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 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 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.

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 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.)

Week 9

Last weekend, we were planning to go to Gruyères to see the castle there, sample the local cheese (Gruyère, of course), and also visit a local chocolate factory. However, as previously mentioned, we learned that the weekend we were planning to go that the entire area surrounding Gruyères was being shut down to automobile traffic. So instead, we hung around Neuchâtel on Saturday, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Everybody was out enjoying the good weather, and everything seemed to be in bloom. While we were in town, we saw that the local military bands were having a "march-off". The bands rotated around the town, stopping in large spaces to perform a few songs (which included "The Bear Necessities" and "Copa Cabana") before moving on to the next location. It was a lot of fun. The streets were crowded with tables of people enjoying lunch or a drink in the fresh air. It was completely picturesque, and it almost felt like we were on some Euopean vacation.

On Sunday, still jonesing for a castle visit, we decided to go to the town of Pontarlier about an hour from Neuchâtel just past the French border. We visited an awesome castle (the Chateau de Joux, www.chateaudejoux.com) in the little town of La Cluse-et-Mijoux. It was built in the 11th century and was in perpetual construction through the 1800s. The highlights of the castle included a spiral staircase that could induce vertigo in just about anyone and a well (un puits) dug from within an underground chamber. The well is about 13 feet in diameter and almost 500 feet deep; to demonstrate how deep the well was, the guide poured a glass of water into the well from the top, and there was at least 10 seconds between when we saw the pour and we heard the splash of water. It was really neat. After the castle tour, we had lunch in and walked around Pontarlier. (Ken would like to take the opportunity to mock Margaret's decisions to visit the local area museums, which appear to curate anything that they can link to the area whether it is actually interesting or not.)

At the end of the week, we learned that our registration in Neuchâtel had finally been finalized and that we needed to go pay the reregistration fee. While we were out, we were also able to change our address for the car registration to Neuchâtel. This meant that we could finally give proof of our address in Neuchâtel so we can get the parking sticker to put on our car to park in front of our apartment. Of course, they couldn't give the sticker to us in person. Swiss efficiency dictates that it be sent to us in the mail.

This past weekend was not as nice as the previous one. It was gray and rainy, and the temperature dropped considerably. There wasn't much going on in town anyway because almost everything was closed for Labor Day. We did have a pleasant weekend lounging about in the apartment, however.

Lessons Learned:
1) Frozen green beans and green peas swap rankings in Switzerland. Although I detest the rubbery frozen green beans in the US (unless they are cut French style), the frozen green beans here are delicious. They're tender and quite flavorful. Unfortunately, however, the usually sweet, tender morsels of the US frozen peas are starchy, hard bits here. The cheap bag of frozen peas has each pea coated with butter or margarine making for a greasy, starchy unpleasantness.

2) A falafel wrap to-go is great lunch to eat while running between city bureaucratic offices. Mmmm...falafel....

Your mission...Survive week one.

After the Monday holiday, we reported to work Tuesday morning to sign paperwork and pick up an official copy of Ken's employment contract. With both employment contracts in hand (along with passports, certificate of accommodation from the B&B, marriage certificate, blood donor cards, 4H cards, highest scores from Super Mario Bros, baby footprints, etc...) we headed to the Neuchâtel commune administration building to meet our relocation consultant and register as local workers.

However, the B&B at which we are staying (which, by the way, the relocation consultant had booked for us), while located within the CANTON of Neuchâtel, is not located within the COMMUNE of Neuchâtel. The B&B is in the commune of Les Hauts Geneveys, about 10 minutes up the road. Which meant that we couldn’t register at the Neuchâtel office; we needed to register at the administration office in Les Hauts Geneveys.

Our relocation consultant had scheduled sufficient time to help us register in Neuchâtel, but had a subsequent appointment, so didn’t have time to drive with us to Les Hauts Geneveys to register. With the Les Hauts Geneveys address in hand (to load into our trusty GPS), and Margaret’s French skills, we ventured off to register without our consultant.

We found the tiny administration building in Les Hauts Geneveys. The gentleman behind the counter was very pleasant. M rocked the dialogue in French; everything went very smoothly; and we were applied for registration. We can now officially work in Switzerland! However, we don't get to leave the country until our registration is complete (in about 4 weeks) because our visas were only single entry.

The rest of the work week was mostly getting acclimated: getting our work computers set up (but no phones yet); meeting coworkers and reports; getting trained on some of the systems; starting to read documents; figuring out how to work the copiers and vending machines; etc.

Most nights found us back at the B&B at a relatively reasonable hour to make dinner and entertain ourselves (although K is trying to return to his regular schedule of long hours). Unfortunately, to K’s utter horror, we discovered that Hulu (the wonderful website of free online television) does not work in Switzerland. The website gave some bogus message about not having distribution rights outside the US. Hulu withdrawal was NEVER one of the anticipated changes. Somehow, we managed, helped by the fact that we did find MacGyver in French on the television (of course, K knew the episode plot almost immediately).

We did go out to dinner with coworkers one night for cheese fondue. We made sure to drink white wine to prevent the dreaded cheese plug, which K still refuses to believe in. It was a very nice meal with plenty of good conversation. We also tried to keep our voices down, as we’ve heard that the stereotypical American uses their outside voice even when in a small restaurant. Despite the effort, we think we still came across as loud.

On Friday night, as we were leaving work, we decided to drive up to La Chaux de Fonds to check a restaurant which had been recommended by a coworker; note that reservations are strongly recommended for weekend dining, and we did not have a reservation. When we arrived, the restaurateur was nice enough to offer us a table, if we wanted to be seated at 8pm (it was roughly 6:15 then). K was hungry and unwilling to wait that long to eat, so we drove back to the B&B for dinner.

On the drive back, we stopped for our first gasoline fill-up. Nothing surprising, except there doesn’t seem to be pay at the pump. As credit cards are less-used than in the US, I guess this isn’t very surprising. As gasoline runs about $6USD/gallon, the fuel bill was a bit of a shock. It's like we were driving an SUV. After the somewhat long week of settling in at work, we also tried to stop at a local grocery store to pick-up some weekend/unwinding beer, but the stores close on Friday at 6:30, and it was now 6:37.

On Saturday, we woke up to some serious snow showers, but as stores are closed on Sunday, Saturday is a prime shopping day, so we were not to be deterred. K found a snow shovel outside the B&B, so after 15 minutes of shoveling the snow off of the dirt (which had been mud earlier in the week, but was now frozen pretty firm) drive, we were on our way. Note: it was a light and fluffy snow, else this would have taken much longer, or would have been skipped all together.

On the motorway, the roads were snowy/slushy, so we drove slower than normal. On clear roads, the Swiss are happy to tailgate at high speeds, and this practice was not noticeably diminished by the inclement weather. However, we safely navigated the roads to a local shopping plaza. Items on our list:

1. An enclosed litter box, as the enclosed litter boxes we had in CA are on the boat right now and the litter box we brought with us is open, is a must-have item as our cats enjoy tossing litter (as much and as far as they can). When we had the mess contained in our home’s mudroom in CA, this was not a big deal. Sharing a studio apartment with the cats, where there are no doors to close to separate ourselves, this is a much bigger deal.

2. More cat food and cat litter.

3. Groceries for the humans, including beer.

Success on all three!

The return trip to the B&B from the shopping plaza was marked with more snow/slush and aggressive drivers. We even witnessed one driver slide somewhat gently into another driver that had stopped at an intersection. (Fortunately, it didn't look like there was much damage to either vehicle, and presumably both individuals are covered by at least one of the multitude of insurance policies for which the Swiss have an affinity.) Back at the B&B, we could just barely tell that Ken had shoveled as the snow had fallen enough to recover everything to near the pre-shoveled depth. The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy, as we hunkered down to avoid the snow.

Sunday was still cloudy, but the snow had mostly stopped. In the afternoon, after another round of shoveling (which likely violated the Swiss rule of no work on Sunday), we walked down to the next village, La Jonchére. No particular reason, except it was fairly close. At least getting there seemed fairly close. La Jonchére is downhill from Les Hauts Geneveys.

The walk back was much more strenuous. And we were getting cold. Our Central Valley, Northern CA blood hasn’t had time to thicken up to withstand the rigors of Swiss winter. All in all, it was a pretty day and a nice walk (M thinks K's "nice walk" was a snowy, Swiss death march); good to get out and breathe some fresh, bracing air.

At the end of each week, we'd like to share some lessons that we learned during the week.

This week's lessons:

1) It snows a lot in Switzerland. There is a reason for all the tunnels and covered trenches in Switzerland; they provide driving refuge from the crazy snow.
2) When a Swiss person says they only a speak a little English, they are being modest. When an American person says they only a speak a little French, they are being realistic.
3) First perceptions are that most of the available literature on Swiss culture applies primarily to the Swiss Germans and not the Swiss French, which makes sense since about 60 to 70 percent of Swiss residents speak German and about 20 percent speak French. Considering that most of our interactions at work are not with Swiss but with other European nationals, this perception may change.
4) The Swiss French words for the numbers 70, 80, and 90 are septante, huitante, and nonante, respectively .
5) Cat food is really expensive in Switzerland. The 10 kg bag of Iams cat food is 90 CHF, which would cost us about $32 at Petco in the US.