Saturday, August 2, 2008

Bonne Fête Nationale!


F2
Originally uploaded by Arsmor
Yesterday was our first Swiss National Day - the Swiss equivalent to the American Fourth of July. We had planned earlier in the week to head out to Olivier and Celia's to celebrate and everyone was looking forward to getting together - including Danae, who arrived on the 31 of July, just a couple days ahead of schedule!

Baby and mom were both doing well and were able to move back home in time for the 1st so, at Celia and Olivier's insistence, we happily stuck with our plans and got together to BBQ and watch fireworks. We arrived with bags of groceries, and while the guys tended the grill (rumor has it this involved a hair dryer, but we'll have to wait for Mr K to post the videographic proof to know for sure) Steph and I chopped onions and tomato, fried bacon, cleaned salad and set everything out. Danae sat quietly snoozing in her swanky carrier while Celia tried to get a couple minutes of sleep before dinner.

Once the burgers and hot dogs were ready, we all stuffed ourselves full (more of that bad American influence). We then grabbed flashlights and jackets - Dani, Danae, and Celia stayed behind to relax, leaving Mr K, Steph, Olivier and I to go exploring - and headed out to crawl around in an unlit and heavily spider-infested (read: super cool) barn, trying to see (read: catch and take home) some adorable chatons (kittens). Of course, the little kitties outsmarted us, so we went back outside to watch a chauve-souris (shaved mouse = bat) chasing bugs.

After a few minutes, it was time to gather our cameras, coats, tripods, and a tarp together to go see the fireworks. We walked about 10 minutes from Olivier's house to a big field overlooking the lake. Olivier and Mr K got their cameras all set up as smaller fireworks went off in every direction. Each little town has their own celebration, so in any direction you turned, you could see huge bonfires on the hillsides and small and large fireworks exploding overhead. We had a great view when the big fireworks display started, the lights reflecting disjointedly on the lake and illuminating a tiny armada of boats.

The fireworks display lasted almost half an hour, after which we headed back to Olivier's house, stopping only long enough to play with a friendly black cat and get peed on by our first Swiss toad. Dani was passed out on the couch and we were soon to follow, so we kissed our goodbyes and piled into the car to head home.

5 comments:

Ars said...

HAMBURGERS!

Anonymous said...

What a great day

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot for all. With your help it was possible to do this party. And i'm really waiting for the video with the hair dryer :-) nobody will ever use a hair dryer to get fire !!!

Unknown said...

ichat is me. I don't know why i had "ichat" as nickname !!!

Great picturesof the fireworks.

Carl E said...

I'm not sure how you felt, but I didn't really miss not being in the States for the 4th this year. Call me "un-American" but I guess it just wasn't that big a deal? Kinda funny, we were in Belgium during France's National Day (14 July), and in France during Belgium's National Day (21 July). Good thing we saw fireworks in Cannes from a Summer festival they had going on....I do miss the BBQ's though...hairdryer?