This year I'm spending Christmas and New Years in Switzerland with my cousin Yvonne and her boyfriend Stefan. This is the first year I've been away from home for the holidays, so this trip is definitely going to be a big adventure!
I arrived in Switzerland yesterday afternoon after an extremely long trip from Perth->Dubai->Geneva. Yvonne picked me up from the airport and after a lot of hugging and screaming we made our way to Neuchatel, a beautiful little town where Yvonne and Stef are currently living. The apartment is beautiful, with wooden decking on the ceiling and amazing views from all the windows. This year they bought a natural Christmas tree, so it really feels and smells like I always imagined a white Christmas would.
Yesterday I took it easy and stayed in for the night while Yvy and Stef went out to a uni party. Stef has just handed in his final uni assignment so he was keen to celebrate! I was more keen on a nice long horizontal sleep since I didn't get too much on the plane. Before I crashed like a rock, I did my first local thing and ate escargot (snails) for dinner!
Today I woke up nice and refreshed, ready for my first snow experience! I had seen a tiny little bit of snow in Yvonne's driveway, but I don't think that really counted as seeing snow. Our first stop for the day was to go see some snow on the way to Epesses. It was... amazing! It was nothing like what I expected, I don't know why! I absolutely loved it, and can't wait for more!
Next we went to Monteaux to see the Christmas markets. We spent a couple of hours walking around drinking mulled wine and looking at the beautiful stalls. There were some weird decorations around the place that apparently had to do with a kids TV show, and even a statue of Freddie Mercury.
Now we're about to settle down to relax and watch a movie. I'm having so much fun already, but I'm a little bit homesick too! Tomorrow is xmas eve :)
I got very excited today when Yvonne and Stef told me that in Bern there is a hole in the ground in the middle of the town centre with bears inside. I was like, is it on purpose? And they were like yes, but someone recently fell in and got eaten. I was sold! So today we took a day trip to Bern to see the bears, do some shopping, and have a drink at the Einstein cafe. 
Our first task was unsuccessful. Apparently bears hibernate in winter, so there were no bears, stupid bears! However the bear thing was exactly how Yvonne and Stefan described it. In the middle of the city, there's a giant pit decked out with things bears would enjoy like big rocks and caves and the like (minus the bears). We took the next best option and played on the wooden bear statues in the old enclosure.
Our last stop was the Einstein Cafe, built under the house where Einstein stayed in Bern for a while. It was lovely and warm, a perfect end to a capital day.
Today Yvonne and I did snow shoeing (raquette) in Vue Des Alps. We left behind a massive fog blanket in Neuchatel to find a clear and sunny perfect day in the mountains. We chose to do a 2h long trek which was half through the valley and half through the forrest. The two halves of the trek were really different, and at the middle of the track there was a restaurant where we stopped for a much needed hot chocolate and sandwich.
Raquette through the mountains was very serene (I love the crunching of the snow), but also quite hard! There were a lot of sections that were very steep, and even downhill was quite taxing because you had to be very careful not to slide and hurt your ankles. We definitely got a workout, so hopefully that earns me a few more macarons.
On the way back we stopped at a hot bath to warm our weary muscles. This is something that I'd never heard of before - in Switzerland there are open air baths (kind of like giant swimming pools with jets and showers and the like) filled with naturally hot water from the mountains. There were people of all ages, but I have to say it was mostly young people getting all hot and heavy all over the place! Despite the awkwardness, it was very invigorating and I definitely appreciated it after a long day of raquette. 
