Sächsilüüte Kinderumzug

We started quietly.  Yesterday, when we got home from Chinagarten, Ella started what used to be one of her favorite past-times in Kirkland: grinding chalk and making potions (or, alternately, sidewalk paint).  She continued with her alchemy this morning.


Alex, while he was playing with his scooter outside, found a little gray cat, belonging to the next building over.  Patiently, he made friends with the little kitty until it was following him everywhere, even inside the house, where it captured Joey's, and even dusty Ella's, attention.  Ella and Joey baited the kitty with string and squealed and cornered it, until the kitty realized a retreat was definitely in order. 


Ella did her best to lure the cat back, but she lacks Alex's finesse.  I looked out the window to see her with her string, trying to entice the cat, but quickly getting impatient, moving in for an embrace much too quickly, and, inevitably ending up chasing the cat at full-tilt across the yard, shrilly calling "Here, kitty-KITTY!"

Alex chalked a love-letter to
his new friend.

But Alex dealt with the damage. When Ella returned to the patio, muttering "animals just don't like me," he set to work, calming the little cat again, until he had a little gray shadow following him around the yard once again.  Meanwhile, the two-year-olds of the building congregated outside, and Joey and I enjoyed an impromptu chalk-and-scooter party with them.  Apartment living definitely has its advantages.


Alex actually had a morning of triumphs: when Joey followed him into the bathroom, he took it upon himself to give Joey a lesson in toilet training: "You want to try? Okay. Squirt!"  On his first attempt, Joey proudly showed Alex a little puddle next to the toilet. "Oh, good, good!" coaxed Alex proudly, since he didn't have to clean it up. "Now, go in the potty." So Joey gave it another go, with a new technique:

This is how dudes pee standing up, right?

But guess what, guess what! It worked!

Peeing in the potty = chocolate egg celebration!

We were happy with a calm morning because we had big plans for the afternoon. Today marked the kickoff of Sechseläuten (or, in Swiss Germam, Sächsilüüte: holy umlaut!) festival.

Joey decided today's festival, marking the

change from winter to summer hours,

called for an ironic pairing of short sleeves

and gloves.  Yep. I'm sure that's what he had 

in mind when he piquishly insisted on 

hat and gloves.

The festival, which culminates tomorrow, is the reason the kids get Monday off from school.  Unique to Zürich, the festival is rooted in the 1300s.  Even in those medieval times, city laws regulated working hours. The working year was divided into two halves: in the winter, the workday lasted until sunset; however, in the summer, the 6:00 chimes of Fraumünster Cathedral marked the end of the workday. (Sechseläuten translates to "six ringing," or "the six o'clock bells.") And so the 14 guilds of Zürich (including merchants, blacksmiths, butchers, tailors, fishermen and the like, and even a guild of nobility)  would gather in their halls on this first day of summer hours, to celebrate finally being able to enjoy some free daylight hours.




Those from Seattle can relate.


Tomorrow, we'll watch the guilds of Zürich celebrate the festival with their parade; today, however, the city kicked off their festival with their Kinderamzug, or Children's Parade.


This parade is relatively new: the first parade, of boys only, was in 1862.  Girls were invited to join the second parade in 1867.  Even at that time, children would dress in costumes, many derived from characters of the Brother's Grimm fairy tales.  

The costumes are stunning!

More recently, in the 1960s, I believe, the parade took a new form: little clusters of children now dress in costumes representing all eras of Zürich's history, beginning with its Roman roots and ending with costumes from the 1950s (which look oddly similar to those of the 1850s).  The city keeps these costumes in central storage, and any child, aged 5-15, can apply to be in the parade for the cost of a costume rental and cleaning.  More recently, the parade committee invited the international children of Zürich to follow the historical procession, dressed in their ethnic costumes, and so the parade is now both a history and a geography lesson.

Lindenhof playground

We planned to watch the parade with our new friends, and hazarded a guess that the parade route would be too crowded a meeting place. We instead planned to find each other in the Lindenhof, the site of Zürich's own Roman ruins.  A beautiful park, it's usually quiet, with an open, shady courtyard and a sweet playground surrounded by gardens with little, secretive trails and a stunning hilltop view of the city. 


However, one of the traditions of Secheläuten that we didn't know of is that, each year, Zürich invites one of the other cantons of Switzerland to host a small exposition in the Lindenhof. So the courtyard, which should have been a convenient meeting place, was instead a maze of tents and people dressed in togas: Basel was this year's guest canton, and they were advertising their annual Roman festival in Augusta Raurica.

Heading down to the parade

Happily, the playground was on a terrace apart from the festival, and we were able to meet our friends without too much trouble. After the kids got to know one another a little, we walked down to the parade route and did our best to find a shady place to wait.


The parade was supposed to begin at 3:00.  However, you'll be shocked to hear that it took the 3,100 participating children quite some time to make their way to us.  But Ella brought her book, and Alex is a pretty content kid in general, and Joey, who had long since been lulled to sleep by his warm head and hands, dozed until the beginning of the parade.


I put together 90 seconds of clips from the parade, which included area marching bands (decidedly more regimented than those we saw at the Fasnacht parade) interspersed with the kids.  

Ricola?  

Most of the children carried little springtime bouquets, and some threw flowers from these to the spectators, although more had little baskets of candy to pass, usually hand to hand, to the children lining the streets. Except the "candy" was not quite what my children expected.

And a few children, representing the agricultural age of Zürich, carried vegetables and threw these into the crowds instead.  Alex found a carrot, which he quickly passed to Ella, who, too, wanted absolutely nothing to do with vegetables.  So she passed it to her little friend Caroline, who was much happier with the prize.

And carrots?

Ella much preferred her rose.

With all those children, the parade was an impressive logistical feat.  Every once in a while, the groups would pause as children who had drifted were resorted into their correct decades.  But those kids, impressively, walked a full 3 kilometers.  It is, indeed, a nation of walkers.

When the parade ended and the street sweepers began, mere minutes later, we wandered up Bahnhofstrasse, watched the glockenspiel chime 4:00, and decided that marked an excellent time for an early dinner.  So, Swiss-style, we bought some sausages and hot dogs and had a little picnic dinner before taking all our very tired children home.