Got the wreath!

Yay - I got my wreath and it is already on the wall. The girls and I went to the market on Saturday especially to get it. (R was awesome. I stepped away to buy something and when I returned she had the wreath wrapped and ready to go and had gotten instructions in German on how to keep it fresh.) Our plan had been to do some shopping on Saturday and then kick off the Christmas season on Sunday decorating, listening to music, and making cookies.

It probably sounds crazy to start Christmasy things on November 17th. But we had our reasons. 1. Since there is no Thanksgiving here and the girls we be in school that day, we had no reason to follow our usual day after Thanksgiving kick-off. 2.  The weekdays are very busy for the girls with their school work. Some days R leaves for school and comes home, too, in the dark. That leaves just the weekends for us to do our usual things: making cookies, watching movies, making presents and decorations, etc. Keeping in mind that we also want to visit some Christmas markets, that we are leaving to ski on the 22nd, and we have E, S, R, and T's birthdays to celebrate having an extra weekend or so seemed like a good idea. 3. Sprüngli chocolates puts out its full line of Christmas stuff on the 15th, it's Christmastime in Zurich anyway.

In the end, we just didn't feel Christmassy enough to make Sunday the official start of the season. Instead we had a preview. We made some cookies and watched Holiday in Handcuffs. For anyone who has talked to T lately - you know he is obsessed with gingerbread. I got him some cookies at Ikea just to hold him over and he had a great time decorating them. We will kick off on Saturday the 23rd with a birthday/Thanksgiving combo.

Räbechilbi turnip parade

 

This is S writing again! During the turnip festival in Richterswil the town is a turnip city. Every house is town is covered in lit up jack-o-lantern turnips and so is every stand and store. Mama and I went there to see it. In the parade there are a bunch of giant posters covered in lit turnips on wagons pulled by people. There were also cute little kids in kindergarten or so carrying turnips in baskets or on boards they carried on their shoulders. There were several different turnip floats and a lot of turnip carriers. There were a few bands who had the music stands on their instruments lit up. The bands had a lot of drummers. Sometimes the drummers were the only ones playing. 

I really liked the turnips hanging on hoops.

It doesn't look like some of the turnips were lit up, but everything was. We had some problems taking pictures in the dark which is why everything is either unlit looking or blurry. 

Here are some floats which we took better pictures of.

Here is a side picture of one of the floats so you can see how the turnips are attached. 

This float was one of our favorites. Each section spun to give different faces.

This helicopter was the grand finale float. There were crash dummies sitting in front. The rotors on the helicopter even spun and made noises.

After the parade we walked around town a little bit to see the turnip decorated houses. 

There were about a million turnips on each house!

Trees and turnips, both orange.

We liked the way the turnips reflected in the windows.

On the Day that Conny Kramer died

Until just this week it has been in the 50s and 60s (I guess I should say the teens) here. But it has turned cold - 30s and low 40s. On Monday and Tuesday we had a strong wind storm, so most of the leaves have suddenly fallen and that makes it feel very winterish. I think that the change is especially noticeable to us because the bare trees are opening views that are totally new to us around town.  We are wearing only winter jackets now and are scrambling to find our hats and mittens. I'm not sure I brought enough. L has already managed to lose a very cute hat and outgrew her warmest coat before she ever wore it.

The weather forecasts here are interesting. Today the low will be 2, the high 5. That kind of small range makes me feel pretty confident even though I know that half the time when they predict rain it doesn't. The warnings are the best, though. When we had the wind storm we were in the stormy winds and continuous rain categories. Just one notch up from continuous rain is "permanent rain"! That is bad enough, but they have two categories that are even worse.

Yesterday we went to the market in Oerlikon. It is already somewhat small because I go on Wednesdays as opposed to Saturdays, but yesterday was even smaller than usual. My favorite vendor wasn't there. But maybe I have a new favorite - a man who looks like a walrus, is crazy about L, and who lets me try to speak German. When I asked for a head of lettuce he gave me one that was so big it looked like three heads in one. I left the market with two resolutions: to see it on Saturday sometime, and to try to blog everyday. It would probably be my New Year's resolution anyway since blogging gives me an incentive to get out and do things even in nasty weather. I might as well start it now, especially since E is coming home with a wonderful birthday present I got from my Uncle J and Aunt K - a rain cover for the stroller which will also help with wind. Thank you Uncle J and Aunt K - we will dedicate our next rainy day post to you!

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.

We miss our car

Since E is going back to the US for a week, today was the last reasonable day to go and rent our skis for the season before things start to sell out. So we took a bus and train to the rental place (next to Ikea!) That was fine. We were measured, weighed, fitted for boots. Then the hard part. Paying was hard, but much less than renting by the day. I'm talking about getting everything home. Skis and ski boots are shockingly heavy. Of course, they are awkward, too.

We put together what we could. We kicked the littles out of their stroller and filled it with boots and little skis. R carried the poles, E carried the skis, S wrangled the littles. Then we got to Ikea and thought, wouldn't it be a shame not to stop in? So I took T to reduce the wrangling. E insisted they could make it home that way. They did, with lots of help from samaritans and some stroller use which I would have freaked out over if I had seen it. We still have to get helmets.

T loved Ikea! He has so many ideas for remodeling our kitchen now. He wants drawers behind doors, pull out shelves, and everything should be white. He also wants a stainless steel wall oven. Who knew?