Geeks in Zürich

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, and goodbye

2009-07-05T21:30:00.004+02:00

We're still here, it's just a lot of what we've been doing has nothing to do with Zürich or Switzerland. However, whenever we hear the local church bells ring, it does remind me of living in Zürich. We didn't live in the direct line of fire of church bells, so the sound is still charming.

Okay, so what did we learn?

1. Don't name your blog after a particular place.

2. Maybe read the tax laws a little more carefully before you move abroad. Don't ask.

3. Explain to U.S. Congress that maybe they could've waited another year to pursue the tax evaders so we could keep our Swiss bank account a little bit longer to deal with 2009 Swiss taxes.

4. We had a fun time living abroad and if Zürich Daddy Geek has his way we'll do it again.

And don't worry, we haven't stopped blogging. We just have a new address. Come visit us at our new blog!

And the last thing we want to leave you with is a link to some cool pictures taken of the Space Shuttle Discovery over Switzerland. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can click on a cool shot that includes Luzern, the Zürichsee, and Zürich.

Some Bright Lights

2009-06-09T12:32:00.003+02:00

Last night Zürich Daddy Geek and Little Geek Girl went for a walk and saw the first firefly of the season.

And this morning ZDG and I were woken up at 6 am by a severe thunderstorm.

European numbers

2009-06-01T16:14:00.003+02:00

Little Geek Girl lived in Switzerland for 15 months. She refused to speak German, but she's acquired some European habits with regards to numbers.

Here in the U.S. when we count to three with our fingers, we first hold up our index finger, than our middle finger, and then our ring finger.

Here's LGG demonstrating the European way (thumb, index finger, middle finger).

She counts with her fingers the European way about 50% of the time.

Numbers are also written a little differently. The one has a little serif, and the seven has a line through it. Here's some of her handiwork done at kindergarten.

I think her numbers are okay for kindergarten, but they might think differently in first grade.

The last place you look...

2009-05-22T14:49:00.002+02:00

You know that silly saying, "You always find something in the last place you look"? Well, that was the case for us.

The weather has been gorgeous and we definitely need to take the bikes out for a spin. Little Geek Girl's helmet came on the air shipment, but we needed to find the adult helmets. Yes, we could ride without them, but, what kind of example are we setting, and did anyone notice I am a total klutz?

We thought they would be in one of the boxes marked "toys", but nope. "Ornaments", no. Finally, every box has been unpacked (unfortunately not put away yet), except the four boxes labeled living room books. I open three boxes and they mostly have books (hooray, my cookbooks!). I get to the last unopened box and I note that it's kind of light for having books. And there they are, two helmets, the video camera, and miscellaneous toiletries. Interesting interpretation of living room books. At least it motivated me to finish unpacking.

!@#$% Check Engine Light

2009-05-19T19:57:00.002+02:00

During grad school and our postdocs we were a one car family. However, when we moved to the suburbs in Colorado, we had to become a two car family. And when we moved to Zürich, we happily became a no car family. No paying for a parking space, no maintenance, no insurance, no worries.

However, back in the U.S., we could survive without a car, but it might mean no ice cream or milk in the summer, because the grocery store is 2 miles away and the buses aren't reliable. Yes, there are grocery delivery services, taxicabs, and insulated bags, so a car is not necessary, but it sure makes life easier. Thankfully we only needed one car because Zürich Daddy Geek can use public transport (when it's on time) to get to work.

It had been many, many years since we shopped for a car. Back in 1993 when we were living in different states, I bought a car from a colleague of ZDG's uncle and ZDG's dad helped him buy a truck. After that we kind of just inherited cars from various family members. And beggers can't be choosers so you take what you can get.

And now we had to choose a car. But we decided to look for an older car on Craigslist. And who knew that there was such a glut of 2000 - 2002 Honda Civics out there. But first things first, we had to get a local bank account. Because no one is going to accept an out of state personal check. And unlike Switzerland, where ebanking between personal accounts is a piece of cake, it's not as easy here. So after a first weekend of preliminary test driving, we realized we better get some moolah out of our old accounts into an easily accesible location -- how about the credit union in ZDG's building?

Okay, now we can shop for a car. After a couple more test drives, we made an offer on a vehicle, the guy wanted cash (as in lots and lots of hundred dollar bills) and we arranged a handover. I drove ZDG to the handover spot and headed home to feed LGG dinner and ZDG took the car for another spin and took care of the paperwork and the seller drove off. And the car wouldn't start. And did I mention it is now pouring rain?

Fortunately, the seller came back after ZDG called him and gave him a jumpstart and ZDG got the car home. However, the next morning, the car still wouldn't start, so I went across the street to the handy dandy auto part store to buy a new battery for ZDG to install. And we also joined AAA.

Luckily, city hall is in walking distance, so I can easily register the car. Except that it needs the emissions tested, so they give us license plates and we have a month and half to get the emissions tested. Something else to do. And, oh yeah, maybe we should have the 60K service done. That was done last Thursday. (And they recommend changing the timing belt, but we're hoping we can go a little bit longer before we have to do that expensive maintenance). And then last night (Monday), the !@#% check engine light turned on.

So this morning I called the mechanic to drop the car off. The code said transmision torque convertor circuit (gulp), but we hope that it was just a fluke. They reset the code and took it for a long drive and so far so good. So please keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I got some good walks in. The weather has been lovely, with blue skies, 70 deg, and a light breeze. So I walked 2 miles home from the mechanic's. Then 3.2 miles to the hosptial for a doctor's appointment, and then 1.2 miles to pick up the car. So I got to check out some more neighborhoods.

But life was a little less complicated without a car. Let's hope that I won't be writing about the car again any time soon.

A Quick Grandparental Visit

2009-05-19T16:02:00.002+02:00

My parents were in the area as part of an 8-day bus tour. Last night we drove up to meet them at their hotel to say hello and get some hugs and kisses.

It's always good to see Agong and Wai-Po. Hopefully they'll be back soon and for longer.

Um, excuse me?

2009-05-18T03:07:00.003+02:00

When it was time to get ready for the movers, I thought about leaving Little Geek Girl's German books behind. However, she wanted to keep them and after leaving so many of her toys behind in Colorado when we moved to Zürich, I decided not to make too many things disappear.

Now remember, LGG refused to speak German in kindergarten, even though she would frequently correct our pronunciation. But now, for her before the lights turn off book, she's looking and trying to read a German book on fairies. She's a weird one. But look at her parents.

So much to blog about...

2009-05-14T16:06:00.004+02:00

...so little motivation.

Well, first I wasn't motivated because I would have to go down to the lounge to blog. Now, I have so much that I don't know where to start. The loud noises of the new apartment? The fact that my new kitchen is probably twice as big as my Zürich kitchen but has less storage space? Buying a used car and not having it start after the seller drives off (okay after new battery, at the mechanics right now for a check-up)? The beautiful azaleas, rhododendrons, and irises blooming?

How about some pictures of Little Geek Girl for now and hopefully I'll catch up soon.

Springtime is for pretty dresses:

LGG is happy to be reunited with her trains. Henry the tank engine's plastic face fell off as a result of the move, but that should be easily repaired with some Superglue.

My lovely Mother's Day painting.

Another pretty girl in a pretty dress.

We're having one of LGG's classmates who also lives in the building over for a playdate this afternoon, so I need to straighten up and resist the internet and the books.

Online again!

2009-05-12T17:43:00.003+02:00

Woohoo! Twenty days after ordering our internet, we finally have it. Unfortunately I had to miss Little Geek Girl's Music Show, but she seemed okay with the idea. She's very excited about the chicks hatching out of the incubator at kindergarten. Three out of the ten chicks have hatched. So far they have been named Peep, Shadow, and Diamond.

Now I have to be careful not to be sucked into the internet. There's unpacking to be done!

When all else fails, call them toys

2009-05-09T21:17:00.002+02:00

After the movers left, we were kind of amazed to see that there were 13 boxes marked toys. I knew that Little Geek Girl had a lot of toys, and that there were probably books and clothes mixed in with the toys, but 13 boxes of the medium and large size!

However, when we started unpacking, we realized that the movers decided near the end of packing decided that if they couldn't decide what to call the stuff in the boxes, they would call them toys -- ie towels, misc tubs, definitely not toys. Kind of like what Angela ran into with the packers calling everything "linens" over on Continental Drift. I was thinking that I was going to have to do a serious weeding out of toys, but there weren't as many as we thought. And we've already decided to give the Duplos to a friend's son, so there's hope that we can try to thin out the toys a little bit. In the meantime, LGG is thrilled to be with her toys again and there are toys everywhere. Zürich Daddy Geek leaves for a business trip tomorrow, so we have tomorrow to play and straighten up.

When we moved from Colorado to Zürich, we were afraid we might have to pay for some of the shipping, so we went through everything to make sure nothing was packed that we didn't want move. During this last move, things were so hectic that we tried to thin things out, but we didn't go through the rooms as thoroughly as we should have. And therefore an ant trap was packed with LGG's toys. Fortunately the icky stuff didn't get all over her toys, but next time, look for ant traps before the movers come. Hopefully we don't find too many more unpleasant surprises. I'm a little disappointed they didn't pack her books by themselves (they were mixed up with clothes and toys so some of the paperbacks are bent) but I know our books were packed separately and hopefully survived the journey.

Nein, danke

2009-05-09T01:34:00.002+02:00

We've been here four weeks and I haven't had any of the usual language difficulties I run into (of course it might help that we're in the country of my mother tongue rather than switching from German to Italian or French). Except that tonight when the waitress came to take our check, I told her "Nein, danke. We're not ready yet." I didn't even know I said the first part, but Zürich Daddy Geek was nearby and heard me.

However, Little Geek Girl is learning Spanish in kindergarten, so when I find my big pile of notecards it will be time to make new notecards.

The movers came early and unloaded and assembled. We took LGG to the doctor and she has a tickle in her throat that seems to be bothering her, but she probably makes it worse trying to get rid of it. I had called my doctor earlier and she prescribed some cough syrup with codeine for me, so hopefully I'll sleep tonight.

Stuff, stuff, and more stuff!

2009-05-08T02:03:00.002+02:00

So the doctor diagnosed an ear infection, and possibly a sinus infection too, so I'm on antibiotics. My hearing is still diminished in that ear, so I'm going to call and see if that's normal. I'm also going to call because both Little Geek Girl and I are still coughing an awful lot at night. Her cold ended about two weeks ago, but she's still coughing. My nighttime cough sounds different than the daytime cough and it sucks.

Tomorrow the rest of our household goods arrive! I look forward to having furniture, but I'm not looking forward to unpacking and dealing with the stuff I put off dealing with in Zürich before we left. We moved some broken electronics (iPod and camera) but I thought it would be easier to Freecycle (there's got to be a kid out there that wants to take them apart) or dispose of here than in Zürich.

Five days until internet in the apartment...

Okay, okay, I'm going to the doctor

2009-05-04T16:03:00.002+02:00

Dear aunties and cousins, I have scheduled an appointment for tomorrow to have my ears checked. No more fevers at night and I think it's getting better, but yes, it's better to be safe than sorry.

So, now for the compare and contrast with Switzerland part of the post. In Switzerland, everyone is required to have health care and you are required to prove it within three months of arrival. We actually didn't choose our company right away, because we were waiting until we had a permanent address and the insurance rates are dependent on your residence. So even though we arrived in the country on January 10, we didn't sign up for insurance until the beginning of April. But if anything had happened health-wise in those first three months, it would have covered it retroactively (because of course we had to pay the premiums for those months).

Zürich Daddy Geek and I never had a need to go to the doctor while we were there, so we don't know how hard it would have been to get an appointment, but it was pretty easy to get Little Geek Girl in with a pediatrician.

Now we're in the U.S. In California and Colorado we had always been pretty happy with Kaiser, but we weren't sure how good it was here and so we decided to go with a PPO. I sent a couple emails out over the weekend asking locals for practice recommendations. I call the first one, they're accepting new patients, but not until July. The second practice, no appointments for two weeks, but I can call back this afternoon to see if they have any cancellations for tomorrow. Finally, third practice, I can get an appointment for tomorrow. What if I was in excruciating pain? I think I need to call LGG's pediatric office to find out their policy on same day appointments.

Ear Infection

2009-05-01T18:57:00.003+02:00

We have been very lucky that Little Geek Girl has only had one ear infection. Well, this time it's my turn to have the ear infection. Thursday night my ear was completely plugged up and quite painful. It got a little better after some decongestant and ibuprofen. Friday night I had a high fever. I think they usually work themselves out even without antibiotics so it just depends on how painful it gets. At least our health care cards arrived in the mail yesterdy so I don't have to explain to someone that we *do* have insurance, just not the cards.

Just another little stumbling block on the transition back to life in the U.S.

And ten more days until internet in the apartment. We're not counting or anything.

I'm not ready for Costco

2009-04-30T19:23:00.003+02:00

We lived in Zürich for 15 months. Long enough to survive the stress of finding an apartment in a tight housing market, settle in, and realize that we would have been happy to stay longer, but life happens and here we are back in the U.S.

Today I went to Costco to get a membership and a vacuum cleaner, among other things. (Mom had been paying for my membership previously but I decided that maybe I'm old enough now to pay for my own membership). Costco is a warehouse store where you can buy large volumes of stuff at reduced prices. The joke was that in Switzerland, you would pay twice as much for half as much (the anti-Costco).

However, I'm not ready to buy tons of stuff at bargain prices. Although that's what I'd do in Zürich. If my laundry detergent was on sale and I had a free hand, I would buy it. And then I ended up giving away two bottles of the stuff when we moved. I don't know why, but I'm just not ready to do it here.

New Country, New Colds

2009-04-22T14:22:00.003+02:00

One of the first things I wanted to do when we landed back in the U.S. was to get Little Geek Girl a physical, so she could attend school as soon as possible. Our insurance coverage wouldn't start for a couple of weeks, but I was willing to pay out of pocket to get her in school sooner rather than later. Last week I took her in for a physical and on Thursday she had her first day of kindergarten.

The school is located at the top of a hill and there isn't a lot of parking, so all of the kids are strongly encouraged to ride the bus. However, I drove her in and picked her up the first day. She's the 24th kid in her class (compared to 14 in her Zürich kindergarten). Kindergarten is all day and they eat lunch at school. On the first day, LGG didn't eat much lunch and was starving when I picked her up from school.

On the second day she took the bus with the other kids. We were a little concerned because in Zürich she never wanted to sit next to a stranger. But, she got in line to get on the bus and in the afternoon she got off the bus. She said she knew she was at the right stop because she recognized the sign for a nearby business.

On Sunday she was complaining about a headache and Sunday night she had a fever. So we kept her home from school on Monday and Tuesday. The school handbook doesn't outline specific things for keeping your kid home from school, but we figured high fever was probably a given. It's funny, for the fifteen months that we were in Zürich, she only missed two days of school and here, she's already missed two days of school. She had colds while we were there, but they were usually during the holidays.

On Wednesdays the kids are let out two hours earlier and she was feeling better, so she's off to school now.

Which way does the door swing?

2009-04-16T18:27:00.002+02:00

I'm back in the lounge using the internet to research dentists and a German-to-English translator.

After 15 months of living abroad, I am now utterly confused on predicting whether a door should be pulled or pushed. By the time we left Zürich I was at about a 75% success rate, and here I'm only at 25%. One day I'll figure it out again. Maybe

A tale of two Sundays

2009-04-16T17:21:00.003+02:00

We still don't have internet access in the apartment, but in the lounge of our building there's free wifi. But there's still lots to do, like choosing our benefits and filing moving expenses, so blogging will be sporadic. But we did manage to file our taxes on time. We need to decide what to do about this blog because we're obviously not in Zürich anymore, but since a lot of our posts will inevitably be comparisons to our life in Zürich, we'll blog here for now.

Our last Sunday in Zürich was a potentially stormy day. Little Geek Girl was very eager to try out the hotel pool, so she and Zürich Daddy Geek went upstairs to try to pool. Meanwhile I made arrangements to meet friends at the University of Zürich Zoological Museum, aka the stuffed animal museum. After showers and a quick lunch, we took the tram down to the museum. We met our friends there, who had never been, and had fun showing it off to them. Then we went to the Poly Terrace to look at the view and let the kids run off some steam. We had saved some of LGG's birthday sparklers and we lit them so everyone could have lots of luck. The kids were hungry, so we decided to go to Zeughauskeller for dinner. Then ZDG took the kids up to the playground by the Lindenhof so the moms could chat a little bit. The ferris wheel for Sechselauten was set up at Burkliplatz and we decided to ride on the ferris wheel. As we were walking along the river it was 7 pm daylight time, and the bells from the Grossmünster, Fraumünster, and St. Peter's were all ringing. We didn't live too near any church bells, so they're a pleasant sound to us, and it was a bittersweet sounding farewell to downtown Zürich. After the ferris wheel ride we said farewell to our friends.

On our first Sunday in the U.S. we desperately needed lamps, because our apartment didn't have them in the bedrooms or living room. It also happened to be Easter Sunday and Target was closed. But IKEA was open, so we drove to IKEA, dropped LGG off at the playplace and purchased some lamps and Poangs so we don't have to sit on the floor while we wait for our sea shipment to arrive hopefully at the end of May. A little different from no shopping Sundays in Zürich.

And the last thing to note is that for the first couple of days, ZDG and I kept forgetting to put on our seat belts. After 15 months of using public transportation I guess we got used to not buckling up. I think we're used to it now, and LGG is keeping us honest. ZDG has been taking the bus to work and today was LGG's first day of school and tomorrow she'll start taking the school bus. Again, very different from being able to walk her to school 10 minutes away and her walking her by herself almost home.

Temporarily Offline

2009-04-12T13:10:00.002+02:00

We had a great time in Paris, and even though we had an internet connection, we were so busy we didn't really have time to post. I feel kind of silly now having packed a small suitcase of toys, when Little Geek Girl spent the trip walking and playing all over Paris and then drawing or reading with us when we were in the apartment. Unfortunately, one of us came back with an intestinal bug, so things have been moving slowly in Geekworld. The comical thing is that I had been hesitant to go to Africa without getting all the shots and food poisoning strikes in Paris.

We arrived in the US Thursday night and we're getting ready to move to the apartment today. Yesterday I picked up some airbeds from some friends, but, we still need lighting, so LGG and I will make a trip to IKEA. We haven't had a chance to set up telephone or internet service, so I'll be offline except for when I go to the library or Panera Bread for free wifi.

Thanks everyone for your good wishes and thoughts. We'll be back soon.

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

2009-03-31T23:29:00.003+02:00

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

2009-03-31T07:15:00.002+02:00

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

2009-03-27T11:20:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-27T10:36:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-27T10:16:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-25T11:23:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-24T09:50:00.002+01:00

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...

2009-03-23T12:32:00.001+01:00

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

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

2009-03-23T11:56:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-22T10:13:00.002+01:00

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?

2009-03-21T07:16:00.004+01:00

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

2009-03-18T09:14:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-17T09:32:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-15T13:58:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-09T19:42:00.003+01:00

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!

2009-03-03T16:53:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-03T14:39:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-03T14:16:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-03T11:34:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-02T16:33:00.002+01:00

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.

She did it!

2009-02-24T16:56:00.002+01:00

Okay, so I looked up the distances according to Google Maps. From Little Geek Girl's Kindergarten it's a 1/4 mile walk on a not very busy street, then she needs to go down a hill next to a busy street for 328 ft, and then cross a busy street and continue on 180 ft to our building.

It really isn't very far, but it's still a little worrisome to have your child walk by themselves the first time. But apparently she's more ready than I am.

Morning class ends and I'm in the kitchen looking out the window. By 15 minutes after class gets out I get a little impatient, so I head downstairs. By the time I get outside I can see she's heading down the hill. I cross the street and meet her at her side of the crosswalk.

This afternoon she was not as slow. About 10 minutes after the end of class I saw her at the top of the hill. By the time I got to my side of the crosswalk, she was on her side of the crosswalk.

Happy 6th Birthday Little Geek Girl!

2009-02-23T19:07:00.007+01:00

We're a little behind in blogging our adventures with Nai-Nai, but that's because someone turned six years old today. Zürich Daddy Geek dropped Little Geek Girl off at kindergarten this morning and called me to say her school party would be at 10 am.

Nai-Nai and I went up the hill to watch the proceedings. When we arrived, LGG had already been given her crown and her necklace made of cookies. She got to pick which kids closed the blinds of the room. The she sat at the head of the table and assigned the kids to their seats at the birthday table. The kids sang happy birthday and another song. Then the teacher and all of the students took turns holding LGG's hands and wishing her something for her birthday. I have to admit I was getting a little teary at this point. Here's Nai-Nai giving LGG her birthday wishes:

For the "unlikely to ever happen in the U.S." portion of this post, here's the birthday sparkler that every kid gets on their birthday:

Then the kids feasted on bread and chocolate that we had brought for the birthday celebration. I went home to bake and Nai-Nai spent the rest of the morning playing in the kindergarten with LGG.

ZDG decided to leave work early so he could pick up LGG from afternoon class. However, she chided him because now that's she's six, she plans to walk all the way down the hill to the crosswalk near our flat. We'll see how that works out starting tomorrow.

We started off with some cake. LGG had requested "cow cake", aka marble pound cake. Here she is blowing out the candles. I had put the plastic wrap to protect the cake from splatter, but it was actually more important for protection from ZDG getting candle wax everywhere.

Among other things, LGG received books (Pet Jokes, Narnia, Magic School Bus),

Clothes,

Kung Fu Panda (here she is in her Tigress pose),

and a Webkins Tiger.

Wednesday afternoon she'll be having another party with friends. It's hard to believe that she's already six years old!

We're off the hook...

2009-02-20T13:01:00.003+01:00

On Wednesday we received the letter stating that someone would take over our lease. Hooray!

Hopefully more detailed posts will follow, but if you're wondering, we went to the Zürich Zoo on Monday, Tuesday was a snowy day so we stayed home, on Wednesday Nai Nai and LGG went to the stuffed animal museum and lunch with ZDG, on Thursday Nai Nai went on an adventure on her own shopping in downtown Zürich and LGG and I went to a friend's house for lunch and play, and today we're going for a walk in the woods. Tomorrow we have a day trip planned to Lausanne.

From Z to Sunny Z

2009-02-16T21:50:00.009+01:00

It was snowy and grey in Zürich last week, and Nai-Nai is a fan of the mountains, so The Geeks took a trip to the Alps last weekend. The Swiss railways were having a sale on two deals for Zermatt, so we decided to get a hotel there for a couple of nights, enjoy being really touristy, and hopefully have good weather.

We had a choice of two train options: the fast (about 3.25 hours), slightly less scenic, but less expensive route or the Glacier Express, which is slower (about 8 hours), more scenic, and slightly more expensive. In the event, they were sold out of the Glacier Express tickets, so I got tickets for the fast train, which turned out to be a good thing, as 3.25 hours was just about LGG's limit that day.

It was snowing heavily as we boarded the bus to the Hauptbahnhof for our train to Visp, but the sun broke out as we left the station. Along the way, we ate lunch and LGG and I worked on a Sudoku puzzle together

and a bit later LGG enjoyed playing in the kid's car at the end of the train

It's a bit crazy to have a slide and small climbing structure inside a train car, but it's a really nice idea for families. The car is completely separate from the rest of the train, so kids can be as noisy as they like while they burn off energy. It was great for LGG to have the break.

We arrived in Zermatt and headed to our hotel to unpack and settle a bit. While the adults debated what to do, LGG did what she usually does:

She was utterly oblivious to us taking the picture -- normally she complains when we try to take pictures of her. She is reading The Little Prince.

The kind desk clerk at our hotel helped us make dinner reservations, and recommended a good cafe for Zvieri. We penguin-walked our way down to the cafe (the only way to walk when the ground is very icy and snowy) and after a nice snack waddled our way through the early evening streets

Nai-Nai noted that Zermatt reminded her of Mammoth Lakes in eastern California, or more correctly that Mammoth Lakes was clearly modeled on Zermatt.

Next, we headed off for a classic Swiss dinner of fondue:

Yum! (And thanks to Zürich Mama Geek, who didn't really want fondue but was kind enough to have it so I could have it -- Nai-Nai and cheese don't mix well.) Finally, it was time to head back to the hotel and bed.

Side note: LGG and I shared one room while ZMG and Nai-Nai shared the other. It might seem unfair that they had to share the bed, but (a) their room was bigger and (b) they weren't sharing with LGG. The first night, LGG woke me up by growling in her sleep and saying 'Hungry Tiger!' (which she vehemently denies, but I swear really happened). The second night, I woke up to find that she had taken both blankets -- one to be another pillow and the other for a blanket. Sure, ZMG snores, but at least she isn't a hungry, blanket-stealing tiger!

The next morning, we woke up to gloriously clear and very cold weather: it was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 to -10 Celsius) in Zermatt and sunny. Our special deal tickets included a round-trip on the Gornergratbahn, so even though it was -10 Fahrenheit (-23 Celsius) with a 10-20 km/hr wind at the top, off we went. As we turned the corner near our hotel, what did we see for the first time?

"It looks like a giant thumb sticking up into the air, Dada!" The Matterhorn is pretty amazing, and it was just one of many mountains we could see from the Gornergrat (3100 meters up).

After taking a bunch of pictures at the summit, freezing, and then having a nice lunch, we headed down to rent the sleds that were also part of the special ticket.

LGG and I took three rides together, ZMG had two, and then I took two solo rides at the end of the day while the rest of the gang rested in the warm cafe. Here's LGG doing her best imitation of a certain landmark:

We headed down and Nai-Nai snapped this sunset shot before we headed off to the hotel to warm up.

The next day, we headed back to Zurich via Bern to show Nai-Nai the Swiss capital; we'll post on that soon.

Like Mother, Like Daughter, Take 2

2009-02-11T22:08:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post following up on the theme of ZMG's post on reading...

It's now 10 PM and time for LGG to turn out the lights and go to sleep. I just went in to do that, and she earnestly said, "Dada, I just want to read to here - it's only two more pages". Which is very similar to ZMG's usual response when I point out that it's 11 PM and she has been reading for "just a few more minutes" for the past two hours: "I just want to read to the end of the chapter."

You'll note she never specifies which chapter.

Luzern Swiss Transport Museum

2009-02-11T21:35:00.003+01:00

The forecast for yesterday was for rain and wind, so we decided to go to the Swiss Transport Museum in Luzern. It was misting a little bit as we left our apartment for the Hauptbahnhof.

Here are Little Geek Girl and Nai-Nai in the fun seats in the back of the Cobra style trams. Nai-Nai is trying out her German looking at one of the free newspapers.

We arrived at the station and purchased Railaway tickets that combined the train ticket and entrance to the museum. Here are Nai-Nai and LGG and LGG's donut on the train for Luzern.

It's a pretty ride from Zürich, with stops in Thalwil, Baar, Zug, Rotkreuz and then Luzern. Nai-Nai enjoyed the view of the countryside and towns. As we were getting closer to Luzern I noticed that there was more blue sky and less rain, so we decided to take a walk through the town before going to the museum.

From the Luzern train station we walked towards and across the Chapel Bridge. A lot of the normal panels were covered with different panels, I believe in preparation for the Fasnacht (Swiss Mardi Gras) celebration which starts on February 19. On the other side of the river we had lovely views of Pilatus (Dragon Mountain). We then strolled through the town and up towards the Lion Monument. We then walked towards the lake and caught a bus to the Swiss Transport Museum.

After lunch we wandered throught the flight portion of the museum. LGG's favorite part was a suspended ring that multiple people could lie on and look down at video that simulated paragliding. She also enjoyed the space flight portion of the museum. There were lots of interactive exhibits.

My favorite part was Swiss Arena -- a composite aerial photo of Switzerland at 1:20,000 scale. Here's LGG pointing out our neighborhood.

Being able to "walk" on Switzerland was fun.

After Swiss Arena we continued on to the road transport and rail transport sections and then the museum closed. The museum also has a planetarium and an IMAX theater so it would be no problem to spend the whole day there.

We took the bus back to the main station and the train back to Zürich, where Zürich Daddy Geek met us and we went out to dinner. After we got home, ZDG and LGG headed off to gecko-sit for some friends who went skiing during the ski holiday. LGG loved it when the geckos chomped down on their crickets, but she also decided that she wouldn't go the next time if it was raining (wise choice, my dear).

Today we had a little bit of everything weather-wise. Rain, snow, and sunshine. One of the cleaning companies was going to come by this morning for a pre-clean survey and LGG had a occupational therapy appointment this afternoon, so we decided today was a good day to catch up on laundry and rest. Especially because tomorrow we're going to Zermatt!

Nai-Nai's walk in the woods

2009-02-10T06:45:00.003+01:00

Day 2 of Nai-Nai's visit and we woke to partially cloudy skies. We knew this was probably the best day of week locally and were trying to decide where to go on a day trip. Basel for the zoo? Luzern and the Swiss Transport Museum? But when the bits of blue sky kept appearing, I decided to call Zürich Daddy Geek to see if the top of the Uetliberg was visible. It was and when I mentioned that option to Little Geek Girl, she was insistent that we go up there.

After the trolley and tram ride to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof we went downstairs to look for the ZVV office on the lower level. However, they're doing construction and the office had moved. Even though there was a map, we couldn't find it (turns out it was on the intermediate level). No worries, we wanted to pick up Nai-Nai's Half Fare Card, but that could wait until after our adventure in the woods.

We took the S10 up to the Uetliberg stop. LGG wanted to show Nai-Nai the playground. She also managed to fly off the slide and land on her rear, but fortunately we had put some rain pants on her to protect her clothes from the snow. We then walked up to the top to show Nai-Nai the view. It wasn't completely clear, but clear enough that we could see the Alps. We decided to climb the observation tower. When we started up the tower, we had noticed that they had started to cordon off the area, but no one stopped us from going up. It was windy at the top and LGG had a little too much fun cleaning the snow off the bars of the guard rail. On our way down we passed two policeman and a guy carrying a tool chest. After we came down from the tower they closed access. There were more policeman standing around looking up, and when we turned around, we saw the guy climbing up the tower. Perhaps doing maintenance work?

We went back down the hill to the turn off to continue the Planet Walk. (You pass the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth and then you have to decide whether to go up the hill to see the view or turn down to continue the planet walk. From the hill there are a set of stairs that you can take down, but then you miss Mars and Ceres and those stairs are also steep and no fun covered in snow). We continued on to Saturn, about a mile away. We would have like to continue on all the way to Pluto, but LGG was moving slowly and complaining about her pants not staying up, so we decided it was wise to turn around.

We took the train back down to the Hauptbahnhof and stopped at the Marche restaurant for lunch. We went to the main ticket office to buy Nai-Nai's half fare card and then we walked along Bahnhofstrasse to the "fancy toy store" (Franz Carl Weber). LGG took the dragon slide down to the lower level and met us there. We explored two out of the four floors and then we stopped off next door at Confiserie Honold to pick up some treats for after dinner. We took the tram/trolley back to our neighborhood, showed Nai-Nai the local grocery store, and then went home to rest and cook dinner.

Nai-Nai's observations on our adventure in the woods: She thought it was beautiful, serene, and she really liked the whistle of the S10. The whistle made her realize that she really was in Switzerland.

Back on the home front, ZDG called a couple cleaning companies to make appointments for getting quotes. Cleaning an apartment for move-out to exacting Swiss standards is more than I want to deal with right now, so this is definitely something we plan to outsource. Yesterday I received a call from England requesting an appointment for a viewing next week. That suggests that the advert was still on the internet yesterday (the agency is in charge of the internet advert - which is nice because we don't have to pay for it). However, the advert is not longer posted today, so that gives us hope.

Grandma's Day 1 Observations

2009-02-08T17:24:00.004+01:00

Last night Zürich Daddy Geek's mom arrived. Little Geek Girl calls her Nai-Nai, which is Chinese for "father's mother". ZDG used his frequent flyer miles to buy Nai-Nai first class tickets from San Francisco to Munich and then Zürich. Nai-Nai enjoyed being treated like royalty and arrived at the Zürich Airport while it was raining.

We got her home and she stayed awake long enough to read LGG a couple of bedtime books. We had zopf and nutella for breakfast, in belated honor of World Nutella Day. After freshening up, we took the bus up the hill to show Nai-Nai where ZDG's office used to be, and then headed to Zürich city proper. We walked along the narrow path along the west side of the Limmat River. Did I mention it was snowing? LGG was getting cold and hungry so we went to Zeughauskeller for lunch, where we introduced Nai-Nai to the Zürich specialty of Zürcher Kalbsgeschnetzeltes mit Rösti. We walked to Burkliplatz and tried to feed the ducks but there were a lot seagulls around. We wanted to walk further along the Zürichsee, but it was getting cold, so we decided to head home (after stopping at Sprüngli for some Luxemburgerli).

So, when we got home, we asked Nai-Nai her first impressions of Zürich.

1. The part of Zürich that we live in reminds her of Portland, Oregon.

2. It's very clean.

3. She thought the sheds in the community gardens looked kind of like a shantytown.

Stay tuned for more observations from Nai-Nai.

All good things...

2009-02-08T08:22:00.002+01:00

You may have noticed we've been a little quiet over here. It's been cold and the normal things in life (work, school, laundry, groceries, dishes, rinse, and repeat) are keeping us busy.

We also have some unexpected news: we're moving back to the U.S. in April.

In 2007 when we were preparing to move here, we really thought we'd be here many years. We sold the house, the cars, the electronics, 90% of the stuff we had (which we haven't missed - we clearly had too much stuff). We came here and put Little Geek Girl in a Swiss kindergarten, got our Swiss driving licenses, took German lessons, learned to (partially) read the free newspapers. We really came to love the tradition of Zvieri (coffee and snacks at 1600).

But then a really good opportunity came up back in the United States for Zürich Daddy Geek. He didn't apply at first, but I pointed out that he would always regret it if he didn't, so he applied. (Four of his close friends also told him the same thing...) To our surprise, he was offered the job, so we had to decide. It made for an interesting Christmas and early New Year.

In the end, we decided to take it. Professionally, it's a once-in-a-career chance for ZDG. It's also a good choice for me, and LGG has now recovered from bursting into tears when we told her. She represented what we all felt: we've been here just a year, so we're pretty sad about the decision to leave this beautiful country and different pace of life, but it's too good an opportunity to pass up. (We know this is true: ZDG's boss told him he'd be crazy not to take it.)

Unfortunately we made the decision too late to give three month's notice for our apartment. We're still leaving, but if we don't find someone to take over our apartment, we're responsible for the rent until the end of September. GULP. So, the apartment is spruced up, my German is getting better fielding calls from people who want to view the place, and all of our fingers and toes are crossed that we'll get a call saying someone has signed a contract.

And just for the record: Zvieri will be imported to the US!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

2009-02-04T09:59:00.003+01:00

Leave us alone. We're reading.

She likes to look at books before bedtime.

And then there were five

2009-01-29T09:20:00.002+01:00

Today I dropped Little Geek Girl off at kindergarten, and the teacher told me that only five out of the fourteen kids were going to be there. The kids have been dropping like flies. LGG had a couple of feverish episodes on Saturday, but other than a persistent cough, she's been okay. Keep fingers crossed and hand sanitizer available.

Skating on the Katzensee in my new coat

2009-01-17T21:04:00.006+01:00

It has been mostly cold and grey in Zürich since we returned from the States, a damp, lingering, foggy, overcast kind of cold. This is a feature of Zürich - fogs that linger for some weeks, and even when the sun breaks through in the afternoon, the fog reforms at night. It's actually rather like the Central Valley of California when the tule fog comes.

One side effect of the cold is that I decided I would finally buy myself a topcoat - a mantel in German. LGG and I headed out to some nearby stores to look for something suitable. After a bit of searching, I found just the thing - a knee-length dark charcoal double-breasted topcoat with some nice pocket space, that will go well with either a suit or casual clothes. It was even on sale for less than an equivalent coat in the States (even after you factor in the exchange rate)! My fashion consultant LGG approved the style, and the deal was done.

The other side effect of our lingering deep cold is that some of the smaller lakes in Zürich canton have frozen over. I saw a story in one of the local free papers noting that the Katzenseen, two lakes just down the road from our place, might freeze heavily enough for the ice to break the magic 14 cm thickness. What's so great about 14 cm thick ice, you ask? Keep reading...

The last bit of the puzzle is we had a very bright, sunny day today, with temps just around freezing. Definitely a day to go outside.

What do these all have to do with each other? How 'bout a picture:

That's me in my new coat, holding LGG's hand while we ice skate on the Unterer Katzensee under mostly clear, bright blue skies. The more-than-14-cm-thick ice was great, and covered with a thin layer of snow that helped LGG by giving just enough resistance to her skates. ZMG and LGG also had some solo skating fun; here, she is 'flying' (a Flying Tiger? Sorry.):

It was also nicely bumpy which gave some fun to zipping around a lake we visited several times this year.

While we were out, we ran into two of LGG's school friends with their parents, and the teacher for a music and dance class LGG took over the summer. I also recognized a number of folks from our neighborhood out there.

After we skated, we met some friends who live on the other side of the Katzenseen and played a bit on the smaller of the two lakes. Then it was off to their place for some homemade hot chocolate - yum! - accompanied by artichoke dip and chips - yum! - and other snacks while LGG and their kids alternately played, watched a movie, and played some more, and the adults talked and played pass-the-baby. It was a fun way to end a casual day out.

That round orb in the sky

2009-01-12T14:49:00.003+01:00

Yesterday afternoon we took an afternoon walk through the snow covered forest. We pointed out the feathery frost covering the bushes to Little Geek Girl. I thought Zürich Daddy Geek was calling it "Rhein" frost, as in the Rhein river, but it's actually rime frost. See, I learn a new thing everyday.

This morning while I was waiting for LGG to come home from morning class, I took the opportunity to take some photos of the rime frost on the way.

After I dropped her off for afternoon class I went up the hill for a walk and there the rime frost was even thicker, but I had left the camera at home. But even more exciting was that after ten overcast days in a row, that thing in the sky called the sun was shining! Many people were out on the wanderwegs enjoying the balmy 0 °C weather and blue skies.

Queen and King for a day

2009-01-11T10:37:00.004+01:00

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.

In the cockpit

2009-01-09T12:27:00.003+01:00

Another trip related photo. Here's Little Geek Girl in the cockpit of the plane from D.C. to SFO. They asked her if she wanted to say anything into the intercom, but she was too shy to say anything but "hi".

Note: On this trip I was assigned the aisle seat in the bulkhead row and Zürich Daddy Geek and LGG were four rows back with aisle and middle seats. While ZDG and LGG were in the cockpit I was settling into my seat. When the guy came to take the window seat in my row (we knew no one was assigned for the middle seat) I asked him if he would be willing to take the aisle seat four rows back so our family could sit together. He said no problem and he liked the aisle seat anyways. When ZDG came, I told him that we had traded and he should go thank the guy. Well, when he went to thank the guy, he said that I had told him he had to switch. Based on our previous experience on the train to Lugano you might think I'm a bully, but really, I asked him nicely.

Trip Summary

2009-01-08T13:11:00.002+01:00

Okay folks. Sorry about that premature posting. I think I'm out of practice. That's what three weeks of vacation will do to you :)

Auntie Geek met us at SFO and drove us to our hotel in San Francisco. The next drizzly day we walked along the waterfront to get some clam chowder and ride a cable car. Along the way, we saw a muni painted to look like a ZVV bus. Throughout the city there were buses/trams painted with the markings of other cities' public transport colors.

We then took BART to the Mission District in search of Mexican food. We ended up a place for yummy pupusas. Zürich Daddy Geek stayed in the city for the rest of the week and Auntie Geek dropped Little Geek Girl and me off at ZDG's parents' house outside of the Bay Area.

In no particular order:

We played with friends in Colorado, Lafayette, Menlo Park, and Davis. LGG and I flew to CO to visit our friends. After nine hour and six hour flights, the two hour flight to Denver was a piece of cake.

LGG played with five cats and two dogs. LGG insisted we take pictures of most of them, but I will spare you the details. Let's say, LGG learned that cats really don't like it when you pull their tails.

We met three new kids, including LGG's newest cousin who was born the day we flew from Zürich to D.C.

We drove all over the place. Our farthest extremes were Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Mountain View, and Fremont.

LGG was introduced to John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. Therefore we listened to the Twelve Days of Christmas it seemed like 1200 times.

We had lots of family time. ZDG's sister's family lives in the same town as ZDG's parents. Auntie Geek lives about 30 minutes away. My parents came up and stayed with Auntie Geek. My brother and cousin live about 1.5 hours away. ZDG's grandma also lives about 1.5 hours away.

Auntie Geek and I had a nice vegetarian lunch at Ubuntu in Napa.

ZDG and I had our date night at Bouchon in Yountville.

LGG saw Bolt with me, The Tale of Despereaux with ZDG, and and near the end of the trip we ordered Kung Fu Panda On Demand because we were too exhausted to do anything else.

I read five library books.

We went to In-N-Out Burger three times and had Mexican food as often as our families could bear.

And, Little Geek Girl lost her first tooth!

We first noticed it was loose on the 20th and by the 29th it was very loose. We had gone to a bouncy house place with her cousins and stopped to have a snack. And the next thing we knew, her tooth was gone. So like her father, she swallowed her first tooth. Luckily the tooth fairy accepted the explanation letter and left two half dollars under her pillow.

Tiger habits

2009-01-05T09:12:00.002+01:00

As you may recall, Little Geek Girl is a tiger these days. This was the conversation last night.

LGG: Tigers don't fall asleep in the same place two nights in a row. Can I fall asleep in the bed with you and mama?

Zürich Daddy Geek: No. (Closes the door).

You have to give her bonus points for creativity.

Starting the new year over the ocean

2009-01-02T06:19:00.002+01:00

For those of you still waiting to hear if we made it to the U.S., we did and we're back :) Zürich Daddy Geek was able to take care of things at the Kreisbüro and we made it to the airport with plenty of time. In fact, our flight to the U.S. was delayed by over an hour because the incoming plane was late. So late, that we missed our connection from D.C. to San Francisco. They rebooked us on a later flight, but we were so tired that ZDG negotiated a hotel room and we spent the night and part of the next day in D.C. We had the chance to visit some old friends and pop into the Natural History Museum to look at some dinosaur skeletons. A trip recap with some pictures will follow shortly.

We started New Year's Eve day very early -- waking up at 5 am (after struggling to convince Little Geek Girl to go to sleep the night before) to catch our flight from San Francisco departing at 7:42 am PST. We departed D.C. a little after 6 pm EST, probably just as the fireworks were celebrating the New Year in Zürich. 2009 started for us somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. The good thing about traveling on New Year's Eve was the flight wasn't full and ZDG had a set of three seats to himself and LGG and I shared a set of three seats. We should have fed LGG before the flight left D.C. and we probably shouldn't have tried to move a sleeping LGG during the flight, but one day we'll learn. LGG fell asleep near the beginning of the flight, but was awake for the remaining five hours (grumble, grumble).

We arrived in Zürich around 8:15 am. Zürich was blanketed with a fresh thick coat of snow. We stopped for some coffee and decided to take tram 10 towards home. Tram 10 started going out to the airport after we left and LGG wanted to take the new extension. Lots of snow everywhere, but the sidewalks were mostly cleared. We showered and then headed into town to be outside and reset our body clocks and look for lunch. Oops. Almost everywhere was closed, but we were able to get some sausages for lunch. I think the clean-up crews that would have normally cleaned up the NYE debris was busy clearing the snow, because there was tons of broken glass/plastic beside the lake. We walked (or slipped and slid over the icy walkways near the lake) towards the Zürichhorn and ran into the family of a colleague of ZDG at the outdoor ice skating rink. ZDG and LGG decided to skate a little (we were trying to distract LGG from wanting to fall asleep). The ice skating rink had some cute kid-sized penguins with handles for beginning ice skaters, but they were all taken. Unfortunately, ZDG's hat walked away in the chaos of the changing room. Litter and a stolen/missing hat all in one day!

We then made one final stop for caffeine and picked up some groceries. ZDG used the Simpsons to keep LGG awake while I cooked dinner and then we all collapsed in bed at 6 pm. Hopefully we'll get over the jet lag soon.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Kreisbüro and Airport all on the same day

2008-12-11T17:39:00.003+01:00

Our residence permits expire in January and we've been waiting for paperwork to renew them. Zürich Daddy Geek's department secretary assured us that everything would be fine.

Well, we finally got a letter from the Bevölkerungsamt today. Since I didn't have anything better to do other than pack and clean to get ready for our trip to the U.S., Little Geek Girl and I went downtown to hand the letter off to ZDG. Since he was interviewing prospective new hires the plan was for me to slip the letter under the door. But that wasn't possible, so I had to hunt down the department mailboxes. We ran into ZDG's boss in the elevator and LGG asked him why wasn't there an "A" floor. Turns out there is one, but the military gets one floor of all federal buildings and that's why we can't access the A floor.

Anyways, it turns out that they should have sent us a form with the letter. But they didn't. And since we're going to be gone for almost three weeks, ZDG needs to get to the Kreisbüro when it opens tomorrow at 8:30 am to get the form, fill it out, and mail it to the department secretary so the paperwork will be waiting for us when we return. Did I mention we have a flight leaving at 11:55 am? We should be able to make it, but it will definitely not be good for my anxiety. Did I mention I really really really really don't like it when things like this happen.

Even in kindergarten you have to write a letter to the school president asking permission for your child to miss school. We figured that since this was our last year to get an easy approval and since ZDG had a conference in San Francisco the week before LGG's winter break we would all go. It will be nice to see family, do a little shopping, and read all the library books that my sister's checking out for me.

Better than a check...

2008-12-08T14:23:00.002+01:00

Today the buzzer rang. I answered. Someone said "blah blah blah blah". Okay, they said it in German and I wasn't concentrating. I know I shouldn't have, but I just buzzed them in because I thought it might be the heating oil guy. But they didn't come inside, so I went downstairs to look.

It was the postman and he had something for me. He said something about 90 CHF. Who sent us something that required 90 CHF duty? No, he had 90 CHF for us. I needed to sign something. And then I asked him "Was machen wir jetzt?" Oh, he gives us the cash. 90 CHF refund on our nebenkosten (Every month we pay a fixed amount for things like heating, etc. At the end of the year they determine how much we actually use and you either have to pay the difference or get a credit). Woo hoo, this means we can go another day before visiting the ATM!

An afternoon out

2008-12-08T14:07:00.003+01:00

Well, someone must have listening to my complaining, because about a week and a half ago I found out about a performance of "A Little Princess" and the bonus was that it was performed in English! The tickets were 20 CHF for kids and 40 CHF for adults, but adult tickets were half-priced if you baked something for the refreshment table. You can guess what I did.

Little Geek Girl still fits her Christmas dress from last year and decided to wear it to the performance. Here we are before leaving for the show:

Did I mention she's a tiger?

LGG did a great job. We got there early to get seats (end of the front row) and had to wait a little bit, but she was very good. During the performance she seemed tired (leaning into me) but she was paying attention the whole time. During the "pause" I thought it would be kind of funny to pay for my own cake, so I purchased a cupcake and cookie instead. Actually, my cake had a role in the performance -- when Sarah took cake out to share with Ermengard and Becky she pulled out some slices of my cake.

We've been able to download the text of A Little Princess and now we're reading it for our bedtime book. LGG is a little disappointed that there are no pictures, but we just remember the scenes from the play.

Why we're not Christmas shopping in Switzerland

2008-12-08T11:14:00.003+01:00

Zürich Daddy Geek's office has moved to downtown Zürich, so on Friday afternoon, Little Geek Girl and I decided to pay a visit to the new digs. ZDG has a nice view of the Limmat River and the Käferberg/Chäferberg (I've seen it spelled both ways).

Then LGG and I went to check out the Singing Christmas Tree. Before the kids started singing, LGG had a ride on the tiger on the little carousel. LGG these days believes she's a cat, a tiger specifically, so when she saw the tiger she definitely wanted to ride on it. Then we met ZDG for dinner and went to the Hauptbahnhof to look at the Christmas Market and the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree was quite beautiful, covered in Swarovski crystals and lit up. At the base of the Christmas tree were numerous examples of Swarovski figurines.

As we wandered through the market, we ran across a booth selling novelties, and this little guy:

Now, considering Saturday was the 6th of December and the day Samichlaus visits kids in Switzerland, I made up an excuse to separate from ZDG and LGG and went back to purchase it. However, at first I wasn't going to, because it was CHF 15. As in 12.40 USD. But, I knew LGG would love him and I decided to try not to think about it too much and just buy it. I have purposely avoided searching on the internet to see how much it would be because I just don't want to know. But that is why we're waiting until we get to the US to do our Christmas shopping.

So, apparently organized parents arrange for Samichlaus to come to their house or meet him in the forest on the 6th of December. The other option, and the one went went with, is to leave your boots out the night before. Amazingly when she woke up, she had forgotten about them and we actually had to point them out to her. It was pretty funny actually. "My leg hurts, I can't walk." And then she saw the boots and miraculously could walk again.

When she found the tiger duck she was thrilled. "Samichlaus knew the right kid to give this duck to. Because I'm a tiger. Roar."

On prime numbers and maps

2008-12-04T09:44:00.003+01:00

Now for a little bit about the geek portion of the blog. Little Geek Girl is, we think, a pretty normal 5.75 yo girl. She brings home sticks and rocks from kindergarten. She likes to play with her My Little Ponies. Sometimes you think she is so grown up and then the lack of impulse control kicks in. But then, sometimes she is suuuuuuuccccchhhh a geek, and I lay most of the blame on Zürich Daddy Geek.

I don't remember how it came up, but yesterday she started talking about prime numbers and asked me to list them for her. I started listing them and then decided it might easier to find something on the wonderful internet. Well, it turns out 1 is not a prime number. I, as an adult, can accept rules like that. But LGG is really bothered by the fact that 1 is not a prime number. "But mama, what times what equals 1?"

Later in the evening we were watching the The Simpsons. I am not a supporter of this habit, but is has long been a tradition with her and ZDG and when given a choice she'll always want to watch the Simpsons. At some point Nepal came up. "Mama, will you show me where Nepal is on the map." I tell her to go look for her paperback atlas and I also decide to use Google Maps or Google Earth. "Mama, I want you to show me on the map. Not in the book, not on the computer, on the map!" I think to myself, "What is she talking about?" Then I remember those old-fashioned things that came in our National Geographic magazines and I pull out our world map.

Tuesday afternoon a specialist came to evaluate the kindergarten class students for their German comprehension. He gave them instructions to draw things or to manipulate a doll and asked them questions. LGG did fine. Both he and her kindergarten teacher think that at some point soon the switch will turn on and LGG will start speaking German all of the time. Apparently more and more frequently she lets her guard down and responds to the teacher in German. When ZDG asked LGG if the man spoke in English or German, she replied "He spoke in German, but that was so the other kids could understand."

The amazing herding abilities of kindergarten teachers

2008-12-02T10:00:00.002+01:00

Yesterday Little Geek Girl came home with a flyer in her message tube. The upstairs and downstairs kindergarten classes were going to a play and they needed to be at school by 8:15 am or they would have to go back home. Normally, kindergarten arrival time is between 8:10 am and 8:35 am and we usually get her there between 8:20 and 8:25 am. To make things easier we picked her clothes and packed her snack last night so we could get out the door by 8 am and her to kindergarten by 8:10 am.

Normally Zürich Daddy Geek walks with her to school in a timely manner, and then we walk home together, with her mostly dawdling (stepping on all of the snow, balancing on all of the rock edging). Since I wanted to get her to school on time I was holding her arm and pulling her steadily. I meant to give her a pep talk on remembering her hat and gloves, but I forgot. The knit gloves would be easy to replace because we got them here, but she didn't like any of the Swiss hats (too itchy) so the one she wears is from the US.

On my way home I was trying to decide whether to go back to the kindergarten or to meet them at the train station. I decided to meet them at the train station, and there they were, two teachers, one parent, and 25 - 28 four to six year olds. Most of the kids were sitting on the two available benches, but some of the kids were standing and LGG was one of them. I said hi to the teacher and then I went to give LGG a kiss and a reminder about her hat and gloves. She kind of shooed me away, because I guess mom's weren't supposed to be there.

I walked away and watched in awe as the three adults herded the crowd onto the train. They're going to see a play about the First Christmas which means I'll get to field a bunch of new questions this afternoon. Yesterday's questions were, who brings the presents in Switzerland and what's an angel, etc. etc. I was worried when she came home at lunch talking about what present she was going to get since it was the first day of Advent. However after calling a friend and asking another kindergarten mom I decided that they must have been talking about opening the first door of the Advent calendar and she was confused about getting a present.

Brrrrr... The zoo can be cold

2008-11-30T13:43:00.002+01:00

Yesterday morning Little Geek Girl decided that she was a tiger and needed to go see the other tigers at the zoo. It was also a good opportunity for Zürich Daddy Geek to see the penguin walk. In the winter, if the temperatures are less than 10 °C, the Zürich Zoo penguins are taken for a stroll through the zoo. So, we split up, ZDG and LGG went ahead to the zoo and I ran a couple of errands.

Since I had only had dessert for breakfast and lunch, I decided to take the Seilbahn Rigiblick to the top and walk across the Zürichberg to the zoo to bask in the sun and get a little exercise. It was a sunny, but hazy day. I met up with ZDG and LGG and we growled at the tigers. We then visited the new baboon and ibex exhibit and then went to play at bug world. Note to self: if there's snow on the ground and you're going to a playground, bring the waterproof mittens. LGG did a good job of not getting herself cold and wet. But even though we were dressed in layers, it was cold up there on the top of the Zürichberg. The high was around 3.5 °C and we decided to head over to the rain forest, which was a very comforting 24 °C. It was also high humidity and my glasses fogged up immediately and stayed fogged up for quite a while. But it was nice to defrost and watch for bats and lemurs and other creatures.

Afterwards we headed down to the city to meet a friend and her daughter for coffee and then we went out to dinner. ZDG leaves for India tonight, so today we visited the pool in the morning. It was nice to go when it wasn't too crowded and we had the diving pool to ourselves.

Dessert for Breakfast

2008-11-29T12:24:00.002+01:00

I think my favorite part about holidays is dessert for breakfast. A big feast, scrumptious desserts, a good sleep, and then wake up in the morning to dessert for breakfast.

Our Thanksgiving Raclette menu:

Deviled Eggs
Breadsticks

Green salad with pomegranate seeds
Cornbread and gorgonzola dressing (gorgonzola melted at table)
Raclette fixings (cheese, potatoes, turkey, bresaola, prosciutto, pickles)

Creme Caramel
Dutch Apple Pie

Here are the adults after the kids have finished their pasta and been sent away. A piece of bresaola is being warmed on top of the grill, and I'm scraping some melted cheese onto my plate.

We had to end the party at 10 pm when the almost 7 year old fell asleep. Remember, he had a full day of school. There was a break between dinner and dessert for viewing the local Christmas tree and throwing some snowballs.

Fun on the ice and in the snow

2008-11-25T09:27:00.002+01:00

This past weekend a lot of snow was forecast, but it didn't come when predicted. Friday was cold and rainy. Saturday morning we woke up to snow, but really only a light dusting.

On Saturday we went to the local ice skating rink. Inside an ice skating competition was being held, but outside, the rooftop rink was open for lessons and free skating. We've been taking Little Geek Girl ice skating for several years now, but it was only last year that she was confident enough to start standing on her own. This past weekend, she really wanted to use one of the push bars, but we convinced her to try standing on her own, and after a while she was able to do it again and gain her confidence back. While we were at the rink, it would snow shower on and off again and that evening it started to snow again.

On Sunday we had planned to have a stay at home day. However, we woke up to no cable/internet (the horror!) and no hallway/laundry room lights. So we decided to go up to the Uetliberg for a snowy day walk. We were up there by 9:30 am, which is the earliest we've ever made it up there. We went along the Planet Walk, brushing the snow off of the planet models as we went by. LGG enjoyed making bear foot prints in the snow for us to follow and making footprints in the snow. We were home before 3 pm, so it was nice to have been out, but still have time to nest at home a little bit.

Most of the snow came on Sunday night, but we were pretty impressed at how quickly the streets and sidewalks were cleared. However, getting LGG to and from school takes a lot longer when there's snow on the ground.

Don't touch the switch!

2008-11-24T15:02:00.002+01:00

Apologies to anyone who is using Google Reader (or equivalent program) and got to see the very early draft version of this post. Anyways, now that I'm frustrated that I lost my post, I'm just going to make it short and sweet.

Swiss Appliance lesson of the day. Don't turn on/off unknown switches. After the refrigerator and freezer were serviced back in September, I noticed that the switch on the left in the photo below was off. So I turned it on.

And then we entered into the ice age in our freezer. It turns out that switch is only to be turned on for the first 30 minutes when you turn on the refrigerator. Oops. Oh well, all is better now and since it's been so cold recently I decided to take advantage of the cold balcony and defrost the beast.

How to travel from Zurich to Germany via India in under eight hours

2008-11-19T00:03:00.003+01:00

This was a crazy day for The Geeks.

LGG and I walked to school where I dropped her off. I then went to get my Swiss driver's license. In order to speed things up compared to ZMG's experience, I went to the office in person with all my documentation. I could get used to visiting government offices here -- it took 10 minutes from start to finish, and the folks helping me were friendly and polite. (Note to the California DMV: It can be done!)

After that, off to work for a whirlwind of meetings before picking LGG up at school and getting her home for lunch before returning her to school and returning to work. Oh, and in between seeing ZMG for 10 minutes...

Then we get to the title of this post: how to travel from Zurich to India to Germany in under eight hours:

Get on a train at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof and ride to Bern (elapsed time: 57 minutes).
Buy a Bern bus ticket and ride to the Indian Embassy (80 minutes).
Visit the Indian Embassy, which is technically Indian soil, and pick up your passport complete with your shiny new Indian visa (90 minutes).
Buy another Bern bus ticket, return to the Bern train station, and get on a train back to Zurich (2 hours).
Get lucky, make a 2-minute connection at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof, then another 2-minute connection at your local station, enabling you to be home in time for dinner (3.5 hours).
Eat dinner, pack, talk with your wife, play with your daughter, read a book to her, then run to the bus stop for a bus to the train to the airport (4 hours, 45 minutes)
Board your plane to Berlin at the Zurich airport and then sit on the ramp for 30 minutes before pushback because you and your fellow passengers were too fast and Berlin isn't ready for you yet (6.5 hours)
Fly to Berlin and meet your colleagues for the taxi ride to the hotel (7 hours, 55 minutes).

Step 9 is ride to the hotel. Step 10, of course, is post to the blog. Step 11 is collapse.

And of course, while I was doing steps 1-5 above, ZMG was picking LGG up from kindergarten, getting her home for a snack, running her back to her gym class, and running back home to cook dinner. Eep. Tuesdays are like this for The Geeks.

The final part of the craziness is more personal. A member of one of our extended families is in the hospital back in the States and we're trying to keep up with the situation there, knowing there's really nothing we can do but send good thoughts that way. Nothing more can be said here about that.

A little bit of culture maybe...

2008-11-18T10:12:00.002+01:00

Little Geek Girl likes to see live performances. In 2006 she saw Go, Dog. Go! and Dragon Tales Live and last year she saw Alice in Wonderland and Jack and the Beanstalk. This year we've been slacking a little bit.

Last month we saw a flyer for a kids musical called D'Schatzinsle, or Treasure Island. We've been considering going to see it, but haven't gotten around to buying tickets for it (and probably won't be able to if you see below). Andrew Bond, an English-Swiss singer/songwriter whose songs are played in the Swiss kindergartens will be performing next Friday night, but we'll be celebrating a Raclette Thanksgiving with some friends. So, I looked at the Zürich Opera website and saw that they were going to perform the Magic Flute for Kids -- a kids length opera. According to the website there were very few tickets left, but we thought maybe it was a glitch in the system because it was behaving very slowly. So on Saturday afternoon I went down to the Opera House to ask them myself. And all of the kids' performances are essentially sold out (and I think that included Treasure Island). Yesterday I followed up and called about Wagner's The Ring Cycle for kids, and that's sold out too. However, the ticket seller said that they might be adding some kids performances in January, so now I get to check the Zürich Opera website every day to see if there's a new performance we can attend.

Who would have thought The Ring Cycle for kids in July would already be sold out! So, we're very slow at getting tickets in this town, there are a lot of people here and a percentage of them want to go to cultural events like this, and/or they don't put on enough performances to satisfy demand. Who knows? Now I have to determine how to find out about these events ahead of time.

Other than that we had a relaxing weekend. Friday night we had some Swiss friends over and Zürich Daddy Geek sent LGG to her room to play and she actually stayed there until dessert. While I was at the Opera House on Saturday, ZDG and LGG tried out a new pool. On Sunday we all went to another pool in the afternoon. LGG spent most of the time jumping off the diving board and ZDG and I took turns swimming laps.

Growing Up

2008-11-15T07:14:00.004+01:00

Earlier this week we took Little Geek Girl to the doctor for her flu shot. She's gained almost a pound in a month!

Here she is at 115 cm (4 ft 9 in). Oops. That should be 3 ft 9 in. She is not only 5 inches shorter than me. Yet.

And being silly. She's showing you her "hand snakes". They go everywhere with us. (Along with the Easter Bunny, the chocolate powder bunny, the alien, and her other "friends".)

She is also officially reading in English. It's kind of nice. She can pick up a book and read to herself while I cook dinner. And then she won't stop or respond to you when you speak to her, just like her mother. Here she is reading Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary.

Ten months later

2008-11-10T14:20:00.003+01:00

We've now been in Zürich ten months. We survived apartment hunting, Zürich Daddy Geek's job seems to keep changing, and Little Geek Girl is mostly settled in kindergarten, even though she refuses to speak German of any sort. I run around like a chicken with its head cut off to keep things running smoothly, but that's probably because I spend too much time on the internet and then leave not enough time to get things done.

Yesterday we went for another walk in the woods. We decided to visit the ridge on the eastern side of the Zürichsee and walked the Zürichsee Panoramaweg from Rehalp to Küsnacht. Nice views of the lake and the Uetliberg. The last part of the walk was pretty cool because we descended into the Küsnachter Tobel--a steep V-shaped gorge. Rather than continue on with the trail, we headed into town and took the train home.

Räbeliechtliumzug

2008-11-08T22:51:00.003+01:00

For the last couple of weeks I've noticed some gigantic turnips at our local grocery store. Like twice the size of a softball (I'm not quite a Valley Girl but I think I am dating myself). I wasn't sure what they were for, but today we found out.

Last night on our bus home I noticed a lot of kids in the next neighborhood walking with lanterns. I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the "Swiss Narrative Night" that was being held at our nearby primary school. I have to confess that we did not attend. After an afternoon in the city and then home for dinner, I wasn't sure how well-behaved Little Geek Girl would be attending readings in High and Swiss German.

Then tonight I heard a loud racket outside. I went to our balcony and called LGG to join me. The procession started with adults carrying tall candles, followed by men carrying yokes with huge cowbells, and then followed by children carrying lanterns and a wagon carrying lanterns and more children. They stopped briefly right in front of us so the police could stop traffic on the main drag, and then continued on. I tried taking pictures but they didn't turn out.

At that point I figured it was time to call someone to find out what was going on. The event is called Räbenlichtliumzug and the event it to commemorate the harvesting of the last crops. Turnips are carved and turned into lanterns, there's a procession, and there's sometimes singing involved. Here's the link to the German Wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.

So Zürich Daddy Geek arrives home after his flight from Edinburgh and I tell him what he missed. Apparently he told me about this a couple of days ago, but I guess I wasn't paying attention.

Dress Up

2008-11-06T18:25:00.003+01:00

Last night we had some friends over and the girls ended up playing dress up. Here are some pictures of Little Geek Girl in her finery. She wanted to know why the wings were so small. Because the wings are almost three years old and you've grown!

How to get a Wedgie

2008-11-06T18:15:00.003+01:00

1. Go to pool with 5.5 yo Little Geek Girl (actually almost 5.75 yo if you're counting).

2. Allow LGG to convince you to go up to the 3 meter springboard platform, "just to look".

3. Think to yourself, "I'm not going to jump off that".

4. Believe LGG when she says, "If you jump off it, I will too. Daddy will never believe it."

5. Realize that your daughter thinks you're a scaredy cat and if you want her to be brave, you need to do some brave things also.

6. Jump.

7. Instant wedgie.

Note: LGG did not jump. Sitting on the side of the pool, practically blind without my glasses, I watched her go to the end several times, but she wouldn't/couldn't do it.

On a lighter note...

2008-11-05T23:42:00.003+01:00

I'm on the road again, this time in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. I'll be here for a few days, my first visit since 1994.

I've had what I think of as a stereotypical Scottish evening. It's misty, cold, and dark. I've had a pub dinner with a great warm beer. I took a walk along the Royal Mile in the mist and cold, listening to a saxophonist playing sad jazz - OK, if it were really stereotypical, that would've been bagpipes, right? I watched a football match on TV (Celtic vs. Manchester United). One thing that seems out of place: lots of American students walking along and chatting.

Apologies to any UK readers out there who I have just offended.

It's also Guy Fawkes Night (aka Bonfire/Fireworks Night) in the UK, so there are scattered fireworks going off around the city. I overheard two American students talking about the fireworks; Student #1 asked what was going on, Student #2 tried to explain. The friendly UK students at the next table chimed in with more details. It was actually pretty interesting to listen in and hear lots of little details I didn't know about.

Time for bed.

What a day!

2008-11-05T23:11:00.003+01:00

Wow, what a day! As ZMG said, we voted weeks ago. We were both pretty excited (and nervous) about the outcome, and spent much of yesterday obsessively refreshing the news sites. Of course, time zones being what they are, we went to bed before the polls closed.

Which meant that I got to wake up early, go fire up the laptop, nod, smile, and go back to our dark bedroom. ZMG opened one eye to ask; I got to speak two words:

President Obama.

We both smiled and went back to sleep.

This is an amazing day for the United States, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it, even 4000 miles away. Why? Because in just 54 years, we've moved from Brown v. Board of Education to President-elect Obama; in 51 years, from the Little Rock Nine to President-elect Obama. As several news commentators have said, The Dream is still not fulfilled, but this is clearly one of the pivotal moments in American history -- and we got to be part of it.

Not that there isn't plenty more to be done. What were 52% of California voters thinking?

But let's finish this on a positive note:

President Obama.

Amazing.

Some Zürich headlines

2008-11-05T10:25:00.002+01:00

By many bus/tram stops there are stands of free newspapers for reading during the commute.

Some headlines from this mornings' papers.

Dear Mr. President, a lot of work waits for you

High turnout brings Obama's victory

Obama almost certainly president

You can also see that last night was the Swiss premier of the new Bond flick Quantum of Solace.

Halloween Pictures

2008-11-02T09:45:00.005+01:00

Kids and pumpkin.

Kids in costumes.

Kids ready to bob for apples.

Ready.

Set.

Wet!

Halloween Recap

2008-11-01T20:26:00.002+01:00

Halloween isn't a big deal in Switzerland. However, we were happy to hear from our friends that there was trick-or-treating over at their apartment complex and they invited us over for trick-or-treating and other Halloween fun.

They picked us up and we stopped off at an Asian market to pick up a HUGE pumpkin. Zürich Daddy Geek started things off by cutting off the cap and leading the kids in scraping out the seeds. Then it was time for the kids to get dressed up for trick-or-treating. There was a skeleton, a teenage mutant ninja turtle, and a couple of princesses. The dads took the kids out to trick-or-treat and the moms carved the pumpkin and watched the baby. The kids came back with fruit, peanuts, kid candy, and pretty good adult chocolate which has been properly sequestered for later consumption.

Afterwards we observed some Irish Halloween Traditions. We had Shepherd's Pie for dinner and money was hidden in the kids' servings. Then it was time for apple bobbing. We ended with slices of cake with treasures hidden inside. Little Geek Girl picked the piece with the ring in it, which is a sign of impending romance or continued happiness.

After breakfast this morning LGG asked when she could have some candy. We said after lunch. Around 11:15 am she told us she was hungry and ready for lunch. Keep in mind that normally we have to convince her to eat lunch because she'd rather have a snack. Hmmmmm... can anyone guess why she wanted to have lunch early?

We forgot the camera, but hopefully friends will send us some pictures and they can be posted later.

Happy November!

Due to the snow, operations will be irregular today

2008-10-30T09:10:00.005+01:00

Following up on ZMG's post, here's the "saga" of my morning commute today.

LGG and I walked up the hill together in the snow, which LGG just loves. She loves making footprints, jumping in the slush, getting hit on the head by snow falling off a tree branch, throwing snow at Daddy, etc. OK, so the walk took a little longer than normal today due to the other activities, but we had fun. "Due to the snow, operations will be irregular today."

Her teacher is very thoughtful: she's warming the kids' gloves on the radiator so they will be comfortable on the way home.

After leaving LGG and greeting the other parents coming in ("Schönes Wetter heute, ey?"), I headed up the hill to work, deciding to take the bus rather than deal with snowy uphill trails. The first bus to reach my stop drove by completely full, and the bus which came about one minute later was 95% full, but did stop. Normally, buses come every 5-10 minutes on this route and are nowhere near full. "Due to the snow, operations will be irregular today."

Once I squeezed on just far enough for the driver to close the doors, I saw the message on the videoscreen that gives this post's theme. Among the irregular operations, I ended up being a support post for the older woman next to me who had no secure handhold (she apologized very politely for holding my shoulder as the bus slogged its way along), and two of my coworkers' buses couldn't even make it up their hills and had to take very wide detours up gentler slopes. (One of them very honestly said, "I could have gotten off the bus and walked, but I felt like being lazy!")

Here's the view from my office window this morning (sorry for the poor quality, but it's the best I could get from my mobile phone):

We have about 4 cm on the ground outside my building. Something tells me all The Geeks operations will be irregular today.

I'll close with a gratuitous German lesson:

der Schnee: snow
Es schneit: It is snowing.

and a hint for ZMG:

Wenn es schneit, ist Älplermagronen gute zum Essen!

It stuck

2008-10-30T08:12:00.004+01:00

The view this morning:

Zürich Daddy Geek and Little Geek Girl on their way to kindergarten.

On their way up the hill.

We have turned on the under floor heating.

And we didn't have to shovel the driveway!

Snow

2008-10-29T12:38:00.002+01:00

It is definitely snowing now. It's not sticking. Yet.

Brrrrr...

It should be fun doing the Parental German Class Little Geek Girl hand off tonight at 8 pm. Not!

Our final night and day in Lugano

2008-10-29T10:48:00.003+01:00

After we said our goodbyes to our friends, we went back to the hotel for a little rest. We walked back to Lugano for dinner. On this trip I wasn't as motivated as I usually am for researching restaurants, so I had Zürich Daddy Geek pick the restaurant. However, when we found it, it was rather quiet and that's not the best environment to bring a 5 year-old. Originally we had decided to save another restaurant for our Saturday night dinner, but we decided to go there rather than dilly-dally about deciding on another restaurant.

La Tinera was an excellent choice for Friday night dinner. It's a grotto style restaurant, so we entered at ground level and smelled the wonderful aromas and then walked down the stairs to the restaurant. The restaurant had several families and was almost full, but there was a table available for us.

One of the specialties for a wild game charcuterie platter and at first I objected to ordering it, but I'm glad we did. There was pheasant salami, dried deer meat, wild boar proscuitto and cotto, and another preparation of deer meat. And Little Geek Girl ate it! For our mains, ZDG had osso bucco with risotto, LGG had spaghetti with marinara and I had the special which was grilled fish, veggies, and potatoes. When we had looked at the menu the day before they had venison stew listed, but we hadn't realized it was a daily special. Lesson learned, if something on a menu sounds good, go that night. We then walked to the main square to get gelato for ZDG and LGG and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning the blue skies were gone. We took the bus to the train station to put our bags in a locker and then took the funicular down to the city center. On our way through the city we found a stand selling "fritters" which we could not walk by without trying some.

Nutella, apple, lemon, and raisin filled doughballs sprinkled with sugar.

In the middle of the main square some musicians were playing, so we stopped to listen.

We decided to take a boat ride to Gandria for lunch and a walk. As we were waiting for the boat, ZDG snapped a photo of a Swiss seagull. At first we thought only the Ticino seagulls "wore headphones", but we have since confirmed that Zürich seagulls also wear headphones.

During the cold boat ride we had a nice tour of the lake and the "towns" on its banks.

When ZDG purchased the boat tickets he asked the saleslady for a recommendation for a restaurant in Gandria and she suggested Locanda Gandriese. ZDG and I each had bowl of delicious squash soup. Then LGG had spaghetti with marinara (she was not interested in the lasagna or schnitzel available for bambini), ZDG had venison stew with polenta (the stew also had grapes in it), and I had polenta with gorgonzola.

Here's a photo ZDG snapped from the balcony of the restauarant. The balcony must be a lovely place to dine in warmer weather, but after the boat ride we were happy to be inside.

We then walked through Gandria on our way to Castagnola. If we didn't have LGG with us, we probably would have walked all of the way to Lugano, but we didn't want to totally wear her out. (Sometimes it's useful to have her along).

Walking through Gandria.

A cool spigot.

We caught the bus back to Lugano and stopped at the playground at the city park.

Then it was time for some last minute shopping and snack. ZDG and LGG went to the tea room at Münger bakery to get some treats. I went to a shoe store to pick up some socks. Aren't they cute? However, they have some Angora so they're supposed to be hand wash only. Don't send me shopping on my own.

When I joined ZDG and LGG we ordered some drinks. ZDG ordered his espresso and I thought that LGG and I were getting a hot chocolate to share. Somehow I missed the ordering of the Ticinese specialty, Cioccolata Densa. This also came with a generous helping of whipped cream. Yummy!

Originally we had reservations on the 7:40 pm train heading back to Zürich, but we were all tired and decided to try to catch the 6:40 pm train. That required an okay but quick dinner (at Argentino) and then a consultation with the ticket agent at the train station to confirm the train was not full.

We were able to find seats (after a sprint from one end of the platform to the other because the sign had first and second class reversed) and settled in for our ride back to Zürich. ZDG and LGG watched a movie on the iPhone and I napped and read.

Beautiful scenery and delicious food. I think Locarno will be our next city to visit in the Italian part of Switzerland. Ciao!

San Salvatore

2008-10-28T14:41:00.003+01:00

Friday was a beautiful day. Sunny, blue skies and a light wind. We took the bus to Paradiso and were dropped off right in front of the Migros, so we purchased some supplies for our picnic and walked towards the funicular for Monte San Salvatore where we met our friends in the parking lot. We knew H and A when we lived in San Diego, and now they live in Edinburgh. They had spent the week in Porlezzo, Italy at the east end of Lake Lugano.

We purchased our tickets and rode two funiculars up the side of the mountain. We wandered over to the terrace and staked out a table to settle down and have some coffee and milk.

Oh, we also looked at the gorgeous view of the Alps.

We sent the kids off to the playground and admired the view and chatted. Then we walked up to the top of the hill and climbed the steps to the top of the chapel to look at the view and take pictures.

Family portrait of the Geeks.

Little Geek Girl and J, age 5, and D, age 2.5. Baby E was comfortably carried by mom.

And a view of Melide and Swiss Miniatur. The smudge in the back is Milan, Italy.

We came down from the top of the chapel and stopped to have lunch. On our way back to the funicular the kids had fun picking up leaves and throwing them off the side of a walled terrace, where the wind would pick them up and they would fly up. We then took the funicular down and went in search of gelato. We found a gelato shop on Via San Salvatore just south of Via Giuseppe Cattori and Zürich Daddy Geek and LGG shared a dark chocolate and vanilla, and I had cinnamon.

We walked down to the lake. At one point ZDG was entertaining the kids with Simon Says and leading a duck parade. Little D really liked seeing the boats on the lake and the little tourist "train" that kept passing by us between Paradiso and Lugano. Alas, the kids started getting tired, so we walked them back to their car and said our goodbyes. ZDG will be in Edinburgh next month so he'll be able to see them again soon and hopefully LGG and I will visit Scotland soon too.

Swissminiatur Melide

2008-10-28T11:01:00.002+01:00

This month there was a great deal on Railaway. Roundtrip train tickets from Zürich to Lugano/Melide and entrance to Swissminiatur for half price. Even if we didn't go to Swissminiatur it would have been a good deal. The afternoon we arrived was overcast so that seemed like the right time to go look at miniatures.

The coolest part of the park is all of the operational miniature railroads and cable cars surrounding the miniature buildings. It was also fun to see miniatures of places we've been to and be inspired to go to other parts of Switzerland. Here are some pictures from our visit. Right now I can't find our handy dandy guide to all of the buildings so I'm going to just have to wing it.

The two buildings on the left and the building on the "lake front" are all in the Lausanne area. We would love to go see them in person.

This was a preview for our visit to the top of San Salvatore the next day. In the foreground is the model of the tower at the top of the mountain and next to it is the mountain itself.

Here's a model of some cable cars and a bobsled run.

Another cable car and miniature train in the background.

And Little Geek Girl practicing her Godzilla growl.

After walking through the miniatures several times, riding the little train, and riding the boats, we went next door to play at the playground. We then took the S-bahn back to Lugano and walked down to the city center to find dinner. We ended up at the Spaghetti Store for an okay dinner of pizza and pasta, went in search of gelato, and then headed back to the hotel.

Hoch-Ybrig

2008-10-27T14:10:00.003+01:00

The weather in Zürich this week was predicted to be cold and dreary, so yesterday we headed for the mountains for sunshine and views. Hoch-Ybrig is a ski area south-southeast of Zürich which is open in the summertime for hiking. Yesterday was the final day of summer season for Hoch-Ybrig, so we decided to go there. The webpage has already been changed from summer to winter information. The immediate landscape isn't the most interesting (hills of grass that you can imagine skiing down), but the views are amazing.

We left our apartment yesterday morning at 8:35 am to get ourselves to the Hauptbahnhof. We purchased tickets and took a train and S-bahn to get to Einsiedeln. At Einsiedeln we purchased a ticket package for the bus ride to the resort and unlimited rides on the gondola and chairlifts. The bus was full of other travelers on their way to hiking around the Sihlsee and our final destination. It's pretty easy to figure out what to do on adventures like this -- you just follow all of the other people.

We took the gondola from Weglosen (1035 m) up to Seebli (1465 m), and then the chairlift from Seebli up to Sternen (1811 m). These are the reasons why Little Geek Girl likes chair lifts: "You get to sit down. You can see the ground. There's nothing between you and the outside." From Sternen we had a nice view of the valley, but we decided to go up to the viewpoint to see what was on the other side of the ridge.

We started up the path towards Kleine Sternen and there we were stunned by the view of the Alps, most notably Tödi (3614 m). Unfortunately in our rush out the door we had forgotten the camera, but the sun angle was wrong anyways, so no pictures of the mountains. You'll have to go see them yourselves. At first I wanted to keep going up the path, but then I realized that it was a series of false summits, the trail was pretty muddy, and it was best probably to turn back. However, we decided to watch a group of paragliders launch, and it took a while to convince LGG to leave. We stopped off at a bench to have our picnic lunch.

We then went for a nice walk along the ridge towards Spirstock. At one point Zürich Daddy Geek scrambled up to a peak, but it was mostly cross country and pretty muddy, so LGG and I kept going. She is such a good hiker. She also talks a lot while she's hiking, but I'd rather have her talking and hiking, than not hiking. We got to the base of the Spirstock and at first we decided to walk around it, but LGG wanted to climb up it, so up the many stairs we went to the Spirstock (1771 m). Here we took a break for a snack and a family portrait with the iPhone:

LGG was ready to take the chairlift down the mountain, but we wanted to get a little more walking in, so we convinced her to continue on and that we would take another chairlift down. The route we walked down alternated between boring service road and interesting detours throught the forest. Unfortunately at one point I slipped on the gravel road and skinned my knee and tore my jeans. We found our way to Laucheren (1483 m) and stopped at the restaurant for refreshment. ZDG and I had coffee and LGG had cold milk. They were out of apple strudel, so we tried the spice cake. LGG is a strictly chocolate girl, so after a bite of spice cake she asked for more Pringles. She then jumped on the trampoline for a little bit and then we took the chairlift down to the bottom to catch the bus back the train station.

Earlier in the day, as we were drving through Einsiedeln, ZDG and I both noticed a beautiful building -- the monastery (I also noticed that there were a number of bakeries open on a Sunday!). On our return, there were many people in the city. It turns out that Einsiedeln is the most important place of pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary in Switzerland. It's supposed to also have a pretty good Christmas Market, so we may be returning soon.

Zürich to Lugano

2008-10-24T11:06:00.005+02:00

On Thursday, October 16, we woke up to rain in Zürich. Hopefully the weather would be better in the south. We took the bus and tram to the Hauptbahnhof with plenty of time to catch our train (every once in a while Zürich Daddy Geek will humor my need to not arrive with one minute to spare). We picked up a newspaper and new sudoku book and went to find our reserved seats.

One minor complication. Someone was sitting in Little Geek Girl's seat. As in the forward facing window seat. She doesn't like to sit backwards and she doesn't like to sit next to strangers. Yes, we need to convince her that she can't always have her way, but when we can we try to see what we can do. (Yes, this means we have stood on a bus/trolley for 20 minutes due to lack of appropriate seats. She will sit on a parent's lap next to someone, but that's not fun for the parent. Sometimes she'll sit on her knees facing forwards in a backwards facing seat--if one of us is next to her.) The gentleman in her seat insisted that it was his seat, his company had reserved it for him, he spoke to someone on the train and they told him it was his seat. ZDG went to look for train staff to help out, but couldn't find anyone. The rest of the car was full of people already in their reserved seats. I explained to him LGG's seat preferences and if it wasn't absolutely critical that he have the window seat facing forward, could he please move to the window seat facing backwards. Otherwise, LGG would probably be very unhappy and whining for most of the three hour train ride. He conceded that what was most important to him was to have a window seat and he then changed seats. Fortunately he spoke English so we were not required to dig into our dictionaries for this exchange.

The rest of the train ride was uneventful. I had purchased rub-on decals especially for the train ride, so LGG happily colored and transferred decals. ZDG and I worked on our German homework.

We arrived in Lugano and it was overcast, but at least it was not raining. Because we had a travelpack and LGG with us, we decided to take the bus to our hotel. We were staying at the Hotel Colorado (yes, our last US state), which was offering 50% off the second night's stay during the month of October. Originally we had hoped to stay in Lugano for three nights, but we changed it to two nights after looking at the hotel rates. The hotel was not that full so we were able check in right away and drop off our stuff.

We walked down the hill to the lake front and were greeted by the following statue:

It was about a 10 - 15 minute walk into Lugano proper and we looked for a place to stop for lunch. We decided to go to the same place where Auntie Geek and I ate back in April, Bottegone del Vino. After about a ten minute wait we were seated. ZDG had rabbit, polenta with porcini mushrooms, and green beans, LGG had some pasta, and I had tuna tartare. The waiters there were really nice about trying to find a comfortable chair for LGG. At first they brought a high stool, but her knees ended up hitting the table, so they brought her two seat cushions. Also, they did not charge us for her pasta or her milk. At the end of our meal there was no sign of our waiter so we ended up asking for the bill from another waiter.

Afterwards we walked through the town to the funicular back up to the train station to catch the S-bahn to Melide for our visit to Swissminiatur.

Lovely Leeks

2008-10-22T10:13:00.003+02:00

Leeks are very long here. There's plenty of light green and white parts. Here is a lovely specimen:

I might be remembering incorrectly, but in the US, the leeks are a lot shorter and consequently there's a lot less light green and white bits.

I used this one in variable roasted vegetables from Just Hungry. I used butternut squash, fennel, leek, broccoli, and garlic. About ten minutes from the end I added some diced smoked sausage and before serving topped with Pecorino Romano. Eaten with some pumpkin seed bread.

We do have pictures from our Lugano trip, but right now we're trying to get through the busy part of the week.

Failure to Communicate

2008-10-20T19:02:00.002+02:00

Fall Holiday is over, but there was no school today due to teacher training. This afternoon Little Geek Girl and I went for a walk in the woods and as we approached our apartment building we saw German Neighbor Girl and Swiss Neighbor Girl. German Neighbor Girl asked if LGG wanted to play, but LGG wanted to have a snack first. I suggested having the snack in the yard, but she wanted to go inside to get rid of her gum. I thought I told the girls that we were going inside to eat but we would be back in five minutes.

We go inside, eat the granola bar and drink some milk and go back outside. No sign of German Neighbor Girl. Swiss Neighbor Girl is there, but acting pretty shy. We end up following her around to the front of the building and then German Neighbor Girl's mom comes out on her way to the store. She kindly goes back inside to see if German Neighbor Girl wants to come back out to play, but German Neighbor Girl wants to stay inside to watch TV. Obviously my attempt to explain to German Neighbor Girl what we were going to do failed miserably.

Everyone says that kids at this age learn new languages easily. Well, our kid is quite stubborn and we think that she's waiting until she's perfect before she'll speak. Often times she's worried about other kids "asking her questions that she can't answer", but frequently she'll want me to tell them things for her. Hopefully one day she'll see the light and realize that if she wants to communicate with the other kids, she better do it herself if she wants it done right. And hopefully I'll be able to do it too eventually.

Junior Card

2008-10-15T19:05:00.002+02:00

We're leaving tomorrow morning to spend some time in Lugano. We plan to meet up with some friends who are in the region on holiday from Edinburgh. The last time we met these friends was in San Diego, and the time before that, was in Paris. Who knows where we will meet next?

It's about a three hour train ride and even though we might not need them, we wanted to get seat reservations. Little Geek Girl is still pretty light, but she is long and poky, and neither of us wants her on our lap if the train ends up being full. Since LGG is still five, she doesn't need a ticket, but in order to make a seat reservation for her, she needs a Junior Card. For 20 CHF a year, a Junior Card allows a child between 6 and 16 to travel for free with a paying parent.

We were wondering if we would have to choose a parent to get the card. It turns out both parents get the Junior Card. So now we have the ability to make seat reservations for longer trips, and we were going to need the card in another four months anyways when she turns six.

Four to a Box

2008-10-15T18:12:00.002+02:00

Before we even moved here I had learned about Luxemburgerli -- the scrumptious mini macarons. The first weekend we were here, Zürich Daddy Geek purchased a small box. He said that was the smallest box available. The smallest box holds about 12 and while Auntie Geek was here, we worked our way through all of the flavors, three at time, for the four of us.

Now, Little Geek Girl would happily eat four Luxemburgerli at a single sitting and for special occasions it's okay for the rest of us. However, I'm trying to exercise moderation these days. I haven't gained the expat 15 lbs (we live in the land of cheese and chocolate, you know), but I think I have some pounds that would not be missed, so I'm starting with portion control rather than eliminating any particular foods.

Yesterday we stopped off at Sprüngli to pick up some chocolate for some friends we're meeting in Lugano and of course LGG was eager to have some Luxemburgerli. I decided to ask if it was possible to purchase only a few, and hooray, there is now a box that holds just four perfectly. LGG lucked out and was offered one for the road, so she had a chocolate in the store and two for home, I picked a pistachio for ZDG, and for me, the flavor of the month, Bailey's. Yum. I also picked up another cookie for each of us. See, that's kind of moderation, right?

Our ballots are here! Our ballots are here!

2008-10-14T09:40:00.003+02:00

I've been checking the mail frequently and this morning I found what I've been waiting for. Our ballots have arrived. Zürich Daddy Geek will be watching Little Geek Girl at lunch today so he can fill out his ballot then and then LGG and I can go to the post office this afternoon.

By the way, LGG wants me to point out that she is a "big girl". I guess she can read some words over my shoulder. Usually she claims she can't read.

Another trip to the Basel Zoo

2008-10-13T14:47:00.003+02:00

Have we mentioned that the Zürich Zoo doesn't have giraffes. And that Little Geek Girl loves giraffes? So on Saturday, we took the train to Basel and spent a nice day at the zoo. A minor flaw in the plan was that they working on the giraffe enclosure so we weren't able to get that close, but it was nice to see some horned, spotted, and long-necked creatures.

After the zoo we walked towards the city center. LGG climbed the sculpture by Paddy Reilly's and then we stopped for a drink elsewhere and a snack of Tarte Flambee. We went up to the Münster to look at the Rhine and the view and then headed back to the station, stopping for a quick dinner on the way back.

On the way to Basel, our German neighbors were on the train (continuing on to Hamburg for the second week of Fall holiday) and on the way home one of Zürich Daddy Geek's colleagues sat with us. We were quite surprised that the Saturday 8 pm train from Basel to Zürich was so full, but were happy to get seats.

Anyways, here are some photos so you don't forget what we look like.

Almost back to normal

2008-10-09T20:53:00.004+02:00

Our streak of no lost baggage ended this weekend at almost 4 years. The last time the airlines lost something, it was Little Geek Girl's carseat in December of 2004. On Sunday, Zürich Daddy Geek's duffel bag decided to spend a little longer in Brussels than he did. Arrving at Zürich airport is usually a piece of cake, but dealing with the lost bag added an additional hour. LGG and I could have slept in. Oh well. (It turns out that the duffel bag was found without tags and it was delivered to the apartment on Monday morning).

Sunday was a lovely day to be outside and down by the lake we could see the Alps with their dusting of snow. However, ZDG was exhausted from his long travel day and he went to bed early and I tried to convince LGG to go to sleep. On Monday, ZDG and LGG went to the zoo to get some outside and sun time, and I caught up on my German homework and laundry. On Tuesday morning, LGG received her first of three vaccinations for tick-borne encephalitis and then we split up. I went to an exercise class and met a friend for lunch. ZDG and LGG had lunch and went up to the Uetliberg. After lunch I called ZDG and decided to join them at the top (this way LGG could have an additional hour of playing at the playground) and we walked down the Planet Walk a little bit and then down the steep trail to the tram, Nimmi's for yummy Indian/Sri Lankan food for dinner, and home. ZDG was shocked when an older woman on the tram actually opened a window for ventilation. The horror of fresh air!

ZDG returned to work yesterday, but he's still pretty tired. LGG helped me with grocery shopping and in the afternoon we went to a playground in the area we lived in when we first arrived. Last night was a pretty amazing rainstorm and this morning was overcast, so LGG and I had a stay at home day playing with Playdoh.

The sun is shining! The sun is shining!

2008-10-05T10:15:00.001+02:00

After two days of incessant rain the sun is shining again! Perfect weather to take Zürich Daddy Geek outside and reset his body clock.

We had a fun time with our friends last night. We ate gooey melted cheese on potatoes (well, the kids had pasta), built train tracks, and feasted on lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies. Our friends left around 10 pm, but I couldn't get Little Geek Girl asleep until after midnight. However, she still wanted to go meet ZDG at the airport so right now I'm trying to get her fed, dressed, and out the door so we can hopefully run into ZDG. And then wander outside in the glorious sunshine. It looks like it will be a beautiful day.

Chocolate Cube Cookies

2008-10-02T10:00:00.004+02:00

A couple of months ago, I posted about my confusion about baking chocolate. Tanya at Expat Chow pointed out that they do have chocolate chips here, but they're actually chocolate cubes and packaged in an opaque bag. Now that I knew what I was looking for I was able to easily find them (must get over thinking things come in packages that I'm used to).

Here's a bag of them.

Here's a picture of Little Geek Girl modeling a chocolate cube, but I think it's already been eaten. She's a cube off the old chocolate loving mother.

In preparation for having friends over this weekend, we made a batch of my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough. I usually add a mix of semi-sweet and milk, but for today's adventure I used all semi-sweet. Next time I'll have to remember to get a bar of milk chocolate to add to the cookies.

Back in July, the New York Times had an article on tips for chocolate chip cookies. One of the tips was to let the cookie dough age to let the dough fully absorb the eggs. So, we baked a few cookies (just to check the dough, you know) and the rest of the dough will age in the refrigerator until Saturday. We might even leave some for Zürich Daddy Geek to have when he gets home on Sunday.

Zürich Multimobil

2008-09-30T11:30:00.002+02:00

This past Sunday Little Geek Girl and I went to downtown Zürich for the Multimobil street festival. Essentially a fair to talk about alternative forms of transportation. The morning started off foggy, but after lunch we had blue sky and it was warm enough that LGG was just in her t-shirt.

We met a friend and her daughter and had fun watching a street busker (I think I've seen the same act in Boulder and Rome), decorating cookies, stopping for a drink and snack, riding the carousel, and in general being outside. There were lots of balloons being given away and also being released into the sky.

Tonight the Zürich Opera will be be performing and broadcasting La Traviata at the main train station. Unfortunately LGG will hopefully be asleep by then so we won't be able watch some free opera but maybe if she goes to sleep quickly I'll be able to.

A visit to Atzmännig

2008-09-30T10:42:00.005+02:00

The Sunday after the Centennial party we still had the rental car (we couldn't return it until Monday morning). While we were at the party we asked for recommendations of places to go that were hard to get to by public transportation. One of the suggestions that sounded like fun was Atzmännig, "home of Switzerland's first and most attractive giant slide." This is how Little Geek Girl described it to the Swiss friends we met for coffee on Friday.

1. You ride up the hill on these cable cars that are open.

2. They put sleds on the back of the cable cars.

3. You ride down a big slide.

4. The sleds go "clickety clack" down the slide.

Our Swiss friend immediately guessed that it was Atzmännig. She grew up on the other side of the Zürichsee and Atzmännig was a popular school trip destination.

As we were getting ready to leave we heard from our friends that had suggested the place to us. Apparently their kids had woke up and insisted on going also. The more the merrier!

We had about an hour's drive. We had directions from the website and Google maps, but even more helpful was the navigation ability of Zürich Daddy Geek's iPhone. Yes, he now has an iPhone and I have to admit, using it to navigate was quite fun.

Here are ZDG and LGG taking the lift to the top.

A view of the slide from the lift.

And here we are arriving at the bottom.

Little Geek Girl and her friends.

On the way to lunch, we passed by the "Nautic-Jet". For CHF 2 you sit in a little car that gets pulled up to the top of a slope, is released, and you land in the water. Here are the geeks in various states of flight.

ZDG at the top.

Here I am midway down. (It is important to post before your blog partner does so that embarrassing pictures of yourself are not posted).

And LGG in flight. She was actually the first of the three of us to ride. Apparently there was just a little squeak from her at the top, but otherwise, she was as brave as she always is.

Afterwards we had a nice stroll to one of the restaurants about 30 minutes away. The service was slow, but when the food arrived we all enjoyed our rösti, alpermagroni, and spaetzle. Afterwards, some of us waddled and others skipped back down for more sliding and fun.

A Centennial Party

2008-09-29T14:42:00.002+02:00

On Saturday, September 20, we went to help some friends celebrate their centennial. We were a little puzzled at first until someone explained to us that if you added up the ages of the parents and three kids, they were currently 100 years old.

In honor of the occasion, the hosts has rented a house in Uzwil, which is about 70 km from Zürich. Although we could have made it there and back by public transportation, we thought this was a party that warranted a rental car so we wouldn't have to drag anyone away from the party to give us a ride to the train station. The house was big enough for a lot of the overnight guests from Germany, but we since we sold all of our camping gear, we thought it best to go home and sleep in our own beds.

It was a lovely day. After the rainy weekend before, it was nice to be outside. The house was not that far from the the motorway, but we were almost immediately in the woods. Here are Little Geek Girl and I walking across the bridge (meaning someone had to lug a lot of food and garbage back and forth).

When we arrived I went in search of the kitchen to see where to drop off my cookies and salad, but there was a lot of activity going on so I dropped off my bag to the side.

Outside was a large grassy area with picnic tables, room for games and barbecues. We had brought a frisbee so we threw that around a little bit. At one point, the three horses from the neighboring farm decided to come visit, but they were quickly sent away.

After a little volleyball it was time for some coffee and cake. The hustling activity in the kitchen resulted in several beautiful apple tarts. This was an organized party. There was candy for the kids and bags of large soft pretzels.

Here's a picture of the backyard before darkness fell and more eating continued.

Here are the kids baking bread on sticks over the bonfire. Our main goals were to keep LGG from falling into the fire or poking anyone with a pointy stick.

Dinner consisted of many grilled meats and lots of yummy salads. The finale was a scrumptious array of desserts. We've determined that we'll be able to celebrate our Centennial in six years in between April and July.

New Dishwasher

2008-09-29T14:27:00.003+02:00

On Friday evening my cell phone rang around 6 pm. I answered the phone and it was the appliance people.

Small diversionary comment: I still can't used to answering the phone "Frau Mylastname hier", or "Mylastname hier" and I have even more trouble deciding what to say when I call people. So I still say "hello". Although I note that the Swiss friend I was visiting answers her phone with her first name, so maybe I'll try that.

They asked if it was okay for the dishwasher to be replaced on Monday between 11 am and 1 pm. I switched to English because I needed to ask what to do if I had to leave to pick up LGG from kindergarten. After they found an English speaker, they explained that if I couldn't be at home, I could leave my key in the postbox. Mailboxes here consist of two parts. A locked portion where junk mail and letters are deposited and a doored cubby for packages that you don't have to sign for. I guess you can't really leave the key under the doormat, since there isn't one.

Today the repairman promptly showed up at 11 am and was out of here just in time for me to go up the hill to pick up LGG. We now have a shiny new Electrolux dishwasher. And instruction manuals in English, German, French, and Italian. Which I should probably read to find out what kind of dishwasher salt I need to get for it. But blogging is much more fun.