Desalpes!

Bonjour mes amis! I am so sorry it has been a while since I last updated. Last week was really crazy with three papers due and this week we were in Lugano where I didn't have access to internet.

I will catch you up on last weekend and work on Lugano sometime this week.

This past weekend was so wonderful because I got to spend it with my friend Cassidy. She is studying in Germany this semester so it was only a three hour train ride for her to visit! She got in Friday afternoon and I met her at the train station in Nyon. I think we almost knocked ourselves over when we bear hugged each other at the station.

Reunited and it feels so good! Just missing our other piece, Lindsay, who is holding down the fort in Chicago. She was definitely there in spirit.

Cassidy talks all about our weekend on her blog: http://ckgermany.blogspot.com/

She also has a really great video showing the festival we went to on Saturday morning.

I am going to focus on the festival we went to called Desalpes because it was my favorite part of the weekend.

We woke up really early to catch the train to Nyon and then the lift to St. Cergue which is up in the mountains above my town.

The Desalpes Festival is an old Swiss tradition where families march their cow herds down the mountain in preparation for winter. The herd owners show off their cows by giving them huge cowbells and even larger flower arrangements for their heads. How they got these things on the cows I will never know. Most of the time I thought about how funny my grandfather, who was a large animal veterinarian, would think this was.

Here they come! It was really interesting how it was just as much a show of the cows as it was for their owners. You can see in this picture how proud the men are of their herd.

This was a really cool part because we decided to walk up the hill a bit to get away from the crowd. We ended up running into a group that was coming down. We got to see them REAL up close.

Here is a closer look at how big some of the bells were. You can imagine how easy it was to hear when the next heard was on its way down.

We saw about five or six different herds come down all with different head pieces. In between our wait for the next group we walked around the little open air market that was set up all around the town center. There were traditional Swiss musicians, dancers, and craftsmen. I really felt like I was in the Swiss version of Silver Dollar City--minus the rides and funnel cake...

This was an amazing group of alphorne players. The little old man in front was tossing the Swiss flag along with the music. He looked like he had done this a time or two.

This was some type of Swiss game with a large bowl and a coin. We never fully figured out how it worked, but these two guys were very Swiss and loved talking with all the people that were crowded around them.

This little boy was so adorable I had to snap a picture! He was definitely dressed for the occasion.

This coming week we are meeting with a lot of really amazing organizations including Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). And on Thursday during French class we are visiting a school of chocolate!

Love and miss you all very much.

A bientot!

Paige