Easter Weekend

Dear Family and Friends,

This weekend was Les Pacques or Easter in French. Some customs are similar to those in the States, such as candy and Easter bunnies, while others are quite unique to this country. For example, when Joe got home from work on Thursday April 1st, the kids kept taping cut out fishes to him in observance of "Possion d'Avril" or "Fish of April".

Last week, the international school held several events to raise funds for Haiti, including an assembly, a cake sale, a funds drive and the sale of special Easter craft items made by the children. The children learned about Haiti from their teachers and really wanted to help. Elyse did the "how-down throw-down" in the assembly, and she and Nicolas both sang, including one of our favorites, "Peanut, peanut butter (and jelly)." Each of the children made very nice things to sell. One day, Nathaniel didn't want any more sweet puff pastries, because he wanted Mom to send the extras to Haiti. He explained that their houses had been broken. Mom said that even though it was a good idea, if we mailed it to Haiti, they wouldn't know who it was from, and it wouldn't taste very good by then. We talked about other options.



Monday was a French holiday, so we decided to use the long weekend to go to Bern, Switzerland. After Julie attended the temple Saturday morning, we visited the nearby city of Neuchatel in northern Switzerland. There, we found an interesting old town, a Saturday morning market, and some old fortifications overlooking the lake and alps.



In the evening, we took a short drive into town to see the Bern Bear Pits. Recently, the bears were relocated from their old digs to a new enclosure on the side of the hill next to the river.





Russia had donated some new cubs, which kept everyone entertained with their playful antics. Of course, we get our share of playful antics around the house without going to the bear pits.




On Sunday, the kids searched for their Easter baskets and eggs. We then listened to conference in our room using the hotel's internet connection. When not eating candy, the kids played conference bingo with jelly beans.



Between conference sessions, we had some free time and decided to check out the city of Basel. Many of the buildings in the old town dated to the late 15 century. Unlike most churches we've seen in Europe, the stained glass windows of the Basel cathedral were low enough to inspect and it was amazing to see the amount of detail involved in each tiny pane.



We were also treated to a short concern on the old church organ. Though it wasn't the tabernacle, we were all glad to have a free Easter concert.



After navigating through the old streets for some time, we came to the end of our trek, a wall overlooking the Rhine river. Nicolas took a break to watch the boats sail up and down the river.



Monday morning, we took another short drive to the town of Saint-Aubin to visit the Le Chatel factory, which specializes in making custom swiss neuchateloise clocks. Julie had called ahead and even though the factory was closed for the holiday, the director and owner of the factory met us at the entrance. He then gave us a tour of the factory, showed us clocks at various stages of completion, taught us how the movements are built using all-swiss parts, explained how the artists hand-paint the flowers, and gave us a demonstration of how gold leaf is applied using a special stone.



We were very pleased to learn more about the artform of clock-making from one of the few remaining masters in the business and to get to know our neighboring Switzerland better on this short trip.

Have a good week!

Joe, Julie, Nicolas, Elyse, and Nathaniel