And then it was Christmas again

Lisbeth came home again on the 23^rd (known in Denmark as 'little Christmas eve') as planned and there was Christmas in the little home after all - with Christmas duck, red cabbage sauerkraut, Christmas cake, a wide selection of cookies, and surprisingly many gifts.

On Christmas eve we were by ourselves, but on Christmas day we had a couple of Tue's colleagues over for a Danish style Christmas lunch with pickled herring, schnapps, liver pâté, cuts of cold roast ... and more Christmas cake and more cookies.

After the guests went home we spent the rest of Christmas day relaxing on the couch reading.

Now the shops are open again and we are going to venture outside...

Christmas preparations

While Lisbeth was sent to Denmark to fetch our Christmas presents (and run a couple of other errands) it was Tue's job to look after the little apartment and shop for the holiday festivities. Particularly the latter can be time consuming when looking for unusual goods and only speaking a broken French. In an attempt to have at least some Christmas traditions we have decided to repeat last year's Christmas cake. For this we require of course the Italian hazelnut liqueur Frangelico, but that shouldn't be so hard to get here, this close to northern Italy where the drink originates? Wrong! Most places that Tue entered and asked for it, he was greeted by a puzzled "C'est quoi, ça?" ('That is what, that?!'). So in the end it was also Lisbeth's job to parallelly import a bottle purchased at the Italian store Supermarco in Copenhagen.

It went a little better when shopping for various cuts of pork. The butcher at the supermarket Migros did have a funny look on his face when Tue asked if he could buy "graisse du porc" ('fat of pig')? Not to be deterred by such, Tue persevered with "lard sans viande" ('bacon without meat'), after which the butcher concluded that perhaps the product in mind was "bardes" ('broad strips of lard'). Once it was confirmed that they agreed and he was busy weighing out half a pound of it the butcher wanted to know what it was to be used for, so Tue had to try to explain liver pâté. Then he didn't have any more questions. But Tue did: what about a "rôti du porc avec sa peau" ('pork roast with its skin')? For this he could only suggest a pork shoulder - with the shoulder bone still in it, that is. Not optimal for Danish style pork roast. At the butcher in the supermarket Coop things didn't go any better. Only when Tue entered a real butcher store, was he told that he could come pick up the piece of meat he was looking for the next morning.


Thinking of specific tasks to perform, a wish had been expressed for a nail on the door for hanging a Christmas decoration from - actually we have practically no nails, but Tue succeeded in finding a single nail, left over from the assembly of some piece of Ikea furniture earlier in the year.

Likewise, a wish had been expressed for the baking of more cookies, particularly the traditional Danish cookies vanilla wreaths and perhaps also the so-called Jew cookies. Before any baking took place, intelligence arrived that both of these two types of cookies had been donated from Lisbeth's mother, so perhaps it would be preferable to try to bake something else. Tue then chose to make the not particularly Christmassy pistachio shortbreads, and the modern compliment of the Jew cookie, the palestinian cookie, giving a fresh breath of some different spices.

Last but not least, the purchsed lard was of course used to bake the intended batch of liver pâté and when Lisbeth's flight touches the runway tonight the pork roast will probably be in the oven at home...

Mail and Cacti

We have previously broached the subject of how much space a mailbox can take up. And related, how large numbers can be used for writing the street number of the house. To be fair, we have to add that these guys seem to be number in both categories.

The cactus garden one can see a bit of behind the mailbox is, BTW, decidedly one of the more tasteful in that neighbourhood.

Winter weather

Now it's Christmas vacation time in Geneva - and somehow it just is more Christmassy here than in ever was in Santa Barbara. During the Christmas-shopping-frenzy time has been allocated for taking a few pictures.


By now there is at least a little snow on all the mountains we can see from here. Unfortunately we can't always see all that much, but on clear days it's quite pretty.


The low water level in the Arve is also to be noted when going to Jonction.

PostFinance

As previously mentioned, we are by now the two proud owners of Swiss postal accounts. Of course this includes net banking (ehh ... net-post-banking). But before getting started on the latter one has to wait for the post to mail this thingamajig. Which in combination with the smart card is used to generate access codes every time the system entered - this on top of your customer number (in itself a little hard to walk around remembering since it's not used for anything else - and the homepage has been conveniently programmed so as not to allow the browser to remember this field) and personal password.

Multiplet mailboxes

As previously mentioned it isn't uncommon to see clusters of mailboxes along the highways in the US. Interestingly, the phenomenon is also encountered in cities. For example (in the left side of the collage), both the "twin" mailboxes and the fairly Little-Claus-and-Big-Claus like mailboxes are from Santa Barbara. In the right side of the collage you see larger clusters of mailboxes: the most mixed set is typical of the Isla Vista neighbourhood right next to UCSB while the string of identical mailboxes was found, curiously, in Hilo, Hawai'i.

Fondue

We hadn't been in Geneva for long before we actively decided that we definitely weren't going to try eating fondue before it was winter.

While Lisbeth is in Denmark, Tue has attended the End-of-Year event with the research team. This year it was held at Café d'Avusy in the village Avusy. As implied by the board in one of the pictures people in Avusy do not appear to share our opinion of when to enjoy fondue. But now it's the middle of December and even though there isn't much snow here in Geneva, there was a pretty white cover everywhere out in Avusy.


After the party consumed a couple of trays of thinly sliced dried beef the little heaters on the tables were lit. Shortly after the pots with preheated fondue were put on the tables. There wasn't really time for sneaking a peak in the kitchen, but it is said that such a fondue is made from 3 cheeses, white wine (to dilute), and a little starch to prevent the wine and the cheese from separating. Using the small spikes the bread pieces were dipped in the cheese .. and yum. With this drink white wine. And so forth until there is no more fondue or one is completely full - whichever happens first. Although, we did get desserts afterwards...

And what is the verdict then? Tue would do it again - although not too soon!

Post barns

Another recurring theme amongst the US mailboxes is the mailboxes which mostly resemble barns, garages, dog houses, and other miniature outhouses. Executed with varying attention to detail, of course.

The Fish Box II

Yes, it isn't only in Hawai'i one can find a fishy mailbox - such can also be found in Goleta.

It may not be as impressive as the Hawai'ian one, but at least we found it on the corner of Sea Gull St which somehow seems very appropriate.

Approved mailbox

Unlike many other US mailboxes the decoration of this one doesn't appear the least bit home made (and it certainly wasn't unique - we found a couple of it in the neighbourhood we lived in).

One of the most fascinating aspects of this mailbox is the message, part of the cast, that the mailbox is approved by The United States Postmaster General - that is, the head of the US mail service. Which, by the way is an authority which can pride itself of being older than the US constitution as the office was founded already in 1775.