Don't tell the cow bread that we got locked out and had French toast

Greetings from Paris, where The Geeks are having a one week holiday before returning to the US.  Zurich Mama Geek and I have been here twice before, including once with Little Geek Girl when she was one.  Needless to say, LGG doesn't remember much, so it's a good chance to reintroduce her to one of our favorite cities.

After a very drawn-out discussion of where to go on our holiday, the actual doing of assembling this trip went pretty quickly.  Once we decided on Paris, we decided we wanted an apartment for the week and in only about one day, we found a place and booked it all online.  It took us only 10 minutes to decide to fly rather than take the train.  Once everything was pinned down, we decided that Auntie Geek really needed to come help ZMG celebrate their birthdays together - and in only 30 minutes we found a mileage ticket for AG, and she was set.    So, other than the four weeks of 'where should we go', we were actually really quick - for us, anyway.

Today, we closed up shop in our hotel in Zurich and arrived here.  After we met the rental agent here and got a quick lesson on how to make everything work in the flat, LGG and I headed out to the Jardin des Tuileries to visit the carousel and trampolines, stroll a bit, and watch people floating boats on one of the small ponds.  Then it was off to the supermarket for essentials and then out to dinner.

Well folks, we are certainly in a high-security building.  It turns out we need both keys to the apartment, not just one of them.  We rapidly discovered we were locked out, with dead cell phones, and the number for the agency was inside the flat.  Arrrgh - super stress moment, and ZMG and I started brainstorming on how we could solve the problem.  In the end, it was handled within about 30 minutes, and after our heart rates returned to normal, we moved off to a nearby brasserie for dinner.  

Which leads to the title of this post.  I had pâté and onions with toast, and LGG swiped some of my toast to see if French bread really was as good as ZMG and I have been telling her.  Of course, this put her in conflict with her current favorite bread, which comes in a package with cow print on it and tastes a bit like King's Hawaiian bread.  We call it 'cow bread'.  The problem is: if French bread is better, then how will the cow bread take to being relegated to second place?  So of course we can't tell the cow bread about the evening's events.

So: nobody tell the cow bread that we got locked out and had French toast, OK?

Handover is over

Yesterday was the handover and it happened without a hitch.  Well, two minor hitches.  

First, the handover was scheduled for 1 pm.  So I enter the building and go upstairs to the apartment around 12:55 am.  And the front door to the apartment is open and the guy from the cleaning company, two representatives from the management company, and the new tenants.  Oh yeah, we forgot, this is Switzerland where everyone arrives 10 minutes early.  I took the new tenants downstairs to show them the cellar and laundry room and when we came back upstairs, Zürich Daddy Geek had arrived and the management company ladies started going through the apartment noting all of the marks on the walls, etc.

At one point it was time to check the interior door keys.  Interior doors are locked with keys that kind of look like skeleton keys.  As soon as we moved in, I took all of the keys and put them away, to keep Little Geek Girl from playing with and possibly losing them.  After the movers left I looked at the keys.  Four of them were oriented one and the other two the opposite way.  So were the doors.  So I just put the keys in the door.  However, it turns out, each door has a unique key and at first the management company ladies were concerned when none of the doors were locked.  Then I explained what I had done and they returned all of the keys to their proper doors.

On the forums and mailing lists there are often horror stories of landlords bringing out the white gloves and checking the taps for mineral build-up.  We took care of cleaning issues by hiring a cleaning company which would guarantee cleanliness issues.  We were also a little worried about being assessed for damages to the apartment and having to deal with making claims to the liability insurance company.  I guess we took care of that by taking a 20 year old apartment that had not been recently renovated.  We've had the outside blinds serviced, the dishwasher and refrigerator replaced, and not been charged a thing.  When it was time to sign the paperwork, the representative told us that everything was in order and we would not be charged anything.  Whew.  

The Kindergarten Garden

Some Swiss kindergartens go into the woods once a week. However, Little Geek Girl's kindergarten has such a lovely garden, that they don't need to go to the woods, not when they have all this room for fun and adventures.

Here's a photo of the outside of the building. LGG's kindergarten is downstairs.


Here's LGG climbing the big structure. These types of structures were starting to be installed in Colorado when we left in 2007.


Here she is at the bottom of the slide at the bottom of the garden.


And here she is in a fun place to play amongst the trees.


And after several tries, here's a picture of her jumping mid-air on the trampolines. Sometimes after kindergarten she'll tell me she's so tired because she jumped over 100 times.


We will definitely miss the lovely Bergacker kindergarten garden.

Paris Interlude

In 2007, when we decided to come to Zürich, I declared that we would go to Paris in April 2009 to celebrate my 40th birthday. However, last fall I decided that maybe we should go somewhere new, but then preparations for moving kind of took over our lives. So, after considering many places, we have decided to go to Paris. Pretty funny, huh? Little Geek Girl really wanted to go to Italy (can you say gelato?) and it would have been warmer there and easier to feed her, but it's my birthday and I say we go to Paris. Great food, great sights, did I mention great pastries? And we're getting an apartment so we should have more room if we need to spread out, relax at home, or cook noodles for LGG. And we're using Zürich Daddy Geek's frequent flyer miles to fly Auntie Geek over so she can give us backrubs and babysit. I think that's a fair trade for a trip to Paris, don't you?

Some of our favorite things to eat in Zürich

On Wednesday, we happened to have lunch and dinner at a couple of our favorite haunts. Little Geek Girl doesn't like cigarette smoke (and who can blame her) so that limits the number of places we go out to eat.

For lunch, she was insistent on going to Nimmi's, an Indian and Sri Lankan place, for rice and mango juice. Nimmi's is located at Josefstrasse 137, 8005 Zürich. I think I found this place mentioned on English Forum, and then when I read this review, I knew we had to try it.

Kottu Rotti with lamb:


and Iddiyappam veggie plate:


Note: The kottu rotti, veggie plate, a plate of plain rice, three drinks, a lollipop and tip came the grand total of CHF 40.

The other place that we go to that is very touristy, but the food is good and they have a non-smoking section is the Zeughauskeller. I had still not yet had my very own wienerschnitzel, so I decided to order the small wienerschnitzel plate with veggies. Check out how "small" it is:


Underneath the schnitzel is some fennel and you can see green beans, carrots, spinach, potatoes au gratin and under the lemon are some peppers. Yum.

Empty Apartment

Movers have come and gone.  For the air shipment we've used up 150 kg out of 200 kg allowed, but we don't know how much volume that takes up.  Hopefully there will be room for a table and/or chairs, or more toys and books for Little Geek Girl.

The dryer is officially dead.  I thought the hauswart fixed it, or it was just a minor malfunction.  But he called the appliance people and the technician came this morning and decided to declare it dead because it was running too hot.  The apartment management will have to decide whether to repair the 16 year old dryer or replace it.  I can wash, and if there's room on the drying lines, hang dry clothes, but we'll probably have to borrow a washer/dryer over the weekend.

The apartment is empty except for the laundry detergent, which I will pick up on Friday when the cleaners come.  Now it's time to print out those cancellation letters, go visit the Notary and check things off the list.  

Good news in the free newspaper this morning.  Cafe Schöber, after being renovated for a year, has just reopened.  So we can try their world famous hot chocolate before we leave.

Another Snowy Moving Day

When we moved from Colorado in December, 2007 it was a snowy day.  Once again, we move on another snowy day.  It's not really accumulating, but there are flakes coming down.

Yesterday we started the process of de-registering.  Go to one office and fill out a form.  Go to another office, oh, it's too close to closing, come back tomorrow.  We need this magical piece of paper saying we're officially leaving the country so we can cancel most of our services.  The electric company was easy, we were able to call and give an address for the final bill.  But Cablecom and the insurance companies want a registered letter.

Movers are packing away.

Little Geek Girl likes her hotel room (it's decorated especially for a kid and has several large stuffed animals from IKEA, plus her own stuffed donkey to take with her) but she's not too crazy with the change in routine.  I woke up early to meet the movers (and unfortunately I thought they were arriving at 7 am and missed the hotel breakfast when it turns out my notes said they would arrive between 7:30 am and 8 am and they arrived at 8 am).  ZDG had to deal with LGG wanting to eat breakfast before changing clothes.  Eventually he got her changed, fed, and to kindergarten.

Whew...

I think the hauswart came and brought the dryer back to life.  Onward.

If it's not one thing, it's another

1. Our residence permits finally arrived today.  And we're probably going to go de-register today.  Pretty good timing, huh?

2. Little Geek Girl is pretty sad about the moving.  She's having trouble sleeping.   We all are.

3. The tumble dryer is no longer tumbling.  I've called the hauswart, thrown the laundry in the neighbor's dryer and am hoping she doesn't mind too much.  When we moved from the U.S., it was the washing machine that broke a month before we were supposed to leave.

4. Most things are sorted.  LGG should be home for lunch soon and she can pick her toys for the hotel and the air shipment.  

Another tooth gone

That second loose tooth finally came out. Actually Zürich Daddy Geek pulled it out Friday night. Here's a shot with her showing off the missing spot. You can also see the gap in the upper teeth because her middle incisors are getting loose.

Can I control the weather?

One of the things I like about our Swiss apartment is the underfloor heating. It makes the tile floors in the bathroom, hallway, and kitchen all the more comfortable. Earlier in the week it was getting warmer, so I decided to turn off the heat. Well, the day after I did that it started getting cooler, and then yesterday morning we had snow flurries. Last night, Zürich Daddy Geek decided it was too cold and turned the heat back on. This morning we have blue sky and it looks like it will be a glorious day. I wonder what will happen if I turn it off again?

Too bad we'll probably be inside organizing. At least we don't have to clean since we're paying a king's ransom for a company to do it and guarantee the management will accept the apartment. Technically we're supposed to clean the inside of the windows on the double paned glass and I think that's definitely something left for a professional. Plus there's the bird poop on the window sill outside of Little Geek Girl's room. Someone else can do that.

ZDG is back from his housing hunt and was successful. We'll tell you more about that later. This weekend we need to sort what we want to take with us on the plane, what we want shipped by air, and what we want shipped by boat, from the rubbish and stuff we want to give away. The moving company will dispose of rubbish at CHF 68/100 kg and since we don't have a car, that's a bargain. I have four trash bags left and I'm saving those for whatever remaining food trash we have. If it won't make a smell, it's going into the cellar. I'm recycling all the glass bottles from our condiments and making the last run to the grocery store today.

On Monday night we'll move into a hotel. The movers come on Tuesday to pack us up and load up the truck on Wednesday. This time the movers arranged to reserve a parking space for the moving van, so I don't have to do it like I was supposed to last year. Then we will go de-register at the immigration office and write letters to cancel everything and in the meantime we need to sign our new lease, get it notarized, send it back to the U.S. and work on getting renters/liability insurance and starting our U.S. utilities.

The cleaners come on Friday and then on the Monday the 30th we hand over the apartment. LGG will continue going to school until Monday the 30th and they'll have a little party for her.

Dentistry in Kindergarten

Yesterday Little Geek Girl's kindergarten class went to see the school dentist in the next neighborhood.  She was sent home with a letter with the following choices:

--  We think your kid has cavities

--  We need to talk about your kid's teeth (braces)

--  Your kid's teeth need to be cleaned better

--  Your kid should come again next year with the class.

The fourth box was checked off so we're off the hook.  They even do fluoride treatments in class, but we never filled out the paperwork so LGG hasn't received any.  And I'm not sure she would go along willingly to have something icky tasting in her mouth.  

Since we're talking about teeth, her 2nd loose tooth still hasn't come out.  In the meantime, three other teeth have started getting loose.  We've been calling her a shark because you can see the adult tooth right behind the loose but not coming out tooth.  

So important it's in ten languages

I think Spring might really be here.  On Monday Little Geek Girl was sent home with the snowflakes she had made and now they're getting ready to redecorate the kindergarten.  No pictures of the blue sky, snow drops, and crocuses because Zürich Daddy Geek has the camera to photograph candidate apartments/houses, but it sure is nice to hear the birds and see the world come back to life.

In today's mail we received something to the parents of kids and youth up to age 16 that live in the city of Zürich.  It's such an important message that it was printed in ten languages:  German, Italian, Albanian, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Spanish, Serbian, Croatian, and at the bottom, English.  The gist of the message is that there is a new law in Switzerland that bans imitation guns such as soft air guns and paintball guns.

Hmmmm... what about those adults with a very active inner child?  How will they find out?

Time is passing quickly

Not a lot is happening here, besides getting ready to move back to the U.S.  Ack!  

We've scheduled the movers, the cleaners and the handover date.  All of the stuff that we wanted to sell has been picked up except for the TV, iron, and vacuum cleaner, which will hopefully be picked up next weekend.  Zürich Daddy Geek is on a plane so he can go apartment hunting this week.  I'm making an inventory of our belongings and finding new homes for our unused food and cleaning supplies.  

We've started saying our farewells.  Wednesday night we had dinner with one of ZDG's colleagues.  Friday morning I went down to see the lovely Global Librarian and the adorable Global Baby.  Friday night we had dinner with our Swiss friends to help them break in their new table (luckily none of the Geeks were the first to spill on the new tablecloth).  Last night we had another family come over for a super Raclette feast.  We're all pretty tired and sad about leaving when we think about it. 

 The last major thing we need to do (besides find a new place to live) is to decide where to go on our vacation.  Last night our dinner guests almost convinced me that going to Capetown in South Africa might be possible, but I'm still not sure the long flights (however, without jet lag) will be worth it for only a week.  Who knows where we'll end up?  I hope we decide soon!

Opera Houses and Penguin Walks

Zürich Daddy Geek has just returned from traveling to Australia. Here's a picture of him in Sydney to prove he did go down under:


As part of his jet lag cure and to give me a break, he took Little Geek Girl to the Zürich Zoo the day he returned (his flight arrived from Singapore at 7:20 am). Apparently most of Zürich was there this past Sunday. This reminded me that I had not yet shared pictures of our snowy visit to the Zürich Zoo while Nai-Nai was here.

If the temperature is less than 10 °C, the penguins are taken for a stroll through the zoo. You can get pretty close to them:



Afterwards, we went to the rainforest exhibit to warm up. You can see bats, lemurs, chameleons, and other critters. Your glasses and camera lenses also fog up, creating a cool filter effect for free:

Happy Square Root Day!

Today, 3/3/09, is Square Root Day.  

The weird thing about it is that earlier today, Little Geek Girl was asking me what was the square root of a googol (it's 10^50).    And now, for my learn a new thing everyday.  I always thought the number 10^100 was spelled google.  Oops.

Anyways, I think LGG is appropriately named.

A Day Trip to Lausanne

Okay, this is called speed blogging. I think this is most number of photos I've ever included in a post and I'll try to describe them all before Little Geek Girl comes home from afternoon class.

When we visited Swiss Miniatur in Lugano, we saw this model of the Lausanne Cathedral, and we knew we had to visit Lausanne to see it in person.


We would have also like to visit the Chauteau de Chillon in Montreaux, but with our upcoming move, I didn't think we could leave for more than a day trip. We took the advice of Jessica over at Swisstory and got a Tageskarte, which was less than the round trip train fare and also included local transport in Lausanne.

The train ride was a little over two hours and our first order of business was to find lunch. However, the first place on my recommendation list smelled like an ashtray, so Zürich Daddy Geek pulled out his handy iPhone and found us Les Brasseurs, which is a chain in the French part of Switzerland, but also has a non-smoking room. Little Geek Girl had her favorite chicken nuggets, Nai-Nai had a yummy steak frites, I had steak tartare, and ZDG had steak of another four hoofed animal.

Afterwards we started walking on the path recommended by the tourist information office, when we were side-tracked by a little park. After being very patient on the train ride and the restaurant lunch, we agreed that LGG deserved a little time to run around. ZDG and LGG played while Nai-Nai and I basked in the sun and admired the French Alps on the other side of Lake Geneva.



After our little break we were ready to search for the cathedral. It wasn't very hard to find, and very impressive in person.

Here are a collection of ZDG and Nai-Nai's photos.








Afterwards we walked down the hill from the cathedral. Here are ZDG and LGG running down besides the stairs.


At the bottom of the stairs, we ended up at the Place de la Palud. While I was inside a shop, the others were entertained at 4 pm with music and moving figures.


If it's 4 o'clock and we're out, that's a perfect reason to stop for some restorative cake and coffee. We found a nice cafe to stop and rest. Next it was time to go see the lake. We took the metro down to Ouchy and right after we exited we saw this amazing play structure.


While ZDG and LGG played, they met an American boy and played with him. ZDG also used the opportunity to ask the boy's dad for a dinner recommendation. And it was a good one.

Nai-Nai and I admired the view of the French Alps.


For dinner we took the metro back to the cathedral area and had an excellent dinner at the Bleu Lezard. We had an excellent meal in the non-smoking room. We didn't want to get home too late, so we weren't able to linger and enjoy multiple courses, but everything we ordered was wonderful.

And it meant that ZDG could get an opportunity to take one last photo of the cathedral at night.

An excellent day. French food. French Alps.

On the train home, the theme of the kids car was space. And there was an American family with four kids for LGG to play with. So she played all the way from Lausanne to Bern.

Pictures from Bern

On our way home from Zermatt, we stopped in Bern for the afternoon and dinner. Here our some pictures from our visit.

Little Geek Girl watching the chess players (we always have to stop and watch).


Nai-Nai and LGG in front of the Houses of Parliment.


The Geeks in front of the Zytglogge (clock tower which was once part of the city's western gate).


Nai-Nai in front of the main portal of the Bern Münster.


And ZDG and LGG, who climbed to the top of the Münster while Nai-Nai and I sat inside listening to the organ play. (Today LGG asked me to name the fifty states of the U.S. and when I named Oregon, she said excitedly, "There's an instrument with the same name!").


We then wandered down to the bear pits, but somehow the bears did not get photographed. Since we were at the Altes Tramdepot we decided to stop for dinner. It was a little early, but we wouldn't have been able to get a table later since almost all of them were reserved. Nai-Nai and LGG had spaetzle and ZDG and I had rösti. We caught the 7:32 pm train to Zürich and were back at our apartment before 9 pm.

Signs of Spring

We've traded cold and gray snowy days for gray and cold rainy days.  However, there are a few signs that Spring is approaching.  The snowdrops are starting to bloom.  And today we had our first worm sighting.  Actually many skinny worms.  

Confetti everywhere

Yesterday Little Geek Girl and I went to visit the Rheinfalls with a friend and her daughter.  How could we live an hour away and not go visit the largest waterfalls in Europe?  Zürich Daddy Geek's in Australia with the camera, so no pictures for this post.

We met our friends at the Zürich Hauptbahnhof and took the direct train to Schaffhausen.  Unfortunately (for all of us) LGG's second loose tooth is painful, so most of the trip we had to listen to her whine about how much it hurt.  When we arrived at the Schaffhausen train station we looked for ticket machines for the bus, but when the bus arrived, we saw we could purchase tickets from the driver.  We took the bus to Neuhausen Zentrum.  As we got off the bus, we noticed that there was a sign on the stop saying that the buses would be out of service between 1:30 pm and 4 pm due to a Fasnacht parade.  We followed the yellow footprints down to the waterfalls.  Somehow we missed the stairs that went down right by the falls and took a farther out route as we went in search of a nice place to sit and eat and admire the falls.  The restaurant at Schöss Wörth was completely booked, so we ate at the snack bar.  

One of things I do to get ready for day trips is to take a look at map.search.ch for playgrounds.  I had noted that there weren't any playgrounds indicated near the falls, but it turns out there was a playground conveniently located so that girls could play while moms could sit and admire the view.  I have to admit, the falls were not as big as I thought that they would be, but they were pretty.

Afterward we walked back up to the city center and we were thinking of stopping for cake and coffee, when the Fasnacht parade came by.  The girls liked collecting candy, but unfortunately, the other little girl had long curly hair, and it was too much of an irresistible target for confetti bearing marchers.  We spent the rest of the parade protecting her hair from the confetti.  The Geeks didn't make it to either of the big Luzern or Basel celebrations, but I think a small 30 band parade was probably the way to go for the kids.  Oh, and we did stop for coffee and cake after the parade.

Anyways, I've made the first pass of vacuuming the confetti remnants, but I'm sure it will continue to appear for days.