The Good, The Bad and The Lovely

The Good... I found CF's peanut butter! He insists on the kind that is only 100% peanuts (I agree that it's best). This earned him a PB related nickname from the hostess of our favorite NYC lodging two years ago when she asked what we'd like stocked for breakfast. She had to hunt it down at the health food store, and then got hooked on it herself. When we learned we'd be coming here he mentioned he was concerned there would be no peanut butter, but then he saw it at the office when he was here in July so he said he was no longer worried. Well, all the groceries stores have one of two brands that include added sugar, salt and oil. Even Jelmoli and Globus which are known for being good resources for expats to get food products they miss from home. So today I found myself face to face with a health good store and I have it a try. I quickly found a number of nut butters and was going to at least pick up some of that, but then I spotted the peanut butter. Mission accomplished!

The Bad... I stopped in front of said health food store because I needed to stop and sigh after walking out of Kiehl's. My skin is drying out from the sudden cold and I needed some extra exfoliation help so I went looking for a body scrub. I didn't know until the moment I was handing over my credit card that I was paying three times as much as it would have cost at home. Whoops! Tally Kiehl's up under "Things that are more expensive here," (believe it or not, there are some things that are less expensive here) and I'll enjoy my liquid gold.

And The Lovely... I went to meet CF for dinner at work tonight, I hadn't seen the office before now. It had started raining late in the afternoon so I didn't go out quite as early as I had planned, I was going to go on a bit of a photowalk since I haven't done much shooting in Zürich yet. But once it was time to head to dinner I slipped on my trench coat, newly arrived in the air shipment. I love this coat, it felt good to put it back on. I hopped on the shuttle bus that's running on our street while the tram line is all torn up, and switched to a tram at Bahnhofquai. It was one of the old cars, with little wooden seats. We rattled down the Bahnhofstrasse, with the sun going down, the lights coming on, city people out and about on their way home from work, meeting for drinks or stopping to shop. It was charming and I melted into the moment.... and I realized right then that I had just fallen for the city.