The Montreux Marché de Noël
What a great weekend! On Saturday Tanya and I went to a fantastic party dressed as animals. Tanya was a tiger and I was a panda. The other guests were dressed as animals too, which was lucky because otherwise it would have been super awkward. At midnight the party moved to a stupendously busy bar with good music, where we encountered by total chance another group of people dressed as animals. We met lots of awesome people, and at the end of the night walked home laughing, breath making mist in the cold air.
On Sunday we went to the famed Montreux Marché de Noël (Christmas Market). It seems to me that every time Christmas is mentioned by people who live in Lausanne, the Montreux Christmas Market is mentioned in the same sentence. There are actually Christmas markets all over the place here, and they all have their reputations - Morges is known to have one that is under cover, so it's great if the weather is shit. Lausanne's is known to be small because it takes up only one square. Montreux's is known to be massive, the best, and well worth a trip even if the weather is ordinary. I now see how it earned its reputation!
Tanya on the train on the way to Montreux.
The Christmas Market is Montreux is enormous, and full of Christmas good humour. There are some truly elaborate stalls - some are full-on houses that been constructed especially for the event. I'm sure there was a yurt there. The market also manages to be Christmassy without being kitsch. And of course there's good food and drink. Most specialities from this part of the world involve potatoes, cheese, and ham, mixed in various different and delicious ways. They were all in strong showing. Every third stall sold vin chaud (mulled wine), which is Just The Thing when its cold. Altogether it was a fantastic market to go to, and a lovely way to get used to the idea of a cold Christmas.
There were various "sculptures végétaux" at the markets, on a Harry Potter theme. Here's Harry. (Nah, it's Hagrid, but I wanted to make Harry Potter fans squirm).
Although the markets were great, Tanya and I had a tricker than normal time getting to and from Montreux. There are two events in particular that deserve recounting. The first was on the bus on the way to the market. Busses in Lausanne are electric and look like bugs with antennas on their backs. The antennas connect to wires above the road that supply the bus with power. Today our bus' antennas suddenly disconnected from the wires with an almighty bang, and the bus came absolutely screeching to a halt. They must have emergency breaks for when it loses power, because it really stopped sharp. Anyone standing - Tanya and me included - went flying forward. Nobody was hurt, but it was not a pleasant bus stop.
This is actually the second time that Tanya and I have seen this happen in about three days so we knew roughly what was coming next. What happens is as follows: the bus driver sighs an enormous heavy sigh and probably says "oh putain" under their breath. The passengers watch in silence as the driver gets out of their seat and puts on a reflective vest and big gloves. The driver goes to the back of the bus and pulls hopefully on cables that go to the antennas. They then return to their seat and fire up what must be the bus' backup power - an engine that sounds like about seven lawn-mowers connected loosely. They rev the crap out of this engine and the bus shakes mightily and produces a lot of noise and smoke and then, incredibly slowly, inches forward. At the next stop it is no better so we get off the bus. That's the pattern, anyway, and it is what happened today, and it is what lead to me and Tanya running for and missing by less than one single minute the train to Montreux.
A ferris wheel.
The second transport debacle occurred on the way home on the train between Montreux and Lausanne. We were still searching for a seat when the train, by now at full speed, took a sharpish corner and I was thrown sideways. Things then started moving in slow motion. I thought "I've got this". The rest of the passengers in the carriage started turning to look. I reached for something to hold on to and found nothing. There were various startled shrieks from people around me. I thought "I don't have this". I lost my footing entirely and suddenly hands started going up as people tried to catch a flying Tim. I landed across the laps of two highly amused strangers. The two good things about this unexpected fall was that again nobody was hurt, and that just about everyone in the entire carriage cracked up laughing. It must have looked super funny. Tanya is still laughing about it, hours later, and I am nursing only mild embarrassment. So there you go. This weekend was great. I made new friends, created a scene on a train, and confirmed two things: the Montreux Christmas market is awesome, and inertia is not to be messed with.
Christmas lights.