Tag: land of cheese and chocolate

In a tit-for-tat retaliation, the European Union has frozen research grants for Swiss universities worth hundreds of millions of euros and suspended the involvement of Switzerland in the Erasmus student exchange programme. A spokesman for the EU announced the freeze on Sunday, a day after after Bern announced it had refused to sign a deal opening labour market access to Croatia, the ATS news agency reported.

The Swiss government said it was unable to ink the deal because of the February 9th referendum decision to scrap the freedom of movement of labour agreement with the EU and impose immigration quotas.

But Brussels considers that Horizon 2020, an 80-billion euro research and innovation programme spread over seven years (2014-2020), and Erasmus, are tied to the free movement of people accord, ATS said.

The freezing of research and educational programme funding was earlier feared by Swiss universities and student groups both in Switzerland in the EU. Lausanne’s Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) said it faces losing 80 to 100 million francs a year in research grants. ETH, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, faces a similar cut in funding.

When Horizon 2020 was launched in January, the Swiss government said it expected to create 8,000 jobs from the programme.

Last Thursday, the national union of students in Switzerland (VSS) and the European Students Union sounded a warning about the potential impact of the Swiss immigration vote on the Erasmus programme. The European Union approved a 14.7-billion euro budget for the Erasmus programme from 2014-2020, including exchanges for education, training, youth and sport.

Switzerland is a land of dog owners. It is commonplace to see people with dogs in restaurants, shops, etc. There is even a class of bus/train tickets for them. In this case, people were simply walking over the huge mutt lying across the bus aisle and nobody cared, least of which the dog :-)

… cause,  you know,  luxury chocolate staff Christmas presents :-)

We found a garden center that is alllllmost perfect. It’s >this< close. It's called Schilliger, and it's only about 20 minutes from our place. Katy said that on some points, it's better than Scottsdales (!) so you know that has to say something. The only problem is that it doesn't have a cafeteria, only vending machines :( Still, the xmas display is impressive!!! And they have parrots!!! and hamsters!!! and toys!!! AND THEY HAVE LEMAX CHRISTMAS VILLAGE GOODIES!!!!

All pictures here: https://www.flubu.com/blog/pictures/schilliger_nov_2013

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We bought a car, zoop! zoop! It’s a Kia Rio 1.4 diesel. It’s a 2012, with only 11280 km on the clock. We got a decent deal. It’s still under the manufacturer warranty for 6 years, has power everything, sun roof, heated seats and a full set of winter tires.

Now Katy just needs to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car :)

While Katy’s parents are in town, we have babysitting! We made full use of it last Friday night to go have a late anniversary dinner at Le Petit Manoir. It’s a one-star Michelin restaurant that’s 5 minutes from our door. This might prove dangerous!

We got there early and were whisked to our table. We both decided on the Hunter’s menu, where each serving would be paired with a glass of wine selected by the chef.

Our meal started with a mise en bouche of sweet potato mousse with a smoked lard foam and small slices of roasted veal. Katy then had a venison Wellington-y sort of dish, with sauteed cabbage, pumpkin salad and juniper berries. For me, to cater for my allergies, the wellington was replaced with sauteed venison loin, with the same sides. Katy had a pheasant tartelette with mustard endives while I had wild duck foie gras. That was followed with a supreme of roast pigeon, with salsifi and a wild mushroom emulsion (THAT WAS TO DIE FOR!!!). The main course (!) was seared deer cubes with braised red cabbage and spaëtzle. We then had a cheese board, with some cracking cheeses (Katy discovered well-aged Gruyere and I discovered Livarot, as well as a blue cheese from St-Galle) paired with a beautiful Bordeaux. The meal was rounded off with coffee, sorbets and a platter of petits fours that Katy had to sacrifice herself and take on by herself. In the end, we were royally stuffed! It wasn’t cheap, but it was very, very, very good!

One of the more memorable moments of the evening was when another party came in with a huge dog. Nobody even batted an eye – which is fairly commonplace in Switzerland – and the dog was very well behaved and spent most of the meal under their table. The funny moment was when they asked for a bowl of water for the pooch, it was served in a fine bone china bowl on a plate :) At one point, the dog was wearing the tablecloth on its head like a nun’s headpiece. It was very cute.

So, if you’re in Morges and have the chance to go, I strongly recommend it.