us, as well as part of Ile St. Pierre in Lac de Bienne.  We got back to Neuchatel just in time for Joseph to catch the 7:30 train back to Zurich and for us to get ready for a colleague's birthday party.   We had an interesting time at the party.  M primarily stuck with the English and Spanish speakers, but K chatted up some of the francophone guests.

Sunday, we took the bikes out to enjoy the gorgeous weather.  We decided to go easy, so we made it a relatively short bike ride to La Tène.  Everybody else in Neuchatel seemed to think that being outside was an excellent idea too, and all the grassy areas we passed were brimming with people grilling, sun bathing or playing volleyball.

Lessons learned:
1)  So figured out why we haven't gotten our residence permits.  Apparently, the commune was missing some paperwork from our company that justifies why they need to employ us, non-EU/Swiss citizens.  And apparently, the commune had asked the law firm that had handled the paperwork for our original application to provide this paperwork.  The law firm ignored the requests, so the commune threatened our company that if they didn't get the paperwork in 10 days, we'd be deported.  Fortunately, it appears that HR was able to clear things up so that we will not be kicked out of the country.  However, we won't be convinced that everything is alright until we get our new permits.
2) CERN was founded in 1954 and straddles the French/Swiss border.

Weeks 45 to 49- Work, work and more work (and trips to the US)

Sorry to anyone sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for the next installment. The last month has been quite busy with work. The big excitement for January was overlapping business trips to the US. M had a multi-state (GA and NJ), week and a half long trip, and K had 5 days in Texas.

While scheduling supplier visits in Georgia, M was able to take advantage of the opportunity to also visit family and friends (as well as to do some shopping). She spent most of the time with her parents (who were nice enough to lend her the use of their car for the trip), and also got a chance to see some extended family, which included her grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin. She enjoyed getting to see them and talk about her time abroad. She was also fortunate to be able to spend an evening with friends, Charlotte and Buck. (Although due to the wintry weather conditions, she had a bit of an adventure navigating through their neighborhood.) After a week in Georgia, she flew to Newark, which was also in the grips of a winter storm, for additional work.

In Newark, she had a delicious dinner and captivating conversation one night with Flannel/Eric and his family. The next night was dinner with an old highschool/college friend, Cindy, who had just had a baby. M was lucky to be one of the first people to get to visit with the new little one.

During her US trip, M really tried to take advantage of being home, which included trying to fill up on good Mexican and Thai food, as well as shopping for some clothes, where the prices are not only lower than Switzerland, but the sales staff speaks English making for a significantly less stressful shopping experience.

The first weekend that M spent in the US, K tried to take advantage of some unseasonably warm CH weather by going biking near Lake Neuchatel. Unfortunately, it turned out to be foggy by the lake so most of the ride was chilly and damp. And, of course, after being out of bike-seat-riding shape, he was a bit sore when he had to sit on the plane the next morning.

Compared to M's US experience, K, unfortunately, was not able to profit as much from being stateside. The extent of his movements were really between the airport, hotel, manufacturing plant, and a restaurant. When he did try to get dinner on his own without a car, he was thwarted due to the fact that Irving, Texas (or at least the area around his hotel) was not designed with pedestrians in mind (a huge change from Neuchatel).

Since the US trips, we've both been buried in work, though we do get out for some weekend walks.

Just this past weekend, K went on the company ski day. M decided to stay home to prevent from "making a fool of herself in front of coworkers". (She got to teach this phrase to one of her co-workers as well as the complementary "to make a fool of someone else".) All week at work, people were forecasting a ski day without any snow, but it wasn't the case. While there were a few spots where the snow was thin, and other spots where it was just ice, there was plenty of white-stuff on the mountain. Being in the Alps, the views were tremendous. The slopes were, in general, better groomed than what we experienced last year in Grindelwald, but still much rougher than what we were used to in Tahoe.

After a full day on the slopes (including the obligatory wipe-out or three), K headed to the thermal baths. Two outdoor, in-ground, 4ft deep, medium-sized swimming pools, heated to bath-water temperature and crammed full of people. The air was near-freezing, so the goal was to expose as little skin as possible out of the water. After an hour in the baths, some of the kinks from the aforementioned snowboarding-crashes were soaked away.

We were then treated to a Raclette dinner, with a variety of local cheeses being melted and scraped onto our plates paired with potatoes, onions and pickles.

Below is picture of the Alps from across Lake Neuchatel this weekend.


Lessons learned:

1. There is a Swiss Cannabis energy drink available in the local supermarket. (This doesn't seem very Swiss-like. It is something I'd expect to see in Amsterdam, however.)
2. Practically nothing we signed up for last year renews itself automatically (e.g. the parking permit for our street), so we keep finding things have expired. I'll ask again...how are the Swiss known for being efficient?
3. Demi-sang oranges are a hybrid between blonde oranges (i.e. good old orange-colored oranges) and blood oranges. They are apparently in season now, and have been enthusiastically welcomed into our pantry.