Our permits finally arrived

We finally received our permits after 6 months! With it being so late in the year there were no more B-permits left so we both now have L-permits. While the B-permit is an annual, renewable permit, the L-permit is for people who will be working here for a limited period only, like on a contract. It doesn't make a difference to us at the moment. And hopefully wont in the future! We were just not very impressed with the colour of these permits! Lilac.

But it now allows us to leave Switzerland and be able to return again after a weekend away. So this weekend we are off to Germany to visit my mom and stepdad. As soon as Andre finishes work here next to me we'll load the car!

Bremgarten Market

In June we went to Bremgarten to a big market there for the first time. Shortly after that I read about another one they will be having in October and I made sure we didn't miss this one since the previous one was really good. And again we weren't disappointed. Lots of stalls, lots of people and lots of yummy things to eat like garlic bread (with lots of garlic!), crepes, waffles, and of course sausages and raclette.It was quite rainy on Sunday but we were lucky to get a couple of rain free hours to walk around at the market with our visitors before they had to fly back to the UK.

Are you ready for the Christmas markets? I've already marked those I want to visit on my calender! Have a look at this website to see where and when it's happening.

Holiday with friends: the video

We had some friends here visiting us and we went for a weekend away to Neuchatel as I've mentioned before. This is some video we took there. Well not much video of Neuchatel besides the fish tank in the hotel actually! The rest is of the snow in Engelberg in the way back from Neuchatel. And a night out in Zurich with dinner at the Blue Monkey Thai restaurant.

If for some reason the video won't play here on the blog, you can view it here on vimeo.

Friends visit in Switzerland from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

Blue Monkey

Friday night we had dinner at the Blue Monkey, a trendy Thai restaurant in Zurich. Some good cocktails, shots and of course really good Thai curries. The food was perfect. I had the duck red curry with jasmine rice. Just spicy enough. And just look at how colourful it all is!

We'll be visiting this one again!

Chocolates everywhere!

I love chocolates. I cannot say no to chocolates. And this is becoming a problem. But how am I going to stop eating chocolates if my kitchen looks like this:

We have Italian chocolates which our friends brought us from Italy. Chocolates, fudge and cake from Walder in Neuchatel, the French part of Switzerland. And then Lindt and others from here. All sooo good, you just cannot say no. Does anybody have a treadmill I can buy?

The first snow! -Engelberg

On our way back from Neuchatel on Sunday we had lunch in Engelberg. Andre and I spent a weekend there before and we wanted to go for lunch at a cosy little restaurant we had dinner at on our previous visit. But it seems many restaurants close for holiday during October and that was the case with this one too.

But let me start at the beginning. The past week or so we've heard and read in the papers about the first snow falling higher up in the mountains. As we were driving up to Engelberg we started seeing snow all around us next to the road and in the trees. So beautiful! We don't get snow in SA so we still get very excited about snow and we oohed and aahed all the way up the mountain.

We got out the car, changed shoes and put on gloves and hats and went crazy in the snow!

We walked around a little bit and passed the Alpenclub Hotel which was on our list of possible hotels to stay at on our previous visit so decided to try it for lunch this time.

The guys ordered the house specialty which got them bibs around their necks, tied by the waitress!! hehe

I had my first taste of raclette. I've been getting the impression that raclette, like fondue, is something the Swiss enjoy during winter and quite a specialty here. I must say I was a little disappointed... It's only a melted cheese open sandwich. It was good, but I expected something different to what we could get in any restaurant back home. And what's with all the special raclette cheese grillers? We used to make these in the oven or microwave. Or is there something about these grillers that I don't know?

Anyway. It was good. There was a lot of ham too and as you can see a LOT of cheese! I will order it again because its nice as a light lunch. Although you don't feel too light after all that cheese!

Neuchatel

This past weekend we drove to Neuchatel with our friends, Jamie and Charlene, visiting us from the UK. It was our first visit to the French part of Switzerland and it really was VERY French. We were surprised at how few people were able to speak English. Here in the German part you can get by without knowing much German as most people here are able to speak English. It was also quite difficult for us not knowing ANY French, while we at least know some German to help us this side of the country.

But we were able to eat, drink, sleep and shop well! We stayed at the Beaulac Hotel which is right on the water with stunning views over the lake.

It is also very close to the old town where we spent most of our time wandering around.

On Saturday there was a market with lovely fresh fruit and veg, heaps of mushrooms and very long breads.

We met another South African couple there too. Andre just happened to hear them speak Afrikaans when they passed us and we started chatting. They recommended a good place for crepes called Bach & Buck (look out for the green sign above the door on the main street) where we then went for lunch. The most delicious crepes! And interesting beer mugs...

They also told us where to go for the best chocolate in town where Jamie did some shopping.

And cheese fondue for dinner at Brasserie le Cardinal.

How to start a blog

Somebody asked me how do they start their own blog so I said I'll write a blog about starting a blog in case somebody else also wants to start a blog! Let me know once you've started one so I can check it out.

1. Go to blogger.com (click on the link I just posted).
2. Click on the big orange button that says: CREATE A BLOG.
3. You need to have a google account, in other words a gmail email address. If you already have one, you can type it in.
4. If not, you need to create one: Go to www.google.com At the top of the page click on google mail and then there will be a button to click to create a gmail account. It's free :-)
5. Back to the blog: Fill in all the fields on page one to create your blogger account.
6. Click next
7. Decide on a name for your blog.
8. Choose a template for your blog to make it look pretty. You can change the template any time.
9. And start typing your first blog!

Don't forget to let me know the link to your blog so I can follow.

Now some other tips when writing a blog:

1. To post a new post, click "New Post" of course ;-)
2. Type a title for that post and start composing your post.
3. Buttons from left to right at the top where you're typing your new post are:

- To change the font,

- the font size,

- bold or italics and

- to change the colour of your font

- Then with the next button you can add a link. Say you want to tell people about some place you went, then you can include a link where they can read more about this place. Open this website you want to link to, highlight and copy the address at the top, go back to your post you're busy with, highlight some text, e.g. the name of the place you're talking about, click the link button and paste the address in there. Done! Try it out.

- The next couple of buttons are self explanatory I think.

- Over to the right there is a little picture which looks like a landscape photograph. Click on this to add photos to your blog.

- Next to that you can upload videos too. I don't use that, I use my vimeo instead and embed it in there and here is a link to doing that!

You can preview your post by clicking on the preview button.

Then click PUBLISH POST, bottom left in orange, when you're all done.

Happy blogging! I'm now going to enjoy some Italian chocolate which our good visitors brought us from Italy mmmmm....

Dad & Colleen's visit day three: Home

Thursday was our last day together. My dad and Colleen left early Friday morning, on their way to Turkey to collect the yacht. We spent the afternoon doing some shopping, buying our beautiful yucca plant and some cheese for them to take with.

Then we made a traditional German dinner: three different kinds of sausages, including Münchner Weisswurst, and a baked potato dish.

Thanks for the visit Pa & Colleen, it was really good to see you!

Dad & Colleen's visit day two: Schaffhausen

On Wednesday we took the train to Schaffhausen. It has become one of our favourite towns. This was the first time I went there with the train though and it was so much fun. It didn't take that long and it was a beautiful ride through the country. You even get a good view of the Reinfall (waterfall) on the way.

After many visits to Schaffhausen I can now finally say that I've been to the Munot too.

Why did we not do this on our first visit there?

It was stunning. Fun to see an old castle/ fort? and you get such an awesome view of the town.

Andre only joined us later and I'm definitely taking him up there next time too! By the way, see those two guys in the photo above coming up the stairs? They were hopping on one leg all the way up!! CRAZY.

It made us wonder how people lived in that time...

We strolled around some more

and then had drinks waiting for Andre to finish work and meet us for dinner.

The dinner plan (as always when we're in Schaffhausen) was to eat at Lemongrass. We were all ready for good Thai curry. But they were closed for holiday! How can they do that to us!!

Maybe it was a good thing because in the end we had cheese fondue, a first for all four of us and it was soooo good!