Just two of us

On Saturday everyone decided they would rather spend their first day of October vacation sleeping in and relaxing than waking up at six and taking a two hour train ride somewhere. Fair enough. And yes, I said October vacation. Two weeks off from school. We are going somewhere awesome next week! I know, we already are somewhere awesome, but who knows when we might be in Europe again after this year?

S and I decided we'd head into Zurich in the afternoon and check out the design museum. The design museum was not at all what we expected. We hoped it would have lots of cool examples of European design: typewriters, teapots, furniture, advertising, etc. However, it had no permanant collection at all on display - just a couple of photography exhibits. It was sort of a bummer. But we did enjoy talking about the Martin Parr exhibit and the line between being an artist and a National Geographic photographer, for example. 

But the day wasn't wasted. We walked around the neighborhood and found a Middle Eastern grocery store (where we got some baklava which soaked my purse with honey - oops.) and an affordable Thai grocery and take-out place. Best of all, we  made it to the Brockenhaus which we always see from the train. It has all sorts of used household stuff and we did some Christmas shopping.  S has agreed to go to the granddaddy of the brockis - Brockiland- with me some Saturday.

 The next order of business was to check out a few places in Zurich where we hadn't been with the stroller. There is a little park on top of a well disguised parking garage down town. I was surprised by the area between the park and the river. I would expect apartments crammed together, but intead were these little apartment houses with a big garden between them. Notice the cute windows and the little house cap on the chimney.

I was also suprised by some people smoking a large water pipe next to the playground.  It must come apart somehow. I can't imagine anyone carrying that contraption across town or giving it its own seat on the bus.

Down the street is a place I've seen on maps and was very curious about. It is a terrace park on the top of a hill. Again, it's surprising to see such a prime spot as open space, but people were making good use of it. There were chess boards, swings and lots of benches Pretty fall leaves were blowing everywhere. It was so pretty that S has requested I include her picture there. I guess it's okay. My blog counter says the last few posts have had 0 views. I think that must mean only my three subscribers are looking anyway. That's okay. But if anyone outside my immediate family is viewing, it would be a great boost for me if you'd leave a comment! I know there is really no reason for anyone else to be particularly interested, but if someone I knew had a blog like this I would be reading out of morbid curiosity. It's like looking up the selling price of someone's home, or their age. Now I've admitted to doing that, and if a non-relative reader exists you can  leave an anonymous comment in response.

views from the terrace park

This is the hill leading up to the park, and the reason I never satisfied my curiousity on a day when I was pushing sixty pounds.

S and I continued through old town, crossed the river to buy some dried fruit at Schwarzenbach, and went to Peclard for hot chocolate. They are known for their hot chocolate, and it was absolutely delicious! We still have not been able to sit in one of the good dining rooms, though, and will have to keep going back until we can. My goal is to get one of the red velvet sofas! Next time we go, I think we can stick with just hot chocolate. It is so rich that we couldn't even think about food for hours afterwards. That might make S happy. She had to go down to the front shop alone to order the cakes, and was not happy about having to battle the crowd and try to pronounce mille-feuille.