The past few weeks was “that time of the year” in Switzerland again, time to say goodbye to winter and the Fasnacht celebrations. The Solothurn carnival is my favourite, so this year we went back there once again and came back home with hair full of confetti.
But admittedly even more interesting this year was the Liestal “Chienbäse”. Among different cultures and in different countries I’ve come across fire celebrations before… but honestly I had never seen anything of this magnitude. I still have no idea about the historical roots of this thing, and I think I need to do some digging. The best way I can describe the event is by showing the pictures.
A few days ago, a very nice Taiwanese friend of mine, Lolita, gave me a pack of Taiwanese beef jerky. Something that I had never before tried. =) At the first glance the package contents looked more or less like any other beef jerky I had ever seen before. But after I opened the package and had a taste… well, let’s just say it’s like nothing I’ve ever tasted before!! This was probably one of the bigger surprises I’ve ever had in terms of foreign food taste. =) Well, the Taiwanese jerky is sweet. And I mean really, truly, cake icing kind of sweet. There’s also a ton of cinnamon in there, and it’s generally softer than common jerky. After the initial surprise slap has worn off, I’m finding myself stealing bits from the package more and more. The taste is so unusual that keeps drawing me back. As you can see, not much of it remains now…. =P
Happy Norooz everyone! =) Tomorrow night is the beginning of year 2570 [1390] of the Persian solar calendar. Winter is officially over, and Monday is the first day of spring, even though Zürich was freezing cold today. =P So make sure to have as much sweets and cookies as you can in the next few days, visit your friends and family and pass around some gifts. 😉
My 7sin is pretty much ready, even though some of the items are impossible to get around here due to the lack of a Persian community of any sort. My mom sent me most of what I couldn’t find here from Toronto. But I wasn’t able to get my hands on Samanoo at the end so we’re going to make some chocolate cream and imagine it’s Samanoo. =P
I have to admit though, I have all sorts of mixed feelings right now. The “situation” in Iran has made it very difficult for many people over there to celebrate anything, and I feel the weight of that inside of me…. and of course my mom’s not where I am this year, which really totally sucks. But I’m trying to make the best out of a … well… very complicated situation, and hope for the best in 2570.
Last week, a Swedish friend of mine who is well aware of exactly how culture-curious I am, did me the huge favour of directing me to the deviantART gallery of a brilliant Danish comic artist. This artist has created a fictional character for each Scandinavian country, through which she depicts the popular stereotypical characteristics of the people and the culture of each of these countries. It’s of course quite satirical, and extremely funny.
In the past few days I’ve been going through this artist’s gallery, reading through all her comic strips, and I’ve had a great deal of laugh doing so. I highly recommend that you do the same. Here’s a more sophisticated version of her main characters:
From left to right: Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Don’t you just love the look on Sweden’s face? =)) And apparently Finland’s character has quite a fan-club [and I totally want his hat!].=D Iceland has a parachute, that makes me jealous. Norway has cute hair and a huge fish. =)) Somehow the first thing I did, was sharing this with a Danish friend [xo] who’s apparently been sharing it with just about everyone in Scandinavia…. =D
Hey, I'm Aasemoon, and this is my blog which has been around since 1998. Childhood toy project that ended up growing up with me.
You can reach me here:
aasemoon.blue
Zorbas is my kitten. You can see some pictures of him below. =)
![DSC06989_w820_Aasemoon[1]](http://lothlorien.aasemoon.com/solothurn-fasnacht-2014/DSC06989.JPG.php "DSC06989_w820_Aasemoon[1]")
![DSC06945_w820_Aasemoon[1]](http://lothlorien.aasemoon.com/solothurn-fasnacht-2014/DSC06945.JPG.php "DSC06945_w820_Aasemoon[1]")
![DSC07238_w820_Aasemoon[1]](http://lothlorien.aasemoon.com/chinbase-2014/DSC07238.JPG.php "DSC07238_w820_Aasemoon[1]")
![i[1]](http://lothlorien.aasemoon.com/chinbase-2014/DSC07277x.JPG.php "i[1]")
![i[1]](http://lothlorien.aasemoon.com/chinbase-2014/DSC07202.JPG.php "i[1]")
