Wedding Today

It has been a nice trip back to the U.S. I have really enjoyed the family and food, and a few days off of work to relax. It always amazes me how much simpler things are when you don't have to translate all the signs you are reading all day.

This morning we are headed to the wedding we had come back to attend. It is the wedding of a good college friend of mine. He stood up to my wedding and I really felt like I had to come back to be a part of his wedding as well. Although we don't see each other all that often and generally only speak about twice a year I still consider him a close friend. It is one of those relationships that you don't have to work to hard at, you just get along well no matter how long you have, or have not been in touch.

On a photography note, I got a new lens while I was here as well. It is something I have been mulling over for some time. Seeing as the lens was about 20% cheaper in the U.S. it was time to grab it. I am taking it to the wedding with me and suspect it will get some good use today. I took it for some test shots the last couple of days and think it should do a very nice job.

12 years, Wow, Thats A Long Time.

I was reminded this week that I have known my wife for 12 years. I actually remembered, but my better half wanted to be sure I remembered. I just so happens that I met my wife on my Father's birthday so it's not too hard to keep track off.

12 years. Wow, I just can't believe that. It seems like such a long time. I guess we were pretty young at the time. It is funny how that kind of thing happens.

I remember the second time I saw her. We went to lunch together with some friends. She told me she played piano. Somehow the fact that she told me she played piano made me think that I should really keep a hold on her, she could be the one.

What a ridiculous thing to think, but I do believe it was a very good hunch.

Getting Back From The Tour

Tour boat on Lake Lugano, Switzerland

This evening we just returned from a 3 night stay in Lugano with family. It was a big group, 6 of us in total. As much fun as it was, it is time for everyone to head back to the US tomorrow and for me to return to my normal work schedule.

I really do enjoy traveling with friends and family and showing them around our host country, but there does come a point when you spent too much time with family. I think 9-10 days is about my limit.

So tomorrow I will say good bye, head to work to decompress, and probably stop at the spa (thermalbad) after work to relax and get myself back in order.

Playing Tour Guide

Cows on Rigi

I have had family in town since last friday. They are staying with us all this week. So, I have taken some vacation time to to play tour guide.

We took a day trip yesterday to one of my favorite mountain trains, Rigibahn. It is an hour boat ride from Luzern. It was an all day trip tomorrow we were out from about 9:00 in the morning and didn't return home until about 9:30 at night.

Today is a quiet day for us. We'll do some small shopping, and probably stop at the spa this afternoon. We have day train passes lined up for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They cost 38 CHF for a day pass that is good for all of Switzerland. We need to rest up for alot of traveling in the comming days.

Haus Fraus

Last night I came home from work to a big surprise. My wife and her aunt had made a huge raclette dinner. I was expecting raclette but noy to the shear magnitude of this spread.

I joked that I enjoyed having two Haus Fraus instead of one.

Usually when it is just my wife and I were are very indecisive about picking out a dinner meal. It is always last minute and rushed, but usually good. Planning is an after thought. It tends to be, look in the fridge, find a couple of vegetables and maybe some meat, and try to think what we can make with the often bizarre combination.

We did try something new on the raclette grill. Plum tomatoes topped with some raclette cheese, then on top of that a slice or two of hot red peppers garnished with a few fresh herbs from our garden. It was very good, although I didn't expected to the hot peppers to have the kick they did.

Gruyere

As long as I have been living in Switzerland I hate to admit I had not yet seen any cheese being made. I had never really thought of this until my Parents-in-law had suggested we take a day trip to see Gruyere and the La Masion du Gruyere in the French region of Switzerland.

There was a very small set of exhibits at the museum. The highlight was watching the cheese experts making their cheese. I have to admit it wasn't exactly a high action moment, but it was interesting and I thought that watching the production of the cheese from the glass enclosed gallery was interesting and enjoyable.

The cheese production starts about 12:00 with the cheese man heating 4800 liters of milk with will eventually produced 48 35Kg rounds of cheese. We arrived right at 12:00 and nothing much was going on except a big machine stirring a lot of milk.

If I had to do it again I might suggest arriving at 1:30 or 2:00 pm when they are just preparing to fill the cheese presses.

In another part of the building there is also a glass window that lets you peer into the cheese cellar where the cheese is aged. Included with your 5 CHF entrance fee you also get a sample pack of 3 slices of Gruyere cheese aged to 6 months, 8 months and 10 months. It was nice to taste the samples side-by-side. You could easily tell the differences in the texture and flavor between the samples.

While viewing the cheese cellars there was also a show of sorts going on. A was the robot that goes up and down the aisles turning the cheese over from one side to the other. It was cool to see the machine pull the huge rolls of cheese off the shelves, flipping them over, and then put them back. Considering that this nation is so bent on hand-crafted, and homemade things, it was a little odd to see this robot doing some of the dirty work.

I thought the experience was good, and would recommende it to someone that was in the area. It is a little out of the way for us (2.5 hours by public transportation) but if you couple the visit with an afternoon in the town of Gruyere it was a nice excursion.

From the Home Front

So all week I have been procrastinating. I have failed to contact my friends to announce this years get-together location until this evening. I am ashamed that it took this long, but I am hopeful that everyone will still be able to attend.

As has been the tradition for the past several years during our annual trip home my wife and I usually select a local watering hole and announce our intention to belly up to the bar and hold 'office hours' of sorts. Those friends that are free that evening are welcome to join us for a few drinks and small talk. It is a nice way to catch up with our friends from the Midwest that we have not seen since the last Christmas season.

So like years past we'll be at one of our favorite establishments in the near west suburbs this Saturday evening starting around 7:30 pm. If you are free and in town feel free to drop by. I have made the calls and sent the e-mails but if I have forgotten you or you need to get in touch with me drop me an e-mail and I'll let you know where we will be.

I'm really looking forward to the evening, hope to see you there.

The Box

I wrote before we left for our short vacation a short thank you note to my cousins. I really need to revisit this because I didn't do the story justice.

I cam home the day before on business travel and noticed a slip from the post office saying I had a package for pickup that required a signature. I didn't remember ordering anything from the states but I figured I would go the next morning to the post office to pick up the package.

When I got up the next morning, I had a few errands to run so I grabbed my trusty blue IKEA bag and headed out. When I got to the post office I went up to the counter and presented my receipt and the woman went back behind the counter to find my package. She was gone quite a long time.

Out from the back she comes with an enormous box that must have weighed about 25 or 30 pounds. The box just barely fit into my IKEA bag. The three block walk home was quite interesting.

I got home to open the package and found underneath the brown paper wrapping a pampers box. I don't remember pampers wieghing 30 pounds. What goodies could be inside?

Much to my suprise the box contained an entire collection of various foods and goodies that I had mentioned in my blog over the past couple of months. All of the wonderfully American things that I had been missing. There were oreos, mac & cheese, soap, cooking spices, syrup all all sorts of other things that I just don't have enough room to mention.


Now the next task was to find a place to put it all. Luckily we have had one cabinet left in our kitchen were we haven't put anything yet. It was just large enough for us to stock with all of our new found goodies.

What really amazes me is how much 'American' food we have in our pantry even though we have been here over 5 months. With two sets of friends and family recently visiting us, and this big box of goodies I would say our pantry more closely resembles and American kitchen than a swiss one. Which at times isn't such a bad thing.

Again, a special thanks to my cousins for a wonderful care package. We are truely enjoying it!

Football & Raclette

Thanksgiving was a little strange this year. First off, yes I was working.

I did find it a little weird to be thinking about everyone back at home that was probably enjoying a free day and more importantly preparing for the much needed 4 day weekend for friends, family, and shopping.

We had some friends arrive from the US on Wednesday to stay with us for the holiday. So late Thursday afternoon I tried to get things wrapped up a little early to enjoy the evening. We had decided some time ago that we would not try to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. Not that we didn't want it. They are just very expensive, and generally have to be preordered. Turkeys are not 'in the freezer section' on a regular basis like back home. Also combining the fact that we both had to work on Thursday we didn't want to have to come home from work and have to make a big meal.

Instead, we decided to make raclette. Yes it is not very American, but it is quick, easy, and we thought our guests would enjoy a traditional swiss meal.

After the meal we were able to turn on the Slingbox and watch the Detroit Miami game while trying to recover from our overstuffed bellies. Even though we weren't paying to close attention to the game it was nice to have it on. It definately brought a little americana into our apartment.

The meal and the evening turned out quite well and everyone enjoyed it. I was very happy about that. I got a laugh when we were traveling with our friends today and they asked if we could stop at the Chirstmas market to get some raclette.

The only down side is my aparment still stinks of smelly cheese 3 days later. I've had all the doors and windows open but there is still a hint of cheese stench lingering. I need to figure out how to get rid of that orderiforous emination.

My Back

My Back hurts. The 4 block walk for the post office was every painful.

I owe a huge thank you to Noelle, Brenda & Holly!

I am running to catch a train to Austria so I'll share details when I get back.

To Germany

Our guests have arrived. We will be 'entertaining' constantly now until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

My sister-in-law has joined us for an extended stay just prior to her taking a new job in Atlanta. I'm glad she could come because I can remember how nice it was to have a friend in London a few years back. It makes the travel costs much cheaper when you have a free place to stay.

We are planning to go to Waldshut Germany today to do some shopping. The women are looking for clothes, and I'm just looking to get out of the house. We are also going to try to find some Christmas lights for our tree this year. We realized that all of our Christmas lights are basically useless because of the plugs so we'll have to get a few sets.

It is amazing how early the Christmas decorations go up here. The stores had started to put up there window display around the 1st of November. I think this is large part because there is no major milestone like Thanksgiving to identify the start of the season.

Finally I wanted to add a link to a small video that struck me as funny. A friend from work had it on his blog and I think it is quite accurate in reflecting some of my days around here.