Winter in Versoix

Since last week, Versoix became very famous because of its impressive natural "ice sculptures" ... Apparently, every year it is the same : the combination of very cold weather, wind, the location of Versoix (near the lake and probably in a "wind corridor"), and the fact that people park their car at the wrong place at the wrong moment, gives the result shown on the pictures below. It is quite impressive, and actually, it attracts a lot of people - amateur photographers mainly. If you manage to not loose a foot or a bunch of fingers because of the cold, then it's a nice thing to do ...

Probably most of those living close to Geneva have seen these pictures, as they have circulated on (a-)social networks. Made by professionals, so much better than these !
No more words : I let the pictures speak for themselves ...

Cold and mantequilla

As most of you are aware of, it is very, very cold, these days, in Europe ... It goes easily to 12 degrees below zero, and with the wind, it is often unbearable !

Last week, snow started falling an evening and it continued the whole next day.

Chemin de la Ficelle (I think), in Ouchy - from our balcony

We had stayed at home to work, but we took a break to make some snow fight and a snowman !

First, clean the car

Second, make a big snow ball

Third, make a snow man with whatever you find around

The cold stayed until the weekend, and we decided to go somewhere ... We first thought about the Lac de Joux, a frozen lake where one can ice-skate, but apparently it was not possible to ice-skate last weekend. So we went to Yverdon instead - it is close to Lausanne (30 km). We did not stay long there, it was so cold ! One of the coldest days I had in my life ... I think even Moscow in January is beaten !

Dancing to forget the cold ...

"Downtown" Yverdon. Crowded.

In Yverdon, we see strange things ...

In Switzerland, everybody is in the watch and jewel business !

A frozen fountain

It was amazing, even the lake (Lac de Neuchâtel), which is quite large, was frozen !

So, basically, we took a few pictures and we left right away ! Back home we had a nice hot chocolate "à l'ancienne", it was so good ! And in the evening, we had lentils with saucisson vaudois, from which I have no pictures because we ate everything !

Finally, here are a few pictures of my "science project", which I called Mantequilla (just a reference to a South Park episode we saw a while ago). His hair is growing fast, and he already has political consciousness ...

Mantequilla and the rock-star frog

With Hippo the Hippo (a.k.a. Hippo-Hippo)

Good reading !

Lausanne !

As usual with the transition periods, I have forgotten about updating the blog ;-)
So, I'm back in the North for a few months ! Right now, the plan is to stay here and work at CERN until March, then go back to Joburg for a month, and come back here again.

As expected, it's cold up here, but it's OK ... the first days, after sunny Joburg, were hard, but now I got used to the cold. We haven't had snow in Lausanne or Geneva yet, but I'd like to have some !

Just because I like to put pictures on the blog, here are a couple from the weekend ... One usual, and one unusual !

This is a panoramic view of Ouchy on a cold winter night. We were having a walk, to refresh our brains after staying in all day (working, and wood carving a little bit ... cooking also !). To motivate ourselves to go out, we had brought a bottle of Johannisberg, which is a Swiss white wine that we like ;-) This one is in low quality to fit in the blog ;-)

This is Laura and two ghosts ... (the one on the left seems from the past !)

The second set if photos ... Well, here's the story ! Yesterday, we were doing some cleaning in the apartment, and when it came to the bathroom, I thought that I should cut a little bit my beard so it is less messy. I started that, and I decided to actually cut it all ! Laura has never seen me completely shaved ! So, full of motivation, I went down to buy some foam, I removed the dust from my old razor (unused since 2007 ...), and I shaved ! For the fun, I kept the mustache, just to take pictures (and make my mother scream, she already doesn't like the beard too much ;-) ). And well, as we are in a Turkish mood, I'll keep the 'stache for a few days !

Before ...

... during ...

... result !

Voila ! Let's see if I find the motivation to shave completely tomorrow ... :-)