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.

Halloween

Ok. so we are a month behind with our blog. Scrambling to catch up on this snowy weekend. Unlucky for me, I caught 24 hour bug that had me between bed and the bathroom most of the day yesterday. Luckily it does NOT appear to be a weird third trimester morning sickness and I'm not 100% today but much better. Since I'm sitting on the couch anyway, may as well get caught up with a few things.

pirate sam with bloody finger cookie

And I've been really wanting to get this post up. Because Sam was the cutest pirate ever - at least that's what his mom thinks. We did halloween with our friends and neighbours, and another family from the mission. Julie had called all the neighbours to find out who would be handing out goodies and she had our route all mapped out. There were enough houses that we were out for an hour. Halloween is taking of in Collex.

Sam, Nadia, Katya, Niklas, Cedric - Mission kids

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

Sam didn't have a clue what this was all about...for the first house. By house #2 Sam was shoving his way past the other kids, including 10 yr olds, and walking right into people's houses. Don't have to worry about my kid being left out. However, the exuberance soon turned to anxious freaking out if he wasn't first in line, etc., and it was all a bit much.

The haul

I think his bag of candy (and crackers and other random swiss items) is still 99% intact in the office. Ok...I've eaten some of it ;)

Sam recycles

He's just that kind of guy. We have to take our recycling to the recycling depot here in Collex. It has become a Daddy and Sam activity.

On the way to the depot

Milk jugs

Double fisting

Making sure they reached their destination