Fall has been a busy time for us here in Zurich and we just enjoyed a week of visiting with my sister, Kelly and my cousin, Jenn. It almost took a tranquilizer gun to get Kelly on the plane, but she managed to make it and Jenn managed to not bitch slap her on the airplane everytime they hit a little turbulance. I'm thrilled that they came, but if you'd told me I had to sit next to Kelly hyperventilating on an airplane for 8 hours, I probably would have suggested a trip to the Wisconsin Dells instead. Both of them were good sports and our whole family was excited that they came.
They both left their husbands behind to keep things running at home. Not surprisingly, both husbands managed to send one of the kids to school sick that week, and I'm pretty sure neither one of them managed to prepare a single meal that required utensils. However, both husbands were gracious about letting their wife travel and their kids seemed to enjoy a week of bending the rules while mom was away.
While they were here, the weather was a mix between grey overcast skies and a constant drizzle. November is clearly not the best time to visit, and I was relieved when on their last day here they finally got to see the mountains. I think they were beginning to doubt that we were anywhere near the Alps. Despite the lackluster weather, we had a great time laughing at each other and since the 3 of us hadn't spent this long together since we we spent a week at our grandparents together 30 years ago, it was kind of like a mini reunion.
The week was filled with lots of visits to chocolate shops, a fleet of wine tasting boats, a casino, a hooters restaurant, and lots of sightseeing. All of these were enjoyable, but what would a trip to Switzerland be if they didn't get too experience a strange Swiss custom? Yes, our house guests were fortunate enough to be visiting during what we like to call the "stinky turnip parade". I'd be lying if I told you this event is as exciting as the exploding snowman holiday, but it is equally as weird. And like the hostess with the mostess that I aspire to be, I made sure Kelly and Jenn were forced, I mean, invited, to participate in every aspect of the festivities.
Typically I would attempt to educate my faithful blog readers(I think their are 2 of you, Mom and Dad) on the history of the stinky turnip parade. The Swiss name for this celebration is Rabelichtli. It's prounounced exactly like the noise an 80 year old, 3 pack a day smoker might make upon waking up in the morning.(Have I mentioned that Swiss German is not the most eloquent of languages?) Unfortunately, I am unable to share with you the history of Rabelichtli, because apparently no on has any idea why they celebrate it. All I was able to find out is that "Rabe" is the word for turnip (or sugar beet, although I assure there is nothing sweet about them.)and "lichtli" means little light. This would explain why it is celebrated by transforming turnips into lanterns.
As one of the room moms in Z's class, I was responsible for preparing the supplies for the children to make their turnip lanterns. So I roused Kelly and Jenn and dragged them to school with me do some turnip gutting. This is similar to preparing a pumpkin for carving, except instead of goop and seeds inside, you find good old solid turnip. So by 9:15, my house guests and some other expat moms were using melon ballers to scoop out the insides of turnips. I had been warned that turnips stink, and stink they did. It starts out as just a strange vegetable smell, but the longer you sit in a room full of turnip innards, the stronger the smell becomes. Not the most pleasant odor first thing in the morning. It seemed like a bizarre activity and I wondered what kind of whack jobs decided to take a rarely consumed root vegetable and turn it into a freakin' lamp. This is when my sister questioned the level of sanity involved in deciding to carve a face into a pumpkin and light it up in the dark. Good point. Every country has it's crazies.
After hollowing out the turnips, it was time for the 4 year olds to begin carving designs into the outsides. The idea of carving the turnip is to carefully peel off just the skin of the turnip to reveal the white flesh of the turnip underneath. When a candle is placed in the turnip, the light shines through the white part. You can imagine how easy this is for four year olds to grasp. They were handed scraping tools and given the go ahead to create their own design. A few of them made a few little gouges in their turnips, and many started scratching at them with their finger nails. It quickly became obvious that the adult helpers would have to scrape away at the turnips while the kids looked on. This was followed by puncturing holes in the root vegetables with screwdrivers and carefully threading string through them so they could carry their stinky little lanterns.
You might think at this point that my guests had been subjected to enough crazy Swiss turnip activities. But moderation has never been my strong point, and I had also signed us up for turnip duty at C's school. We were fortunate that the smelly sugar beets had been pregutted and we would only have to assist the 5 and 6 year olds in scraping the designs in their ugly veggies. The shocker came when the kindergarteners were handed metal vegetable peelers and told to have at it. Huh? I pictured all these innocent little expat children heading home to their parents with ace bandages wrapped around their hands to stop thebleeding. And as you might suspect, it took about 2 minutes before the first kid took a chunk out of her finger. At this point, I quickly grabbed a peeler out of a little kids hand and took control of his turnip. I wasn't about to allow these kids to head home with blood stains on their Rabelichtlis. By the time we were finished, my thumbs were raw and the kids had lost interest. One little boy had mutilated his turnip beyond recognition. I kept waiting for someone in the croweded cafeteria to yell, "STEP AWAY FROM THE TURNIP,SON!". I casually brought the boy stabbing the turnip to the attention of one of the teachers nearby, but apparently they were just happy that he was occupied. She assured me he would have a turnip lantern to take home. Hmmm.... that really wasn't my biggest concern.
The culmination of all this gutting and scraping turnips into lanterns is the Rablichtli parade. Each town has their own Rabelichtli parade where the kids march through the town after dark with their laterns. Usually there is a marching band followed by lots of kids carrying their little turnip lanterns. Some towns have simple little parades, while a few towns away they keep the turnip farmers in business by holding the largest Rabelichtli parade in Switzerland. Our family decided to take part in the kids school parade. We were told that we would all take a walk through the woods with our lanterns and would be entertained by the children singing German songs in the woods. Ahhhh......doesn't that sound like a quaint evening of partaking in Swiss tradition? I envisioned a beautiful stream of light illuminating the pathway from the children's lanterns. I imagined an opening in the woods where the angelic children would gather around and lift their voices in unison.
That's not quite what happened.
When we got there everyone was hanging out in front of the school with their lanterns, eating sausages and waiting for the parade through the woods to begin. A few people were randomly lighting lanterns and one woman walked up to Bryan and said, "Can I light your fire?" This sent my sister into a fit of laughter and I think Bryan might have actually thought he was being hit on for a quick second. Sadly, she was more interested in his stinky turnip. (insert snicker here...)
One thing we've learned since being here, is that despite the Swiss being VERY anal, I mean, organized people, the school tends to be the opposite. There didn't seem to be one person sharing the evenings game plan with everyone, and as we were hanging around talking with friends, we suddenly realized that half the group had headed up a path towards the woods. It was an EXTREMELY dark evening and C paired up with his friend Rasmus and took off ahead of us in the dark. I just kept praying Rasmus's parents had kept up with them. As we got into the woods, it was every man for himself. The kids' lanterns did little to illuminate any path through the woods, and how no one broke an ankle on the obstacle course of tree roots sticking up out of the ground, I'll never know. Thank God our 3 year old buddy Miles had a flashlight with him or we wouldn't have been able to see a thing. The poor kid listened to his mom and me say "POINT IT DOWN, MILES! POINT THE FLASHLIGHT DOWN!" at least 100 times. About 10 minutes into the walk, I lost my sister and cousin, but I was more concerned with keeping E from falling off an embankment into the darkness. There were some areas with what appeared (in the darkness)to be a significant drop off on one side. From what I was told when our "parade" ended, my cousin Jenn almost rolled down the side of a hill when she stepped off one of these embankments. Apparently it was as funny as it sounds.
At this point in our death march, I'm wondering who the hell has decided to make this an annual event at this school. And what part of me thought it was a good idea to drag my 2 year old into a dark forest at night with nothing to light the way but a freaking turnip and a tea light?!?!? After about 20 minutes of stumbling around in the forest, we came to a clearing and I prayed we were going to be miraculously back at the school. No, this portion of the "parade" involved trapsing through a cow pasture. Really, what could make this evening less enjoyable then having cow shit stuck to your shoe? Fortunately, we managed to find our way through the pasture without encountering a cow pie, and after a walk back to the school, we were happy to reunite with C, Kelly, and Jenn and head home.
After bitching to several friends about a lack of German folk songs, I learned that since we were at the back of the pack. we missed the entertainment portion of the evening, which must have lasted about 30 seconds since we weren't THAT far behind. Next year, I think we'll consider participating in a Rabelichtli parade in our own town where they walk down the street with their turnips, rather than through the woods. But we did get to experience another wacky Swiss tradition and were able to share it with our visitors. This definately wasn't on the top of my "favorite things about Switzerland" list, but it's hard to compete with the exploding snowmen and kick ass chocolate. Although I have a sneaking suspicion there are some crazy Christmas traditions that might make the list. Have I mentioned the evil Santa figure that threatens to put naughty kids in his burlap sack? The Swiss never leave me lacking for something to write about...
