Playing for Swiss Radio

On the weekend the Ceilidh band that was in preformed for Swiss Radio in the Saturday morning folk music program.

There were several groups that were playing. It was all in French so I couldn't really tell you what the program was about.

And here's the radio man. I'm always impressed with people who can speak without starting their sentences with but uhm... or so. ^_^

Normandy

I visited Normandy with friends from Canada (yeah, more friends from Canada!). Here is Mike and Me and Ajax. Ajax was really cute and he always wanted to see more things. And every time he looked at my face he would laugh. Which I suppose is a good thing in babies.

We ate well, and we ate a whole lot of cheese.

 We hung out on the beach by the rental house and formed the Jellyfish Rescue Society.

It was a weird jellyfish. And it was dropped.

Also around the house were some donkeys.

One day we went to Bayeux to see the Bayeux tapestry. This thing is over 1000 years old and I had actually experienced it before. Well, a reproduction. Once when I was in highschool in Stratford I was walking home by the church and it said some tapestry was on display. It was a reproduction of the tapestry and surrounded Knox church. I wandered around and looked at it but really didn't know what it was. And then suddenly here I am in France, with no research and we end up seeing the original!

Also in Bayeux was the church where the tapestry was displayed every year for two weeks.

The next day we went to see the town of Mont Saint Michel. Wow, was this place amazing. In the distance you could see it rising up, like a fairy tale city.

It looked like something from a dream. It had a large church at the top of the rocky island.

And the place was packed with tourists. We walked up the narrow street past all the shops and visited the church.

The city is connected to the mainlaind by a narrow spit of land and high tide can overwhelm some of the parking lots.

All around us was tidal flats.

And the church was very dramatic.

Mike carried Ajax everywhere and he found everything so interesting he wasn't very fussy.

Aw, this is a cute picture. I could always get the baby to smile, he just had to look at me most of the time.

The town was also very medieval. I pity the people who brought strollers because of all the stairs!

Then it was back to the house. The tide was really far out when we got back and there were tractors and men harvesting oysters and mussels.

We walked out far to have a look.

On the whole it was a good trip but I slept as much as the 8 month old. Seriously. I went to bed early, I slept late, I napped in the car, in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning. I haven't been this tired in a while. I'm stressed and a bit sad and hopefully in the summer things will pick up. The work is certainly going well and I really like my project.

Bern and Guyere with Max

Horray! Max from Ontario visited me. I served a dinner of cheese and meat that I had brought back from Italy as an introduction.

We traveled to Bern and climbed the church tower.

We also went to check out the Bern bears in their sad little pit. There were two cubs who were really cute.

There were tons of people in Bern that day because of some race.

The next day we went to the medieval town of Guyere. I moved to Switzerland for the skiing and Guyere cheese!

We went on a tour of the cheese factory which was lead by some really cheesy sounding cow named Cherry. It was neat to see the factory floor though.

And the cellar where the cheeses are aged.

This town is really picturesque, really really pretty.

Here is Max telling me "give me Heidi, give me Heidi" during the picture taking.

After the cheese tour we went into the town. It was a beautiful day and the place was packed with people.

We went on a tour of the castle of Guyere. Rather modern inside (as in 1900's and earlier), but still pretty interesting.

The garden was especially pretty.

And then we caught the train back to Lausanne via Montreux. I'm going to have to go back to the region for some hiking, it looks really good!

Random

I knew that Europe did recipies by weight, but I didn't realize it would be impossible to find a measuring cup. I've been using my nalgene bottle... Here I am measuring sugar.

Also, I went to Italy and back to the palace of the Doge. I took a picture of the chastity belt. Weird.

A little bit of Basel, a little bit of Lausanne Carnival

Last weekend I decided to go on a LFTR (long ...fabulous train ride) and headed out to Basel. I chose this destination because it meant I could ride on the train through the Jura and it was very pretty. I didn't however take any photos. Just this one of a gate in Basel. The Jura mountains were pretty but you'll just have to take my word for it.

In other exciting Lausanne news, here I am playing at the pub.

And then today (Saturday) was a carnival day in Lausanne. I heard someone say something about celebrating the sun and a bunch of young people going around getting drunk and riding on rides.

It appeared similar to those county fairs in Ontario that would set up in all the towns. Except rather than being clustered in town fairgrounds or agricultural park, this fair was set up right in the streets.

There were all the games and the same tiger stuffed toys to win that I remember from 15 years ago. Plus public consumption of alcohol! Drinking in the streets! Here's the photographic proof!

Yes, that's me and a beer and yes I drank it all by myself. That's one of the goals of my post-doc - acquire a taste for beer so that I can drink it socially. It's good to have goals.