J is for Jura

I’m going to know a lot more about the Jura Mountains after I’ve been in Switzerland for a few days, but what I know now is this: The Jura Mountains border western Canton Vaud.  Canton means ‘district’ and a canton is a member state of the Federal States of Switzerland. The capitol of Vaud is Lausanne. The French pronunciation of Vaud is ‘vo’. I don’t speak French. Lausanne is a major producer of white wine.  This is a plus.

My son visited my sister’s family in Switzerland last summer and he gave me a list of a few not to miss items:

Visit the H.R. Giger Bar and Museum.  He didn’t go and really regrets it.  This is at the very top of my list, not because it is so metal and beyond cool, but it’s in the town of Gruyeres, and that means cheese, n’est pas?

He's requested that I bring back these cool French white-out pens.  I know this is a bad idea, because he not going to be using them for appropriate purposes, but I am curious why America can’t even dominate the white-out pen niche. 

There’s this Parmesan cheese with crunchy crystally bits they sell at the farmer’s market …  Ok, now we’re talking.  This is my child after all. Cheeeeeese.

The Jura Mountains will be there too, but will take a back seat to tagging pens, Alien bar and the beloved cheese.  For the record though:

The name "Jura" is derived from juria, a Latinized form of a Celtic stem jor- "forest". The mountain range gives its name to the Jurassic period of the geologic timescale.

Is that really a copper cauldron of melted gruyere?
this could be a problem

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop. 

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