Berlinerblog! (and Heidelburg)

We have a little something happening here this week so we thought we'd catch up on the blog front (sort of) so that the next instalment can focus on what you all are no doubt just dying to know about. The Argentina-Portugal match!

Oh, and the baby thing.

Right, so around mid-November we were struggling to decide what to do with ourselves over the holidays. We threw lots of ideas around: Barcelona, Prague, Venice... Finally, after contemplating the various options, we made like the British Cabinet in 1914 and decided we'd be in Berlin by Christmas. (Yes, that is a Great War joke. We strive to keep it current here at the SCR.)

Since we left things a bit late the discount airlines weren't so discount anymore and we decided to do the 12 hour drive to Berlin. A little worried about whether Sam could take that haul, we decided to spend a night en route in Heidelberg on a tip. Heidelberg is a lovely little university town situated on the Neckar river. It was spared heavy damage during the wars and boasts an impressive castle ruin looming over the city and a well-preserved old town centre in the baroque style. We arrived in a bit of a snowstorm after dark on December 26 (or Second Christmas) so our exploration was pretty much limited to the streets (where regular readers will know we enjoy takin' it to anyway).

Mom and Sam: Very Happy To Be Out of the Car

Sam Checking Out the Cathedral

Building: Baroque 1592

Heading Back to Our Hotel, Near the (Very Cool) Old Bridge

To be honest, we can't tell you much about Heidelburg other than that it looked very interesting and that, if you want to really rock your visit, maybe don't come after dark on Second Christmas. We will certainly try to get back for a more comprehensive visit sometime before our posting ends.

We can also tell you that many places in Heidelberg sell an amazing local delicacy called sneeballs ("snowballs") that are basically tiny pieces of dough shaped into a large ball then deep fried and dipped in some kind of delicious glaze. We can also recommend that you don't buy four of them for two adults and a two year-old.

Sam Slightly Intimidated By His Chocolate Sneeball

The next day it was back in the car for the rest of the journey to Berlin. We ran into heavy snow and heavy traffic and the day felt longer than the entire 13 hour marathon haul back to Geneva.

Sam: Proud Of/Exhausted By His Stickering

We stayed in a great little apartment hotel in the Mitte area of former East Berlin which had great connections to trams and trains that made visiting the city a breeze. (Free tip to City of Ottawa Leaders: Cities in Europe that want tourists have affordable, effective, efficient, integrated transit systems that showcase the city. Those that don't want visitors don't. Your call.)

Berlin underwent some.... serious urban restructuring, ahem... in the mid-20th century. It then had the opportunity to tear away a considerable amount of really ugly Soviet-era architecture over the past twenty years. The result is a city very different from other European cities in that it is very wide open. It also lacks an obvious city centre, with many eclectic and interesting neighbourhoods competing for attention.

We started by hitting the "tourist district" around the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate. It was cold and snowy and you can't really go inside either of these so we quickly moved on.

Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate: Where 1989 Comes Flooding Back So Fast It's Like They Have Jesus Jones on Permanent Loop

We then wandered past the truly moving and poignant Holocaust Memorial (aka Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) and spent some time visiting the attached museum. Walking among the almost 3000 stelae is a powerful and disorienting experience.

Sam At the Holocaust Memorial

We also made sure to get some good shots of Sam standing in front of the remaining bits of the Berlin Wall. This of course is entirely for our amusement. The Wall will be about as relevant a cultural reference point for him as the Suez Crisis was for me. Which is pretty awesome.

Sam: Confused At Being Asked to Stand in Front of Some Graffiti

We also hit some other really interesting cultural/educational spots, including Checkpoint Charlie and the very interesting but poorly organized Checkpoint Charlie Museum, the Topography of Terror museum which recounts German life under the Nazi regime, and the very cool Pergamon Museum that houses a number of massive archeological ruins (including immense buildings - Pergamon Altar, Ishtar Gate and others) brought back to (read: stolen by) Germany from the Middle East and Levant during the 19th century.

Our Colleague Derek, Who Was Also in Berlin, Hanging Out With Us at Checkpoint Charlie

Longest Remaining Section of the Wall, Outside the Topography of Terror

On Museum Island, Near the Pergamon Museum

But it wasn't all educational highlights. We also made a point of seeing some of Berlin's cooler kid-friendly sites with Sam, including the Lego Museum, the Zoo, the Natural History Museum (largest complete dinosaur skeleton - a brontosaurus) and the really cool Aquarium. Sarah did some shopping (see hat, above) and was impressed by the local design and variety of shops, vowing to come back for more when she got her mojo back (i.e. wasn't 7 months pregnant).

Okay Pal, Enough Culture, Time for Fun!

Sam Gets Hands-On at the Lego Museum

Feeding Goats at the Zoo

Chatting Up the Locals at the Bird House

DINOSAURS!!!

We were also there for New Years Eve, which we got to spend with our great friends Gerb and Gizem who just so happened to be in town from Ottawa. Great times were had by all, including the chaperone. One thing to note about that: the Germans really, really, really, really like fireworks. I mean really. It is difficult to communicate in mere words how much they like their fireworks. Ask Sarah and Sam how much they were still liking their fireworks at 3 a.m. when Sam was still up due to the noise (and oncoming flu, I suppose).

Smile Suggests He Dangerously Appreciates How Awesome This Car Is.

DJ Sam

DJ Sam, Ready for Club Night

Yes, the flu. One by one we fell victim to it, eating up the remaining week of our holidays and putting plans for skiing, sledding and other pursuits on hold. At least we got the lounging part in.

Our first Swiss Christmas

So...Christmas was a month and a half ago. I know. Things have been so busy at work, and I've been pleasantly lethargic in my late stages of pregnancy that neither of us has made a push to get the blog up to date. The arrival of Baby #2 in 9 days, and my plan to share some pics with you shortly after, is just the motivation I needed.

Despite being miles and 6 time zones away from family and friends, Christmas turned out to be a lot of fun this year - mostly due to the fact that Sam 'got it' for the first time. We did our big dinner on Christmas Eve this year, as we were planning to head to Berlin, Germany, on the 26th and didn't want to be too tired / have a big mess of dishes to clean up the night before. We invited some old friends from Ottawa who are living here in Geneva - Pinar, Attila and their girls Ince and Oya, as well as some new friends, Sarah Mak and her boyfriend Tak...who arrived that day...for dinner. I took the day off so that I could prep the spread: Turkey (thanks to our US colleague who picked up a good ole butterball in Germany), cinnamon sweet potatoes, cauliflower with cheese sauce, mashed potatoes, orange glazed carrots, rolls with butter, gravy and of course stuffing! We had so much food we fed ourselves several times while in Berlin, including turkey sandwiches for the road (more on Berlin next blog). I got to break out the good china (Mom and Dad's set), the crystal and the good silverware, and Aaron got to eat until he burst. Best of all, we were surrounded by friends and so we didn't have much time to lament over how lonely we were for our extended families. So busy that I didn't even take a single pic to share with you. Sorry!

After everyone left, Sam got into his pyjamas and put out some cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph. This didn't make a lot of sense to him. He thought he should get to eat the cookie.

Sam setting out Santa and co.'s snack.

Sam was asleep fairly quickly (gets it...but doesn't quite get it. Next year will be bad no doubt), and we set about tidying up, wrapping some last gifts, and getting the place ready for Santa's arrival.

When we woke up the next morning (after 8 a.m. the last 8 a.m Christmas for the next 10-15 years no doubt) we couldn't believe the haul!

The haul

Seems Santa had done quite a bit of shopping, and also took note of Sam's request for a 'blue one...with wings' bringing a Playmobile airplane. This got some immediate love. Mommy and Daddy were very surprised by what excited Sam the most, though...the hockey stick and SCISSORS!!! The 'Scissors Cry' went on for a few minutes. Finally, a pair of scissors he could call his very own, and even touch! Next up were rules around what could and could not be cut (no....not your pyjamas, the Christmas tree or the cat...you can cut paper, after asking Mommy and Daddy if you can cut that particular piece of paper).

Favorite things: hockey sticks and scissors..YAY!

After the initial excitement over the gifts Santa had laid out, we noticed that he and Rudolph eaten their snacks (in fact, Santa had eaten his WHOLE snack - but luckily Mommy found another cookie out of which he had only taken a bite so Sam could see he had really been there). Santa also left Sam a very nice note...that Sam immediately wanted to cut up with his new scissors (luckily they don't work all that well)

To Sam, Love Santa

Lesson to new parents (us): A 2.5 year old can only stay interested for so long, even in something as magical as Christmas. We had to convince Sam to open his stocking. He wasn't keen to reach in there (not sure what he was expecting). He was, however, a great bringer of gifts and saved us from having to move much except to refill our coffee and open all the windows after lighting a fire with the flue closed (smoky pics not attached).

Sam wore his goggles like that most of the morning

We were all very spoiled, and got some great things that we either wanted, needed or made us think of home. We are very lucky.

Love my Canada mittens

One of the things I was most excited for Aaron to open was something Tak had brought from Canada the day before...BACON! Ineed, he was very pleased. We had a yummy brunch of Eggs Benedict and bacon and invited Julie, Darren and the kids over to enjoy it with us.

Playing hockey in the driveway while the bacon cooks

Aaron, Sam, Cedrik and Darren enjoying the bacon

All in all, Christmas was better than we could have hoped given that we were stuck in Switzerland. We got to skype the family in the afternoon and then we turned our attention to our next adventure...Berlin!

Montreux and Santa

We here at the SCR try to provide our dedicated readers with a sense of what life is like in the Helvetic Confederation. We think we have done a reasonable job so far, but we acknowledge that we have let some things slip. In particular, we have noted the growing collective impatience with which you demand: "what about the Christmas markets and festive grottos??".

This is, frankly, a rather inexcusable oversight given the fact that Christmas markets are as Swiss as floral cow parades and twice as crowded. We hit a few but the big show was Montreux, home of the jazz festival of the same name and Freddy Mercury's old stomping grounds (for you boomers in the audience). Fun as a day of fighting massive crowds to get to stalls full of cinnamon-smelling knick-knacks sounds, Sam and I pushed for a combo outing. Fortunately Freddy isn't the only person to call Montreux home -- the big man in the red suit also keeps a little place up in the mountains for tax purposes and he just happened to be in town.

The View Above Montreux

As you might expect from a fellow who keeps his principal residence at the North Pole, Santa appreciates his privacy and his Swiss pied-a-terre is 6700 ft. above town at the top of Rochers-de-Naye. You have to take a cog-wheel train from Montreux to the peak, which while stifflingly hot, provides lovely views of the far end of Lac Leman.

Horsing Around on the Train: Fun With Hats

Santa knows a thing or two about showmanship, so he's not just going to wait for you at the top of the mountain. Oh no, you have to walk a half a kilometre through some festively lit cave to reach the grotto.

The Slightly Spooky Subterranean Path to Santa's Grotto

Sam was quite a big boy in this second encounter with the Claus, and was very happy to explain to the jolly old philanthropist that he wanted "a blue one" for Christmas. He'd been telling us the same thing for weeks, but Santa, being an old hand at this sort of thing, managed to extract that it was "a blue one with wings"... so that helped a lot.

Sam Inspecting His Certificate From Santa

Santa actually manages to run a pretty efficient operation out of his grotto, with assistant elves running here and there keeping the throngs moving. Sam got a nice little parting gift from Santa's helper which he very much enjoyed.

Sam Applies for a Position as Santa's Payroll Clerk

On the way down we stopped in Caux to visit its Christmas village. Caux offered some really great views in addition to lots of fun sights and sounds for Sam.

The Gang

Sam At Santa's Village

There were also lots of furry friends for Sam, including bunnies, chickens, lambs, ponies and.... reindeer! The kid was over the moon and had some pretty deep conversations with the livestock.

"Hello Bunnies!"

Sam Meets Rudolph, A Bit Star-Struck

(Note shifty man in background -- caught!)

We tuckered ourselves out and we still hadn't made it to the Christmas market. So we were very excited to catch the train the rest of the way down the mountain. We waited at the packed station for our ride and when the train pulled in and everyone else hopped on we, for some reason, persuaded ourselves that the train was heading up rather than down and, confident in our ability to judge Swiss rail timetables by instinct alone, stood slack-jawed as the train proceeded down the hill after all. Boo.

Fortunately, Swiss trains are like old cliches and there was another along in twenty minutes.

Worn Out From The Adventure

We then spent what was left of the day wandering through the famous Montreux Christmas market. We shopped, we bought (not much), we tried on hats and sweaters. We drank mulled wine and cider and ate various Swiss treats. And then, at last, on the water's edge, there he was. The King of Queen, the Champion of the World: Freddy!

Finally at the Montreux Christmas Market: Food, Fun and Freddy Mercury

Christmas Parties

Ok so I lied and this post is not about Montreux, but some of the Christmas parties (because the parties happened before Montreux and the order of pics in iphoto is how I remember what came when).

First off was the work Christmas party, significant because it was Sam's first Santa encounter of the year. The party was held at the Ambassador's pad - nice digs. I was 30-31 weeks pregnant, and my colleague here was 5-6 weeks ahead of me. She has since had a baby girl. I'm still waiting and growing but more on that later.

Go big or go home - me at 31 weeks pregnant

The party was great. Lots of kids, kiddy room downstairs, lots of GREAT food (mini tourtieres anyone?) thanks to the Ambassadors stellar chef. Mmmm. We sang carols (I was so in my element) and had a visit from Santa. At one point, we couldn't find Sam. Someone found him upstairs, checking out the Ambassador's bedrooms. Another time Aaron found him downstairs in the kiddy room, curled up on the couch all alone watching The Grinch at 90 decibels.

Singing carols - second only to karaoke

Best of all, Santa paid a visit. We started prepping Sam for Santa a few days before, explaining what he did (down the chimney, the reindeer, the cookies). We figured we could use it to demand 'good' behaviour (maybe next year it will go better...it elicited mostly blank stares this year). Sam got it... kinda -- he explained that when Santa came down the chimney he was going to "hit him with my sword". Kid's no wimp.

Anyway, with regards the party, we told him Santa would be coming and that Santa would probably call his name and ask him to go sit on his lap. Sam wasn't too keen on this idea, and based on his reaction to some Santa emails and videos, wasn't exactly sure what he thought of this guy with the red suit and the beard. So, no, Sam wasn't going to sit on his lap.

Newsflash: Santa has been spotted in the neighborhood

Anyway, I guess Sam didn't realize that going to see Santa would mean getting a gift, and when he saw the other kids getting gifts, when his name was called, he bravely went up by himself, handed Santa a drawing he had made earlier that night, and got his present. While he clearly wasn't enjoying himself (see pic below), and didn't actually sit on his lap, he was willing to risk the scary dude for a gift. Anyway, I was very proud of him.

Sam braves Santa for a gift

The next night, Aaron and I hosted a kiddy gingerbread house party, inviting some of our work colleagues with young kids to the house for food, gingerbread houses and Christmas movies (Rudolph!). I went to town decorating the house, not just for the party but also to help stave off the blues what with us spending Christmas so far from all of you. We got our tree at Ikea for only 10CHF. Christmas trees are very midget-y here and very expensive, so we thought we found a deal until it died 5 days later. I also went a wee tad overboard with the lights, going through 7 strings of varying sizes and shades. Looks like an evil elf vomited lights all over the thing. Think we will invest in an already-lit fake tree sometime soon.

Our cozy Christmas living room

Mushrooms on the mantle (and in the tree) - It's a Swiss thing, or a 2011 thing...not sure which.

But back to the party. Having never made a gingerbread house before, I naively thought I would bake and assemble all houses. Happily, I ended up buying kits at Ikea but still, the assembling took much more time than I thought (over several nights) and I had to make my own icing-glue. Also, it turned out that the kits didn't come with candy, and there is a definite dearth of Christmas themed candy (think red, green and white jelly beans and jube jubes, peppermint swirls etc.) here in Geneva. They just eat chocolate. So we had to make due with regular smarties, chewy candies and cake decorations. The kids didn't seem to mind though.

The gang hard at work

The results: beautiful original gingerbread houses

Sam's house

And the best part (apart from having left-over candy to eat): the house smelled like gingerbread for a couple of weeks.

Sam bakes

As promised, here are some pics of Sam baking. He actually does most of his baking at pre-school (for all of you who thought that I baked...ha ha ha ha). They have made apple pies, and gingerbread cookies.

Proud of his gingerbread man he made at pre-school

He admitted that his role was limited to adding the chocolate bits. But he got the eyes in the right place (the first things to go, too, when he ate it).

Sam with his next batch of pre-school gingerbread

This time it was quite obvious that he did the cutting out...as things were a bit mangled. But I see the learning progression here. He explained the process to me as follows (with hand actions) : "roll, roll, roll...cut, cut, cut...then cook!"

Rolling the dough

Sam also helped me make some gingerbread cookies (lesson - one package of IKEA gingerbread goes a long way...don't need 2 packages) and some peanut butter balls (he was fired when he kept eating more than he was rolling).

Next up, our trip to Montreux on the Swiss Riviera.

Winter Wonderland

Ok, so we are terribly behind and at risk of losing our readership - to the 11 dedicated souls, we apologize.

Anyway, I have a vision of what I want to post, but can no longer remember what the text should be. So this post is primarily a pictoral of Sam exploring his Canadian roots after a rare 32 cm dump of snow in Geneva. This dump paralyzed the city - seriously. Some news reports said it was the most snow Geneva has seen in one snowfall since the late 1800's - others the 50's, but still! No one here has snow tires and so people were abandoning their cars in the middle of the street etc., causing massive traffic jams. I loved it (not the traffic jam bit).

It has since snowed twice, luckily right before Christmas so we had a white one, but the snow always melts within a week. In fact, it must have been 15 degrees or warmer this past Sat - I was out with only a t-shirt on. But I digress...

Sam and Daddy making a snowman in the backyard.

After they put the hat on the snowman, Sam looked at it a bit then said disappointedly to Aaron "Hat no working!". When Aaron asked what he meant he explained, "Daddy, Frosty no come!". We explained that our hat wasn't a magic silk hat and told him to keep his eyes open. We're still looking.

Sam goes skating and plays some hockey

OK, so he didn't really skate on these single blades. This was his second outing, the first time we had those double blade strap-on skates and at least on the double blades he could stand. And we didn't have a helmet at that point so mostly he rode around in Aaron's arms. But he DID score 3 goals on a little net, which he was very excited about. He got a real hockey stick and a set of double blades from Santa. He's got a mean indoor slap-shot for a 2 year old.

Making snow angels

Daddy taught him snow angels. Sam's a big fan. He dropped and did this on the busy Unter den Linden in central Berlin a few weeks later. It was funny. Had to be there I guess.

Sledding on cool Swiss toboggans

Gotta get ourselves one of these, as they are fast (plastic versions of wooden sleighs on rails - 1/5 the price). A bit too fast for Sam, Aaron reports. He got a quite a bit of snow in his face and wasn't sure if he liked this sledding. His friend Katya loved it, though. She's there passing him. Sam got ski goggles in his stocking from Santa (see upcoming Christmas blog...that I plan to write sometime soon) so speed restrictions should be removed the next time out.

And of course, eating snow

This is the one snow sport that Mommy did with Sam. I'm a good teacher because he took to it right away. He even asks first if the snow he is eyeing is clean or not. It usually isn't very (actually, usually it very isn't).

Hot chocolate afterwards

Stay tuned for my next blog, entitled Sam bakes. It will be almost as exciting as this one.

Gruyères!

Gruyères: The SCR's Jerusalem, Mecca and Yankee Stadium Rolled Into One...

Welcome back Cheeseheads (as we assume our dedicated followers have by now dubbed themselves) to a Very Special Episode of the Swiss Cheese Report. In this instalment, the SCR makes its long overdue pilgrimage to the spiritual home of swiss cheese, the medieval mountain hamlet of Gruyères.

View from the Castle

Gruyères is located just north-east of Montreux, on top of an isolated hill in the canton of Fribourg. Today it is famous primarily as the home of the eponymously delicious hard yellow Gruyère cheese that is protected with a vigilance and vigour worthy of a walled castle town by the modern-day pikemen of the feared Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC). Reminiscent of the heroic House of Gruyères's famous victory over Charles the Bold at the Battle of Morat, the AOC has recently triumphed in its struggle to uphold the sanctity of the Gruyère geographical indication - or appelation d'origine - against such (unsurprisingly) French pretenders as Comte and Beaufort in the so-called by me Great Fromage Wars of the early 2000s.

Tapestry: Triomphe des Fromages Gruyères

Make no mistake -- Gruyères is no one-trick pony in the highly pony-trick-laden world of European dairy gastronomie. Bored with the ho-hum bread and cheese standby, they have mastered the refreshingly different bread in cheese variant, inviting visitors to sample their delectable melty cheese fondue. The town also produces the myocardial-infarction-inducing Gruyères double-cream which dairy scientists estimated at a whopping 48% mfc before their delicate measuring instruments succumbed to the sheer excess of it all. There is also, you will no doubt be shocked to learn, a highly rated chocolatier, Maison Cailler, in nearby Broc.

But Gruyères fortunes did not always rely solely on its aptitude for exploiting the production of Switzerland's favoured bovine population. Once the town was a centre of political intrigue and a sought after ally by the competing interests of the Holy Roman Empire, the House of Savoy, the Old Swiss Confederacy and the Duchy of Burgundy, among others. This was the combined effect of a sturdy castle, a remote locale and a certain pragmatic political flexibility.

Castles Were a Strong Claim to Relevance in Medieval Times.

Presumably Where the Knights Got Drunk

Nineteen Counts of Gruyères called the castle home. Alas, it all came to ignominious end with Michel who died in hock to the cantons of Fribourg and Bern which upon his death claimed his lands and promptly turned the whole place into a whopping money-making success by opting to stop fighting in wars and instead to focus on supplying tasty and easily transported cheese to feed the growing armies of the many neighbouring kingdoms and duchies who were engaged in the the perpetual fighting that was the hallmark of medieval Central Europe. So Gruyères was kind of like the original Haliburton... just with cheese.

The Castle Interior

No Clever Caption, Just Pretty

We spent most of our time walking around the town and checking out the castle, which Sam liked because we let him run around on the assumption that if the Austro-Hungarian Empire couldn't break the place it would probably survive our son.

Sam Tests Our Assumption

In complete juxtaposition to this medieval architecture is a cafe and museum just outside the castle gates by the man who designed the Aliens for the James Cameron blockbuster. It completely does not fit in this traditional Swiss village -- but then it's fair to say it wouldn't really fit anywhere.

Weird

To recover from this rather unsettling experience, we decided to sample some of the local wares and to eat as much cheese as possible in the most stereotypically Swiss looking place conceivable. (The double-cream we took home for later.) This place was just what the doctor ordered:

Le Chalet

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the sign says "Action Raclette". We later learned that "action" is Swiss for "promotion" or "sale". So, sadly, the raclette was no more exciting than usual. After the Alien cafe though, this was just fine by us...

Your SCR Correspondents: Happy Pilgrims

Until next time dear readers. And thanks to Sarah Mak for some great photos.