And some backcountry skiing, near Grenoble :D

Oh yeah, and there is the snowy stuff as well, I had to deserve all that food... The snow was not the best I had ever*, but it was good to catch back with Djé&Gaelle, to meet Murielle, to see Caroline having a hard time because of gear problems... And it was so good to be in the sun above the "sea of clouds", when the valleys were stuck in a thick and cold fog!!! Thanks to Titi for the accomodation, all the driving, and the 3 days of skiing!

* oui oui, Donn, je rale, comme Titi... Mais je profite!!!

PS: the last pic was taken by mistake with the wrong mode, but very luckily is not that bad, I think...

1.80m of Christmas log :p

The Linards from Fontaine Les Gres joined us at the last minute for the Xmas lunch. Annette said she will bring the Christmas log for dessert, and arrived the 25th with 120cms of it... The thing is that we still had the one from my sister, which we failled to eat the previous day, because of the cheese fondue (see previous post). So we had 180cms of cake, which strangely we didn't manage to finish...

I add 2 photos of my nephew Armand, in the middle of a sea of gifts, and enjoying opening/destroying them! Childs are too much spoiled with presentsnowadays, I reckon... I wasn't the same back in the days... Am I jealous???

Various states of a "pumpkin" cheese fondue

I came back to my parents place just before Xmas with full backpacks full of Swiss chocolate... and Swiss cheese from the Fribourg region! These later are supposed to make the best cheese fondue in Switzerland, even in the world if you listen the Fribourgeois... I don't know if it is true, I can tell you it's better than the cheese fondue with New Zealand cheeses, hehe. I tried one more time the pumpkin recipe, and it was damned good! Here are a few pics of the evolution/destruction of the pumpkin during the evening...

Various climbing failures...

In the last two weekend, we tried to do some climbing with my buddy Oliver, with not a lot of success... No success at all, should I say...

First, we tried last week to climb at La Tribune, in Charmey. It's a fantastic crag, with about 80 overhanging routes, on excellent limestone. Some people told us that is a good winter crag, as generally above the valley fog. What we didn't know was that the crag needs a few days to dry after a snowfall, and the rock was wet on most of the routes... Maybe a few grade 8+ (above NZ grade 30) were climbable. Being weak, we passed, and decided to go to a climbing gym... The first we tried was closed because that was a public holiday, so we made the drive to Bern, thinking the local gym would be opened, as it was not a public holiday there. But it was opening only at 5pm on Mondays... So we came back to Fribourg, and had a coffee at Belvedere, with its fantastic terrasse. We ended up, like miserable people, bouldering at our usual wall, after 6 hours of wandering around...

The weekend after, we wanted to go ice climbing with Oliver, at Chateau d'Oex (even in French this name is difficult to say!). We spent almost 3hours to find the route, which was made of only running water... Again, we've been big girls, and didn't climb... And guess what, we finished the day at our usual climbing gym in Fribourg, for a change...

OK, not all i bad in Swizzy, I still managed to have 2 days of snowboarding in great powder conditions, fantastic conditions for December!!!

Funny thing about my institute...

The institute where I am working at (AMI for Anton Merckle Institute, http://www.am-institute.ch/) has the same initials as the American Mustache Institute (http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/)... I guess we should try to collaborate together!

Fat Freddy's, Strasbourg & stuff

I went back to Strasbourg last WE, this time with a part of the old NZ crew, Donn, Jen, Anna, Anna, and Caroline. That was fun, despite the fact we didn't manage to motivate the girls to go to the Roman bath... We spent the WE eating in some nice restaurants, drinking a few beers in , visiting Strasbourg and it's surroundings, and going the Fat Freddy's drop concert at La Laiterie club, yipeee! The concert was great and fun despite of technical problems which forbid the band to play their most famous songs... Too bad, but it was still a good (and different) concert!

Talking of interesting performances, we went to the modern art museum of Strasbourg, and I had a blast there! It was the 10th anniversary of the museum, so the entry was free (which is always good!), and there were some shows inside: some sort of dancers were dancing/strolling around, following some weird music, if I can call that music... At the same time, a crazy man was manipulating strange home built robots, those later moving with metallic noises, making the all museum looking like a noisy but stylish cafarnaum! I really enjoyed it :)!

On Sunday, I wanted to avoid to go back the very commercial and not so attractive Strasbourg Christmas market. My brother in law asked me if we wanted to go for a ride to his favorite small little town in Alsace, which was meaning we had to split with the other guys cos of a lack of cars... We decided to join him anyway, with my sister and Caroline, and that was a very good and authentic experience! It is definitely the best Christmas market I've been to, located in one of the most beautiful town around! We couldn't resist to buy a few things there, including some hats which makes you look stupid...

And I'm too lazy to upload more photos, so have a look on Donn's website to get plenty of nice pics!