L’Escalade, or Fête de l’Escalade (from escalade, the act of scaling defensive walls), is an annual festival in Geneva, Switzerland, held each December in celebration of the defeat of an attempt to conquer the Protestant city by the Catholic Duchy of Savoy. Troops sent by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, attempted a surprise attack during the night of 11–12 December 1602, but according to legend, were repulsed by a cook who dumped boiling vegetable soup on the invaders before raising an alarm. The celebrations and other commemorative activities are usually held on 12 December or the closest weekend.

Fortunately, for the House we have Ilian, a proper Swiss. He explained the Swiss history to us and we watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDisM7UCq0U&t=49s. Ilian said that the tradition is the oldest and the youngest people within the group, together try and break the “marmite” (The pot) but as you see, when they have to break something, they become too excited and they do not listen to my instructions. Hopefully, Weiaho was recording already.

Suddenly, just after we did this ritual, we noticed it started to snow! First snow of the school year at CDL!