Züri-Fäscht

This past weekend there has been a huge celebration in Zürich that only happens once every 3 years. It's called Züri-Fäscht and it's basically just a big party thrown by Zürich to celebrate being Zürich, as far as I can tell. It is quite obvious from the event that Zürich has no shortage of money.

It happened to coincide with the World Cup this year, which made it even bigger and better. We met up with about 10 of Martin's friends from his lab group to watch the Germany-Argentina game on a big screen by the lake and then wandered around for the rest of the evening taking in the festivities. It's a good thing Germany won because several of Martin's labmates are German and they would have been in really bad moods otherwise.

Of course we went to Züri-Fäscht yesterday but did not bring the camera as there were huge crowds and we didn't feel safe having the camera while in large crowds watching soccer games. But we took a couple of pictures with our cell phone. Both are of Tom, one of the postdocs in Martin's group. Tom likes to drink girly drinks and we decided to capture a few of his drinks on film. Don't even ask how much these drinks cost! It's easy to go broke having a few drinks in Zürich. And I'll admit, I was also sucked into buying one of the margaritas there because I wanted an orange lei and the fun tall cup. But the drink itself was not so great. Not surprising.



This second picture is where we watched the soccer game from ... so yes we got to stand around on those rubber mats for hours on end in 90+ degree weather yesterday. Good thing there was plenty of cold water and beer around!




So this entire weekend is filled with air shows, fireworks, carnival rides, a lot of bands playing all over Zürich, huge crowds (supposedly 2 million people visit Zürich for the event) and lots and lots of good food. None of which we ate because we were too busy watching soccer and wandering around. But it all smelled really good! And the air shows were really impressive. They went on all afternoon right up until sunset (which is around 10pm here right now). Some of the shows had helicopters, some had really old planes, and some had military planes. What I thought was pretty cool was that the helicopters took part in the fireworks show and shot off fireworks from the air while there were fireworks being set off from the ground simultaneously. But, like I said, Zürich has no shortage of money!

Success Take 2

Okay so my first attempt at balcony flowers was sort of a fail because I planted all flowers that didn't like the sunshine that they get on a south-facing balcony! So they have been moved into the shade and away from the railing.

So today I went back to the store and bought some more flowers that will hopefully take to the sunshine and heat a little better ... though I'm not sure it will be successful either. Thankfully the flowers are all on sale this time of year because everybody else has already planted their flower boxes so it's not expensive to keep buying more.

So I now have new flowers, and herbs! Basil, rosemary, and thyme. I bought chives too but they didn't fit into the box with the others so they're on their own inside the apartment for now until I figure out what to do with them.

Sunflowers and begonias (and I don't want to hear about how begonias don't like sunshine! I'm hoping they'll like the sunshine here), the begonias are just sitting in the box not planted yet because I ran out of soil and am too tired of walking down the hill to go back to the store again today:



And the herbs:

Success!

We are now Swiss.



Notice how I got the neighbor's balcony in so you can see their planter boxes. They seem to have wildflowers growing in theirs but it still looks nice.



Now we just need to fill 3 more of those boxes, keep all of the plants not only alive but thriving and gorgeous when viewed by neighbors, and also buy some non-flowering plants to fill pots that will sit around our deck and grow over the railings and be green. Oh and then we have a second balcony that we'll also need to decorate similarly. But by then it'll be winter!

For now, we're happy with our one box. We want to definitely fill a second box with herbs. I already bought a basil plant and have been using it. Then we want to buy chives, thyme, and maybe rosemary. I've always wanted to grow my own herbs so I'm pretty excited about it.

The bigger purple flowers are Japanese roses but I'm not sure what the others are. The little purple one looks like a violet but I'm probably wrong.

A Walk in the Woods 2

Our new apartment sits less than a quarter mile from a little forest on top of a hill filled with nice trails for walking, running, or biking. All of the hills surrounding Zürich are covered with such trails. You have to walk up a steep hill to get to any of them, but once you're at the top and surrounded by forest it's worth it. It's an easy way to get away from the city and feel like you're in the middle of nowhere for a little while.

So this morning we went for a walk in the woods behind our apartment. First you walk up a steep hill (though fairly short in comparison to other hills around Zürich).

These are the cows at the farm right on the outskirts of the forest:



And here's the view that the cows have while they eat their grass:



You can see some of this view from one of the balconies at our apartment but you have to look between two other buildings and around a really big tree to see it.

There are lots of these big piles of wood in the forest. There are also some piles of neatly stacked chopped wood. Dad you'd appreciate them ... I didn't get a picture of the chopped wood though. But if possible the piles are even neater than yours! Martin and I aren't sure how much wood costs here, but we're nervous that it will be expensive so we're keeping the supply of wood in the forest in mind in case we need to steal some to have fires in our fireplace. j/k.



And here's a picture of one of the trails through the woods:

The new apartment

We have space now! I just realized I didn't take a picture of the fireplace but I don't have time to take one and upload it right now because today is pretty busy. This entire week is going to be incredibly busy. So here are some pics of the new apartment. Let's call these the "before" pictures.

The master bedroom (love the king sized bed!):



The door to the balcony off the master bedroom (this balcony is also off of the second bedroom):



The guest bedroom. It is quite spacious. It currently has two twin beds in it but we are replacing them with a double bed. We just have to figure out how to dispose of two twin beds ...



This is the view right when you walk in the front door. The master bedroom is immediately on your left (you can't see the door), with the guest bedroom next on the left. The bathroom is on the right. Our awesome kitchen table and chairs are straight ahead. I plan to replace those chairs before anything else.



And here is the kitchen. It's pretty small but plenty big for the two of us. And it's huge compared to our closet kitchen in our studio apartment.





A view from the kitchen over into the living room. The fireplace is where the bit of bricks are sticking out of the wall on the right hand side. Yes that is a dryer in the bottom right corner. We plan to get rid of that but have to figure out how to sell it or dispose of it. We don't want or need a dryer in our living/dining room!



More living room:



I love all of the huge windows there are here. The apartment gets amazing light all day long. The bedrooms and kitchen face East, which I prefer because I'm a morning person. Here's the side balcony, which is bigger than the one off of the bedrooms. It has an ugly table and chairs on it that we plan to get rid of and replace. Or maybe store in the basement in case we need emergency chairs and a table for a dinner party.



We have kind of a foresty area behind the apartment, as you can see off the side of the balcony above. But we're surrounded by other buildings on the other 3 sides of our building. But there's still a lot of grassy areas here and it's much more wooded and green than our downtown apartment was. Just behind our apartment is a forest with trails through it that you can walk/run/hike/bike on. I haven't gone exploring in it yet but maybe I'll get in there this weekend if it's not raining.

Oh and the bathroom! Double vanities! Yay!

Schloss Kyburg

This afternoon, despite 48-degree temperatures, wind, and rain, we went to visit Schloss Kyburg. Schloss Kyburg is a castle about 30 minutes outside of Zürich ... 10 minutes by train followed by about 20 minutes on a bus. But when you're on the bus you're traveling through tiny towns/villages(called Dorfs in German) and lush green forests so it's quite nice. But of course everything here is lush and green because it never stops raining!

So we traveled to the castle and started wandering around. It was a very kid-friendly place with lots of games in every room and fun little things to do. In the bedroom you could pack a suitcase with things to travel to Paris with back in 1780 which was interesting. They wouldn't let me pack my cell phone or credit card because I guess they didn't exist back then. Who knew. It was nice to see someplace trying so hard to get children interested in history ... we've never been to a historical site that has been so kid-friendly and so interactive. It was kind of like being in a children's history museum, except it was all about the Kyburg castle and the people who lived in it.

One room was filled with games (cards, chess, lots of little kids games). And Martin entertained himself for awhile:



He was not successful.



We also found a room with a lot of weapons:





Some pictures from the courtyard of the castle:





The castle was not very big but there were a lot of rooms in it that you could wander around in. Here is a view from the outside of it:



And some pictures of the Dorf that the castle is in (there were several cats around too but they didn't want to have their pictures taken today apparently):





We always see a lot of cats in our wanderings here in Switzerland. On my morning runs I always see one or two, and almost always different cats too so most people here must own cats. Only a few of them have been brave enough to come over to me and let me pet them. They're lucky I haven't taken any of them home with me yet because I've been really tempted.

So after being in the cold and rain for a few hours Martin came home and had to be revived with a beer, a soccer game, and a warm blanket:



In 3 days, we will be able to drink our cocktails on a sofa instead of on a bed because we won't be living in a one-room apartment the size of a dorm room anymore.

Random

Below is my new orange umbrella. It makes me happy when it rains outside. Since I can't afford a rain coat here, I will just always have to carry my fun orange umbrella with me.





And, Martin went to the store today and came home with corn on the cob. From Florida, of all places. We'll see how it tastes when we cook it up tonight:



Those are my random posts for today.