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Fondue-Zelt today for Grade 8 Mums' Christmas lunch. Heavy snow falling as we ate - very Christmassy!

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Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Jot!

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That song gets everywhere!

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PYP Mums' breakfast this morning at school. Even if I'm not a big fan of maple syrup in close proximity to my scrambled eggs, it was good to have a cooked breakfast with Jude who certainly ate his fair share!!

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This amused me today. Student food? When I was a student we ate baked beans...

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I experienced my first ISW Worldfest today - it was great! Celebrating all the nations represented by the ISW families, we are food from all over the world and enjoyed the sunshine. I spent the afternoon speaking Spanish and handing out sweets so I was happy and very popular!

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Wurst and rösti - John's favourite!

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The view from the terrace of the restaurant where we ate dinner tonight. Delicious meal, and home in time to see Spain go through to the quarter finals of Euro2012!

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Every time we go back to England John insists on us/me bringing back sugar. He's very particular about his sugar you see and doesn't like it refined.
Hurrah for Aldi as today i found this bag of sugar which is exactly what he wants.
That's 2kg more for me next time I go 'home' to fill with books...

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My Muttertag lunch in Konstanz / Constance at Maximillians, the French deli/restaurant.
C'était délicieux :o)

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Today saw another Familie Stevens outing to Konstanz. Beautiful place, and always a pleasure to visit. The boys were thrilled with the toffee and a bag of Haribo they were given in Karstadt and I rather enjoyed the Milchkaffee.

Possibly the highlight of the day however was lunch in Maximillians.. Jude started talking about it on the train and I have to say that I was looking forward to it too.

This photo is Jude and his Weißwurst served with Bretzel and Senf. You can see how much he was looking forward to eating it. He started munching away and after a slice or two, he was given a lesson in how to eat a Weißwurst properly the Bavarian way by a gentleman sitting near us (we suspect that it was the owner!). Apparently you slice the Wurst down the middle and the scoop out the meat, leaving the skin. Suitably enlightened, Jude happily devoured his lunch. I also have to mention that my Gambas-Coco-Ginger were delicious as were John's Gambas mit Kräuter und Knoblauch and Isaac's Tagliatelle mit 4 Käsensauce.

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There are many photos that I could choose for today. I've been to the Stadthaus for a welcome from the Stadtpresident, had a tour of Winterthur Aldstadt, run 11k Laufsporttag Winterthur and got a new bicycle. Might bank a few images for another day...

Today's photo is my prize for completing the Laufsporttag. Not your usual medal, is it? Not quite sure about the sausage but I'm looking forward to the cheese - der Käse - de Chääs - and muesli - das Müsli - Müesli (not together obviously) and to trying the pear bread - das Birnbrot.

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Today at Deutschkurs we talked about sending and receiving letters and packages at the PostOffice or die Post so I thought we'd have a postbox or ein Briefkasten today. As in Spain, postboxes in Switzerland are yellow.

To post a letter to England you must buy eine Briefmarke (same in Swiss German) or stamp and it will cost you 1.30CHF or 1.40CHF. Our homework was to look at http://www.post.ch/  and work out how much it would cost to send a variety of things to places around the work. 

We also learned that a small parcel - ein kleines Paket - is called ein Päckchen or Päckli. 

 Words that end -chen in German are diminutives ie a little something, and in Swiss German they use -li for the same purpose.
zum Bespiel -
ein Brot bread- ein Brötchen a roll - Büürli/ Weggli

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John's been away on a "team building meeting" up a mountain. And this was my consolation prize. Pretty - and very tasty too!

I like die Bonbons oder die Süssigkeiten but I much prefer die Schokolade oder Schoggi (chocolate)

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This is one of my favourite Swiss snacks. Not only are they delicious but they also have the loveliest pictures on the wrappers.

And snacks brings me to two of the first Swiss German words I learned, taught to me by my friend Monika as she made me look like Farrah Fawcett (long story!)
At about 9am, the Swiss have Znuüni (Kaffee und Gipfeli) and later at about 4pm they have Z'vieri (from neun / nüün and vier)

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Today is Heilige Drei Könige otherwise known as Epiphany or Three Kings Day. Loaves like these are made to celebrate. In the sweet bread as well as sultanas and almonds one person will find a plastic figure of a king or a bean. The person who find the king is given the crown and becomes king or queen for the day.

In German you count 1-10 like this:-
Ein
Zwei
Drei
Vier
Fünf
Sechs
Sieben
Acht
Neun
Zehn

But in Swiss German you count :-
Eis
Zwei
Drüü
Vier
Feuf
Sächs
Sibe
Acht
Nüün
Zää

The Swiss like their umlauts - and double vowels!

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A 'tip top' snack around here is heisse Marroni. Sold at stalls in the Marktgasse and outside Winterthur Hauptbahnhof, these chestnuts are roasted in huge black pans then sold in brown paper bags with two compartments - one for the chestnuts and one for the shells. Delicious and very good for you!

Today is Berchtoldstag (or Bächtelis as they call it here) which is ein Feiertag or holiday in certain kantons of Switzerland including Zürich.