News of the Swiss

February Sunset on the Lake


Feast of Saint BlaiseOur village is named for Saint Blaise, who's feast it was on the 3rd Febraury. Celebrations included little stands set up around the village by various associations and clubs, with booze and fondue. The Ecole Enfantine had a gauffre (waffle) and croq monsieur stand that Walter took the boys to. I was home sick. There he met our French teacher and her family. They gave Walter some wine and invited us over for lunch this weekend.... I'll be reporting on the inner circle of entertaining en Suisse! In the evening, the Musical Society of StBlaise hosted a wee party in the party room below us. I really like Guggenmusik(sorry it's in German). It's got a sound all of its own- very jolly and funky at the same time. Saint Blaise is also the patron saint of throats.... oh the irony, considering the high doe we've been up to with sore throats and coughing.
I hung out the living room window to take a quick snap of the band as they went into the party room.



Siren Tests
We had been primed by the papers for the past couple of weeks about the impending test of the emergency siren system, and the noise still made me jump. At 1:30 exactly last Wednesday, all the sirens in Neuchatel (all of Switz???) were supposed to go off. Our local siren is on the fallout shelter, which faces our house. It works very well, so when the Russians invade, or when one of the nuclear reactors has a wee accident, we'll know we're in trouble. After that, I'm not sure what we should do. I suggested we call friends to find out, but Walter pointed out that they would probably be in their shelters by then! Ever since the test, the papers have been full of the problems that occurred. Apparently, a bunch went off 15 minutes late in the town of Neuchatel and there's a stink about it. The Swiss take their sirens very seriously, which is fine by me. We're supposed to have 2 weeks worth of food squirreled away too, which I'm working on. We have left over earthquake supplies in the form of a complete first aid kit. When we unpacked it after moving, we noticed it still had our Y2K money! Oh the memories.....Although, thinking back, cigaretts and chocolate would probably have been more useful, if the s*#$ really had hit the fan. Maybe I'll load up our Swiss stocks with that.

Boys
Toby likes to make robots now.


Allie's getting out this afternoon to practice on his new bike. I think once Toby sees him, he'll want to do it too. Then we can all ride to Neuchatel one summer day for tea!