Happy Thanksgiving!!

So what does Thanksgiving in Switzerland feel like?

So first, I actually went to work - we had plans to go to a company sponsored holiday dinner, and so with nothing to actually cook, there was so real reason to stay at home. Everyone looked at me strange when I wished them a Happy Thanksgiving - but who can fault them? When was the last time you wished someone a Happy Swiss National Day (August 1st, for those who are interested)?

So after a busy day at work, I drove over to the company's "executive" dining room, where the relocation people had arranged a wonderful holiday dinner for all expats and their families, and I met up with Eric and the kids. So it was a very considerate and thoughtful event, and we actually had a great time. However, a few things came across as a bit strange:

When I got there, I hooked up with Eric only to ask: "where are the kids?" as they were no where to be seen and even not heard. It turns out they had done an incredible job of arranging games and activities for the kids in a separate wing on the same floor - which, I hear every parent out there applauding: what would be strange about that? So what was strange is that they made a separate dinner for them so they didn't even eat with us - basically having Thanksgiving without our kids...

The evening started with champagne and wine - and our company head of HR gave a quick speech to welcome us there and thank us for moving to Switzerland and promoting sharing and learning across the company, etc... this was great - except she spent most of her speech talking about the announcement the week before of headcount reductions at the company and the hard choices and the difficult times ahead, etc....

Really? At a holiday party? I guess you can't ignore it, but should it be most of your speech?

So then up next was a guy who organized the event, who explained the plan for the rest of the evening. He was the one who broke the news that we wouldn't have dinner with our kids; he also explained that they weren't going to serve turkey, but instead holiday dinner choices from Switzerland (veal stew), Portugal (fish stew), and Germany (weiners and potato salad). Now, I don't mean to be American-centric, but where is my turkey? The dinner was billed as a holiday dinner, but if you have it on Thanksgiving evening... Well, we were disappointed, but Eric later found out from a friend there that had been the year before that they had turkey and it was awful - so perhaps they learned from the previous mistake. But Thanksgiving without turkey (or some large bird) just feels a little wrong...

But the food was quite good, and the wine was plentiful (and quite nice) so the missing children and missing turkey were soon forgotten as we met new friends and shared the meal with old friends as well - just like Thanksgiving should be.

Well, we got home early (remember my birthday party: things end in Switzerland when they say they will end)and Eric and the boys watched Thunderball as they had vacation the next day, but with work the next morning I retired early and was fast asleep in short order.

The next thing I remember was being abruptly woken to the sound of screaming...

"SNOW!! SNOW!! SNOW!!!"

It was probably close to 10 pm, and Karl was screaming at the top of his lungs at our first ever snowfall since we have moved here - the boys and my first-in-our-lifetime for snowfall at our home. Eric dragged them outside in their pajamas to document the event. A white Thanksgiving - something to be quite thankful about.

So we woke up this morning to a beautiful white blanket of snow - enough to make snowballs in the backyard and coat the trees, but not enough to make it dangerous to get out and take a morning run. With the temperature at just freezing, it was just about as great as snow can be. We spent the morning renting my skis for the season, and then after Eric and the kids dropped me off at work, they went and got the rest of our winter necessities: sleds, snow boots (those little feet grow so fast!), shell jackets for skiing... Hey Winter: the Somervilles are ready for you!

However, best of all, waiting for me when I got home from work:

A turkey dinner, complete with garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pickled red cabbage (we had to throw in a little bit of Switzerland)! It was heavenly - possibly the best turkey I have ever had. What made this also funny is that the original plan was to get a goose - but the only ones they had at the store were frozen, which Eric knew would not thaw in time for our one-day-late Thanksgiving. They did have one fresh turkey left over, but at 10 kilos was much more than we could ever eat - even if we invited over the whole block. So the butcher suggested cutting it in half - right down the middle... So we had 1/2 a turkey - maybe that was the trick that made it taste so good...

Asia out of nowhere!

Eric gave me a complete surprise today - the kind that seemed trivial and non-important to him that was really earth-moving for me:

We were sitting around this morning enjoying the nothing-to-do-ness of this Saturday, when I told Eric I had taken some time while he was shopping to post a blog. And then he says, out of nowhere:

"You know I have an electronic version of all the emails we sent when we went to Asia in 1999 - see, they are right here..."

What???!!!

I knew that two of our friends, Dana Mulligan and Jeanne Virca, had given us amazing gifts upon our return from Asia of binders with reprints of our emails from the trip. And I had also known that one of them (was it Jeanne? Dana don't get mad if it was you) had also included a disk with an electronic version of the letters. Now, in our perpetually disorganized life, my plan was to come across that disk when Eric and I were in our 80s clearing out the attic for our move into the retirement home. But no, Eric blows me away that they are in a file, on his computer, ready for viewing and posting.

And so, with a hot cup of tea, I just spent the last hour or so setting them up in their own blog:

http://ericandsue1999.blogspot.com/

Feel free to visit and read at your leisure. Hopefully it will inspire you to travel as well!

We are not in California anymore...

So Fall is here, with an explosion of color and leaves. At home, people always talked about the Fall colors on the East Coast, and I always felt we had our fair share of Fall action where we live in California - trees turn colors, leaves fall, etc... However the difference here is clear: leaves fall in epidemic proportions; you are ankle deep or more for weeks, and no one bothers to rake them because they are replaced the next day with more. The leaf drop is also partnered with crisp weather, so the mix of crunch beneath your feet and heavy coats really signals a season change.

Eric got a chance to go and visit his family in Ohio for a week, and I took over responsibility for getting the kids where they belonged, while getting my job done at the same time. Eric had left me a great schedule with support from our friends here, so it actually all worked out well.

While Eric was gone, the boys and I got a last minute visit from my Uncle Wolfgang and Aunt Dagmar who came down from Germany to spend a Sunday with us. We had hoped for good weather to go on a hike in the local hills, but we instead had a cold, wet day to contend with. We decided when they arrived to do a walking tour of the city which was quite pleasant until the kids got chilled and bored with window shopping. We stopped for a coffee / hot chocolate (two coffees, two hot chocolates, and one cappuccino for 25 CHF - lord help me, I will never get used to these prices...) but this only appeased the boys for the duration of the chocolate. So I made a bold decision.

Parents in California, please make sure you are sitting down.

I gave Karl the house keys and put them both (age 7 and 9) on the tram by themselves to go home. That is right - no parental supervision to make sure they get off on the right stop, no one to help them across the two streets they have to cross to get to our house, no one to supervise them when they got home that they didn't burn the house down.

And even better: I didn't worry at all that anything would go wrong. I didn't worry that people would stop them and ask where their parents are. This choice was totally normal for Switzerland, and actually when we describe the helicopter parenting of California, people here wonder what is wrong with us. I actually have thought about this a lot since being here, and need to do a bit more research - as kids we had the same freedom that kids have here, but something must have happened in the 70s in the US, because a shift took place that tightened control on our kids, stopped a lot of trick or treating, and drove a paranoia of child abduction and torture that has made us stop allowing our kids to grow up and take care of themselves. If you know or have an opinion, please drop a line...

My aunt and uncle then took our time strolling through the city, enjoying the sites and the shop windows, talking about life choices like where to live, what to accomplish, what really matters, etc. When we got home an hour or so later, they kids were comfy on the couch watching age appropriate TV, and everyone was happy and content. The visit with Dagmar and Wolfgang was really great, and we made plans to meet in the Black Forest in the future for hikes and outdoor fun along with getting Eric in the mix.

A few days after Eric returned, rested and energized, we got to celebrate my first birthday in Switzerland. We had a lot of anxiety - what was the appropriate ettiquette for who to invite, how to invite (would people open an Evite?), would it be too crowded, what to serve to eat, what to serve to drink - we set up the invite as an "apero" which is the Swiss equivalent of a cocktail party, so that the pressure to have a full dinner wouldn't be there. However we stocked the tables with open face sandwiches, butter pretzels, cut vegetables, a platter of cheeses and a pot of lentil stew on the stove. We haven't found a party rental place (yet) so it was plastic wine glasses and paper plates, but we felt well stocked for all possible outcomes. Eric even ordered a birthday cake from a local bakery (no way were we going to trust our continuous bad luck at cooking and baking on a cake).

So, unlike California, everyone arrived at 5:30 pm exactly - just like the invite said. There was actually a line out the door for people to come in. Lucky for us and our party anxiety we were ready on time, so the tsunami of guests was not problematic. We did hit some snags in that the guys who work in my group all wanted beer, where Eric and I decided it would be a wine and champagne party. We scrounged through our basement stock and came up with 12 or so beers, but the mistake was well noted for our next bash. People also commented on the blue birthday cake - I guess color is not common here - but it did not stop people from digging in.

The party then ended just as it started, with everyone streaming out at exactly 7:30 like the invite said - except the Americans who assumed that was only a suggestion - and some Americans who actually arrived at 7:30 to start the party... So we stayed up and partied further until 10:30 or so with a smaller more manageable crowd picking at the food leftovers, and the amazing apple pie our friend Terri brought over (complete with "Sue" cut into the crust).

Overall a great party - one of the highlights was the "clinical suppply" leckerlei cookies (very traditional Basel) I got from the global trial coordinators in my group at work. Find a Swiss person to help you translate the label - my favorite line is "keep out of reach of children and your husband"...

Herbstmesse

Fall is here, and in Basel that means the Herbstmesse (translation: Fall Fair). This is quite an event in this town - 7 locations throughout the city are set up for two weeks with carnival rides and food stands: from pony rides to the 66 meter drop Power Tower; from bratwurst to raclette to sauted liver; from cream fudge to chocolate covered fruit to cotton candy. It is quite literally every child's dream come true with all the neon and music pulsating, people screaming their heads off as multiple thrill rides run in close proximity, and a multitude of sweets is never more than a stones throw away. And like I said - this is all over town, so it just goes on, and on, and on..

Now like any good fair, you aren't going to get away without dropping some cash - but did I mention that a single ride can cost 12 CHF (that is over $12 in today's exchange rates!)? Luckily Karl and Bennett were too short to go on those rides so we stuck to the 3-6 CHF range. The corn in the picture is 6 CHF an ear - would you pay $6 for an ear of corn?? Work friends visiting from California went out with me and the kids one night, and for the rides we did go on, the whole heartedly agreed that no 7 year old would be allowed on them back at home. Ah, yes, we live in the land of few lawyers here...



It really has been a blast (once I let go of the money we were spending) - our favorite ride was the mini Power Tower - a 50 ft or so high tower that raises you up and then drops you in a free fall only to catch you and take you back up to do over and over again. Bennett surprised me with having a liking for the scary spin-me-around rides (isn't he a bit young for those?) and we got in a bit of bumper car action as well. Come to think of it, I haven't seen bumper cars in California in quite a while - this is the place to be for rides that have been banned in the United States...


Now the downside to the fair for me was that the main location was right outside my office building. Mostly that was actually quite cool, as I could look out my window on the 19th floor and space out on the rides going around and around when I needed a break from some intense Power Point - you could actually hear the screams from inside the building! No, the downside was that every day at lunch I would justify for myself why it was OK to again eat fair food for lunch. Bratwurst today,
raclette tomorrow - but walking by the sweets stands proved too much for my willpower, so I would take a bag of fudge or candied nuts with me back to my desk. "Only eat one..." would turn into "try and take some home" and for the most part it didn't happen. I need the fair to leave so I can STOP eating and start losing some weight in preparation for all the Christmas goodies...

And speaking of the holidays, we did get in some Haloween fun...



But the leaves are almost all off the trees - my guess is within the week they will all be done. And I heard there might be snow on the hills on Sunday - let the winter begin!