Saturday, August 30, 2008

Swiss Days or Utah Days?

My sister and her beautiful little family went to Switzerland a couple of days ago to visit my other sister and dad. Here in Utah, Swiss Days in Midway is as close as we got this year. Every time we go I tell myself, "We're not going next year, it's just a bunch of Utah handicrafts and bad food." But there's something about entering a small mountain town with Swiss flags and architecture. It is also well-organized as if the Swiss government were orchestrating it. There's free parking and frequent shuttles taking people to the event which has lots of entertainment being performed , free drink and even hand-washing stations set up. Now the downside. Food stands have names like Swiss Tacos and Swiss Hamburgers. Yikes. The saurkraut is so concentrated it makes your cheeks go hollow and eyes squint. We were sure to arrive full.
Today I found the best food available, caramel apples. Eli only appreciated the caramel, sending the naked sour apple slice back. This wasn't the only treat this year. Luckily, we stuck around long enough to hear some impressive yodeling (click here for a tame example) and I even saw a couple of guys in lederhhosen. Now we're getting authentic. There was even a stand set up by the Swiss Consulate giving out free Swiss stuff (the only real Swiss stuff there) to encourage people to go to a website and share their Swiss heritage. It was all a small, not-so-realistic taste of the experience my sister's family is having, but it was still fun to get out and experience some familiar sites and sounds.

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