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In theory, the focus of this blog isn't "what I did while my parents were in town," but rather "let's make fun of Switzerland," so with that in mind, this will (for the most part) be my last post about my parents visit. Fortunately, it involves a good deal of Swiss oddity, so I think everyone will be happy. Let's see, last we left off we were watching community musical theater in Rennes. After that, we drove down to the Loire Valley, checked out a troglodyte community, went to a couple of castles, and saw a huge swath of the French countryside. Our final stop in France was the former Roman town of Autun. If you are in Burgundy, I recommend stopping in Autun: it's a neat little town which still has it's original Roman wall, an awesome Romanesque cathedral, and ruins of an impressive Roman temple outside the walls. Although the most famous part of the cathedral -- the tympanum -- was closed off for restoration, you could still see the awesome ...

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, my nephew -- the one and only -- came to visit me this last week. My nephew, sister, and brother-in-law were in Italy for a little bit more than a week, then on Wednesday they took the train up to Sion, where I met them with a rental car. Sion was a convenient place to meet because it is fairly close to Italy (only 3 hours from Milan by train) and it is right in the middle of Valais, which is one of the most beautiful parts of Switzerland. Valais has been described to me as "Texas of Switzerland" by some of my colleagues, which has some truth to it. First, it is a fairly large (area-wise) canton that is not heavily populated. Second, Valaisians tend identify as Valaisians first and Swiss second. Finally, they love cows. When I visited Switzerland a few years ago, Serge took us all to Valais for an evening in a small chalet followed by a day of cow fighting, and I loved every minute of it. I wanted to recreate the experienc...