Park im Grüne

The omnipresent Migros grocery chain gives back to Zürich with their Park im Grüne, a large, free public park on the shore of Lake Zürich.  Their website advertised a Sunday afternoon puppet show, a public paddling pool, donkey rides, a little train, and, strangely, a children's wrestling league (complete with a picture of five-year-olds locked in combat). The first four sounded like fun, at least, so after lunch we packed up the kids for a trip to the park.

Unfortunately, the park though not far, is hard to get to, the trip taking about an hour.  Still, Alex was particularly enthusiastic about the journey as well as the destination: he makes the most of all of the hours we spend on public transportation, having decided that buses and trains are excellent places for treasure hunting. He keeps his nose to the ground and has impressive luck finding lost earrings and sequins and other small shiny things, and keeps all of his finds in a little velvet pouch.  Today he excitedly added to his cache some little mirrored squares that must have come from a disco ball.

Our bus exchange was in Bürkliplatz, a popular place in downtown Zürich for lakeside picnicing, and a carnival had been set up for the weekend. As we pulled up next to a large ferris wheel, four pairs of hopeful eyes turned toward me.  (I think Dennis might have be the most excited of all.) So we took a happy detour.


We told the kids to a couple of rides each; Ella, distracted by the chance for Mega Cool Prizes, asked if she could play games instead.  Dennis and I hesitated, explaining to her that it was really, really hard to knock down all those cans with a ball, and warning her that those games were designed to be really difficult.  But knocking down those cans looked so easy. "I just know I can do it," Ella promised, so Dennis gave her enough francs for three softballs and we braced ourselves for her disappointment.

Ella's spoils

But Swiss carnivals turned out to be incredibly merciful.  The barker blandly ignored the three cans left standing after Ella's throws and offered her a choice of prizes.  "See," Ella grinned proudly, "I told you I could do it!" Alex, eyeing the ball that Ella won, decided he could do this too, and, by knocking down three of the ten cans in the pyramid, earned a toy of his own.

Of course, Joey was ready to hop up for his turn as well, but Dennis distracted little MeToo with some loudly honking kiddie cars instead.

Joey's truck had a Louisiana license plate

Mommy and daddy were feeling particularly
magnanimous.

Alex has graduated to bumper cars.  Riding with
him was, quite frankly, terrifying.  Sixteen seems much,
much too close.

When we eventually arrived at the park, although the setting was pretty, we found the space much too crowded.  Migros had provided free lawn chairs for the park visitors, and these were all jealously guarded by their occupants.  But there were tables next to the playground, and Dennis and I were happy to stay there, watching our kids bravely enter the scrum.

The playground was too crowded,
too, but Joey had no compunction
about making some room for
himself with the big kids.

That 3:00 Punch-and-Judy style puppet show was massively attended, and, since it was in German, Ella quickly drifted back to the now-empty playground.  Joey stuck around for the peanuts and cashews I'd brought for the kids, but when those disappeared, so did he.  Alex held out the longest, caught up in the puppets and doing his best to cry out and chant with the kids at the appropriate times. But the show was about 45 minutes long (!) and he wandered off after a half hour.

Crowds. Can you find us?

I'm usually pretty patient with crowds, but I was feeling tired today, and so we gathered the kids to escape before the puppet show ended.

We never did visit those donkeys or that train, but the kids had clearly had enough excitement for the day.  Joey fell asleep soon after we got on the bus, and Ella and Alex, contented, disappeared to play as soon as we got home.

On our way to the trams this morning, a few blocks from our house, we noticed a large Ikea desk, identical to the one we have in Kirkland (except in much better condition than ours) set out on the side of the road with a "Gratis" sign attached.  People do this all the time here: I've never seen a garage sale, and second-hand shops are scarce, but often I see free furniture for the taking on the curbside, sometimes huge heaps of it if a person happens to be moving.  Just that morning Dennis was saying that we needed a larger desk, trying to find a place for his papers amongst all the flotsam I'd collected.  Since the desk was still there on our way back, Dennis hefted it up and brought home, where we'll give it an eight months' reprieve from the curb.

A well-deserved, quiet evening for all.