Hills and cheese and chocolate and cows

 How does T start his morning? His sisters wake him up at 7:45 and 8:00 and 8:15. By then he is cooperative enough to go to the bathroom and get at least partly dressed. Then he naps until it is time to go. He gets in the stroller and naps until we get on one of the trains out of Zurich. Then he has to wake up so we can all sit together in the upper level of the train by the play area. He manages a polite "Good morning" to Grandpma and Grandpa, but otherwise doesn't talk much other than to ask when we will be getting off the train. Later he will slide a bit and play in the boat, but first where is his breakfast? He pulls out his tray and waits. Once he's had something - today, an American muffin - he can start his day. He might as well start drinking coffee. He already has the stereotypical "don't talk to me until I've had it" behavior down pat.

This morning more bad weather. We went to Bern with the Paul Klee Zentrum in mind but changed our plans and ended up at a cheese factory instead. But first we saw some of the sights. I've been meaning to go to the bear pits but never managed due to time or temperature. I'm glad we went with Grandma and Grandpa, because the littles loved it. L was dancing around. As soon as he realized where we were, T jumped out of the strolled and said, "I love these guys!" There's a very nice view of Bern from the pit. All the mild temperatures and rain have everything green and blooming.

 L has gotten very attached to Grandpa. She is always looking to hold his hand or sit on his lap.

Halfway up

On Tuesday morning we woke up and found the entire country covered in clouds and drizzle. Sadly, the forecast also said it would be the best day of the week. So we headed to Luzern. If the weather worsened we could take a ferry ride and go to the transport museum again. If it got better we could go to one of the nearby mountains. 

We started out by going to old town via the bridge, with a short stop to feed the swans. Usually I don't let the kids feed the birds, but it seemed okay this once. They were with their Grandpa, who is an expert in swan feeding. He has trained many over the years to eat out of his hand. 

T throwing bread as hard as he can

T runs ahead with Grandpa and L not far behind.

Checking out the view.

Oh, no! What happened to T and L? Were they run down by tourists? Or did they collapse of exhaustion? Is L pulling one of her strikes where she refuses to move?

The infinite parade (part 2)

 We waited a long time for the parade to arrive. It started at 3:00 and we didn't see it until well after 3:30. But meanwhile we saw bands and floats on their way to the starting line-up. Most of them were playing, and there were tons and tons of them. The parade starts at Burkliplatz, but they were all headed in the opposite direction, meaning the line stretched all the way to the train station.

Finally the parade arrived, and what happened then amazed Grandpa, even though he had predicted it. The parade, more than halfway through its route ran into its own tail - the bands, etc, still lining up forty-five minutes after the parade started and a mile from its beginning. They came face to face at the intersection next to us, each turning to their right. So we were able to see the beginning and the end of the parade at the same time. Or so we thought! More and more bands arrived. None of us could believe it. When we had to leave at 4:30 they were still arriving! We walked up to Coop by the station to get Grandma and Grandpa some dinner and saw groups lining up that were new to us, so there might have been another street filtering into the parade, too. 

Here is a map which might explain it better. Green is the parade route. Yellow is our location. Red shows where groups came from - it shows Limmatstrasse, but that was only until the parade officially started at 3:00. The red up by the station shows where we ran into the additional groups.

infinite parade map

Grandma and Grandpa are here! (part 1)

Grandma and Grandpa arrived this morning! We met them at the airport with a box of Swiss chocolates and big plans for the day. There was a holiday to celebrate. Grandma and Grandpa were very good sports about that even though they must have been exhausted. They walked and stood around in the cold rain all day. But they did say it was a day they'll never forget.

See T running toward G and G.

First we went to the Zurich train station where we killed a little time picking up some breakfast at Migros. By the time we were done it was late enough for G and G to check into their hotel. So we all went there and ate our breakfast while Grandma unpacked a bottomless bag of goodies from America (peeps for the girls, whose Easter baskets had been burglarized by T's imaginary friend; sour patch kids; brownie mixes; hiking snacks; toy tops, which they immediately played with; and for me cleaning supplies and the one sunblock which doesn't make me break out - there was way too much to list!)

T helps Grandma unpack

S catches Grandpa stealing her cashews. Theft runs in the family.

See how much L loves her top - and she hasn't even opened it yet.

Eventually we headed out again so we could celebrate Sächsilüüte (aka Sechseläuten) which is a local holiday with two parts: a parade of the guilds celebrating the old changeover to summer working hours and the burning of the Böögg, a snowman figure who predicts summer weather according to when the explosives packed in his head go off.

I couldn't resist these Böögg cupcakes. We lost track of them, though. They are either in the hotel room or on the Limmat ferry. I have hope, since I don't see them in the ferry picture. Notice he is standing on his bonfire wood.

Sleepy vacation

Spring vacation has been sleepy for the girls. It seems like every day they are sleeping in very late. I've been letting them, since they seem to need it. Also, next week is going to be very busy with their grandparents visiting. Once it is noon it's too late to go anywhere big, so R has been working hard to finish some school projects. 

S and I went out together on Thursday. That is the day that most of the consignment shops are open, and she and R need clothes. But we had some bad luck in that department. First we went to a bakery I had heard about (Backbar on Seestrasse). It was awesome and S really loved their raspberry lassi. Then we headed to the first consignment shop, passing this enormous wisteria along the way. When we got to the consignment shop, a once a week sale in the community center, we found only a yoga class. After a long conversation in German and Swiss German we learned that the shop was closed over school vacation. So I will go back in a couple of weeks with the littles. If the weather is good I can walk from Stadelhofen rather than wait for the low entry tram and there is a really nice playground there that they are going to love. Combine that with the awesome bakery and the possibility of checking out the Chinese garden, too, (or the Botanical) and it's a day.

The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny came to the apartment! He made a special trip on Sunday night. It was no trouble, he wrote, because he lives in Aarau (where the carrot market is held.)

T's chocolate bunny riding a motorcycle.

Baskets, and a note from the Swiss Easter Bunny, Pascal.

T and L model their school bags.

Tardis earrings for R. If only we could decide where to have her ears pierced.

A dozen eggs! (if you count the chicks)

Bonus pictures taken by T

This was taken in the toy museum. I wanted it to be a square picture. It's messed up glass. I'm looking at the buildings and the people. It's cool wobbly glass.

I wanted this square, too. I wanted to see the wheel.  I think this is Andy's bike. Andy is my (imaginary) friend.

It is babies standing on a chess board playing chess. The shower is to keep them warm.

These are good robots. They do fighting jobs battling bad guys. The gold one is from Star Wars. The blue one is from the blue planet. The other one comes from alien planet.

The rooster cart is my favorite. Their Easter job is bringing presents to kids. 

I like that picture. I did not know I was taking a picture of myself. I am going to take pictures of myself this way again.

I like flowers. They are reflected from the glass. They were against a window. They were real.

And that's all that I want to say!

Easter in Munich

The Easter Bunny came to our hotel room in Munich. He left an egg and a treat for each of the kids and a note explaining that he'd visit the apartment, too.

S egg hunting.

Easter breakfast

After breakfast we hurried to go to the Deutsches Museum. We wanted to get there as soon after opening as possible so it wouldn't be too crowded. That worked out very well. The museum itself was a bit of a disappointment, though. We expected a lot of interactive science exhibits, which it didn't have. The kids' favorite part of the museum was the Kinderreich section for little kids. It had waterways and pumps, giant legos, musical instruments to play, a firetruck, and the best moon phase exhibit E has ever seen. 

Saturday in Munich

We love seeing markets in different places, so that is where we started Saturday morning. We passed the time looking at the different stands, finding a few fruits we've never seen before (like salak and loquats, which I have heard of but have never seen), and drinking freshly squeezed juice until it was time to go to Marienplatz and see the glockenspiel chime. Twice a day the figures move, dancing and jousting while bells ring. L loved the Glockenspiel. She was "ooohhh"ing the whole time. 

We were cold watching the Glockenspiel, so we decided to go to lunch in a nice warm beerhall. But first we had to split up. The girls and I checked out Dallmayr delicatessen to see the specialty foods. E and the littles searched for diapers. When they finally found a shop (which was surprisingly difficult) as they were leaving an employee went up to them and asked if the kids would like a stuffed dog. The would, and were each given a small stuffed animal. T names his dog Duncan.

We all reached Hofbrauhaus at the same time and were lucky to get a table before the lunch crowd completely filled the place. The kids loved it. The enormous pretzels were a hit, they liked the food, they were fascinated by the size of the beers (S wants a huge beer mug for her root beer floats), and L enjoyed dancing to the oompah band. S noticed that the food was all very salty. I told her that would make people want more beer. She thought that was sneaky, and wondered how anyone would want more than one of the huge beers. Later I was walking with R and she said, "I can understand wanting to drink beer in Munich as sort of a novelty since beer is a German specialty, but why do they want to drink huge jugs of it? A small glass would be better."

Neuschwanstein

Here is the main reason for our weekend trip - Neuschwanstein Castle. This picture was taken from the bridge above the castle. I remembered thinking the bridge was the best part when E and I went almost twenty years ago. E still liked it, and so did the girls, but T and I weren't fans. The floor of the bridge was made of wooden boards that were popping, straining, and creaking. It didn't help that it was very windy, extremely crowded, and T is afraid of heights in general (we are working on that.) It was a beautiful view, though, and I crept out far enough to take the picture. T was brave and went much farther out to pose for pictures with his big sisters and to see the waterfall.

The view from town, and a picture of S and T climbing around the castle.

The tour of the castle itself isn't very long since only a few rooms were ever finished. S was impressed with the grotto and the winding staircase with stars on the ceiling and a dragon under a palm tree at the top. R loved the blue tapestry fabric and the secret door in the bedroom. L liked the castle, too. Whenever we entered another room she would look around and then say, "Ooooooohhh!" At one point there was a great view of the bridge and I pointed it out to T. He said, "That bridge is NOT awesome!"

We were lucky that our timing went as planned. We got there fairly early to avoid the rain which was forecast and it started to rain just as we boarded the bus to the train station. Not long afterwards the rain became snow. The whole weekend was a bit colder than was forecast. It was okay, but I did regret sending my winter coat back to the US with E.

Long weekend

A month or so ago when I started seriously planning a summer trip it became clear that it would be very difficult to include Neuschwanstein castle as we had promised the girls. Since we punted plans of going to Turkey over Easter vacation a small getaway to Munich seemed sort of reasonable. So here we are. It is about a four hour train ride from Zurich. That sounds horrible, and it did seem long, but lots of the places I write about take a while to get to. Luzern and Frick, which we went to last week, are each an hour and a half one-way.

The first thing we did was visit a toy shop near the train station. It seemed to have a bit of everything. The ground floor isn't very big, but the basement is huge. Then, because the weather was so nice, we walked a mile or so through the main tourist drag to our hotel. There were at least a dozen produce stands along the way, all selling nothing but white asparagus and strawberries.

We also passed a bakery selling these adorable Easter petit fours, which we couldn't resist. The yellow ones weren't lemon like we expected. Instead they had a mild alcohol flavor. That made L happy! If you remember my carrot market post, you know that L loves a booze cake!