Anyone who knows us well, will get what it means to have done Thanksgiving (and more specifically the weekend) "Sofield style". Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here, so we did not have Thursday and Friday off. We did the next best thing to dinner on Thursday and invited some fiends over for dinner on Friday. Darrell hunted high and low for the makings for a good 'ole traditional Turkey Day dinner. He had scoped out the local stores for about a week and kept reporting back on who had the closest thing to turkey... (Chicken? Sliced turkey?)… We finally decided to do a ham and bought a small one Thursday night at the Migros (a grocery store) in Fehraltorf. Later that night, we agreed that a ham just wasn't right and so Darrell decided to look closer to Zurich first thing Friday morning.
Mid-day on Friday, I got an e-mail from him with the subject heading "I got a turkey!!!" and in the body of the e-mail, it said "and cranberries and sweet potatoes!!!". Mmmm, I was happy to be able to report to our friends that it really was going to be a traditional dinner after all…
Our oven is tiny, so Darrell had to schedule the baking very carefully. By the time I got home, the pies were baked and the turkey was in the oven... As we were in the homestretch, we heard Skype singing to us and found a fabulous surprise on the other end. Our Thanksgiving tradition back home is to go to a ski town in Canada (Silver Star) with a group of friends. We rent a big house, ski, eat, and enjoy each other's company for the long weekend. That group of friends was in the middle of breakfast when they called to say hello (Thanks friends, XO!).
Back in Switzerland, most of our guests arrived all at once. One German couple with a Michelin man-like toddler (all wrapped up to stay warm) came on their bikes in the snow. My American officemate and a Swiss mountain-biking buddy of Darrell's came by train. Our good Swiss friends from Baar/Lucerne, came by car (with extra chairs so everyone could sit at the dinner table). And so it was, Germans, Swiss, and Americans, enjoying a good 'ole traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night. Some of them had never had turkey before, but I think they genuinely loved the meal, all 4,000 calories/person of it! (gravy, cranberries, stuffing, and pumpkin pie were also new to them).
Mid-day on Friday, I got an e-mail from him with the subject heading "I got a turkey!!!" and in the body of the e-mail, it said "and cranberries and sweet potatoes!!!". Mmmm, I was happy to be able to report to our friends that it really was going to be a traditional dinner after all…
Our oven is tiny, so Darrell had to schedule the baking very carefully. By the time I got home, the pies were baked and the turkey was in the oven... As we were in the homestretch, we heard Skype singing to us and found a fabulous surprise on the other end. Our Thanksgiving tradition back home is to go to a ski town in Canada (Silver Star) with a group of friends. We rent a big house, ski, eat, and enjoy each other's company for the long weekend. That group of friends was in the middle of breakfast when they called to say hello (Thanks friends, XO!).
Back in Switzerland, most of our guests arrived all at once. One German couple with a Michelin man-like toddler (all wrapped up to stay warm) came on their bikes in the snow. My American officemate and a Swiss mountain-biking buddy of Darrell's came by train. Our good Swiss friends from Baar/Lucerne, came by car (with extra chairs so everyone could sit at the dinner table). And so it was, Germans, Swiss, and Americans, enjoying a good 'ole traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night. Some of them had never had turkey before, but I think they genuinely loved the meal, all 4,000 calories/person of it! (gravy, cranberries, stuffing, and pumpkin pie were also new to them).
The next day, we went to the Fehraltorf Christmas market (stay tuned for that film in the next few days). Then, we went to Lucerne, for our friend’s graduation. We met Reto in Canada several years ago. He was on his way back to Switzerland to start this program when we met, so it was nice to be able to see him complete it also! The graduation was different than what we have in US. There was very little pomp and circumstance. Most of the graduates wore jeans, the exception was the MBAs who had on suits (of course, there was also the MBA with the very traditional brown leather pants on...). The ceremony started with Christmas bells jingling and somebody with a Santa Claus hat on peaking out through the stage curtains. He threw his Christmas sack on the stage and then we didn't hear from him again. The president of the college did most of the talking (in German), gave out the diplomas, and went through the Christmas sack at the end. Some of the things he pulled out were a world globe, a soccer ball, and a series of red nested boxes. I can only imagine that he was building a very inspirational send-off with the speech that accompanied these items... for example "As you leave the walls of this hallowed College, I encourage you to travel the world to expand your horizons, leave time for yourself (play soccer), and as you build tall red towers from nested boxes and make lots of money, remember our little College who helped get you where you are... please make your checks out to..." (remember that I don't know German, but have a nice imagination...)
We just had time for a celebratory drink and hors d’oeuvres, met some of Reto's family, and jumped back on the train for another get together closer to home. We dropped Fiona off, then ran back to catch the train to go to my colleague’s house. She was hosting a house-warming party for her research group. It was so nice to get to interact with everyone outside of work and was the first time for Darrell to meet some of the people. Another very international get- together with people (originally) from Spain, Croatia, China, America, Germany, Switzerland, and France.... I just love it!
The next day (Sunday), we got up and had Rosti for breakfast. Our Swiss friends cringe at this since Rosti is a lunch or dinner meal, but I think the jury is still out on that one... Rosti is grated potatoes, cooked in a pan (hmmm, hash browns?). You can add different things to the potatoes like onions. On top, there is usually cheese, eggs, tomatoes, ham... anything you want. We have always just had a fried egg on top with cheese over that. After breakfast, we had a mad dash for the train, running all the way, and just made it. Destination... Davos for some cross country skiing!
The train ride is about 2.5 hours each way, which we agree is about as far as we would want to go on a day-trip, but you can do work or read or study (German) on the train, which we did. When we got to the ski area, we met a local who told us that the newspaper "Blick" was sponsoring cross country ski lessons, and so there were lots of people there learning how to ski. We caught some fun views of them warming up before skiing (video below). The ski hut was great, wax room, several rooms with tables to eat at, a big pot of soup (that people were lined up out the door for), a changing and shower room... There were about 70 km of trail groomed (for both classic and skate). I was a little surprised at how many people were skate skiing, I would guess about 90%. Crazy... I wore myself out, Darrell wore Fiona out, and then went back to wear himself out. We left when the hut closed and caught the next train home... Back at home, dinner, a movie from the local library, and bed.
And that was Thanksgiving Sofield style... Hope everyone back home enjoyed their holidays.
video coming soon....
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