Technorama

Since quite a lot of Ella's birthday was taken up with school, Dennis and I had told her she could choose what we did this weekend.  A trip to a castle? A children's museum? A playground? Swimming? Ella  chose skiing, and so Dennis and I sketched out a plan to take the kids to Flumserberg, the closest ski resort to Zürich, about 45 minutes away by public transport.

A happy bookworm

However, Ella got a huge pile of books for her birthday, and upon opening them, she promptly changed her ambitions for the weekend.  "All I want to do is snuggle up on the couch and read. Just that."

Since the boys got us up all too early, Alex bounding into our room before 7:00 this morning, asking if he could go outside and use his new scooter ("It's very important to me," he assured me), we were more than happy to let Ella laze away the morning on the couch while we blinked ourselves awake and drained our coffee pot. But, as content as Ella was, I really like to get out and about on weekends, and I didn't trust the peace of the morning to last all day if we stayed in the apartment.  Neither Dennis nor I had enough ambition to get us up into the mountains, but I was able to talk the family into making a trip to Winterthur, on the outskirts of Zürich, to visit Technorama, the Swiss Science Center.

Our grown up girl, curled up in the
corner of of the train.

In her pile of birthday loot, Ella got a purse, which she carefully stocked for her trip with markers, soduku puzzles, and spare change for candy.  She also received a pair prism glasses (ones that separate light into the spectrum and, at the same time, move some colors forward) from her grandparents, and she posed with these and her little purse.  "Do I look, maybe....ten years old?" she asked me, hopefully.

I'll let you judge for yourself.

She wore her glasses all the way to the Hauptbahnhof, but as we got off our train, she discreetly removed them.  "I like to pretend the glasses make me look like grownup Ella, but I know they really make me look like nerdy Ella," she confided. "That's okay on the train, but there are too many people here."

The Technorama is quite large and very child-oriented, with all of the usual exhibits (on mechanics, magnetics, electricity, optical illusions, fluid dynamics, and so forth) that science centers have.  But all were very well done and concisely explained, with translations into French, Italian, and English.

Multilingual translations

Alex gives the Rodeo-Keisel a whirl

And in addition to these, the basement of the museum was dedicated to what they call the world's number-one tinplate train collection.  When Joey's frustration at not being able to manipulate the mechanical exhibits got the best of him, Dennis hauled him, kicking and screaming, downstairs to the trains.  Joey quieted instantly and was perfectly happy until it was time to move on, once again kicking and screaming, to what, mercifully, turned out to be an equally appealing exhibit.

Much of the top floor of the museum holds an exhibit called Klingendes Holz, or "the sound of wood." I wish I knew the story behind the collection in exhibit, for it was absolutely fantastic.

There were at least a dozen mechanical toys, entirely made of wood, that involved moving wooden balls through ramps and ratcheting them up ladders and through gears with kid-powered levers, foot pumps, and even a teeter-totter.  Ella asked me at one point, "What would it be like if these were all made with plastic instead?" I threw the question back at her, and she told me it she didn't think it would be nearly as beautiful or cool.  Because, as they were, these hand-hewn machines, they were seriously cool.  I took a short video of Ella, manipulating her favorite machine.  

If Stairmasters were like this, I might actually join a gym.  As it was, this exhibit convinced me to get a membership to the museum.

As we passed through the exhibit on light, Dennis leaned over and whispered "Let's see if Ella uses her glasses."  Ella didn't disappoint her daddy: her hand was already in her purse.  

There are times when being a nerd really comes in handy.