Christmas Day

For Christmas everyone gathered at uncle Pat’s and aunt Judy’s in Poulsbo. It was nice to spend a relaxing Christmas day with the extended family and the perfect end to our holiday trip up to the Pacific Northwest.

The following is a picture of the full family, which even one of the dogs managed to slide into.


Here are the individual family shots. And, no, there’s no inbreeding among the cousins – some of them are “in-laws”.

Cousin Matt, Aunt Judy, Cousin Meghan and Uncle Pat

Cousin Christian, Uncle Mike, Aunt Jan, Cousin Rick and Cousin Serge

Cousins Steve, Laura, Mathew and Meghan

Cousins Jim, Vicki, Tyler and Connor

Erin, Dad, Mom and me

And here’s a cousins’ picture to wrap things up…

Seattle

On Thursday we took our requisite day-trip (and then some) into Seattle. Unlike with our trip to Victoria, we unfortunately weren’t accompanied with beautiful weather as the rain had returned in full force. But Seattle without rain just wouldn’t have felt right, I guess.

We had some free time before our lunch reservation, so we decided to walk around the Pike Place Market for a bit. It wasn't our first visit by any means, but it was still nice to peruse the various offerings and see some of the famous fish tosses…











For lunch we headed back to our regular spot – Elliott's Oyster House. As always, the food was excellent.











And here’s a group shot that the waiter was kind enough to take after the meal.

After the marathon lunch, the majority of the group stuck around for some drinks at the Irish pub Fado. It was effectively a cousins’ night part deux, and a good time was had by all.




















Here’s a shot of the group walking back to the ferry for the return trip home.

And here’s a shot of downtown Seattle during the ferry ride.

Au Canada

On Wednesday my mom, sister, cousins Christian and Rick, and cousin-in-law Serge, took a day trip to Victoria, B.C.

We took the 8:20 ferry out of Port Angeles, which required an early wake up given the one-hour drive from Port Gamble. It was raining when we left, but by the time that we boarded the ferry and the sun cleared the mountains it was beautiful. The success of our day-trip hinged in part on the weather and we ultimately got very lucky with how things worked out.

The ferry ride went by relatively quickly and we arrived in Victoria around 10am. Here are some pictures taken during the journey across the Straight of Juan de Fuca.























And here are some pictures as we entered Victoria Harbor.












After arriving in Victoria we walked around for the bulk of the day, seeing sights such as the Legislative Assembly, the Empress Hotel and the harbor front












For lunch we stopped at the Bard & Banker (pictured below) and all ordered exactly the same thing – a Canadian offering similar to a Reuben that the waitress highly recommended. Fortunately for her (and for us) we all seemed to like it.

Upon ordering we were introduced to a particularity of Canadian life that most of us were unfamiliar with. Apparently in Canada it is customary for the waiter / waitress to ask how the bill should be split and it is not uncommon for it to be split “by person” (even for large groups).

I figured this would be complicated by shared appetizers, bottles of wine, etc., but apparently the system is pretty well established and runs smoothly. This was definitely a first for me – in the U.S. and Switzerland, one typically receives a disappointed stare after asking for two separate bills (let alone one per person…).

After lunch we walked east about 20-minutes to the Craigdarroch Castle, a Victorian-era mansion built by the Canadian coal magnate Robert Dunsmuir.

It definitely stood out, though probably not as much as it did over a century ago when it was built. The self-guided tour was nice, as you could devote as much or as little time as you wanted to the various rooms.

After finishing up at the castle, we walked back to the harbor and searched for some of the traditional Victorian houses.

We then called it a day and headed back to the harbor to catch the ferry for the trip back to the U.S. Here are some pictures at Sunset as we approached the Straight of Juan de Fuca.

Cousins' Night

On Tuesday night all the cousins went out for a “Cousins’ Night”. We’d never really had the opportunity to all go out together in one big group, and this time we finally took advantage of everyone being together.

We met up at a bar / restaurant in nearby Poulsbo, and as luck would have it they were having a “Trivia Night”. This provided the perfect opportunity for some cousinly bonding in the face of a common enemy: the locals.










We ultimately did the family proud by coasting to victory with a perfect score. Some may have argued that we benefited from having a team of 12 (the average was around five), but that didn’t stop us from proudly displaying our winning form.

It should also be noted that we won the team name competition as well, with a variant on “Jingle Bells” that was the runaway crowd favorite. Just add a “my” and change one of the existing vowels and you’re all set. Definitely keeping it classy in Poulsbo…

X-Mas in Seattle

This year we spent Christmas outside Seattle with my mom’s side of the family. It was our 4th visit to the Pacific Northwest for Christmas since 2000, and as with our previous trips it proved to be a great time.

We flew into Sea-Tac Monday morning and arrived under overcast skies and light rain. After collecting our luggage and picking up the rental car, we drove up to Seattle in order to catch the ferry across the Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island.

Here are some pictures of Seattle taken from the ferry, including downtown, the Space Needle and the stadiums for the Seattle Seahawks and Mariners.












I found the following sign on the ferry funny given that it wasn’t quite ideal conditions to head outside to work on one’s tan.

This year we’re staying in Port Gamble, which is a small town on the northwestern shore of the Kitsap peninsula overlooking the Hood Canal. As can be seen from the picture below, the house is right by the lake and in an ideal spot for some R&R (the house is surrounded by the white picket fence in the background).

The house we’re staying in dates back roughly 100 years, making it a relative youngster in Port gamble given its mid-19th century provenance. My uncle Mike and his family stayed in the adjacent house, which has a similar history and was reportedly haunted (as ultimately confirmed by both my aunt and uncle).

The surrounding area was very nice, with plenty of open space and limited signs of people. Here are some photos of the local cemetery and church, both of which date back to the mid-19th century.

"Home" for X-mas

Today I flew in from Switzerland for a two week stay in the U.S. for Christmas. The visit will consist of a week long trip to Seattle with family for Christmas itself, and some time at home in Manhattan Beach both before and after serving as bookends.

The flights went well, without the wine-related baggage incident of my previous return flight for Thanksgiving. To say that I took some additional precautions to avoid another cracked bottle, though, is clearly a bit of an understatement…


Einstein supposedly defined insanity as: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Had a bottle broken on this flight as well, I think that I would have definitely needed to question my sanity...

Basel

Today Emilie, her friend Nina, and I drove up to Basel to see the Christmas market. This was my first visit to the city, which is a couple of hours north of Lausanne near the French and German borders.

The Christmas market was very nice, but on a much smaller scale and far more expensive than the ones we visited the week before in Vienna.










Here are some of the items that were on sale.

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In addition to exploring the Christmas market, we also walked around the city center a bit and visited the Basel Rathaus (city hall).

The Rathaus had some interesting statues and balconies, such as following:















We also visited Basel’s Münster (cathedral), which was built from 1,000 - 1,500 and apparently is still somewhat of a work in progress.

And here's a photo from the inside.

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We finished up our visit at the Foundation Beyeler, which was having a special exhibition on Austrian paintings from the 1900s. The exhibition was actually very timely, as we had just seen other works by the featured artists (namely Klimt and Schiele) during our visit to Vienna the weekend before.

The foundation is located just outside the city and has a nice, open feel to it. Even when you're inside, you have nice views given the large windows.