Murten and Luzern

  So.  Last week was kindof busy because we had parent-teacher conferences with Jethro’s teacher one night, Hazel’s teacher one night, and then the two nights I have German class of course.  Both teachers said that the kids are doing really well.  Jethro’s doing great with German.  I asked about somehow bumping Hazel up into first grade, because with the normal age parameters here, she’ll be going to Kindergarten again next year.  And so when we go back after Brett’s contract is up, I think she’ll be a little behind.  Plus, she misses doing school work.  Not that her class isn’t awesome and fun—their last unit was on Native American Indians, and she made a bow out of a stick, a quiver, a teepee, and went out into the woods and got very muddy.  :)  But they don’t work on reading or math or anything like that at all.  Anyhow, we’ll see how that works out.  Her teacher invited Ethne to come along to the afternoon class once, and Ethne had a grand time her first time at school.  So grand, in fact, that she couldn’t be bothered to make it to the bathroom and peed her pants.  Her teacher's probably like, uhh, don’t send her back.  :)
Anyway, on Saturday morning we went to IKEA (say it ee-kay-uh – the German way, not I-kee-uh, the English way), to get some things we still needed like mattress pads and such.  Hazel and Ethne got to stay at the kids play place, which was fun.  What was not so fun is that it cost quite a bit of money.  We did get one thing that wasn’t on the list, though- Brett wanted to get a houseplant so we did.
Then we came home and had lunch and Talmage had a nap.  Then since it was sunny for the first time in decades (it felt like) we decided to go somewhere.  We decided on Murten, since it’s quite near.  (I’d already been there with Kathrin, on a much colder day.)  We saw the lovely towers of the city wall.  Walked into the city through the archway. Walked through the little streets where vendors were selling their antiques. The whole little city is sooo cute.  Look at these houses.    Then of course we walked around the battlement and looked out windows.      On Sunday, I was spoiled with many lovely Mother’s Day flower and plants.  I had a basil plant from Hazel’s school class, and some lovely flowers from Jethro’s.  Brett brought home tulips earlier in the week, though he wouldn’t commit as to whether they were for Mother’s Day or our anniversary.  (Oh yeah, it was our anniversary last week, and we were going to go away for the weekend to celebrate, but our babysitters had to cancel at the end, so we’ll be doing that later sometime.)  Then Jethro, Hazel and Ethne all had more little pots of flowers for me from church, and all the women in the ward got a gorgeous long-stemmed rose.  I’ll have to post pictures later.  ANNNNND, the men in the ward prepared a sit-down dinner for the mothers and everyone in the ward.  So after church we had a very lovely dinner.  It was really good and I seriously stuffed myself.  I thought I really should have planned ahead and worn a skirt that wasn’t so tight.  :)
That evening I went to a play that my friend Melinda was in.  She did a super job and it was fun to watch her after all her hard work. 
This picture is just a pretty view from Hazel’s and Ethne’s room. On Monday, Brett skipped work and the kids skipped school and we drove to Luzern to hang out with Ben and Allison for the last time in Europe, and Ben’s mom and dad (so Brett’s aunt and uncle) and his sister, brother-in-law, and brother.  It was wet again, but not actually raining, and the forests looked absolutely beautiful with the new green mixed with the dark pines.  I loooooved it. Gorgeous, isn’t it? Don’t you just want to live right there?  So.  We got to Luzern, and we first crossed this really old wooden bridge.  Okay, I just looked it up.  It’s called the Chapel Bridge and was originally built in 1333.  :) Here’s Allison and Alex on the bridge.  Oh and Hazel and half of Brett. There are paintings all along it, okay, except where they were burned in a fire. But pretty sweet.  Then we went to the Lion Monument, a famous carving of a dying lion.  He commemorates the hundreds of Swiss guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.  (Yeah, just looked that up too.)  :)
So here are the kids in front of the lion.  Oh, I forgot to mention we had one of the kids’ cousins along too.  See her between Hazel and Jethro?  That’s Flat Lynnaea.  She flattened herself and was mailed to us to see Switzerland.  She was really well-behaved—no complaining whatsoever!  I wish my kids were as good. Hazel and the lion.  (She was convinced it was Aslan.) And Jethro.
And all of us.  It’s almost weirdly amazing how much Brett’s aunt looks like his mom.  Talks just the same too.  Weird, I tell ya.  But they were all great and nice and we had a good time together.
Oh yeah, and a highlight.  While we were hanging out at the Lion park, a large group of Asian tourists came to see the lion, but before long were mesmerized by the cuteness of Talmage instead.  Seriously, after he ran around for a little while amidst their crowd, all cameras, videos, and eyes were riveted on him.  It was a little crazy.  They all wanted to hold him, a few did, he got a couple pieces of candy, and basically STOLE THE SHOW.  It’s so awesome that Ben got this picture of it.  There were so many of them crowding around him, it was like the paparazzi.  Ben had the brilliant idea of charging money to take pictures of/with him, and soon he’ll have college paid for.  Sah-weet.  I think these are the twin needle towers of the Church of St. Leodegar, which was named after the city's patron saint, but I’m not sure.
The group split up, but Ben and Allison and our fam went to this tower and walked on the wall and climbed the stairs to the top, though it wasn’t as nice in the tower as some others we’ve been to. Pretty view of the lake from the tower.
Brett, Hazel, Talmage (and Lynnaea) downtown. Jethro and Lynnaea again in front of the Chapel Bridge.
 Here are some pictures from Ben and Allison's camera from the day:

Then we went to the Bed and Breakfast that Ben’s family were staying at and had dinner while it rained and thundered.  Then it cleared up and we took a stroll through the beautiful countryside. There were a thousand hundred million of these: Ben and Brett decided to give escargot a try.
  Lovely day.  Thanks, Crocketts.  Europe (and we) miss you!

It’s really wet.

This is how it has looked for the past many many many days.  I’ll be happy to see the sun again.  Whenever that shall be.

A few more Swiss things.

So, earlier I gave you a list of differences I personally noted between here (here being Switzerland of course), and the USA.  There are a few things I would like to add.

1. The toilet water level is lower.  Decidedly lower.  Meaning, you really have to clean your toilets much more frequently, if you catch my drift.

2. Bacon is unsliced.  Meaning, you have to slice it yourself.  I’ve gotten much better since my first bacon-slicing endeavor.  Okay, I must add that you can probably buy bacon sliced at a higher cost.  But trust me, the costs are already high enough here.  You buy unsliced.

3. The speed limit signs are circles, not rectangles.  Weird, I know. 4. Stores and business are closed on Sundays, they close early for the day (like 6 most days), and they often close in the middle of the day.  Refreshing.  (Unless of course, you’ve just driven through the city causing yourself several massive heart attacks, and then you get there only to discover it’s closed.)

5. Things that you’d normally assume to be free are not free.  Borrowing books from the library, for example (though I haven’t actually been to a library, so this is from hearsay and not personal experience) and garbage pick-up for large items, and lost and found services on the train, and you know—parking (though at some grocery stores the first two hours are free so that’s acceptable).  Parking.  Parking is the bane of my existence in Switzerland.  Okay, actually I’m getting more comfortable with it, but really, there is NO SUCH THING as a parking lot here.  Instead, there are teeny tiny slots in cramped underground garages where every slot is next to a big cement post.  Yeah, so you know, more panic attacks.  But we discovered that our van has a button which will make the side mirrors fold in.  That’s handy.

6. When you get married in a church, you have to be married civilly first.  We asked our friends last night when their anniversary is, and they gave us two different answers.  One day that got married civilly, and the next day got sealed in the temple, because just the temple marriage isn’t sufficient.  This is true for any church, they say.  Strange.

7.  Before church on Sunday, we were lucky enough to listen to a couple practicing their Alpenhorn music.   I’d say that that would be quite unlikely to happen in the States.  It’s very pretty.  You can go here to hear how it sounds.  It was even prettier with organ accompaniment.

And finally,

8. Physicality.  MUUUUCH more hugging and kissing and the like when you are greeting or saying goodbye.   Another blog explains the customary greeting/leave-taking: 

“The Swiss Way: The Swiss greet each other with three kisses on the cheek while lightly grasping the other person somewhere on the arm region. You aren't actually supposed to move your mouth or kiss, you are just supposed to touch your cheek to the other person's cheek. Making a fake kissing noise is optional.” 

This is already much more ummm, touching, than I’d ordinarily be cool with—I’m really happy to shake hands-- but it’s okay because I realize that that’s the way it is here.  What gets me though, is it’s not just female – female, but also female-male.  So, women kiss Brett, and men kiss me and it’s weird.  Very weird.  I almost laugh when I see women kissing Brett.  But you must understand, in all these things- including the kissing, just because it’s weird to me doesn’t mean it’s not also cool to me.  It’s cool. 

Peace out.

Cute boy in a helmet and stuff.

So on Friday night Brett’s boss had a party and Jethro was taking a picture of me, and Talmage ran up and got in the picture with me.  It was very cute.  I like my new hoodie that I got from H&M with the help of a friend here.  When I asked if she would go shopping with me she agreed with NO hesitation.  :)  We went right after our German classes.  (Her German class is something like level I’m-already-way-good-but-I-could-maybe-possibly-brush-up, instead of my level which is Let’s-pretend-for-a-second-we-could-ever-learn-anything-about-this-crazy-language.)  :)  It was really fun and I got two cute tops.  (In this picture the pants I’m wearing and the bluejean jacket I’m wearing are both my FAVorites, and are both from Goodwill.  Goodwill, I love you.  Will you please come visit me in CH?)

  So the work party was fun.  We had a barbeque and the food was great and I got to meet some of the people Brett works with.  On Saturday Brett had to go in to work to machine something, so he was gone all morning.  Then we just chilled the rest of the day.  Yesterday we had our friends over for dinner.  They were intrigued and excited at our jello salad.  :)  (Thanks to Allison for bringing it to us all the way from Indiana in the good ol’ US of A!)  It was a very good time.

And to make this fairly boring post more exciting, some good kid lines.

1- Ethne was insisting on napping with Brett and I after church.  So she was on one side of Brett, and I was on the other.  But she kept trying to crawl over him to be by me.  Brett acted all sad and said, “Don’t you want to cuddle with me?”  And she said, “You have pokes.”  (referring to his beard.  ha ha!)

2- We went up into the attic to get our extra chairs for when our friends came.  You have to pull down the steps from the ceiling, and it’s a pretty cool attic with storage space for all the people in the apartment.  Hazel was allowed to go up.  She came down and told me very awed, “It’s like in the olden days when there were spooky places!”

3- When I was putting Hazel to bed, she sat up and said, “Sometimes when I rub my eyes with my hands and then keep my eyes closed I have…  a vision.” 

Kids are funny.