Congratulations

Yesterday (Dec 14) was my birthday. I had already picked up what one of the traditions here was. On your birthday, you bring the cake. We don't have anything to bake a cake in (and there is no Betty Crocker or Pillsbury on the grocery store shelves), so I made some oatmeal cookies with hard-found cranberries.

There were a few minor challenges with baking here - the first is they don't have brown sugar like we know it. They have granulated sugar that is brown, but not brown sugar. The second is they use vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract. I did what I could with the ingredients and the internet...the good news is that the cookies turned out OK...

At work, there is a coffee break at 3 everyday. On days where there is a birthday, we get an e-mail that asks you to come enjoy cake at the break, so I sent out the e-mail. Within a half hour of sending the e-mail, someone confirmed that today was my birthday and then shook my hand and said "Congratulations". I thought it was odd, but... when we gathered to go in for coffee, another person came up, confirmed it was indeed my birthday today, shook my hand and said "Congratulations", several others said congratulations also (with or without the handshake).

I think the cookies were well received. They wanted to know what was in them (the oats and cranberries were unusual)... Someone bought me a coffee and wouldn't let me make it myself - you won't lift a hand, he said, it is your birthday.

That night, I met Darrell at the train station for a trip to Konstanz, a border town in Germany. This was our first time out of Switzerland since we moved here (with the exception of my work trip back to the US in Early November). We went to a really cool Christmas market there (probably my favorite of the ones we've been to) and then to a brewpub. We always like to sit at the bar since you can talk to people better. The gentleman beside us was an Italian who had been living in Konstanz for several years. There are fun stories to tell about our conversations with him, but I'll save those for later.... for now, I'll just say, when he found out that today was my birthday, he shook my hand and said "Congratulations".

XO