"Let the Church with gladness..."

...hymns of triumph sing."

from Easter Sunday's closing hymn, "Thine Be the Glory," written in Vevey in 1884 by Edmund L. Budry. It was a snowy few days, even down to the lake. Rare, but the children and students were delighted. Me? I kept wondering, "must avoid car accident."

Easter brunch at Hotel du Lac in Vevey, with Kay, Edith, Carolyn.

Snow! Michael catching snowflakes on his tongue. A little later, the sun came out and I saw him peeing on a tree on the hotel grounds.

Big egg.

Chocolate bunny art.

Last minute decision: bake hot cross buns. We ate several and put the rest downstairs - lucky thing, since the bakery didn't deliver for the holiday.

Jack loved his soup.

Michael makes a friend from another table.

Wolfsberg

We finally made the trip to Zurich to visit Prabhu Guptara, someone we'd met years ago in Minnesota. Prabhu is an executive director of Wolfsberg, a Union Banque Suisse (UBS) think tank/cultural center designed to train - "add value" to - world executives at a stunning castle complex on Lake Constance, which borders Switzerland and Germany.

The view from our room (a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass); a pastoral landscape unlike the dramatic meeting of Alps and lake waters in our region.

Took a little while to clue in, but, in some ways, Wolfsberg is a finishing school for high-powered execs who get exposed to complex world issues, ranging from ethics to culture. Our purpose was holiday, but I was also introduced to the Swiss directors during a private breakfast meeting - a small price to pay for getting to stay at a castle with an indoor pool! Michael and Jack (and their parents) were thrilled to have the run of the place all weekend.

If you're interested, I link to Prabhu's NPR interview, The Gods of Business, discussing business ethics and religious world views. He turned out to also be a fantastic stand-in grandfather!
We ate and played well; this park in the town of Constance had everything, including the most impressive play area we'd ever seen - Michael rafted forever.

Jack, too!

The crocuses were blooming.
We visited the main cathedral and...

the John Huss House, where the Reformer - a contemporary of King Wenceslas (subject of my favorite Christmas carol) who also predated Luther by 100 years - was burned to death.
After visiting the International Protestant Church in Zurich on Palm Sunday - the largest Sunday School in Europe (200+ kids; we contributed 2) - we spent the rest of the day with "Dennis Anderson."

A current Wolfsberg scholar leading think tank sessions on technology and sustainability, DA is a Korean immigrant who hit the glass ceiling in the East Coast, so changed his name. Reaching the interview stage for a provost position at two Ivy Leagues, upon arrival, he always got "the look." In exchange for not pursuing legal action, he received formal, written apologies and promises to reform hiring practices. He moved on to carve out a role as an international consultant in technology initiatives, acting as liaison between groups such as Microsoft, the EU, and the UN.
Back to that breakfast meeting. I was invited back in April for presentations by the designer and founder of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art - China's first contemporary art museum - as well as a visit with the "Constance Circle" of local professors. I was also invited to speak at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva on the topic of Asian modernity. I'm getting out more.

Round-up: Free holiday? Networking among globetrotting PhD bankers and their ilk? During the weekend, kind staffers would remark, "We don't usually see children around here," watching M & J race around, and the reality check sank in. Our world for these past several years: Paradise Cove, Whidbey Island, Lanikai, Saas Fee, the turtle pond at the Commons, any puddle, bath time.

And indoor pools.

Jack's Art

As a corrective to second sibling syndrome - undoubtedly true that Jack gets featured much less than Michael - this posting is all about Jack Starr Minshuai; alas, turns out to be brief.
Memory tells me that Easter fowl imagery in America consists of fluffy baby chicks and eggs. Out here, the focus seems to be on both generations: the roosting hen and her eggs. Something similar hit me Christmastime, as store windows displayed nativity scenes with mangers that sat empty until the 25th, when the baby Jesus made his appearance. Things have their order.

Anyway, Jack came home from nursery with his chicken and egg and the picture below (the blue hen is his handprint). BTW, both cultures are on the same page when it comes to bunnies, except they are more likely to eat them out here.

We are enjoying a 5 day weekend (and snow!), as Switzerland observes Good Friday and takes off Monday for Easter. Countdown begins for the final 3 weeks of term. Students depart on Apri 11.
Oh yes, one morning, we discovered Jack had found the wipes and decorated his crib. We were charmed and annoyed.

Duchamp's toilet art also left people charmed and annoyed.

Refuge de Frience

For our last spring break fling, we went up to a favorite restaurant, the Refuge de Frience, a rustic chalet out on a field way up in the mountains that you hike...

or slide to.

Surrounded by snowfields, everyone went sliding around on saucers before going inside for an open hearth and mulled wine.

Carolyn & Jack.

Elle gave rides to Jack & Michael.

The food is excellent at the refuge. They serve up traditional fondue and raclette (melted cheese on potato) and grill ribsteak, too. Unlike elsewhere, where a block of cheese is melted under an electric element, a huge raclette wheel is held by a guy in front of a vertical grate of stacked wooden briquets. A heavy job, the waiters split raclette duty on alternate evenings.A cozy chalet set upon a ridge overlooking the valley and surrounded by mountains; cowbells hang from the old beams. We ended spring break with a Heidi-esque experience.

Back to Saas-Fee: "McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken!"

It was Pepperdine's spring break, so we pulled Michael out of school (again) and returned to the slopes of Saas-Fee. Michael seems to be a natural athlete and show-off: skiiing between the poles as a stunt to impress me - which, it did:

We made the effort to reach the world's highest revolving restaurant, taking the funiculaire train which burrowed an uphill tunnel, coming down at roller coaster speed.
Here's a postcard. The next 007 is currently being shot in the Swiss Alps - a nostalgic gesture towards For Your Eyes Only - featuring a similar restaurant; the world of curves and spheres a la Cineramas, geodesic domes, and other 60s archtecture.

Restaurant view: I actually made it this far on skiis.Carolyn and Michael on their way to lessons. The kids' slope was right off the restaurant terrace! I couldn't make out the German, but the motivating warm-up songs for the kids were strictly American folklore: cowboys (lasso gestures, "Yippee" calls) & Indians (wasn't PC). There was one number with a junk food chorus: "McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken!" Can you imagine how weird it was to hear 150 plus kids and parents yelling that in unison to a clown-leader?

In family-friendly Saas Fee, America seemed to be the object of cultural fantasy; elsewhere in the world, of intense scorn; two-sides of the same coin?

The hotel deck. When the sun came out, it was really spectacular. I skied one day, but it was drinks and WIFI the rest of the time, although my laptop use seemed to make these 30-paid-days-of-mandatory-vacation-Europeans nervous.Parting shot.

This woman's father built the hotel when she was a girl. You'd have to visit to see for yourself, but we enjoyed experiencing hospitality as a way of life for this family; not just business. You can see why some of the world's leading hotel management schools are in Switzerland.

Christian Businessmen

I've been attending local meetings of the Christian Businessmen's Association, which meets at the establishments of its members. Last month's was at Aligro, a Costco-like wholesaler and this month was at Le Daley, Alain Chollet's vineyard - a pristine, rugged spot high-up in the hills overlooking the lake.
The association president (speaks 12 languages) opened the meeting...
then Alain gave a talk and tour of his 25,000 bottle a year operation.

The corner display featured various wines, along with a nicely calligraphed rendering of the 15th chapter of the gospel of John.
After that, it was party! The chardonnay was especially nice - Swiss really favor whites - with a spread of cheeses and cured meats. I learned a thing or two about presentation. They cut a cheese block into 3/8" by 2" sticks, then stacked them into a Jenga-like tower, from which you picked-off a stick one at a time. Ingenius.

I bought a small case afterwards, served a glass to Michelle Langford (the Pepperdine French prof) who visited us later in the week; recreated the Jenga cheese tower.

BTW, last month's Aligro affair raised much rumbling, since the refreshment fare was paltry (the wholesaler stocks a wealth of food downstairs!). I don't know much French, but I know a bad spread when I see it. I'm used to such offerings at Pepperdine, but was surprised to see this kind of Protestant severity and suspicion of gastronomy in a European setting (little more than a big basket of potato chips!).

After the Aligro affair, we hit a local Spanish restaurant and dined on starters: squid, Serrano ham (my Spanish friend declared, "prosciutto is nothing"), & grilled shrimp. I learned that Spain consumes the second most seafood per capita in the world.

#1 is Japan.

Easter

Jack is growing, losing a bit of his roly poly look. I was so impressed at this life-size chocolate bunny, that I took a group shot.
Ovalmaltine eggs, as well as those filled with Williams pear and Kirsch liquor. Fancy chocolatiers create very large chocolate eggs filled with an assortment of candies.
These white, dark, and milk chocolate bunnies may be the only real buy left in these dark, currency exchanges; 4.95 francs for a foot high one.