Monday, December 8, 2014

Discovering Old Traditions

This week we were catching up on rest and getting back to our regular schedule.  

On Saturday, we went to Annecy to check out their mall.  I have had a hard time finding a mall that resembles a mall from MN, but this was pretty close.  It had a lot of different stores inside the mall, and many stores along the street.  Unfortunately, the girls and Chris were not as impressed, so I was only able to shop for a short time. Hoping to get back there soon- without Chris and the kids!  They also had a small Christmas market going on outside of the mall, so we had some hot wine wth our lunch, which was Subway.  They have some Subways around here- and it sounded good- especially their honey mustard!

This weekend began the celebration, Fete de l'Escalade, which is a large celebration that takes place in Geneva in December.  During the night of December 11-12, 1602, the city of Geneva was attacked by Savoyard soldiers.  The Duke of Savoy, who had previously lost his possession of Geneva, was trying to reclaim it.  There was a short battle, and as the story goes, a lady poured her pot of soup over the heads of Savoyard soldiers while they were climbing the walls of the city, which caused much chaos and attributed to the victory of Geneva.  Throughout the upcoming week, there will be many different types of celebrations, making and eating the vegetable soup thrown over the soldiers, breaking of a large marmite (cauldron) made of chocolate and filled with marzipan vegetables, many parades, and even dressing up in costumes.  Around Halloweeen, I could not find any costumes in the stores, now stores are filled with costumes for children and adults to wear to celebrate the escalade.  We are looking forward to participating in these Geneva traditions-  

Saturday night, Chris ran in the most popular sporting event in Geneva, the Escalade Race, which kicks off the week of celebrations.  The race takes place in the old town of Geneva, and varies in distance based on your age.  Throughout the day, people are racing- each category had a different start time, approximately 30,000 people run in this yearly race.  Chris ran about 4.5 miles- three times around the course.  He ran at 5:00 pm, so it was chilly, windy, and dark- not the best cheering conditions- but we were all there to cheer him on!!


After the race, we had a babysitter and we went out for fondue with Chris' co-workers to celebrate their completion of the run- about 11 of his coworkers ran in the race.  It was a very fun night out- it was really great to finally meet some of the people that he works with and their spouses.

On Sunday, we could finally see the top of Mount Saleve, the mountain right next to our house.  In the winter in Geneva, there tends to be a "grey cloud" that hovers over Geneva and you don't see much sun.  So, we haven't seen the top of the mountain for a couple weeks- since the fog had lifted, we decided to go to the top and check out the snow covered mountains.  The nice part about Geneva is that we don't have to deal with snow, but in 15 minutes, we can be playing in it!  There isn't much snow up there yet, but we are excited to take the girls sledding up there once there is more snow-

Loved touching the snow!  

This picture shows the snowy trees, lingering fog, and the town of Geneva below...

This week, we are looking forward to Adalyn's school Christmas program, her dance recital, and participating in Escalade activities.  We are also preparing for our trip home!!  Can't believe in less than two weeks we will be seeing family and friends!

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