My Little Mermaid

Lainey, like Aidan, has been taking swim lessons for the last year. Aidan really progressed this summer and is really swimming on his own. He's passed 2 levels of the Swiss swimming system and is soon to test for his third. Lainey, though, hasn't progressed as fast, but she's also not in the same Swiss system because she's too little. But, just this week, she's done it!! She can swim a bit on her own underwater! I'm so proud of her! Here are a few pics of my little mermaid in her swim class: Getting ready to put her face in the water

She's really good on a kickboard. She can paddle on her own quite a distance with one.

Here she's learning to float/swim on her back. She doesn't like this very much.

Feeling proud!

Here she goes underwater through the hoop, all by herself!

Way to go, Lainey!!!

White Truffles and Red Wine

It's been a week since Missy, Chris, Jenni and Tyler left and I'm just now catching my breath after our week with them! We packed so much fun into the 8 days they were here that some of it is blurry. (Although, the blurriness could also be blamed on the amount of wine consumed during those 8 days, too!)

They arrived on Saturday morning and after a whirlwind tour of Zurich and fondue dinner that night, we all set off for the Piedmont region of Italy. Piedmont is in northern Italy, near France and the main city is Torino where the Olympics were held in Winter 2006. This region is known for Fiat cars, "big" red wine, and the elusive white truffle. We focused our sight seeing on the wine and truffles.

We rented a villa house near Asti (home of Asti Spumanti) and spent 3 days driving through massively thick fog to vineyards and the ancient villages of Asti and Alba. We had a great time tasting wines, some straight out of the barrel, and eating WAY too much. All the restaurants in the region are like good Italian grandmas: They just keep bringing out plates of food and forcing you to eat until you are about to burst!

We did splurge to taste the famous white truffle at dinner our first night. Personally, I don't get the hype. It's a fungus. I understand they are hard to find (you need a dog or pig to root around the mud for the smell of them and to dig them out). I also understand that it's weird that no one knows how they form (they have no roots, spores or any sign of how they reproduce). But, still it's a fungus. Something from the mushroom family. Something that is seriously odiferous. The smell can knock your socks off half way down the street in Alba. But, much like caviar (which I also find foul) white truffles are an ultimate delicacy. 100 grams sells for around 500 Euros! We all paid 10 Euros each to just have some grated onto our pasta. 10 Euros for tiny slivers of fungus that, in my opinion, didn't taste that great. Chalk it up to an "experience". I wouldn't pay for it again, though! I guess I'm just not that sophisticated.

The wine, however, did live up to it's hype. Barolo wine is known as "the king of reds" and was unlike any merlot or cab or chianti. Even the table wine or "dolcetto" of the region was fantastic. 4 Euros can buy a really nice bottle of wine! We brought back a case and a few, but I really wish we had brought back more of the cheap wine. We could have stored it for a few years and would have some amazing wine in 5-10 years! Oh well. It's not likely we'd have the self-control to save it instead of drink it anyway.

Even though this wasn't a kid-type trip, our kids had fun. We started the trip off with a visit to Castlegrande in Bellinzona, Switzerland which they loved. They loved spending time with Missy, Chris, Jenni, and Tyler and were great sports about trailing behind us. They even made friends with some Italian kids at one of the wine shops and played with them a while. On our last day, we did something especially for them. Thanks to Scooby-Doo movies, our kids love mummies and Egypt so we took them to the Egyptian museum in Torino. This museum has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts anywhere other than Egypt! Apparently, the Savoys (who ruled the region for many years) were big fans of Egypt so they bought up tons of artifacts and started a museum there. We saw lots of mummies and mini-sphinx statues and heiroglyphics. We could barely peel Aidan out of there. At one point when I was trying to hurry him along he said to me in a frustrated voice "Can you just give me a minute, I'm trying to read here!" I was happy to see how interested they both were in the museum.

Aside from the pea soup fog, we had another great trip! Here are a few pics from the 4 days: Castlegrande in Bellinzona, Switzerland

Jason eating pasta with white truffles

Tasting wine straight out of the barrel wearing typical wine maker hats

Entering the village of Barolo

The Egyptian Museum in Torino

Thanksgiving Day 2009

Even though Thankgiving Day is not celebrated in Switzerland, we still had a FEAST! Last year, we were a little sad on Turkey Day since it was just the four of us. No family or friends to share our feast with. This year, we didn't have our whole family with us, we did at least have a few of the "Griswold" clan here!

Jenni, Tyler, Missy and Chris have been spending the week with us and we were thrilled to celebrate with them, even though we still missed the rest of our family. We also invited our friends and neighbors Kirsten, Bob, William, and Teddy this year. As they are English, they've never experienced a Thanksgiving dinner before! I think they were amazed by the amount of food we had, and most of our traditional dishes were new to them. I'm pretty sure we convinced them how much fun and how filling Thanksgiving can be! And, the guys introduced Bob to the NFL and the tradition of watching the Lions lose on Thanksgiving Day. Our festive table

The "kid" table! I haven't had one of these since Erin and I had to sit at one!

The "grown-up" table

Jason and Missy with the magnum of wine we brought back from Italy with us. That bottle didn't last long!!

I am very thankful for my family and friends here and afar. I am truly blessed.

Rumors, Rumors, and more Rumors!

Will we stay or will we go? Ask me tomorrow, by then the answer will have changed!

"We will probably be sent home in October, should we just move home in the summer and let the kids start school there?" That was the first "rumor". Obviously we are still here.

"I think we're good until Christmas." Jason told me this in October based on rumors at work. That's why we didn't buy plane tickets to come home for the holidays this year. We figured it would be on the company dime, in first class, and all our belongings trailing behind us on a slow boat. So I warned Jen not to buy tickets to come see us for New Year's.

"It's looking good for us to stay through February break...go ahead and book ski lessons for the kids." Rumor had it in late October that this was the case. By the time the deal went through, Jason would be needed to finish up year end stuff. That's when my mom booked her flight to come at Christmas. By then fares had gone up and Jen decided to wait to visit. Rumor had it we'd be moving back to the US at that time.

So, the latest in our saga is that the deal didn't happen. Good, for us I think. I think that means we can stay in Europe a bit longer. However, WHERE in Europe is still up for grabs. Let the rumors start flowing again!

Yesterday, I received an email from someone at school saying how sad they were that we were moving and that if I needed any help, to let them know. Then they attached a link to an article about it.

Huh? Not so fast. That's just a rumor. SOME of the work is moving to Germany, but as of now Jason's part isn't. At least for now. Now he thinks we're good until Easter break. Or maybe summer vacation. Or maybe Easter break. Or maybe finance will stay in Zurich for good. Or maybe Jason will work a few months in Germany and we'll finish the school year here. Or maybe they won't need him in Germany at all and we'll go back to the US. Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe....

It's Official...

...this place is insane! I just was at a market that boasts carrying American goods. I just saw a spray can of PAM for 13.50 and a box of Duncan Hines cake mix for 12.50 and a can of Libby's Pumpkin Pie filling for 16.50. Please remember that Swiss Francs are just about equal to USD!!! (I would have taken pictures as proof of the prices, but the grocer was already looking at me funny because I was gasping so loud...)

Now you all see why it is your civic duty to bring me a suitcase loaded to the 50lb. maximum with goods from the States when you come visit me!!!

Please excuse me while I now go snack on my 7.50 tortilla chips and 5.00 Dixie cup of hummus.

Raebeliechti

Yesterday, we experienced a Swiss tradition called Raebeliechti. I'm not sure of the actual origins and purpose of the holiday, but according to Aidan (who learned about it in school) it's about adding light to darkness in the short days of fall. Whatever it's origins and purpose, all Swiss kids carve turnip lanterns and then there is an evening where the community gathers together and walks through the village with their lanterns.

Aidan was given a turnip to carve at school. We had to do the carving at home and let me tell you, turnips are not as easy to carve as pumpkins! I basically had to do all the work, but Aidan designed it. I had to scoop out most of the insides, but then for the decorations, you don't cut through the skin like you do for a jack o'lantern. You peel away the purple skin of the turnip, but leave some of the white insides. Then, when you put a candle inside, the light glows through the thin layer of white turnip. Here's a picture of Aidan trying his hand at scooping out the insides: Here's a picture of the finished lantern! It was pretty cool. We had stars and Aidan's name and a maple leaf on it:

Aidan's class performed a German song at their school assembly and showed off their lanterns on Friday. Then, yesterday night, we joined the community in their Raebeliechtiumzug, which is the turnip lantern parade. Here is the advertisement about the parade that was posted in the village center (you can see the illustration of kids walking with their lanterns through the village):

It was hard to get good pictures in the dark at the parade, but here is the lead cart of lanterns. We followed this cart and a man who was beating a drum as we walked through the neighborhood.

Here are Aidan and Lainey just before the parade:

It was a cold night, and we didn't do the whole parade. We didn't know how far they'd actually go and they weren't singing or anything like we expected. But, we did feel like we got the gist of the "experience". (I took some video, so hopefully we'll be able to see the procession better on it in the dark.)

Wine Boats - Year 2

Jason and I went to the ExpoVina Wine Boats at Burkliplatz last night. We went last year as well. It's quite an event. 5 boats docked in the lake filled completely with wine tasting bars. 20chf gets you in and you can taste as many wines as you can/like.

Last year, we did not prepare ourselves well. Jason met me right after work but we arrived just an hour before they closed for the night and decided we had to "get our money's worth". So we went on a super fast tasting spree involving too many wines to count and ordering 3 cases of wine which showed up at our house a week later. (That's their trick...you get sloshed on wine then they give you an order form and you think it's a great idea to stock up since they deliver right to your door and all...then you get the bill a few weeks later and go "how much did we buy???") We planned to eat dinner after the boats, which ended up NOT being a good idea. It was definitely a rough night and rougher morning last year.

This year, though, I was prepared! We went to dinner BEFORE hitting the boats. Lots of pasta and bread and only water to stay hydrated during the "main event". We also made sure to leave ourselves more than one hour so we didn't feel rushed to get our 20chf worth! This year, we really enjoyed ourselves and didn't over sample. We planned out our tasting strategy by focusing on the Piedmont wines from Italy (where we're going later this month with Missy) and tasting a bit of home in the Californian wines. We showed good judgement and restraint by only ordering one case of wine this year!

If you're interested in learning more about the wine boats check out this site www.expovina.ch (it's in German, but you can see lots of pictures). It's really a cool experience!