Going back to Lucerne...

"Going back" because it happened over a month ago, and also because I had been there before...

Around the time of my distant-but-most-recent post I went to meet the spouses for coffee at Manora, the cafeteria in one of the department stores on Bahnhofstrasse. That was when I made a friend from the States, who blew me away by coming out on this cold day with her 11 day old baby! We were chatting and figured out that we were in the same neighborhood and decided to try to have dinner sometime. The very next morning she emailed me saying they had a babysitter (for their older two kids) lined up and could we go out that night! So that was how we ended up going out on a Friday night for some surprisingly good Italian food just a block and a half down from our apartment. Turns out her husband and CF had sort of known each other back in California before they moved to Switzerland. We had a nice time talking to them about their time living in Zürich and their advice to us was travel, travel, travel. "On the weekend you'll think it's time to sit back and relax, no! Get your butt to the train station early, Friday if possible and GO!" We shared some stories of our trip to Fribourg and Gruyeres and assured him that we had lots of trips planned. They were impressed with what we had planned! We were all booked to go to Oktoberfest in Munich, so the subject turned to beer. And that led to me going out with the two guys (mom had to go home when the babysitter was due to leave) to two interesting pubs. CF's pick was a place that makes their own beer. It was up the hill from us, closer to the University, and while the beer didn't blow me away it was at least more interesting than the Swiss brews I'd sampled before this. Then MM took us back down the hill to the Bonny Prince Pub. It's a long, skinny, smoky place boasting a jukebox full of heavy metal tunes and more Scottish beers than you've ever heard of. We were here to try Old Engine Oil. Dark and licoricey, I think it surprised MM that I liked it so much. Eventually we all stumbled back up our hill, and as I went to sleep I wondered what this late night would do to our weekend plans... wait, what were our plans again?

Oh, that's right... I wanted to take CF to Lucerne. You might recall I took a day trip here last fall but I thought CF should see it. When I visited alone it was a cold, misty and downright moody day. I thought it suited the setting, especially for viewing the Lion Monument, Löwendenkmal, which was the most moving part of my day. This time the sun was shining, the sky was blue, there was a wedding getting out of the church, the market looked splendid (okay fine, they were packing up around the time we got there, the late night led to a later train than planned)... and about a million other people had also decided it was a good day to visit Lucerne! Ugh. The streets were packed so wandering through the Medieval old town didn't have the same appeal. So we wandered over to the old city wall. You know, the one I climbed last year and was then scared out of my mind while trying to climb down? Well somehow I found myself up that stupid wall again, AND climbed that tower I avoided last time. Yes, the view was very nice, but I was practically shaking by the time I had slowly descended back down all those stupid stairs!

We had a nice lunch at a great place called Wirtshaus Taube. The main dish I ordered actually reminded me a lot of my lunch in the same city a year earlier. I remember being pleased with the appearance of vegetables at the time but then when we decided to come here for the year I remember thinking that if that tiny serving of starchy veggies was worth getting happy over that I was in for disaster. It certainly has been easier to eat healthy in this country while mainly shopping and cooking for myself. After lunch we took a nice stroll by the Lake; we saw plenty of boats out on the water, men playing bocce ball, locals encountering friends out enjoying a lovely Saturday. Lucerne is quite the living, breathing city, and I could barely tell last year. This visit was very different than the last! Eventually I made CF go up to the Lion Monument with me. The pond in front of it was drained for some repair work, gobs of people (most of them one large tour group) swarmed around the park... and I had already blown it and told him how this work of art had moved me to tears before so there were expectations in place. It just wasn't the same! (However, armed with my new telephoto lens I got some better shots of the haunting lion.)

I was mildly frustrated with the decision to come to Lucerne. It's close to Zürich so it will make a good day trip when we have visitors, but I myself would like to leave it misty and moody in my memories from last year. At the same time this is when I told myself that a lot of stuff is going to happen this year, and it can't all be perfect. I decided to be a little more mindful of planning weekends in the future but that this one was all right for now.

We wandered a bit longer, crossed the lovely wooden bridges and even did a little watch pricing for a friend. Eventually we called it a day and decided to catch a train home. We had to scramble a bit to find seats, and accidentally ended up in seats that were reserved for riders boarding in Bern. We rode a little ways not quite sure of what to do. Across the aisle from us two Spanish speaking girls were counting to ten in English for their father, over, and over, and over again. I think this was karma seeing how CF loves to count in languages he's learning and I'm sure he's inflicted native speakers with this annoyance at one point or another. Passengers started to prepare to exit as we approached Bern. We quickly swiped some forward-facing, un-reserved seats and the rest of the trip home was rather uneventful.

At this point I can't seem to remember what we did the next day. It was Sunday so everything around the city would have been pretty much closed. Hmmm. Well, anyway, I hope we rested up while we could, it was the last weekend day we would spend in Zürich for quite some time!

Experience now, write later.

I am so sorry for the silence, I'm embarrassed to admit that it's been a month and a half since my last blog post! Yikes! Luckily for you I am, as my husband calls me, the Human Video Camera, so there are still plenty of stories to tell. If you're really dying to know what I've been up to I hope your following along with my Flickr photostream because I've actually managed to keep up with that pretty well. I post photos on Mondays after returning to Zürich from a weekend (or more) of traveling. It's a nice way to easily revisit the adventures recently had and I'm basically I'm too worn out to achieve much else. Writing, on the other hand, requires a spark; I blog when I'm so revved up about a story I want to tell everyone. So when I'm useless on Mondays it doesn't happen. The rest of the week suddenly gets sucked up by German class (plus studying), going to the gym, or planning and preparing for the next adventure. It's amazing how quickly the hours and days fly by! And then almost every weekend we're off to another destination, seeing amazing new things, soaking up life in other places, and of course eating yummy food. But I write when I feel grounded and focused... and there's the rub, that feeling doesn't seem to happen very much right now. So forgive me for periods of non-blogging, and I thank you for your patience.

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.

Notes from a blogger...

Random thoughts:

I went to Ikea in Dietlikon yesterday. It was much easier than I had expect and didn't take long at all. Now, I haven't been to an Ikea in a while, so I'm not sure if it's just where they've progressed to or if it's the fact that I'm closer to the Ikea homeland, but the displays on the showroom level were much bolder and more fantastic than anything I remember seeing before. They almost made me wish I had to furnish an apartment here. I purchased a huge bag made from plastic tarp to carry everything home in, it cost a franc and I believe I get a franc off my purchase every time I come back with it, so that's cool. They had started selling those bags at the East Palo Alto Ikea and I didn't understand why anyone would want an Ikea tarp bag to take home with them. But now that I could only shop for what I could personally carry home on the train I understood the appeal. I bought us new fluffier, firmer pillows, a fabric shower curtain which we both desired instead of the plastic one that was here, and a dish drainer like the one we have at home because we couldn't seem to get anything to stack right in the nice one that was here. Between this trip and our air shipment arriving things are feeling much homier at home.

It's cold here. Have we seen the last of the heat? The sun shines through at times, but I'm going to need warmer/more socks. An old friend from high school who is living in Prague has just posted a Facebook status wishing that summer would have at least said goodbye. I agree! I have some more clothes coming with our large shipment but my wardrobe is just ridiculous. I might need to check out H&M sooner than expected.

I just want to take a moment to apologize for my lack of editing on this blog. I try to fix typos when I catch them, but I don't get them all. I also am hit and miss on my special characters. I'm sure I've switched back and forth on using Zurich and Zürich... I'm not even sure if when I use the Mac command for "ü" that those of you on PC's see it corrected. And yes, I ramble. A lot. That's just me... this is my journal as well as my way of telling people about my wacky adventures. So consider this my official recognition of my own bad habits, but I'm not going to worry about them too much. There's more important things in life!

And, please remember that I don't post all my photos here so keep an eye on Flickr for more good stuff. I uploaded some things out of order recently: a couple random Zurich shots, then Fribourg, then I went and caught up with Monterey from July and San Diego from August, and then posted Gruyeres. So I started a collection that's at the top of my photostream, on the right hand side, "Our Year Away..." is where I'll stick photo sets from different adventures this year. Since the line between travel and being home is blurred.

All right kids, this blogger needs some socks... my toes are freezing! Remind me to soon talk about the expats and bloggers and also the spouses of CF's coworkers and how these circles of friends are so intertwined.

How do you say "foodie" in Swiss-German?

Hooray! Our air freight finally arrived yesterday. CF sent a stern email on Sunday evening and suddenly they were ready to deliver. Hmmmm. Well, we're just going to appreciate that we have more of our stuff here now. Including our hiking shoes and my trenchcoat and great rain jacket that sort of matches CF's. Ummm, I'm ready for my cheese hike now! Drat!

We also got some of our kitchen stuff. A fully stocked kitchen was left in place by our gracious hosts from whom we are subletting, but we still brought plenty of our stuff so we can use familiar tools and also spare their belongings some of a year's worth of wear. It's going to be a bit tricky to figure out where everything goes and I almost don't want to deal with it until the bigger shipment arrives, which may or may not be next week. I'm not getting my hopes up again!

I have to say, I haven't quite gotten the hang of our kitchen. The fridge is small, the foods less processed... you can't buy too much or it's just going to go bad. But at the same time I feel like I am constantly buying groceries. I think I will learn to balance this better as time goes on. This awkward stage, along with the fact that the foods we've been eating are just different from the routine things I tended to buy at home, has led me to have some weird moments of not feeling satisfied by anything I eat. It's weird, I can't explain it. Maybe it's again related to not feeling like I'm traveling but not feeling like I'm at home either? It's starting to get better though.

I've been cooking up a storm lately. We've been enjoying plenty of fresh produce, much of it is Swiss but there are also items from Italy and Spain. There's basil growing on our balcony. The cheese is all fantastic whether it comes from the market or the cheese counter or the plain cheese section of the grocery store. Dried and cured meats are very popular, prosciutto everywhere, I love it. I've been trying to use the ingredients left behind, as well as experimenting with items rounded up from my many grocery shopping trips. Last week I faked my way through stuff pasta, I found the tubes in our pantry. I cooked up ground beef, stirred in ricotta, stuffed it in the tubes, drenched it all in sauce and covered it in shredded mozzarella... didn't know what I was doing but how could I really go wrong? This week I faked my way through lasagna, which was a tiny bit more tricky. I browned the meat, I broiled eggplant that needed using, I sauteed shallots and spinach in another pan, decided to combine the spinach and meat as well as the ricotta, then needed to season the crushed tomatoes I was using as sauce so washed the little pan I had cooked the beef in and got that going, didn't really have the right spices so that was frustrating (I've since purchased crushed red pepper, garlic powder and onion powder), then realized I couldn't read the pasta box and wasn't sure these were no-boil but took a chance (whew, they were!), settled on putting down a thin layer of sauce, a layer of noodles, the eggplant, the meat/cheese/veggie mixture, a second layer of noodles, the rest of the sauce and then shredded mozzarella, I baked it about as long as the stuffed pasta (that box had included English so I knew I could stuff the dried tubes)... and somehow after all this madness I actually got a pretty good lasagna, it just had a little too much black pepper in the sauce. Whew!

Also in the same kitchen and sort of at the same time, I made a dessert to bake. I got the idea over at Geeks in Zürich. Italian Prune Plums had seemed sort of familiar, turns out we used to have a tree when I was little, and they're all over the place right now. Zwetschgen, as they are known here, are smaller than other plums and pit very easily. I followed the same recipe as Mama Geek, although I had no measuring cups and I didn't know if what I had in the pantry was brown sugar or something else but it tasted pretty close. You just cut up the plums and sugar them a little. Mix ground walnuts, flour, sugar and cinnamon (it asked for cardamom but I don't have any here) with some melted butter, and blend it with a fork. Pour the mix on top of the fruit and bake it for most of an hour. I think I used too much of the dry ingredients and therefore not quite enough butter, the topping didn't look as pretty as it could have. But man, was it delicious! CF has maybe never been more impressed with something I've cooked. We happened to have a little vanilla ice cream to have with it. Cooking by the seat of my pants seems to be working out just fine.

Where's the Cheese?

Whoops. So much for "not much else." The breakfast buffet proved too much for us to resist and we ate a bit more than we had intended. There were cheeses, pastries, salami and dried fruits. Delicious! Washed down with a good dose of coffee and I was much fuller then intended but quite a happy girl. We packed up and checked out, leaving our suitcase at the front desk. "Do you need an umbrella?" the concierge asked. We assured him we had two small ones and would be fine. "Sorry, you didn't get lucky with the weather but... it's Switzerland." "Well, we're leaving in Zürich for the year, so..." "Ahh, so you understand."

Today's adventure: Cheese. Gruyere to be exact. We took a half-hour bus ride to Bulle, and a cute little train took us to Pringy where we visited the La Maison du Gruyère. If we had our hiking shoes we could have done a two hour or so walk to chalets in the area where we could have probably had some amazing cheese. But in our less-than-suficient city shoes we couldn't quite make the hike, so we settled for this popular spot that was right across from the train statin. CF observed that we were at a tourist destination, but we were rather in the middle of nowhere and it wasn't exactly straight forward how to get there. The cheese making demonstration was in process so we paid our 7chf admission fees and hurried upstairs. It was quite exciting to see the huge vat of milk emptying while the cheese molds were filling and the liquids streamed out the bottom. Lots of action - the windows steamed up with a cheesy fog. We snacked on the cheese samples that came with admission, three pieces of Gruyere, each aged a different length of time. 6, 8, 10 months is all well and good, but I had purchased 12 month or older from the market at the train station last week. Still, it was a tasty little cheese snack. The vat was empty, the liquids all drained out, the two cheese makers went to work labeling the wheels, pulling the extra frame out of the way now that only solids remained, and putting equipment in place for the pressurizing stage. The cheese spends 16 hours like this and then 20 hours in a salt bath before it goes to the aging cellar.

CF likes to fantasize that one day he'll become an artisanal cheese maker. He loved seeing this process, I could just see the thoughts set in motion by this demonstration. I asked him if he'll be selling his cheese at a card table at a little farmers market. He liked the idea. We went and looked at the cellar and watched their high-tech robot take wheels out of their place, flip them and slide them back in. Sooooo much cheese in this place. How nice to have a little robotic help in taking care of it.

Afterwards we headed up the hill to the actual town of Gruyéres. The views were ridiculously fantastic. as we climbed higher and higher. CF hasn't been in much of Switzerland outside of Zürich, so he was really blown away. It was about 11am and the town was quiet besides a few other wanderers and shop keepers just setting up for the day. We went to one edge of town and looked out over the countryside. It was here that I realized we were surrounded by the soft sound of cowbells. Livestock in every direction couldn't help but disclose their location. You might not think of cowbell ringing as peaceful but at this volumn it was the perfect soundtrack to the sights.

We climbed up around the back side of Gruyéres to the castle, or Chateau as the case may be. It felt vaguely like some of the places we visited in Ireland but with fewer people around. We decided against paying to go inside but enjoyed the highest vantage on the area yet. We soon walked past a creepy looking sculpture and I realized we were walking past the HR Giger Museum and the creature depicted was some sort of alien. Giger won the Best Visual Effects Oscar for Alien and is quite the sci-fi designer. Across the walkway from the museum I saw people going into a bar, and when I looked in the window I saw the entire interior was Giger-esque. Super creepy... and slightly cheesy (no pun intended), "I kind of want to go in!" CF admitted. I had noticed their sign out front advertising their coffee and meringues which were things I wanted to be sure to have here so I agreed to go. Inside it seemed there were a couple of locals (even this tiny little town has its locals) at the bar and two friendly bartenders. We settled in, hanging jackets on the bones of our throne like chairs (the ones at the bar rotated but not ours). I ordered coffee with the famous Gruyéres double cream and CF asked for something similar. But then we observed "Alien Coffee" on the front of the meny and he decided to be silly and bold and went to the bar to change his order. The platter that was brought to him was quite impressive. A huge cup of very good coffee, two shots of the delicious double cream, 3 perfect little Gruyéres meringues, a glass of a Gruyéres liqueur (which was optional but he went for it), and a tea bisquit (just to push it over the top). He shared very nicely, lucky for me. The double cream was amazing; it made for some of the best coffee I've had since arriving in Switzerland. A fantastic treat/snack, in a very unusual setting. I was rather amused when it sunk in that this spine-decor bar was playing punk music. "I am the antichrist! I am the antichrist!" The Sex Pistols proclaimed making this experience all the weirder. CF said, "You have to take some pictures, no one will understand this if we just try to tell them about it." I agreed and got out the big camera, which I had tucked away when the mist had turned a little too much to rain outside. I don't think we'd have been so amused by this place if we were at an amusement park like it almost felt... but here it seemed so bizarre that we just laughed and enjoyed warming up for a while. Through the windows I noticed that more people were starting to stream through the tiny street, it appears we were just ahead of the "rush."

There wasn't too much more of the town to see. We did a little window shopping and considered, just for a second, buying a Heidi costume for The Niece. Now, when I had told Ms. D where we were going to end up for the weekend the first thing she mentioned was onion soup. Of course, Gruyere is the cheese melted on top! I swear I could smell it as lunchtime came around. Gruyéres is little more than one long town square, we zigzagged back and forth checking each restaurants' menu for the soup... no luck! Couldn't believe it. Maybe it's a winter thing like fondue? Well, here they were serving fondue year round. We settled for a fresh made ham and cheese crepe. I was surprised they offered Gruyere or Chevre, Chevre was tempting but I couldn't see ordering that in this very town! We purchased some meringues to take home and decided to head back down the hill.

CF noticed there was onion soup on the menu at the restaurant inside La Maison (we'd gone inside so I could borrow the restroom), and there wouldn't be a train for half an hour. When the steaming bowls were brought to our table we couldn't believe our eyes. A mere few shreds of the cheese they were making in this very building were sprinkled on the squares of bread floating on top! "Hey, where's the cheese?!?!" CF gave his homage to Clara Peller. Obviously we weren't going to get the experience we were after. But again: cold day, warm food, good thing. We hurried our server a bit to pay our bill and scrambled off to the train station. I made the lame comment that everything had worked out so well with our weekend despite little to no planning. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that once again my smugness got shoved back in my face... the hourly train skipped this hour on Sundays. Ugh. We wandered around a bit but then just settled in at the station and played with our iPhones. Eventually we got a cute little train back to Bulle and the bus back to Fribourg.

If we had hustled we could have gotten our bags from the hotel and made the next direct train to Zürich. However, since the weather was much better than the previous day and I was armed and ready with my better camera I asked if we could go for another walk in Old Town. We had covered most of the streets already but noticed some interesting details which we had missed from under umbrellas the day before. The city was pretty empty, most of the businesses closed. I forgot to mention in my previous post that I had seen a family emerging from one of the great Medieval buildings, inside I could briefly see a foyer and stairs leading off to divvied up spaces. How incredible to live in a building with such history! Even the Thai restaurant where we had dined was up a narrow and twisted flight of stairs with the bar that seemed practically not related to it at the entrance level.The restrooms had been placed into the odd, almost cave-like spaces between the two levels. Very cool modern uses of historical structures and spaces.

We collected our bags after our walk and head once again to the train station. There were a lot of people waiting with us and it was a mad dash to get a seat. After we pulled away from Fribourg I realized we were in seats that were reserved for someone from Bern to Zürich. The train was packed with families. Sunday is a popular day for travel since businesses are closed. It's nice to see families out and about together but it made for quite a lot of noise and chaos. Across the aisle two Spanish speaking young girls were having their father teach them to count from 1 to 10 in English. They did it over and over again. I thought of CF learning to count in French, something he liked to do while in Belgium last year, and wondered if any French speakers ever had to listen to him practicing. A mild sort of karma. When the train was about to reach Bern we quickly snagged seats that were emptied by people departing there so we got to ride the rest of the way home facing forward and didn't have to change trains at all.

The train station was almost as packed as the train. We found the Marinello in the HB was open and had fresh bread so we selected a pretty loaf. We are sampling our way through different breads. Turned out this one is basically pretzel bread. A funny discovery but it was good. We sauteed up some of the massive amounts of spinach CF had bought at the farmers market having confused one kilo for one pound, and had a little cheese and salami, also from the market. I melted some chocolate and coated some of the meringues with it (a way of serving them that some of the restaurants might have done but we didn't end up dining in Gruyéres besides the bar). CF dubbed them "sugar bombs." We curled up on the couch and purchased and watched another episode of No Reservations. The Berlin episode! Germany got us thinking about going to Munich next month, one of the first things we planned once we knew we'd be here. And I think we were both feeling much more geared up for that adventure now that we had completed such a successful last minute getaway weekend.

Sorry for rambling... it takes me a while to go through all the memories but it's actually faster than trying to edit them down! I probably won't manage to journal everything we do this year, but I thought I could start out with a strong effort! Thanks for reading!

Familiar Ground...

I think part of my feeling unsettled here has to do with not really knowing what to make of the new situation. It feels familiar, but that's because it feels like travel. I am actually much more used to the traveling than I am to moving. My days in Zurich are a little confusing because internally I'm not sure how I want to behave. I'm sure this will come with time.

However, we just had our first weekend trip and I have to say it was a pretty big success. Overwhelmed with the huge range of options to pick from (when you want to go everywhere and try everything where to you begin?) we had somehow managed to put off planning all week. Friday morning we decided that since we had nothing planned we'd just do a day trip to St. Gallen. Ease into things. But when we really got down to the wire we both knew we could try a bit harder and we decided to try to make a weekend adventure happen. We pulled up recommendations for hotels in Fribourg on the western side of Switzerland, called up NH Fribourg and just like that, at 10pm on Friday, we were going away for the weekend.

Saturday morning we went out and stood in pouring rain for our shuttle bus, scurried into the HB, and easily bought our round-trip train tickets. With our half-price cards we spent about $100. We had planned on waiting a half an hour for the next train that would take us directly to Fribourg, but instead we got the train that would require one change that was leaving in 5 minutes. That's how easy it is, just buy your tickets and get on. I love it. We spent the next hour wooshing through the country, eaves dropping on about every tenth word or so from the Italians across the aisle. A 7 minute stop-over in Bern and we hopped on our next train. Shortly after that we were at our destination. It was still only 10:30am, but the hotel had a room ready so we got to check in. CF had been talked into the upgrade and for an extra 20chf we had a lovely hillside view.

We geared up and headed out to explore the city, rain or well, more rain. The old town section is very lovely, with winding streets and alleyways leading in all sorts of directions, small but still somehow tricky to navigate. We discovered the farmers market was in action. "Just so you know, I am very happy right now." CF told me. The market's offerings were beautiful. Later he would keep talking about how there was a guy selling cheese that he probably made at home from a little card table. Unfortunately the next couple hours were the worst of the weather and the narrow street was filled with umbrellas that seemed to reach under mine and spill their runoff onto my canvas peacoat. Damn it, where is our air shipment? What am I doing here without a raincoat? Stupid. I regret now that we didn't get to enjoy the market more but instead we went inside for some lunch at Cafe des Arcades.

Fribourg is in the French speaking part of Switzerland. We were pleased at how quickly what we knew came back to us, although I guess that's not saying a whole lot so of course it didn't take long. But I think we felt a bit more at ease with our bonjours, mercis, and au revoirs than we do with much beyond grüezi while back in Zürich. I ordered crepes du bacon, each one had 3 strips of bacon cooked right into it. CF ordered a salad topped with chicken, tomatoes and avocado. I'm not surprised that avocado can be grown near here, I expect it was from Italy, but I didn't know if I should expect to see it on many menu items so it was a pleasant surprise. We split our meals half-and-half... and also had an order of frites... we were cold and soggy, what can I say? The rain got a bit worse during our meal, but it actually stopped for a while after our meal.

If you know much about the way we travel you know that if there is a craft-beer option in town then that is where we are headed. Our Lonely Planet book had mentioned a one-room brewery in town run by a couple of friends as a bit of a hobby. We found a lovely view off a very high bridge, the town certainly has a high part and a low part and I made a joke that where we were going was probably down below. As we were walking away from the bridge we saw some people disappeared down some steep stairs and we both widened our eyes at each other. "I kinda want to know what's down those stairs, but I'm worried I'd have to climb back up them." CF confessed. I was worried they'd be slippery in the rain. "Come on, let's go find beer." Well, it turns out, of course, that we were indeed headed down to the lower part of town. We got there by easing down a slanted walkway. But after all that work, we found the brewery closed for renovation. A message was left scrawled on the window, it said something about Saturdays. CF worked on translating it with his new favorite toy, his iPhone. "Ahh! Aha!" He held it up for me to read. It said they were selling beer at the door at the back of the house on Saturdays. We were hopeful, but several tries to find the right door and not wanting to be too pushy led us in circles and we had to give up. Drat!

We settled for a less interesting beer at a pretty interesting local bar that I noticed on the walk back towards the hotel. The interior was all fun pirate themed murals. And then we went back to our room and had a nice nap. That evening we went back out, okay, I admit it, we made one more pass by the brewery, hoping to find some sign of this "must try" beer. Boo! CF had his heart set on some Thai food but they were closed for a wedding party until 7:30 so we went to a bar for another round or two of beers. We paused outside to shake out umbrellas and I thought for just a moment that it was getting dark, it's no longer day. I stepped inside and got a slightly tentative look from the woman clearly in charge. "Bonsoir," I said with a smile, and she replied with the same. I felt rather satisfied and proud of myself for remembering that one as it came out of my mouth. CF stepped in behind me and I started to walk into the bar... and promptly stumbled as I didn't see the step below my feet. Smooth, maybe if I stopped smugly congratulating my puny language skills in my head I could watch where I'm going.

After a beer or two and long enough for the memory of my grand entrance to fade we paid the bill and headed back up the sloped walkway and found the Thai restaurant. We managed our way through the meal with a bit of French, bit of English, tiny bit of German and plenty of pointing. It was very good and we had a very nice time. I had a nice glass of one of my new favorite drink, port, and CF had his usual girly sounding and looking but surprisingly strong cocktail. The waitress giggled when he ordered it. We had some pad thai and red curry pork. The red curry had no coconut milk, this was the second time I've had something recently that I was used to getting drenched in it and found that I liked it just as much without it (the first was a Thai iced tea I had at a popular place in Zürich last weekend). Interesting, the things you can learn when you don't know what you are ordering!

The portions seemed small, but I felt incredibly full. It was also some of the most expensive Thai food we've ever had, but that's Switzerland for you. We declared ourselves properly indulged and decided that was enough for the night. There was cheese to be discovered the next day so we needed to make some room. "I hope this breakfast buffet tomorrow is a lot of coffee and not much else."

Ladies and gentlemen, we have sleep.

Still quite sneezy and sniffley around here but I almost jumped for joy when I slept from about 10:30 to 4am and then from shortly after that until 7am. That is the most sleep I've had in a long time and it was very sound and restful. Thank goodness! I really was about to lose my mind. This calls for a great breakfast. I finally went out to get fresh bread from the bakery a few doors down and we ate the figs, prosciutto and gorgonzola that we already had. I'm quite in love with the Nespresso machine that was left for us to use. We've already figured out where we need to go to buy the capsules it uses. No wonder this thing sells so well in Europe, it makes some darn good coffee! Ahh! I'm beginning to feel like myself again.

Back to Before

Whoops! I forgot I was going to post a bit about how I spent my time before leaving.

The day I put CF on a plane to Zürich I went out with some friends in San Francisco. The DP's planned a fantastic outing for KZ and me to enjoy while our husbands were in different countries (PZ was in India). CF and I had actually met up earlier that week with the DP's for sushi in Half Moon Bay and PDP had the idea to go to Slanted Door for dinner on Saturday. Now, I knew KZ had been dying to go there so of course we had to make it happen. The best reservation we could get was quite late but we decided to go for it. We didn't tell KZ where we were going but we guessed it and guessed right. So of course we had to throw her off. We were having cocktails before dinner at one bar and then switched to a restaurant (Can I just say that I will miss the current cocktail trends in SF, basil and lillet blanc seem to be in every other drink!) and told KZ that was where we would be dining. Then when it was time to actually go to the Slanted Door P told her our table was ready and then we ran up the stairs and out the door. She was so confused so we finally spilled the beans. She was sooo excited. It was great fun. Then we proceeded to eat and drink away our cares. You can always tell that I've had far too much to drink when I stop being subtle with my camera. I was snapping away with the flash on. Shameful! It caught up with the me the next day though. I didn't get to enjoy my breakfast until about 3pm when I could finally bring myself to eat more than a few bites. Thanks for a fab time DP's!

Then I headed down to San Diego to visit the Niece and her parents. She is beyond adorable and we had a great time playing with my computer. My sister was a bit terrified with how much I let her touch the keys, I'm sure I'm not making her efforts any easier, sorry L! We ended up on Skype with CF a couple of times and the Niece and he would launch into a hilarious routine of exchanging kisses. This involves him kissing at his webcam so his lips would fill the screen and then she would kiss towards him on the screen, which mean that my webcam could only catch the top of her head. All CF could see was crazy blonde curls fluttering back and forth. Soooo cute! She knows an amazing number of words: names, numbers, colors, etc... and she can read some of them too. And I'm not just being a biased aunt when I say that she is absolutely gorgeous. I think she attracts a lot of attention and people on street like to say "Hi!" in a drawn out, high pitched baby voice. So she's now taken to waving to people and saying "Hiiiiiiii!" with a little voice that sounds something like a southern belle. I'm so glad I got to go spend some time with her before leaving the country. Apparently after I left she was pointing towards their computer and asking for CF, and when she was trying to talk on the phone with my brother she was a bit thrown off by not being able to see him as well. We've already video chatted with her once from here in Switzerland and she did a repeat performance of the kissy exchange and also "beeped" our noses for us a few times. I had noticed in August that she didn't seem phased at all to see CF in the computer, but I wondered if she was a little confused as to how I was there now too. Oh, the things kids' brains have to learn these days!

My last week at home was packed full of socializing and lots of meals out. I got to see a lot of friends and really wrapped up a successful summer of connecting with the people I care about. The Saturday before I went to see UC Davis play San Jose State. The football game didn't turn out the way we would have liked, but it was perfect to get to see people one last time before I left. I just hated the moment it was over and suddenly people turned to me to say goodbye, the thing I had been putting off all summer. Riding back home with the DP's I asked if we could grab some dinner, I had very little food at home. We stopped for a burger, which totally hit the spot and seemed quite appropriate for one of my last meals in the States for a while. PDP said, "That's a big smile, M." "Well, I'm a happy girl."

The day after that my parents and brother came to visit and we went out to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Hola, to celebrate T's birthday. The food was all incredible (we all picked out great dishes), we had lots of good margaritas, we had a great time. The family helped me go through the house and look for any loose ends to tie up. Thank goodness my sister and her family were coming just a few days after I left so they could fix up anything I failed to get done! I had to say goodbye to my parents but T spent the night, graciously sleeping on the couch. We went for a nice walk on the Bay Trail the next day and watched plenty of No Reservations (which by the way, we have been watching via the iTunes Store in the week I've been here, makes me feel right at home!). Then I had to put him on a train back to Davis.

Once I was alone is when all hell broke lose... which takes us back to where the first post I wrote today started. All my readers back at home are going to wake up to a whole lot of babbling to catch up with on their Tuesday morning!

Under the Weather

We've done a bit better with the weather since that first day. It has rained off and on, but it's also been sunny a good chunk of the time. I think you just have to go out prepared for anything! Yesterday I went out in jeans and socks and carrying an umbrella, jacket and scarf... and it was lovely the whole time I was out. I saw someone in sandals and capris as I headed home and remembered regretting those choices a few days earlier. I'm sure we'll figure out what to wear when. But I also just think we'll have to be good sports about it when we're wrong. The other night we got home from being out most of the day and decided to go back out for some beers just as it started to rain and we went out anyway. I'll admit I regretted it a little when the beers we sampled that night were not really worth the hassle, but I felt better about it when we picked up some bottles to take home from a store in the train station called Drinks of the World. My favorite Belgian was there, Rochefort 8, for nearly half the price it was at home! Shhh! Don't tell them.

I thought I was having some of the worst jetlag ever but it turned out to be a bad cold. I still haven't had a great night of sleep. I don't know if I got it on the plane or running around in the rain, but it's driving me crazy right now. Last night was the worst, I had been feeling better but laying flat out on the bed with one little flat pillow let me only sleep for about two hours before outrageous pressure started building up in my head. I am desperate for a good night's sleep at this point. Blah! The only thing more embarrassing than my mumbling in English here is having to sniffle and blow my nose while I mumble. I'm so ready to dig in now and get settled but I'm waiting until I'm a little less gross to encounter. Hopefully I'll be feeling better enough by Thursday to attend a weekly coffee get-together with the spouses of CF's coworkers. We'll see.

Our street is quite torn up right now, what timing I have! The trams have been rerouted and we've had to walk a little bit further than usual ever since Saturday. I think they meant to have everything put back together again by now but I'm guessing the rain didn't help. The construction workers are giving it their all though, working late into the night and in the pouring rain. I was a little hesitant to like the fact that the trams go right past our windows, but it makes it so easy to go hop on one heading in your direction and now I miss it already. Hopefully they will be wooshing by again soon.

The days following my arrival here have been a bit of a blur. I've unpacked what I have here with me, which isn't much since neither of the shipments have been delivered yet. The air shipment was supposed to beat me here by at least a day! Hopefully that will show up soon and at one point the estimated arrival for the surface shipment was the end of this week.

We've done some exploring of the city and the shopping options. Particularly the food shopping options, you know us. We have been quite pleased with what we've found, there's a bakery just a few doors away and a corner bodega. Not too far in one direction is a Migros and down near the train station (again, not too far) is a large Coop, we like this store a lot. We took a spin through the food offerings from Jelmoli and Globus, which are department stores but the basements remind us quite a bit of Whole Foods. We've spotted an amazing cheese shop and a couple of meat shops. Sure, the prices are steep, but there isn't much we haven't been able to find. I even found a pound of fresh spinach for the same price it would be in California. The dining out options are indeed expensive, but I think we'll have a great time cooking at home.

I am very happy to here, despite having to put a few things on hold until this cold blows over. Saturday we wandered around the city and saw at least twice as many people as I ever saw last Fall. There were also all kinds of festivities going on... street booths, fun bands, demonstrations, and crazy performance artists in ellaborate costumes. A very different Zürich than the one I met before. The apartment is amazing, the high ceilings and windows make for incredible light and the views in every direction are so pretty. We're very lucky to get to live here, CF says everyone is impressed when he tells them his address for the year. I'm just hiding out until I'm a bit more presentable. If we can drown our sorrows in enough vitamin C this week than this weekend we will start on our travel habit. A good one to set for the year!

I'll sign off with this silly band we saw on Saturday. I'm afraid this video doesn't do them justice. We had gone past them already but I went back to see them when I could hear old timey singing, which turned out to be through a megaphone. Soon after I stopped this video they did a whole chorus without actually playing, just doing exaggerated horn movements and then went right back into the song. The showy trombone player appears to be in charge, he started one song with some intense chanting right in the face of a pretty girl who happened to be walking by right then. It was amusing. CF and I both noticed: saxes in front! I looked up their website, which is a little confusing, but found photos of them in other crazy costumes. Maybe we'll encounter them with another look sometime soon.