Queen and King for a day

Tuesday was the holiday Epiphany. In the Catholic cantons it was an official holiday, but in Zürich, work and school were normal. However, Epiphany is celebrated with the eating of Dreikönigsbrot, or Three Kings Bread. One of the fathers in Little Geek Girl's kindergarten baked bread for her class. LGG found the king figurine in her piece of the bread and was crowned queen for the day. The teacher told me that one year the king and queen told her to sit in the corner and they took charge of the class for the day. LGG and the king sat in their thrones and the other kids were supposed to ask their permission to play and do other things. LGG didn't really take advantage of her position of power, other than to stay in the kindergarten and play instead of go to gym class.

That night we had a "mini" Three Kings Bread and Zürich Daddy Geek was the lucky finder of the king figurine. The bread reminded us a lot of King's Hawaiian bread with a glaze and almond slivers and sugar crystals. (Ummmmm... Hawaiian bread). We decided that ZDG could choose a day of the weekend to be king.

Yesterday, January 10, was both our one year anniversary of arriving in Zürich, and the day ZDG decided to be king. After eight overcast days, it was time to go up to the mountains to see some sun. The SBB was having a Railaway deal for Rigi and so there we went. We were a little slow and missed the train we wanted to take, but we took advantage of the time to pick up sandwiches and snacks for the train ride. Because the main reason for the trip was to go sledding!

I have to admit, on the first run, I was scared again and was positive I wouldn't do it again. However, I did another run and just accepted the fact that on the icy parts I would have to just be one with sled and hope I not crash too spectacularly. At least we now have accident insurance. The last two times we went sledding ZDG had accident insurance through work, but LGG and I didn't (it was during that three month period that we had to find insurance and could pay retroactively for it if we needed it). In Switzerland, if you have an accident and you have accident insurance, it's covered 100%. If you don't have accident insurance, then I hope your health insurance covers it, but then usually there's a deductible and other limits.

Part of the Railaway deal was food vouchers so we stopped after the second run for coffee and hot chocolate. ZDG and LGG went on another run and I enjoyed the sunshine and the view. Here's the view of the gorgeous mountains and the cloud layer below:


Well, I had to get down the hill somehow and so we went on the last sledding run together. By this time there was a lot more shade on the course and therefore more ice. ZDG had perfected the art of leaning over and using his arm as a brake for the curves and I kind of just went for it and hoped. We made it to the bottom, turned in our sleds, and hopped on the train down the hill.

It was an older style train with compartments. One bench had space for two people and the other had room for one and there wasn't very much legroom for anyone. I sat down in the space for one and ZDG sat down in the space for two with LGG on his lap, but that wasn't going to be practical. He tried to convince her to sit next to the young woman on the bench so he could have more legroom, but LGG remarked "That's a small seat for a big butt" resulting in laughter from the young woman. In the end I ended up sitting next to the young woman with LGG on the end and ZDG sat across. ZDG's German has improved such that he was able to hold a slightly more complicated conversation with the guy next to him.

On the train ride down the mountain we admired the frozen waterfalls and the moon and here's a shot out the window as we descended back into the cloud layer:


Goodbye sun, it was nice seeing you.