has moved to a foreign country
Dear friends,
We would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We hope you had a good year and that 2014 will be even better. Our
year started with adventures in New Zealand and Australia and ended
with building a new life in Lucerne, Switzerland. It has been quite a
trip and we have enjoyed every step of the way. 🙂
Take care of yourselves and your loved ones,
Angela and Andy
Lucerne is a beautiful city at Christmas time with lots of lights, decoration and Christmas markets to drink Glühwein at. One of the larger clothing store presented this very cool Advent calendar. I do like the time before Christmas very much, actually more than Christmas itself.
I do live in one of the biggest chocolate countries in the world. So last week when I was fortunate enough to be invited to join Andy’s company for an event at Lindt & Sprüngli my introduction to Switzerland was complete. I bet most of you know the Lindt chocolate, you can buy it all over the world. We bought it occasionally during our stay in America and on the trip and our favorite is the chili flavored one.
At the factory in Kilchberg, outside of Zürich, they have a show room which is equipped with marble benches and large pots to keep the chocolate at the right temperature for further refinement. Our group of almost 30 got dressed in baking shirts, apron and hats. The show room was Christmas decorated with Disney perfect trees and golden Lindt chocolate bears.
The chocolatier started to tell us a bit about the company and chocolate but pretty soon we got into the important part of the evening, making chocolates. 🙂
We were shown how to fill champagne ganache in chocolate shells which were later sealed and decorated with powder sugar. We made 28 each and they have to be eaten within a week or so. What a pity! We then got 10 basic chocolates that we could decorate in what ever way we wanted. The chocolatier showed us some tricks and for our creations we could use gold flakes, caramelized nuts and more.
In addition to working with chocolate there were Lindt & Sprüngli chocolate available for us to eat as much as we wanted from. It did not take long until I did not feel like having any more. Such a shame!
A few hours later we went home with our handmade chocolates, slightly sick after having had way too much chocolate but with a big smile on our faces. 🙂
Usually in the beginning of the week I start thinking about what I want to do on the weekend. Of course in my mind we do great things outdoors in the perfect weather. Picture the intro to Sound of Music and you get the feeling. In the middle of the week I look at the weather forecast which of course decides what kind of activity is possible at all. Way too many weeks this autumn it has been looking like this:
And so also this weekend. Bummer. Here goes my hiking trail discovery plans out the window and shopping and “fika” plans becomes reality. On the agenda this weekend is shopping (in desperate need of shoes and new glasses), dinner with friends and Sunday Afternoon Tea at Hotel Palace also with friends. Not too bad after all. 🙂 Just have to remember to bring the umbrella.
Enjoy your weekend!
On Friday we finally made it to Engelberg and the Via Ferrata on Fürenwand leading up to Fürenalp. It was about 4 years ago we did this Via Ferrata the first time. Honestly I did not remember it being that steep, it is about 750 meters elevation change and parts of it goes pretty much up straight walls with short overhanging moves and a free hanging ladder. Before Friday I was actually thinking of bringing inexperienced climbers on it but changed my mind once I was on the wall. I think I would like to be positive that people does not have issues with heights before taking on this wall.
Our first plan was to go shopping in Zürich. The weather forecast however said it was going to be the only dry day during the weekend so we changed our plans and went climbing instead. Although it was not raining it was partly wet and at some points even a bit slippery.
It was nice to come up on Fürenalp and see the sign for the restaurant. It was definitely time for lunch and a panache (beer mixed with lemon soda). 🙂 There was no wind at all so it was actually ok to even sit outside and enjoy the views.
The perfect ending of this season would be to do the Via Ferrata Fürenwand in Engelberg. It is a short but challenging Via Ferrata which ends with a free hanging ladder (it moves a little bit) that is just slightly over hanging as well. Really good fun if you are into this kind of thing.
A few weekends now we have been about to go but the weather has been playing tricks on us. Either the forecast has been bad and we have decided to do other things or the forecast was good but we still woke up to pouring rain. We have one more weekend before they close down the cable car (which is nice to take down once you have had your after climbing beer in the restaurant on the top of the cliff), so I am hoping for nice weather!
Instead of burning some calories we ended up adding some… What is better than some cream tea on a Sunday afternoon just as the sun decided to come out for a few minutes? 🙂
