Visitors!

Like most, maybe all, Americans living abroad, we were facing the question of what to do for Thanksgiving.  There were no turkeys to be found in the stores. No long weekend with extra days off work and school.  Neither ignoring the holiday nor celebrating it by ourselves (after the boys got home from school) seemed particularly attractive options.

Fortunately, we were saved from having to choose between these options by a much anticipated visit from my brother Rick, his wife Eileen, and their kids, Graham and Annie.

And we had a wonderful time.

They arrived on Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving.  For dinner we made sausages, rosti, and a Swiss-style salad (meaning a salad plate with little separate piles of lettuce, grated carrots, beets, and corn).  We thought we should welcome them with an official Swiss meal.

On Thursday (Thanksgiving day), the boys went to school, but Mark and I took the day off to show our guests around Lausanne: the Cathedral, a walk through old town, lunch by the clock.  And we even did a little shopping.  On Thursday night, the adults went out to dinner and the kids stayed home and watched a movie, with 14-year-old Graham in charge.  This was the first evening Mark and I had gone out without the kids.  Fun!

On Friday, we took the boys out of school and had a real Swiss adventure.  We drove to Les Diablerets, a large mountain peak about an hour from Lausanne.  At 3000 meters, it is pretty impressive.  And there was snow!

It took us an hour to get to the town at the base of the mountain, and it took us another hour to find the gondola that would take us to the top.  It turned out that the in-town gondola stop was closed, and the only one currently in operation was outside town in a little spot called Col du Pillon.

Hanging out in Les Diablerets

Christopher, Annie, Graham and Matthew on the gondola

Great views from the top of the mountain!

We took a chair lift (a first for our family!) from the peak down to a glacier on which people could ski and hike.  We hiked.

Nagle-Deamer Family on the chair lift to the glacier

Hiking on the glacier

Fun in the snow!

Nice balance!

We even had a delicious fondue lunch at the restaurant at the top, looking out at the Alps.  Now that was a real taste of Switzerland!

On Saturday, our last day together, we went to Martigny, a town we had visited before and enjoyed very much.  We knew it offered a nice combination of activities, so we were happy to visit again.  This is the town beneath the St. Bernard pass through the Alps.  As on our first visit we went to the St. Bernard Dog Museum but, this time, we were there to see the dogs more than the museum.  We also visited the ancient roman amphitheater next door to the St. Bernard Museum.  Here the kids did a dramatic re-enactment of a gladiator battle.

Then it was time for a picnic lunch.  We had planned to eat by the amphitheater but that side of town was in the shadow of the mountains, which made it too cold to eat outside.  So we hiked across town and up to the local castle, which was in the sun, for our picnic lunch.

The whole gang after our picnic lunch outside Chateau Batiaz

We didn't have any turkey, but it turned out to be a wonderful weekend.  We were grateful for the Nagle-Deamer visit, and much else besides, which made it a real Thanksgiving Weekend, and one to remember.