Winter Wonderland

We had very unusual weather last week in Morges. Typically – I say ‘typically’ but it means based on the past two winters we’ve been here – we get an occasional dusting of snow. Nothing more than a few inches. Our winters tend to be more on the rainy side because we’re next to Lake Geneva. If we want snow, we have to go find it, which means a short drive into the mountains. This was not the case last week! On Wednesday it snowed all day. We had more than a foot by the end of the day. Here’s a picture courtesy of our neighbor, Christina. It’s from their bedroom window, which would be the same view as ours. As beautiful as the snow was, it quickly turned into a big ol’ mess. The Swiss are very efficient about a lot of things but snow removal, at least in our town, is not one of them. Snow and ice still cover most of the sidewalks. It’s like a skating rink out there. The temperature is warming back up and it’s raining outside today, so I think our snow will soon be gone.

Can’t Fool This Girl

I ventured out on Friday to do some Christmas shopping in Lausanne. I was happy to find that one of my favorite shops had a woman painting beautiful designs onto glass ornaments that day. She would also individualize the text for each customer. I can never seem to find anything written in French, so I thought this would be perfect. I ordered an ornament similar to another one she had already done. On it I wanted it to say, ‘Noël en Suisse 2010.’ She told me it would be ready in an hour. Our conversation was a mix of French and English. She was clearly a native French speaker and she clearly knew that I was not. After shopping for another hour, I came back for my ornament. Just before I got to the cashier I realized that the woman had misspelled ‘Suisse.’ What the heck! She misspelled the country’s name. That would be like me misspelling ‘America.’ Then I wondered if she did it on purpose because she knew I wasn’t Swiss and wanted to pull one over on the foreigner. I brought the error to her attention and she turned bright red. She was obviously embarrassed by her mistake and quickly fixed it. I wonder if she was spelling it wrong all day?! Two years ago I would have walked out of that store with my misspelled ornament, all pleased with myself because I successfully got what I wanted. I probably would have hung it on my tree and still not realized the error until someone pointed it out to me. This was a proud moment for me. I no longer feel like a complete dumb-dumb. I know a few things.

Thanksgiving 2010

The actual day was rather uneventful. Matt and I worked a regular day. Our turkey meatloaf dinner is as close to Thanksgiving as we got on Thursday. Matt watched an NFL football game that evening as well, so that made it seem a bit like home, too. We had to wait a few days and then we got all the fixings. Matt’s co-worker, Rob, invited us to his home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family on that Saturday. We enjoyed a wonderful meal together. It was a special treat, especially since Rob’s wife, Sevie, is Belgian and had to research how to make many of the traditional dishes. She put a lot of time and effort into that meal. Her stuffing was the best I’ve ever had. I brought the pumpkin pie. I had a rough time making a crust from scratch this year. After multiple tries I gave up and went to the store to get a premade one. I was pretty disgusted with myself and it just didn’t taste the same. I think this may have been the first year that Grandma Thoma’s rolling pin did not turn out a successful pie crust for Thanksgiving.

Soup of the Week

I made a cooking challenge for myself at the start of autumn – making a homemade soup once a week. So far we’ve had mostly successes with just a few flops here and there. Nothing as bad as my first attempt at wild rice soup here in Switzerland though. To refresh your memory, that was my purple, gloppy mess that didn’t turn out due to a substitution of black rice for wild rice and my own attempt at making corn starch. For a picture of this, see the entries from November 2009. Our favorites thus far have been butternut squash, pumpkin, baked potato and good ol’ chicken noodle. The leeky broth with ravioli was also pretty good. Even Matt is contributing to the soup a week challenge. Last week he made a chicken tortilla soup with the jalapenos I brought back with me from the US.

Time with My Nieces

While I was in Minnesota I spent some quality time with my nieces, Rowan and Evie. Being away from them is one of the hardest parts of living in Switzerland. They are getting so big and I feel like I’m missing it even though we talk on the phone and occasionally Skype.

One of our first activities was a manicure. Rowan decided on lime green polish with sparkles. Evie went for purple polish with white polka dots. I guess I was the boring one with my French manicure.


I don’t have any photos of us rollerskating (at an actual rink with a disco ball and everything) but here’s one of Evie bowling. I think the girls liked the pink lemonade we had more than the actual bowling. Not to toot my own horn but I got a turkey (three strikes in a row) but I don’t think my nieces even noticed, as they were happily sipping away on their pink lemonades and not paying attention to the ball or pins.


I enjoyed ‘puzzing’ with Rowan. Puzzing is the verb used when one is making a jigsaw puzzle. I can’t remember which of my friends created the word but I love it. Anyway, Rowan is amazing at puzzles. At the age of five, she is putting together 1000 piece puzzles. I’m so glad she and her auntie share this hobby. Rowan taught me to say ‘Pa-ching’ when you get a piece to fit. I love that. I think it was really her father that came up with it. It sounds like something he’d say. I’ve abandoned my double-tap (tapping the piece twice to get others’ attention to let them know when you found one) for ‘pa-ching.’


Another highlight was carving pumpkins. The Ungermans get really fancy with their pumpkins – tracing and then carving out elaborate pictures. Rowan was in charge of designing mine. She wrote the word ‘boo’ on it. She’s just learning how to spell so she actually wrote, ‘bob.’ When I told her there was another ‘o’ in it, she squeezed it in there, so, yep, my jack o’ lantern said ‘boob.’ I carved it out just as she wrote it and then sent it home with them to put on their front step.

Visit to Minnesota

I had a week off of work in October so I took advantage of it and headed back to Minnesota for a visit. Matt and Millie stayed behind to hold down the fort. I packed a lot into my ten day visit, mostly consisting of time with family and friends, eating and shopping. Overall, it was a wonderful trip. I was pretty homesick when I left. It’s so hard to say those good-byes each time.

Matt stayed busy while I was away. He had the neighbor boys over a few times. One night consisted of eating chili, drinking beer and watching the movie, Zombieland. I’m glad I was in another country that evening.

Désalpe

Last weekend we ventured out to the village of Saint-Cergue for a festival called Désalpe. It’s a time to celebrate the cows coming down from grazing in the mountains. As the crowd cheered them on, the herds made their way through town.

Not only did the cows have the enormous bells around their necks but some also had huge headdresses made out of tops of evergreens and ribbon.

The alphorns and yodeling entertained us between herds as did the homemade pumpkin soup and pastries.

It wouldn’t be a festival in Switzerland without cheese. This is the first time we’ve seen a raclette machine like this (in the pictures link). Raclette is a traditional Swiss dish consisting of melted cheese, boiled potatoes, small gherkins and pickled onions.

We had beautiful views of the Mont Blanc on our train ride back to Morges. A fantastic view of the lake below us, and the mountains in France beyond that.