Carnival in Basel, Switzerland!

Toujours en retard...
[always late]
 
Again, a week late. But I think these pictures will be worth the wait. Last Monday morning I left bright and early for Basel, Switzerland to go to the Carnival celebration there (I was invited by one of the families I tutor). I have to say, it was probably one of the most surprising and unique experiences I have had so far during this adventure abroad. Fasnacht, the Swiss-German name for this annual three-day festival, is the highlight of the year in Basel. There are lots of different things to see over the three days, but the main event is the non-stop parade, or Cortège, which begins at 4am on Monday morning with the Morgestraich and ends at 4am on Thursday morning.

If you've done your math correctly, you know that this Carnival celebration began on the Monday after Ash Wednesday. Why do they celebrate Carnival when it's technically already Lent? Before the Protestant Reformation, the Basel Carnival took place before Ash Wednesday like everywhere else. But once the city officially separated from the Catholic Church, the city officials wanted to make sure their Carnival tradition was distinct from the Catholic ones, so they moved it one week later. Of course all of this isn't really a big deal today since the festivities are no longer connected with the church at all, but I was curious about the timing, so I thought you might be too.

Anyway, the parades were really cool, sort of like New Orleans Mardi Gras meets Halloween meets 4th of July parade. The locals call it die drey scheenschte Dääg (the three most beautiful days). I arrived in Basel around 11:30am, checked into my hotel, and then headed down to the city center to explore. The parade takes a short break between the late morning and 1:30pm on Monday (for the people who were up at 4am), and although there was a definite bustle, the streets were practically empty compared to the crowds which would come later. You can see the difference in these two photos, both of the Rathaus (townhall) and then Marketsplatz (market square) in front of it.

Taken around noon:

Taken around 4:30pm:

There are four major groups who participate in the parades: cliques, gugge (marching bands), floats, and schyssdräggziigli.

Cliques can vary in size, but have at a minimum a vortrab (vanguard), pfeifer (piccolo players), a tambourmajor (drum master), and tambouren (drum players). Each clique picks a theme and usually all of the members are dressed in the same or similar costumes. The themes varied from the bizarre to completely ridiculous. Many were variations on clowns, but I saw a snowman-themed clique, a Russian doll-themed clique, an Occupy Sesame Street-themed clique and multiple Smurf-themed cliques. Most people join one clique as an adolescent or young adult and remain a part of that group for the rest of their life. It's also common for children to join the same clique as their parents, but there's no rule requiring people to stay in the same clique or join a particular one. Occasionally when a clique wore masks exposing the back of their heads, I could see quite a few gray-haired members.

Each clique also decorates its own "lantern." During the day they look more like giant rectangular canvases, but at the beginning of the Morgestraich they are all illuminated at once for the start of the parade. The city turns off all of the lights for the Morgestraich and apparently it's a fairly magical moment when all of the lanters light up at once. The lanterns are part of the clique's theme, and they can be light-hearted or deeply political.

(Harry Potter-themed clique... the house elves are pulling the lantern and there were piccolo and drum players representing each of the four houses)

The gugge, or brass bands, also dress up, and their costumes can be equally ridiculous.

The floats were probably my favorite part of the parade. On the large trailers (wagge) are Waggis, an affectionate spoof on the Alsatian farmers who used to bring their produce to market in Basel. The Waggis throw down candy, oranges, flowers, little toys, and random produce (carrots and cabbage were the most common, but I saw someone almost get beaned with a leek). The Waggis also throw confetti on the bystanders. They were often devious, and would tempt bystanders with a flower or handful of candy and then surprise them with a fistful of confetti. These Waggis were practically malicious, and I got a few photos of them stuffing confetti down people's hoods:

And these Waggis had a bathtub full of confetti in which they would dunk innocent bystanders...

More Waggis:

Part of what made the parade so interesting was the bizarre mix of innocent silliness and political commentary, youthful playfulness and vaguely inappropriate revelry. For instance, I saw a couple of floats with bars built into the bar (vodka on tap?) and some of them had penis-shaped pacifiers among their racks of toys to hand out. But in general, it was more of a Disney parade than New Orleans Mardi Gras bacchanal. I found the contrasts really interesting though. Also notable: the parade Tuesday afternoon was the kids' parade, and there were many more child participants and young bystanders during this parade (almost all of the above pictures are from the parade on Monay).

Last but not least, schyssdräggziigli. These are non-clique small groups or individuals who wander around playing music with piccolos or drums or both. They are in costume too:

So, I bet you're wondering, are there any foods associated with this colorful, musical festival? It turns out yes, but don't get too excited yet. The three foods of Fasnacht are Mehlsuppe (flour soup), Zwiebelwähe (onion tart) and Fastenwähe, a caraway-seed pretzel meant to be eaten with beer. Of the three, I tried mehlsuppe and if you are ever offered any, I suggest you politely refuse. This is what it looks like:

Basically it's flour, a little bit of butter, a little bit of onion, and water. Yuck. Not to knock Fasnacht, which as you can tell was pretty fantastic, but they should really work on their culinary specialties... What about beignets? The French are all about them during Carnival, and they're much tastier!!

So I spent pretty much all of Monday watching the parade with the family who invited me, and then had dinner with the mom and her friend who lives in Basel. On Tuesday morning I went to an exhibit of Pierre Bonnard's work at the Fondation Beyeler, a museum just outside of the city. Pierre Bonnard was a French painter who was part of the group called the Nabis at the end of the 19th century/early 20th century.

This painting of his, entitled Place Clichy, was done in the early 20th century. Normally it is displayed at the art museum in Besançon, but it was part of the exhibit in Basel. I think it's really neat not just because I like the painting itself, but because the perspective is from the inside of a café located at Place Clichy in Paris, a café called Café Wepler where my family and I ate while we were in Paris over Christmas.

Then in the afternoon I watched more of the parade and just wandered around Basel. It was really cool how with the constant parade and the music-filled air, I felt entertained just sitting on a bench beside the Rhine river, like this one (in the background is the Münster or main church of the city).

The big lesson I learned from this experience was to pay more attention to festivals and local celebrations when planning trips. Don't get me wrong, Basel is a cool city (famous for its art scene), but outside of this really unique and amazing festival, it would probably fit into the mold of most European cities of a similar size... lots of churches, old city walls and towers, museums, etc. This festival gave it a unique character and a magical atmosphere... I would certainly consider going back just to see it all again! 

Les Nuits de l'Alligator

Again, I'm really behind on my posts. This one refers to a concert I went to last Thursday with an eclectic group of friends from Besançon: Franzi (German, from Ultimate), Candice (American, English Teaching Assistant), Kati (Austrian, Candice's roommate), Linda (French, Kati's friend from the Fine Arts department of the university where she's taking classes), Jack (British, another English Teaching Assistant, but we know him through Kati), Andrea (American, another assistant, who works at the same high school as Jack), and Jack's friend Sebastian (also British, also an English Teaching Assistant, but in another part of France and who was visiting for a few days).

We met for a drink before the concert and then walked to La Rodia, a very-recently-constructed concert space along the Doubs. I run by it practically every time I go out for a run, and have always wanted to go to a concert there. I heard about this one, which featured three different groups who all played folk-50s/60s rock and roll, and invited as many people as I could. (I took the picture of La Rodia below back in early November).

It ended up being really good. We missed the first group, but made it in time to hear the second act:  Lindi Ortega, who was great (her voice reminded me a lot of Brandi Carlisle). She was wearing a hat/veil just like this at the show...

Then the main act was Kitty, Daisy, and Lewis, who I loved! The band name is composed of the first names of its three primary members, who are all siblings, and whose parents play the bass guitar and the stand-up base in the band. The three siblings all play the drums, the guitar, the bass, and sing vocals (interchangeably) and Kitty plays the harmonica.

It was pretty wild! I would classify their music primarily as 50s and 60s style rock, which is just the kind of music I like to dance to. It's funny, because I wasn't aware of this until recently, but there seems to be a strong indie rock following in Europe which greatly resembles the music of the 50s and 60s. The part that's funny is that the bands and their groupies also dress like they're in the 50s and 60s. So I found myself in a crowd with plenty of guys wearing Letterman jackets and with slicked back hair. I felt like I was on the cast of Grease! Totally bizarre, but infinitely better than ripped denim skirts or sagging jeans... It would be pretty funny if those fashion trends came back in full force. I'm certainly not a huge fan of the suite/tie combo on Lewis in this pic of the band... Click here if you want to hear one of the songs I liked by Lindi Ortega, and here for one of the songs by Kitty, Daisy, and Lewis.   

Skiing with the kiddies

So it turns out that two Saturdays ago wasn't my last time down near Chapelle... Last Tuesday, February 21st, I went along as a chaperone with two classes of CE2 (3rd graders) for a day of cross-country skiing. Actually, it was more like a day of picking small (or not so small) children up out of the snow. But I was prepared for that, and agreed to go along because it sounded like fun. It turned out to be more like Type 2 fun -- an analogy Claire introduced to me a while ago and which I have whole-heartedly embraced. The quick summary: Type 1 fun is fun at the time. Type 2 fun is fun in retrospect. -- This day of "skiing" definitely fits the profile of the latter. The pic below was taken from the bus window en route to the ski station.

The event took place during the school day (in theory we were supposed to be back by 4:30pm, we actually got back closer to 5:15pm). We left on a big coach bus around 9am, with all of the kids wearing their combinaisons (snow suits) and boots and hats, etc. They were pretty adorable. I believe there were 39 kids, plus Anne-Sophie and Nathalie (the two teachers -- see pic below), 4 SUAPS students (students in the sports program at the university who helped with PE at the school), and Florine, who is my age and an aide for one of the students in Nathalie's class.

The itinerary said we were going skiing in Mouthe, which is 87km (or 54 miles) south-east of Besançon. It turns out we were actually skiing at a place called Le Pré-Poncet, another 6 km further south. So, by the time we arrived, unpacked the kids and got everyone into their skis, it was nearly 11:30am. There were two instructors from the rental center who were in charge of teaching the kids... but unfortunately they didn't explain the basics before giving the kids all of the gear and telling them to give it a try first on their own. Big mistake. We had kids and skis flailing all over the place! Only after everyone had fallen a half-dozen times and struggled to right themselves again did the instructors explain the proper technique for getting up again. I wish they had done this before giving the kids their skis, because it would have saved me a lot of arm work hauling the kiddies up out of the powder.

Luckily it was a really glorious day... brightly sunny and not cold at all. It was a bit of a tease though, to be so close to the trails but not really able to ski. We never actually went on any of the trails! After lunch the instructors led the kiddies up and down two gentle hills, and cut wide circles in the big field in front of the rental chalet, but we didn't go on the trails.

The classes is going back for two more sessions in March after the winter break, so I imagine it will be much easier the next time and they will probably do more. If I'm invited I think I will politely decline... in theory it was a day off, but really it was more like work, except with less chalk and more snow!

Weekend à Chapelle

So, keeping with my usual schedule... I'm getting to this entry nearly a week late. Last weekend Colin and I went skiing in Chapelle-des-Bois, where his sister and her family and most of his extended family lives.

We drove up (south on the map, but up because the elevation increases the whole way) to Chapelle around 6:30pm on Friday afternoon and arrived just before 8pm. We left later than usual because Friday afternoon traffic meant Colin's commute from work took an hour instead of 15 minutes. When we arrived we had the first of many delicious meals with Colin's sister Agathe and her husband Sébastian: deliciously meaty and creamy lasagna with salad and little lemon cakes for dessert. 

Sébastian is butcher and Agathe works in the local fromagerie, so they're never short of good ingredients in their house. Their house is fairly typical for the area: converted from an old farmhouse which is a large square structure with a slanted roof. When it was a farmhouse, the lower level (first floor in 'American') was the stable for the animals in the winter. Their living space is one half of one of those old farmhouses, plus one half of the stable-now-apartment space below. Eventually they plan to rent out that apartment space as a gîte ("holiday cottage" -- there is a whole system of gîtes in France). I really liked the big, open rooms with high ceilings and lots of windows. 

Saturday morning was pretty lazy: we slept late and hung out around the house and played with Colin's niece and god-daughter Cléo, who just turned 2 in November. Agathe gave birth to little baby Malo (a boy) in early January, so she's had her hands full. We hesitated between heading out to ski immediately or having lunch first and ended up going with the latter. For the entrée (appetizer) we had a morilles (rare and delicious mushrooms, Sébastian's friend likes to hunt for them in the forest but doesn't like to eat them -- to our benefit). Séb prepared them using all things delicious: butter, cognac, shallots, and served the mixture warm over an over-easy egg in cute little bowls. Served with a glass of Alsacian Pinot Gris, a new favorite of mine. And that was just the appetizer, for the main dish we had a ham and leek quiche (the leeks were from their garden last summer) with salad. That was the "light lunch"! It was nearly 2pm before Colin and I headed out on the slopes.

I learned this past weekend that Chapelle is the start of a world-famous cross-country ski race called the Transjurassienne (the Jura is the name of the mountain range). The race actually took place the weekend before we were there and I believe the three courses are 70km, 50km (ski classique) and 25 km. To give you an idea, Colin and I probably did 12 km in 3 hours, but with frequent stops for pictures and going at quite an easy pace. The Transjurassienne is one of the Worldloppet races, a series of the most prestigious corss country skiing races in the world. It's the second-longest (the one in Switzerland is 90km, but apparently much flatter than this one). The male winner this year finished in 3 hours, 25 minutes and the female winner finished in 4:23. We weren't skiing on that course though!

In retrospect I'm sorry we weren't more motivated Saturday morning, because I really enjoyed cross country skiing. I stuck mostly to the classique method (which looks like you're walking with really long strides) because I couldn't quite get down the skating method (which looks like you're ice skating with absurdly long skates and poles). The part that really surprised me was how relaxing it was. I've always thought of cross country skiing as the kind of activity you do  because you live somewhere where 4 months out of the year you can't do anything else... not as the kind of activity people would actively seek out. But after trying it for myself, I can see how people go on vacation to locations just for cross country skiing.

It probably didn't hurt that the weather was absolutely perfect! It was nearly 45 degrees outside and with the exercise we didn't even need a hat or gloves or a sweater (although we had all 3 in our backpack just in case). We headed back just before 6pm, when the ski rental place closed. Check out this Mercedes snow plow... the IH Village should look into investing in a few...

After a coffee and freshening up after skiing, we decided to play a board game. The game they picked was called Burger Quiz. It's based off of a television game show which appeared on Canal+ in the early 2000s. The objective is to earn "miams" ("yums"... they say "miam-miam" in French to express the same eagerness for a culinary delight) by correctly answer trivia questions. Yikes! I remember thinking to myself at the time, this is another whole level of linguistic competence -- playing a trivia board game of questions about another country's culture in another language. I lost pretty spectacularly, but it was amusing! And based on how bad I am at those kinds of games in English, I thought this might actually have been an improvement... In the photo below Colin and I are trying to figure out the settings on my camera. This weekend we actually spent a lot of time looking at my camera (and the book Agathe and Séb had bought for their Canon) and I learned how to do all kinds of cool things.

For dinner on Saturday night we had moules frites (mussels with french fries). We made the french fries in Agathe and Séb's self-contained fryer which looked sort of like an automatic popcorn machine. It only required one tablespoon of oil for the French fries for all four of us! The moules were cooked with leeks and onions and were absolutely heavenly!  I ate way too many, but they kept insisting that we finish them because mussels don't exactly keep in the refrigerator! For dessert, a gooey moulleux au chocolat (melted chocolate cake), which was even gooier than expected because it wasn't quite cooked in the middle, oops! But it was delicious.

Sunday was an equally lazy day. We slept late again (so late we skipped breakfast and just waited for lunch), which was a boite chaud (literally "hot box," but around here it refers to a Mont d'Or cheese served hot in its wodden container as a fondue). With salad of course. Miam miam! In the afternoon Colin and I went for a walk. For the first half we took Cléo in her luge (sled). It was funny how long it took us to get her dressed to go outside. Even though it wasn't very cold, she still wore 3 layers under her snow suit, a hat, and sunglasses. She looked like a little mummy and couldn't really bend her arms! She was so cute though. Afterward we look her back to the house and then walked further. At the end we cut through a field so we could tromp through the snow, which in places was up to my mid-thigh. It was so much fun!

We got back to Besançon around 8pm Sunday evening and I was very sorry that the weekend went so quickly... I wanted to stay for the rest of the week! And it turns out I would be going back very soon... (see next entry for more details)

Lady'scjonctées 2012

Last Sunday the Dijon Ultimate club, Les Discjonctés hosted an all-women's tournament and four of us from Besançon plus two pick-ups from the Ultimate Troopers (near Nancy), teamed up to form the Free-Bises. The day started off right when upon entering Clémentine's car for the hour-drive to Dijon, Vanessa offered us all a potpourri of morning beverages, including, but not limited to: coffee, cappuccino (in both Milka and Toberlone varieties), hot chocolate, and tea. 

The day only got better from there... the tournament was a lot of fun -- very well-run and a very positive atmosphere. Since it was the tournament's first year there were only four teams (the ladies from Dijon, a high school team, and a middle school team coached by Bruno, the former captain of the Discjontés who is the girls' gym teacher). The set-up was a round robin in the morning, a 25-minute break for lunch, then another round robin in the afternoon. Only the matches against the Lady Discjontés were really challenging, but it was a good opportunity to work on the fundamentals and a good learning session for the two pick-ups, Marie-Eve and Pascale. 

And I had a wonderful time playing with Clémentine, Franzi and Vanessa, who all play for the Friz'Bistonins. It's unusual for us to have more than 2-4 girls total at any given practice (Lucie also comes regularly, and sometimes we have Caroline), so more often than not I'm playing against the only other girl on the opposing team. It was good to play together, since Clémentine is also going to be on the team for the phase retour (round 2) of the regional tournament, the last weekend in February.

For the record, we won all 6 of our matches and ended up also winning the "Spirit of the Game" award (which makes 3 weekends in a row for Friz'Bistonin teams).

Here we are proudly displaying our loot (from left to right): me with a bottle of Arbois, Franzi with the trophy for winning the tournament, Vanessa with a party game which was also part of the prize (?), and Clémentine with the trophy for best spirit, then Pascale and Marie-Eve. This was on top of the goody bag that each player received for attending the tournament (which had various contents including candies, a little toiletries bag, a Discjonctés cup and a small pot of Dijon mustard). We're going to save the bottle for the phase retour, because Pascale and Marie-Eve will be there and we can all enjoy it together then! Overall a really great Sunday!

Les Cowboys Fringants

This past weekend was a very exciting one! On Friday evening I went to a concert in Geneva with a bunch of people from the Ultimate team including: Gaëtan, Fred, Lois, GuiGui, Franzi, and Clément. We weren't the only ones though: lots of people brought along friends and family, and so we were closer to 15 in total. I brought along Kati and she brought along a friend named Ian, who turned out to be an American from Nashville who is doing his third year at UNC-Asheville at the university here in Besançon. The three of us drove down with Fred, plus GuiGui and met up with the group at the venue. The fact that the concert was in Geneva isn't hugely relevant... we really didn't see any of the city besides the inside of the concert venue. We met up with Franzi and her friend Tiny, who was visiting from Germany for the week, Clément and his fiancé, Lois and his girlfriend, Gaetan and his mother, brother, aunt, and cousin. The concert was held at a multi-purpose venue, that was, say, closer in size to the Taft Theatre and than to US Bank Arena (sorry for you non-Cincinnatians). We were in the standing area in front, and I won't bother to estimate the crowd size since I'm horrible with those kinds of estimates.

The group, Les Cowboys Fringants, is from Quebec and was started in the mid-1990s. Their genre is alternative rock-folk-country, although I could classify it as closer to rock than the latter two. The principal band members are, from left to right: bassist, a singer/guitarist, electric violin player (Marie Annick), and keyboardist. Marie-Annick, who also plays the accordian, the mandoline, the piano, and the guitar, totally stole the show.

They also had a drummer and a couple of back-up guitar players. I went into the concert having listened to nothing else but their music for the three or so weeks leading up to the concert, but only knew all of the words to a handful of songs. Their songs are very catchy but incredibly fast, so I really could only retain the lyrics if I looked them up online and practiced following along. My personal favorites are Plus Rien, Chêne et Roseau, and Tant qu'on aura de l'amour. They played the first and the third, but not playing all three wasn't for a lack of playing time. The concert started around 8:45pm and didn't finish until nearly midnight!

The part that was sort of surprising for me was that they took a break halfway through. Having an intermission at a rock concert was certainly a new thing for me (not a French thing, but apparently common in Quebec). There was no opening band, just Les Cowboys. They also came back for, wait for it, three encores. Personally I find more than one a little annoying and a little egotistical on the part of the band (I can't help thinking they do it because they like hearing us screaming their name). Each time they played one or two songs... why not just come back once, play four or five more songs, then go home?

It was a really awesome experience though. Their music is the kind that makes you want to jump around and dance, and we definitely did plenty of that. It was Clément's birthday and I had the impression he was pleased to celebrate it with such a great concert. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to bring in cameras, and there was no way I was going to be able to smuggle my Leica in without getting caught. If I find out someone took a picture with their phone though, I'll try to post it.

PS Happy Valentine's Day!

"Ils ont piqués mes deux arrières-pnues!"

Translation of title: "They stole my two back tires!"

This blog entry also happens to be a little bit late... it recounts the events that happened last Thursday evening after the weekly Ultimate session at SUAPS (the something universitaire des activités physiques et sportives) hosted by the equivalent of the Health and Exercise Science department at the University of France Comté in Besançon. The students in this department are required to participate in a certain number of hosted athletic activities per month (or per week, I really don't know), and one of the activities offered is Ultimate, every Thursday night from 8-9:30pm. It's pretty low-key: we throw for the first 30 minutes and then scrimmage for the last hour. Usually a fair percentage of the participants are Friz'Bistonins (the Ultimate team I play for here), and last Thursday was no exception. I think we were 18 or 19 in total, and 16 of us were Friz'Bistonins. We had enough for 3 teams of six players (one sub, since you play with five on the court in indoor).

The evening was pretty standard and without incident, except that we ended up playing a little longer than usual. When all left the gym it was just before 10pm. Someone suggested we go out to Callahan's for a drink, and we agreed to meet up there. Colin was parked in the upper lot, near the track, and when we passed the lower lot, we noticed Lois was standing by the entrance, as if to signal someone. It's a good thing we stopped to see what was up, because it turned out the group wasn't going anywhere soon. Vanessa, who had parked in the lower lot (which during work hours it is reserved for the administration), emerged from the gym to discover someone had stolen the two back tires off of her car! The car was just sitting on the axles (I don't think this is the correct term, hopefully someone will correct me). Although the tires weren't brand new, they were snow tires and less than a year old, which explains why someone took them instead of the tires off of one of the four other cars parked in the lot (all belonging to people on our team). Vanessa called the police, but we had to wait nearly 45 minutes before they arrived!! (It was probably around -5 or -10 Celsius outside, that is approximately 23-14 degrees Fahrenheit). We were pretty annoyed that they took so long, but their visit was amusing because it turns out the officer in charge, Denis, knew one of the players from our team, Fred (who wasn't there). When we found out we were all part of the Ultimate club, he asked "Hey, isn't there an old guy who plays with you?" We thought he was referring to the professor who runs the SUAPS programs, but immediately started laughing when he mentioned Fred's name.

As soon as the police left, we took out Vanessa's spare tire and GuiGui's spare tire (luckily they drive the same car, and GuiGui happened to be there). This required considerable effort, considering GuiGui's tire was frozen into the trunk. Then we used two tire jacks to mount the tires at the same time, and fastened them with two of the bolts off of each of the front tires. It wasn't the most secure set-up, but Vanessa was able to drive home (Gaëtan followed, to make sure she arrived safely) and her parents brought over her summer tires the next morning. She filed a claim with her insurance company and should be reimbursed for the stolen snow tires. She has snow tires on her car because she works in Pontarlier, about an hour south-east of Besançon by car and they get a lot more snow there.

Everyone was pretty shocked that her tires were stolen -- the campus is normally very safe and this kind of theft is unusual. I'm glad that we were all there to help her too, because it made putting the tires back on much easier. Hopefully it's an experience I won't get to repeat again!