Aarau Carrot Festival

Is this meant to be the rabbit's hallucination or am I not seeing something?

Wow, it's been a while since I posted! I was waiting for a turn with E's computer, where all the photos are kept. However, he has been working to submit a paper and that has to take priority until I become an internet sensation and can support us all. Our readership is growing exponentially, but our base number is only 2.

This week the littles and I went to the Aarau carrot festival. From what I can translate one day the residents of Aarau were bemonaing the fact that Bern got so much attention for its onion festival when Aarau and its carrots were more interesting, and so they began their own festival. Now 30,000 people or more go every year. It was quite rainy (the first time it has ever rained on the festival) but still mobbed along the main drag. I hope the Christmas markets have a little more room to maneuver.


So, as you can guess, carrots were the star of the show. Carrot soup, cakes, muffins, pickles, jam, juice, liquor, relish, vinegar, etc, along with every color carrot. T was asleep most of the time, but we got a carrot cake on the way out to take home for everyone. T carried it all the way and did a great job! However, I was careful not to get the same kind of cake I had gotten for L to snack on during the festival. She wolfed it down and then struggled to scrape the plate for the last bits of icing. I was helping her when I realized that the icing was made with rum or something. Oh well. She was happy!

Here is a photo that kills two birds with one stone: it shows how the festival merges into Christmas-time,
and you can see L getting tipsy.

Christmas is ramping up here. The grocery stores all have Christmas chocolates on display. Today R and I noticed that Coop has cute and reasonably priced chocolate tree ornaments, which is perfect for us. The lights are strung over Bahnhofstrasse, but they aren't lit yet. Sprungli chocolates is decorated with a couple of tasteful little trees out front, but inside they have a ton of Christmas specials like spiced chocolate, gingerbreads, pates des fruits, and the usual assortments in Christmas boxes. Teuscher across the street has taken down its parrot jungle and now gold sparkled faux poinsettia jungle. Even a medium sized chocolates box is topped with a huge arrangement that couple probably serve as a centerpiece. Of course, the price reflects both chocolates and centerpiece, but it's still kind of tempting since it would make a nice souvenir. I am psyched for Christmas! I want to see and do and taste everything and really experience it here.

R and I were shopping for a few things for E to take back to the US this week. We are going to miss him, but it is for a good cause. He is not just ferrying chocolate one way and brown sugar and stuffing mix the other. One of his students is going to pass his qual exam! (We assume. Good luck, B!) So the posts won't have pictures until he gets back, but you can look forward to seeing the turnip festival!

Aarau has a cute old town, that I thought was as interesting as Stein am Rhein's.  I don't know if I would have gone if it weren't for the carrots, so I was lucky to see it. Lots of buildings had these deep overhanging roofs, but I only saw this one specially painted.  It also had this strange canal down the middle of one of the streets. I couldn't tell whether it was just a drainage system or whether it was a stream that was being controlled and directed. The picture shows how it looked one only one street. On another it flowed down the middle of the road nearly flush with the road on both sides with grates over it here and there for crossing. In a couple of places along its path the water was integrated into benches. So it was confusing. Too pretty to be a drainage ditch, too long to be only ornamental (though it did kind of remind me of a mall fountain), and too close to the surface of the road to be a stream, which would be a flood risk.

These tulip seats are between the train station and the bus stop. So cute - and there were twice as many as I show.

Is this supposed to be Bert? Or John the Baptist?