Iris is 10!
8 months ago
Monday, December 29, 2008
Lenk.
Currently we are in a mountain resort town called Lenk. We were invited to come here with some friends, and its been just an awesome time. This is a 7 night trip, we’re about halfway through it I guess. Today Shelly, Roo and I did some all-star mountain walking, pics soon to follow from that, but I will start off with an eagle-view pic of Lenk from the ski lift (the window was all scatched up and you can see that in the photo). Click on the pic to blow it up, and you can see the town under the snow.
Last night there was a lotto held in the town, they had a lot squared off with two cows in it. They were placing bets on where one of the cows would poop first. We had position 294. We didn’t win..... In fact we were pretty frozen and we left, but our friends said the cows never went and they ended up drawing the number out of a hat. While we were there we had a front row viewing, and one of the cows kept coming over to us, and I thought for sure Roo was going to be the one dropping the load.
Last night there was a lotto held in the town, they had a lot squared off with two cows in it. They were placing bets on where one of the cows would poop first. We had position 294. We didn’t win..... In fact we were pretty frozen and we left, but our friends said the cows never went and they ended up drawing the number out of a hat. While we were there we had a front row viewing, and one of the cows kept coming over to us, and I thought for sure Roo was going to be the one dropping the load.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
So it had been a little while since we had ventured out of the region. Since I have some time off work, we decided to get up early on Monday and catch the train to Luzern (Lucerne). We spent the whole day there, enjoyed some wine while touring the town. The weather had let up, and while it was a little chilly and maybe a little cloudy, it was a great day to take in this beautiful town.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Monument
The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. How head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.
Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.– Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880
the above pic inclueds 3 awesome towers of the defensive walls of Luzern, as well as a mountain, and looks like a castle to the far right in the distance. Good Job Me!
Shelly Nicole Hoffman, world traveler.
View over Luzern from the inside of those defensive walls... Mountains? check.
Above and Below: historic Jesuit chuch in downtown Lucern. With the well fed swans hangin out front.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapellbr%C3%BCcke
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
!Turkey Day!
Thanksgiving!
It is really weird working on Thanksgiving. Everything is just another day here, naturally… but when you know that its Thanksgiving… its just the weirdest feeling. Some new friends had us over on the applicable Saturday night.. and that was just super awesome of them. They lived in Motor City for a few years, so they knew the drill. Awesome people, we look forward to returning the favour somehow.... !!! See that favour? I’m typing this at work, and my Microsoft Office spellcheck thinks I must be British. Bob's your uncle. Sheesh. Please be patient with any unintentional weirdness brought on by this. What a bunch of rubbish.
Back to Tday. We wanted to spread the American spirit with our other Swiss friends as well, so, we had our Thanksgiving dinner Sunday night. Everything was made from scratch, so we were mega busy all weekend. In Switzerland a turkey costs 80 francs, so you better do it good.
We started at 5, and finished off at about 2am, and going to work on Monday was just… ugh. We had 5 Swiss guests, Christoph, his bro Michael, Michaela, Robi and Sandra. Here are the results:
Appetizers:
Devilled eggs: The Swiss were mystified, never seen them before. They seemed to like them.
Salami Rolls: salami w/cream cheese. Also a new experience, they ate all of them, or maybe Shelly ate all of them, not sure. Shelly likes these with pickles in them, but we couldn’t find pickles that weren’t totally disgusting. We bought some different types, all were sweet, and none were crunchy.
Jell-O: Scared the crap out of them. They were putting on their coats when I told them that I made the Jell-O with vodka instead of water, and then they decided to stick around and try it. They totally hated it, but for some reason ate all of it. Helps with digestion I guess.
Chocolate candies w peanut butter fudge filling: Shelly has a mold, which she paints with melted chocolate, then fills with peanut butter fudge, and then seals with chocolate to make these. This is an art that was learned from Lisa. Pretty cool. Peanut butter was non existent in Switzerland until like 5 years ago, so many have never had it, don’t know what to do with it, and the idea of PB&J is freaky. The ones that tried the candies thought they were very impressive.
Dinner:
Turkey was killer, very moist. The Swiss wanted to know how we kept the breast meat so moist. They nearly died when they found out that we cooked the turkey with a can of beer shoved up in it. Also, Shelly about passed out in the kitchen when she opened the turkey and it still had some feathers on it, neck was still attached and the giblets were... not in a bag, rather still part of the bird. Prepping the bird was like a B horror movie, Shelly actually left the apartment while I did the dirty work. I feel like I could survive anything after that. This surprise made us about an hour late on our scheduled mealtime.
Stuffing, from scratch on the stovetop. They don't have that here, so no chance of making it from a box. One of a few recipes that went over pretty well, since it was made of ingredients they are familiar with, but yet completely foreign tasting to them.
Green Bean casserole, same review as stuffing basically. A bit weird for them, but generally good.
Mashed Potatoes, normal for them, well liked.
Corn on Cob. Well liked, but they didn’t cover it in butter or salt. Shelly is going to be really upset when she finally realizes she never set out her corn holders.
Candied Yams/sweet potatoes or whatever: We found Süskartoffeln (sweet potatoes) at the big grocery in Bern, but generally speaking they don’t eat them and don’t know how to prepare them or anything. Marshmallows freak these people out. And it took me forever to find a store that had them, and the ones I did find were rectangular and pink on one side, and when I was buying them I was asked more than once if it is true that we really put them in hot chocolate in the US. I love explaining that we have hot chocolate mix in the states that actually comes with marshmallows, and its called Swiss Miss. Back to the Yams: so we didn't put marshmallows on top. and we didnt tell them there were marshmallows melted in it until much later. One guy liked it a lot, the others not so much, but all ate it.
Desserts:
Pumpkin pie. Yup, I started with a pumpkin, and made a pie. It turned out almost as good as Frisch's. They make other things out of pumpkins here, but not pies. They thought this was super cool, and ate it with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream just like the Indians/Pilgrims did. A big hit. Not as difficult to make as you might think. Finding a pumpkin was interesting. They are everywhere, but there are like 8 different kinds. Our friend Michael dropped one off, he had it leftover from a soup he makes at parties. It was perfect.
Apple Pie. Well liked. I think they eat apple pie generally as a meal, so loading it up with ice cream and having after a big meal was a challenge....
I didn’t have any American football highlight reels, so I just threw some old Motown tunes on the stereo, and all were merry.
Best Holiday wishes to our friends back home,
e/s
It is really weird working on Thanksgiving. Everything is just another day here, naturally… but when you know that its Thanksgiving… its just the weirdest feeling. Some new friends had us over on the applicable Saturday night.. and that was just super awesome of them. They lived in Motor City for a few years, so they knew the drill. Awesome people, we look forward to returning the favour somehow.... !!! See that favour? I’m typing this at work, and my Microsoft Office spellcheck thinks I must be British. Bob's your uncle. Sheesh. Please be patient with any unintentional weirdness brought on by this. What a bunch of rubbish.
Back to Tday. We wanted to spread the American spirit with our other Swiss friends as well, so, we had our Thanksgiving dinner Sunday night. Everything was made from scratch, so we were mega busy all weekend. In Switzerland a turkey costs 80 francs, so you better do it good.
We started at 5, and finished off at about 2am, and going to work on Monday was just… ugh. We had 5 Swiss guests, Christoph, his bro Michael, Michaela, Robi and Sandra. Here are the results:
Appetizers:
Devilled eggs: The Swiss were mystified, never seen them before. They seemed to like them.
Salami Rolls: salami w/cream cheese. Also a new experience, they ate all of them, or maybe Shelly ate all of them, not sure. Shelly likes these with pickles in them, but we couldn’t find pickles that weren’t totally disgusting. We bought some different types, all were sweet, and none were crunchy.
Jell-O: Scared the crap out of them. They were putting on their coats when I told them that I made the Jell-O with vodka instead of water, and then they decided to stick around and try it. They totally hated it, but for some reason ate all of it. Helps with digestion I guess.
Chocolate candies w peanut butter fudge filling: Shelly has a mold, which she paints with melted chocolate, then fills with peanut butter fudge, and then seals with chocolate to make these. This is an art that was learned from Lisa. Pretty cool. Peanut butter was non existent in Switzerland until like 5 years ago, so many have never had it, don’t know what to do with it, and the idea of PB&J is freaky. The ones that tried the candies thought they were very impressive.
Dinner:
Turkey was killer, very moist. The Swiss wanted to know how we kept the breast meat so moist. They nearly died when they found out that we cooked the turkey with a can of beer shoved up in it. Also, Shelly about passed out in the kitchen when she opened the turkey and it still had some feathers on it, neck was still attached and the giblets were... not in a bag, rather still part of the bird. Prepping the bird was like a B horror movie, Shelly actually left the apartment while I did the dirty work. I feel like I could survive anything after that. This surprise made us about an hour late on our scheduled mealtime.
Stuffing, from scratch on the stovetop. They don't have that here, so no chance of making it from a box. One of a few recipes that went over pretty well, since it was made of ingredients they are familiar with, but yet completely foreign tasting to them.
Green Bean casserole, same review as stuffing basically. A bit weird for them, but generally good.
Mashed Potatoes, normal for them, well liked.
Corn on Cob. Well liked, but they didn’t cover it in butter or salt. Shelly is going to be really upset when she finally realizes she never set out her corn holders.
Candied Yams/sweet potatoes or whatever: We found Süskartoffeln (sweet potatoes) at the big grocery in Bern, but generally speaking they don’t eat them and don’t know how to prepare them or anything. Marshmallows freak these people out. And it took me forever to find a store that had them, and the ones I did find were rectangular and pink on one side, and when I was buying them I was asked more than once if it is true that we really put them in hot chocolate in the US. I love explaining that we have hot chocolate mix in the states that actually comes with marshmallows, and its called Swiss Miss. Back to the Yams: so we didn't put marshmallows on top. and we didnt tell them there were marshmallows melted in it until much later. One guy liked it a lot, the others not so much, but all ate it.
Desserts:
Pumpkin pie. Yup, I started with a pumpkin, and made a pie. It turned out almost as good as Frisch's. They make other things out of pumpkins here, but not pies. They thought this was super cool, and ate it with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream just like the Indians/Pilgrims did. A big hit. Not as difficult to make as you might think. Finding a pumpkin was interesting. They are everywhere, but there are like 8 different kinds. Our friend Michael dropped one off, he had it leftover from a soup he makes at parties. It was perfect.
Apple Pie. Well liked. I think they eat apple pie generally as a meal, so loading it up with ice cream and having after a big meal was a challenge....
I didn’t have any American football highlight reels, so I just threw some old Motown tunes on the stereo, and all were merry.
Best Holiday wishes to our friends back home,
e/s
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