Skiing

We have begun the ski season and are having a GREAT time!  It is amazing how fun it is to wake up, drive 40 minutes, ski all day and drive back home in time for dinner.  

When we returned from the United States, it was unseasonably warm here.  Beautiful and pleasant, but not desirable for skiers. And then with in a week the temperature dropped 45 degrees and snowed every day and although not all that nice out - we had good skiing again!

We are skiing with a group of families I have met through Josi's playgroup.  The amazing woman who runs the group is named Lisa - and we think she may really be four people because she organizes school and family activities that boggle the mind.  She has only been here a year and a half (from California) and after her first year decided that there needed to be a better way for families with children of like ages to get together and make friends, plan activities and enjoy the incredible area where we live.  So through her group, we have met a number of friends and formed a group called "Zurich Families Who Ski."  This is a group of people who work hard and play hard and our kids are having so much fun with them.

Surprisingly to me, more than half of the new families here have never skiied.  Three of the women in the group contacted a local ski hill and set up ski lessons for 25 families.  The kids are in small groups of about 4 and are set up by their abilities.  There are a number of adults that are learning to ski as well.  I grew up skiing and Rich has become a pretty good skiier.  We took the kids to Vail the last two years so they had a bit of head start, but we can see how they will begin to improve quickly.  We have skiied the last two weekends and ski again tomorrow.  Jack has "earned" his ski poles so he is really excited and Will and Josi are improving rapidly. 

The week of February 14th, we are heading to Fiss, Austria for a week long ski trip with a few families from the same group.  It should be fun!

Will strking a pose

Slopes are much more open and treeless

This was stunning - you can see the lake in the background between the mountains.

Fearless Jack

Josi eating goulash at the base of the mountain

Jack after a fall

Rhine Falls - largest waterfall in Europe

Gruyere and Gruyere Castle

We still didn't have a car and it was really getting frustrating!  All the little day trips that should take an hour or an hour and a half were twice as long by public transportation.  You can get anywhere you need to go in Switzerland, it just may take you a lot longer to get there.

One place I had heard lots about was Gruyere.  For you cheese lovers, you may recognize the name of the famous cheese.  There is also a castle there that is supposed to be pretty neat. 

So we hopped on the train and then took a bus and then took a tram and 3 hours later - voila, we were there!  I know - 3 hours - and for that reason we almost didn't do it.  But we were really glad that we did.  Taking the train is far different than jumping in the car in that you can play games and talk and enjoy being together.  We brought along some games and cards and had a good trip.  Plus, it was really good for us to get out and see something different.  I felt like that was why we were in Europe and I really disliked that we had been there for almost two months and had done close to nothing.

When we arrived in Gruyere, we toured the cheese factory, which was interesting and included yummy cheese samples.  And then we hiked up the hill to the castle.  What I wasn't expecting was this cute little town.  I loved this town purched on the top of a small mountain surrounded by mountains on one side and overlooking the valley on the other. 

We enjoyed the sites and then had dinner at a really good fondue place... and then got on a tram, and then a bus, and then a train and.... voila, (yawn) we were home.

Trip to to the top of Mt. Rigi

We had a great time taking this trip up to the top of Mt. Rigi.  Our car hadn't arrived, but we rented a car and drove about an hour to the base of the mountain and then hopped on a cable car and then onto a train that steeply climbed the rest of the way to this tiny town at the top. 

The Swiss people are in crazy shape, largely because hiking up a mountain seems to be a regular event.  There are 70 year old people hiking up the side of the mountain with their hiking sticks in hand. 
They may not be fast, but they are certainly capable!  And then there are the simply crazy hikers that are all decked out in their skin tight gear and ready to dangle off the side of a mountain.  I try to stay far away from them just in case it might be contagious.  We did hike up the top part of the mountain and that was enough for us!

We had such a nice day.  The weather was beautiful and pretty warm, even up high.  From the top, one side looks back over the mountains and the other side overlooks a large valley with rivers and some small lakes. 


This may be one of my favorite pictures and views.  It was amazing.



Here is the train that took us up the hill.

Raben-chilbi Parades

We have been having a lot of fun lately.  I am past some of the culture shock and homesickness and have been really enjoying myself.  I still have some pangs of sadness when I miss something back home, but I reallly do find myself liking lots of things here and getting excited about things to come.  We are really looking forward to trips to other countries, but lately we have been enjoying all that Switzerland has to offer locally.

One tradition that sounds a little bizarre, but ended up being really impressive is the Rabenchilbi parades and activities.  Where we carve pumpkins, they carve turnips.  Seriously.  And since turnips are firm, they can be carved very elaborately which is neat.  But what they mainly do with these turnips is carve out a hole and put in a candle and they glow beautifully.  Then they take these turnips and put them with a bunch of other turnips and create a picture or design on a float for the parade.  They will also decorate houses and pathways and archways. 

All the little towns here do them, but the biggest is one in a town just a few minutes from us called Richterswil.  At exactly 7 pm, they turn off all the lights in the town and everything is only illuminated by the glowing turnips.  I know it is hard to make turnips sound lovely, but it really was.  There is a big parage with all kinds of marching bands (sounding a bit like polka music) and these elaborate floats.  There is something magical about no electricty or power.  Even the floats were on carts that people pushed.

You can see really great pictures of much better quality by follwoing this link, but here are some pictures from our night:



This is an Alpine Horn.  It is really a pretty sound when it is played.  Not at all the sound I was expecting. 



These two walked the parade and stopped every once and a while and played.

Swiss Will

Will started Swiss school.  He has been attending for two weeks and loves it! 

I agonized over sending him to an all speaking German school, I think largely because it was new and different and I wasn't sure what to expect.  But I also agonized over the fact that he wasn't in school since there was no room at the International School and wouldn't be until after the first of the year.  Plus, he wanted to make new friends and he was eager to go the local school.  We had heard very good reports on the local school and that people often move to our area simply because the school is so good.  So Rich and I went and visited the school.  The principal was a young, kind man who we thought presented us with a realistic picture of what to expect, what their school was like and the challenges for an only English speaking kid.  He assigned Will to a teacher who so far strikes me as one of the warmest, kindest, approachable, helpful and lovely people I have ever met.  She is one of those people who you believe is born to teach.  She speaks perfect English and has gone out of her way to help me.  She has a guitar in her room and sings with the kids in addition to spending one afternoon a week doing what they call "forest teaching" where they go out into the forest here (just a 5 minute walk from the school) and do their studies there, often involving nature and science.  It is really pretty neat and he is enjoying himself. 

Since Jack and Will are in different schools, I worried about them having different vacation schedules, but they actually match up really well.  Will has more vacation days during the year and gets out of school after Jack, but Will's vacation overlaps all of Jack's which means I have already started planning trips during those times!  :)

As part of school, Will has swimming once a week and he was shocked that all the kids simply get naked and change into their swimsuits. I hadn't thought about it before, but there are not many opportunities where Will has been naked in front of other kids!  Here, nudity is not much of an issue and there are pictures of naked people to be found in random places and there are opportuntities to be naked in front of other people at the sauna or even changing clothes on the beach (that's a story for another blog).

He walks to and from school every day.  That is a big thing here in Switzerland - every Swiss child is expected to walk to school on their own, even the kindergarteners.  I walked him the first couple of days and then I let him do it on his own.  It was really hard to do, but all the kids do it and he has been fine with it.  I don't worry about his safetly as that apparently is not an issue here.

Will was assigned a private German teacher at the school and he meets 4 times a week with her.  The rest he is learning through immersion which for whatever reason is not frustrating him.  He had three other kids in his class that speak English as their mother tongue and they help explain things to him and have become his good friends already. He joined the swim team and will soon sign up for soccer. 

And the really nice thing is that I wanted my kids to learn another language while here.  For Jack, he is learning German, but he rarely gets the chance to practice it as he is surrounded by English speaking people.  By the end of the school year, Will should be pretty fluent in German and in Swiss German.  Plus, he will make friends with local kids and have friends within walkign distance.  Jack's friends are spread out all over the area and are a car ride away. There are certainly advantages to Jack's school, but Will's has advantages as well and I think the school fits his personality. 

So far so good!

Unpacking and repacking

Apparently I am in a bit of trouble for not having updated our blog recently.  People I barely know are wondering why I am such a slacker!.  Let me start by telling you that our furniture and belongings arrived last week and I have been unpacking and then unpacking some more.  It took the movers two days to cram all of our stuff in this little apartment and I finally told them to simply leave the rest of the boxes until I could finally put some things away to make room for more things to put away.

Watching them move our stuff to our apartment was wild.  They had an outside lift that attached to the balcony of our apartment and went from the garage entrance up 4 stories to our apartment balcony.  For some reason, the local movers here didn't realize a piano was coming and all 6 of them stood around and warily watched as the piano (which exceeded the weight maximum) slowly climbed the side of the building and was lifted over the balcony. 

Unpacking included its own humor as I would find random things we brought such as a large griddle for a gas stove that is larger than my entire electric ceramic cooktop.  There are also the numerous large cookie sheets that, even if I got a running start, I couldn't jam into my tiny oven.  Thank goodness the martini and margarita glasses made it (absolutely no sarcasm there).  I WILL find a way to make margaritas here if it kills me (I can always consult my Aunt Di on that one).  I brought something like 20 wine glass with me.  Huh? Not only do I not have room for 20 people drinking wine in my place, but if I put all of those in my cabinets, about 1/4 of my cabinet space would be gone :).   So I have a couple of boxes in our storage space that are labeled: "Should not have brought" and then list the contents.

What didn't make it is my silverware.  We have been eating with plastic forks, spoons and knives until I find out from the moving company how to replace them.  I've been throwing the plastic cutlery in the dishwasher - amazing how well it has held up.  However, I made baked potatoes two nights ago and that was a bit of a challenge.  Plastic forks don't smash up potatoes very well.

We are also missing some of Jack's clothes, but I can't tell you what happened to them.  I am actually wondering if we left a suitcase at the airport or a carry-on on the plane.  We had so many of them it was hard to keep track!   I was just happy we made it here with all of our kids.


I will also tell you that the last week has been tough for me.  With the exception of getting all of our own things which was comforting, I think homesickness really set in and I looked around and wondered "What have we done?"  I have spent far too much of my time wondering how we are going to do without (fill in the blank) instead of focusing on the good things in my life and looking forward to the new and different things we are going to experience. Right now "new and different" is so abundant that I find it overwhelming at times. We have had beautiful weather and for the most part, each day has been stunning.  I know I haven't done a good job of thanking God for my blessings.

To put it all in perspective, I talked to my mother-n-law.  Rich's mom is one of my most favorite people in the world.  I certainly don't let her know that enough.  And she probably has no idea the imprint she leaves on me every time I speak with her.  For those of you who don't know, she had undetected Grave's Disease for decades which led to Glaucoma.  Her health and vision have been severely impaired.  If that wasn't enough, she recently had shingles that then went to her eyes!  She has been completely blind for the last few weeks and is slowly recovering, but we don't know how much of her vision was damaged further.


There is nothing that makes me feel more like a whiny baby than to complain to her about something. 
That's not her fault - it's my own.  She always comforts me and gives great perspective and then at some point I realize that I am complaining to her about something that is so irrelevant.  I never hear her complain. She always tells me that if I can't control it, then don't worry about it.  Such great advice - I simply wish I was better at doing that.  And when we are done talking I always feel better.  Always.  I don't know how she does it, but she rearranges my life in my head enough to know what is really important and what isn't.


So as I unpack my boxes and wonder where in the world I am going to put my bundt pan that I was sure I needed to bring (at least if fits in my oven!), I am trying to do a better job of placing things where they need to be.  There are some unnecessary things on which I have been dwelling that I am doing my best to repack and put away where I don't need them.  There are some things I realize I can place on a back shelf to think about another day and there are those I need quick access to because they are more important to living a truly good life.