The Adventures of Swiss Family Willis

I am now very embarrassed to say that we have eaten over 10 kilos of Swiss chocolate since we arrived.  We did have a tiny bit of help from Miriam to get it over the 10 kilo mark.  I don’t really know if I am proud of this achievement.  But, we haven’t put on those 10 kilos in weight (actually lost 10kgs in Daniels case - perhaps Swiss chocolate helps lose weight!  Haha) .  We are still way behind the Swiss average of 12 kilos per year per person which means we should have eaten at least 24 kilos by the end of April!

Miriam - come back and help us eat some more!

We spent last week in Bettmeralp.  It was incredible.  We had seven days of perfect weather and although the slopes were a bit low on snow and getting icy in places, it didn’t stop us from getting busy sledging, snowboarding and skiing and many other things (that all seem to begin with the letter ’s’).

It took us just under 3 hours to get from Aarau to Bettmeralp by train (Bettmeralp is in the Swiss Alps - in Canton Wallis).  We had organised tageskarte so it was cheap and easy.  We packed light and managed to get our large suitcase, backpack and two kids on and off 4 train changes and then up the gondala to the nearly 2000m high Bettmeralp.

We booked an apartment through myswitzerland.com - which works out way way cheaper than a hotel and there are like 900 apartments and 7 hotels on Bettmeralp so it seemed hiring an apartment was the better and more popular option.  We found our apartment was on the main stretch - slap bang in the middle of the village and absolutely perfect.  With views of the mountains from our window it was a dream.  It was quiet too, in spite of being in the middle of ‘town’, I guess people get pretty exhausted from skiing and breathing in the mountain air that they are in knocked out in bed by 10pm (yip - we were!).  Plus we were there before the busy ski holidays - ’sport ferien’ so there weren’t many people.

Here are a few photos to get you started - more Willis adventures in Bettmeralp and photos to follow soon!

Like my new hair-do?  No, just joking!

So, Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the seemingly excessive number of hairdressing salons here in Switzerland?  They are on every corner.  Actually, from our apartment walking into Aarau I pass SEVEN hairdressers (in about 400m).  I went to get my haircut a couple of weeks ago and the hairdresser tells me there are 50 hairdressers in Aarau alone.  That is catering for a population of 16,000.    In Manukau, New Zealand, for a population of 360,000, there are 140 hairdressers.  So that makes it about 8 times more hairdressers per capita here than in Manukau.  Wow!

But then, have you seen the haircuts people have here?  They are perfect and everyone looks stylish and good.  And you pay too, about $80 ($120 NZD) for a women’s haircut in Aarau which seems to be about the average.  I was paying about $40NZD (about $25CHF) for a haircut.

But the service is perfect.  And they take more than 10 minutes to cut hair too!  On arrival, they open the door for you, take your coat (which they do give back!), ask if you would like tea, coffee, juice, water (with or without bubbles!)  I was even offered fancy Christmas herbal tea and biscuits.  They take you to a chair and talk for 5 minutes about what you would like to have done and give advice / tips.  After washing you hair and massaging, they cut it.  And boy, they cut so well.  Like every hair is in place and with such attention to detail.  Anyway, perhaps enough babbling.  I have had my hair cut twice since being in Switzerland by different salons and both were incredible and professional and friendly.

I love my Swiss haircuts.

Had another cute conversation with Toby today.

Daniel and I have been listening to heaps of Mark Driscoll’s sermons (Mars Hill Church, Seattle).  We love his stuff.  We have listened to his series on the book of Proverbs over the past few weeks - heaps about being a man, father, husband, women, wife, mother and about bringing up kids etc.  Totally worth downloading and listening to on your way into work in the car / train… Or you could listen to them while sitting on the couch eating bärentatzen and drinking glühwein like us!  But that is another story…

Well, one of the sermons was about men, and their duty to work and provide for the family, to not be lazy and go and work and earn money etc.  Daniel thought it was important to teach Toby why his Dada goes to work each day and instill some good work ethics early on into our young boy!  So they had a man-to-man chat a couple of weeks ago.

Today Toby asked “Why is Dada at work”  To which I answered “What do you think?” (this is my latest answer to all of Toby’s ‘why‘ questions as I find he often knows the answer!).  Toby said “To get some money”.  To which I said “And what does Dada do with that money”,  Toby answered - “He shares it with us”.  I said “And what do we do with it?”.  Toby’s answer: “We buy food and t-shirts”.  Gotta love all those t-shirts!  Haha.

Yeah, I would do the same.  When it is constantly below zero here in Europe, who can blame them!  Except I don’t think I would have been that clever at 6 years of age, to pack togs, a lilo, sunglasses and food and then try and board a train south!  Have a read of this article where two German kids (6 & 7 years old) decide to elope to Africa - to warmer climates!  So cute!

Ok, now, back to reality…

Who is the King? If I asked Toby that, his answer would be ‘God’, and he would be right!  But I am talking about something a bit different.

Today is the 6th January and the Swiss celebrate the ‘Heilige Drei Könige’ (or ‘Epiphany’ in English speaking countries) and it is commemorating the Magi or Wise Men visiting Jesus.

In Switzerland, it is tradition to buy / make a Dreikönigskuchen (Three King’s cake).  One of the buns is baked with a plastic king, each family member takes a bun and the one who finds the wee king in their bread is named King of the family for the day.  Guess who is our King!?

The youngest member of the family - Noah!

So, since this blog is brought to you by the word ‘awesome’, I thought this picture was rather appropriate.  It doesn’t get much more awesome that that.

Oh, and how is our cat, Michael and Adele?  Hopefully not lost, but surely just as awesome and chubby as this one!

A wee bit belated but it is still a New Year, hopefully this one won’t go as fast as the last one because that means I will be turning 30 and that makes me feel a wee bit old.  Aaargh!  We didn’t get a white Christmas but we did get a white New Year which was heaps of fun, seeing the fireworks with a backdrop of snow covered everything!

We have really enjoyed the last two weeks having Daniel home and have spent heaps of time doing cool stuff together - playing games, walking, sledging, dinners with friends and family, seeing Madagascar 2 (which by the way - they don’t allow under 6 year olds in the theatres over here, even for G-rated movies with an adult to Toby’s dismay!) but we managed to buy and download a (legal) copy so Toby could see it.   We did a couple of day-trips as well by train.

We are off to Bettmeralp for a week soon which we are very excited about.  And my school friend from New Zealand - Miriam - is going to meet up with us there!  Aaah a week of snow, sledging and hopefully some skiing too at my favourite place - well I haven’t been everywhere yet - in Switzerland.

Congratulation to Jono and Anna (brother and sister-in-law of Daniel) on baby Josiah.  Born on the 1st day in 2009.  So many babies being born in NZ at the moment.  If I didn’t know better, I would think that our leaving NZ has made it a better place to bring up kids…  Or maybe everyone is having kids in a hope to fill the deep deep hole we have left in their lives.  Haha.

Well, I just made raspberry jelly (not my favourite but Toby is a fan so we have stack loads thanks to Mum and Missie) and I placed it out on the balcony and it set within an hour.  Thanks to the high of -1°C we have today!

Wishing you a blessed 2009.

With or without snow, a Swiss Christmas is beautiful and magical.  Nope, it wasn’t a white Christmas (unless you were above 1000m).  But thats ok, it was an enjoyable one, nonetheless!  The one thing that stood out to me, was the cozyness of it.  Cold outside, warm inside and lots of candles.  Real candles on the Christmas tree.  I love candles and didn’t really think about but in NZ it doesn’t get dark till 9 or 10 at Christmas so candles are a bit useless!  It was great to be able to celebrate on Heiligabend (Christmas Eve) with my Grosi and then on Christmas Day with my Grossmueti & Grossvati.

And the smells - so good - like a pine needle that gets caught on a candle and lets off a beautiful pine scented smoke.  Drinking wine, eating beautiful food and Christmas guetzli.  Mmmmh.  The boys were spoilt with lots of exciting presents.

Today is a amazingly beautiful day, blue sky and I can see that sun again.  Its been awhile!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, warm or cold and wishing you all a great 2009.  God bless.

Thanks for following our Swiss adventures; we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!