Seasons' Greetings

It's my last "working day" of the year, although I will have to bring some work and study with me when I go away over Christmas and New Year. I'm hoping to have enough calm and time to think about this year and all that it's brought, and - barring the invention of working crystal balls in the next week - figure out what I'm going to try to do next year.

In the meantime, I wish you and yours a wonderful end of year, whatever you call it, and all the very best for 2013.

What Switzerland is made of

We've had a fun few days with friends who came to see Switzerland's Christmas markets with us. Friday was spent exploring the two market squares full of stalls in Basel and the train station in Zurich, then Saturday in the two squares and under the train station in Lucerne... the plan for Sunday was to go to Bern, but we didn't get started early enough and the market there closed at 5:00 pm, so we ended up wandering around Zurich again and having some amazing 70% cocoa hot chocolate in a flammkuchen restaurant in the Old Town. The Christmas markets were pretty good, with not so much looking mass produced although there were disturbingly similar stalls in all three markets, even for things you would think were handmade, like wooden carved goods.

It snowed almost constantly on Sunday and Monday, although it was all blown away by a storm last night. I walked around town with Ada on Monday and we stopped into the amazing Sprungli café at Paradeplatz. It's a tie for which hot chocolate is better (both 70% cocoa) and their cakes are amazing!

Ada anticipating all that chocolately goodness, plus apple strudel and coffee éclair.

 She had a mug of hot chocolate, while I ordered a 'portion' - turns out to a hot silver jug full of hot chocolate, with a dark chocolate on the side!

We had had enough chocolate after that (believe it or not) so we then went for a herbal tea (mainly to avoid having to go outside in the cold and snow again). Ada had a rooibos with tangerine, and I had a ginger and lemon.

 After seeing her off at the station I went to see himself, he had just moved desks into a new part of the office and the catering staff were excelling themselves as usual.