Montreux Christmas Market

Today, Ada and I shared a lovely meal together and, afterwards, explored the Montreux Christmas market, one of the biggest and most famous in Switzerland. Most of the offerings were food-related, like roasted chestnuts, mulled wine, dried fruits, spice cakes, and cookies. However, they also had artisinal gifts like honey candles, wreaths, scarves, hats, jewelry, as well as more commercialed specialties. Each stand was decorated in such a grand fashion, with holly and foil and wood and lights. Montreux was bustling with tourists, who stood in awe of the current sculptures that adorn the lakeside: an artist trimmed and wrapped bushes to resemble the animal characters from the movie "Madagascar." It was amazing how detailed the structures were ; the artist used different colored bushes to show the stripes on the zebra, and the penguins had tufts of straw coming out of their heads to add various accents.
After returning from a long afternoon of walking and sampling delicious Christmas treats, we had some tea and a slice of the spice cake that I prepared for Ada the night before. It was relaxing to sit with her and talk about Christmas traditions in Germany and Switzerland, as well as her memories of Christmas as a child.
In early evening, Ada dropped me off at the train station and I headed back to Lausanne to prepare my schedule for the next week. I made gingerbread cookies for EthNoel, a huge multi-religious celebration that l'Aumonerie holds every year. Mansoureh was so impatient - she kept poking at the raw dough and stealing glances at the cookies that were still hot from coming out of the oven. She was worse than a little kid! Of course, I had to humor her and let her finally taste a cookie after all of her pleas. Because it was Johannes's 30th birthday today - my roommate Mansoureh's boyfriend - we sang for him and toasted to delicious cups of hot cocoa, and then I proceeded to feed them cookies in the shapes of shooting stars, reindeer, and shepherds.
Next on the agenda: For EthNoel, Pasha (another student from ISU) and I will perform a mini skit - he will read "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and I will play carols on my violin in between stanzae. We will also act out the story using props that we painted and Pasha will portray Santa using various costume components that we made as well. I am looking forward to this week of celebrations. Christmas is almost upon us!