Brocki-Land

When we were plotting and planning our move to Switzerland, I first thought we'd try to get all of our furniture second-hand.  There must be resale shops, I assumed, and it seemed like people were constantly having moving sales the ex-pat message boards.

But, looking through the archives of those message boards, it seemed the consensus was that second-hand shops were few, and no great bargain, either.  And we decided that we didn't have the patience or energy (or means of transportation) to acquire an apartment full of furniture piece by piece through moving sales.  So instead we spent our first week in Switzerland roaming the aisles of Ikea.  I think, in the end, it was the wisest decision for us.

But still, I wonder if I couldn't have done it another way.  I kind of love garage sales and resale shops, love to paw through piles of old things and maybe, just maybe, find a something that reminds me of my childhood. (I especially love the toy aisles.  No, I'll never grow up, never want to.)

So last week, in Joey's play group, when one of the moms mentioned how much fun she has at the resale shops here, I demanded names and addresses, and, finally, this morning, I took a trip to a Brockenhaus, a resale shop.

I picked Brocki-Land, the closest and largest in Zürich, but was almost did an about-face when I passed by their entrance sign. But I was too curious: I wanted to see what people, who lived in a country in which everything is so expensive and resources so scarce, would part with.

So pressed on, and followed the arrows down a circular ramp into a musty old parking garage. This place made ValuVillage look snazzy, but that was the fun of it.  And Kathy, I thought of you the whole time.

Everything was as meticulously organized as junk could possibly be: enormous bins of hodge-podge, the store owners, apparently, loathed to dismiss anything as unsellable.

Huge bins of used markers, colored
pencils, and crayons

Old cleaning fluids, bug poison, and
paints and thinner.

Half-used candles, and, next to these,
a huge crate of half-empty match
books

A crate of sterno-holders

Some of the junk was more uniquely Swiss:

A long shelf, stretched half the length of the room, covered with fondue'
pots.  I regretted buying my boring old pot at the grocery store.

The thing of it is, we don't really need anything, and I don't need to be bringing a lot of stuff back to Kirkland.  As it is, we'll probably be paying Brocki-Land to haul away much of our used furniture at the end of the year. But there was one aisle I couldn't help myself in: toys!

So maybe there are bargains to be found in Switzerland, after all.  Board games are generally thirty to sixty francs in stores here, and here I found four games (three of them just about new) and a bag of marbles for fifteen francs.  However, I had no idea how much everything cost when I took it to the register: there wasn't a price tag to be found in the whole store.

As I left the store, I saw a posted sign listing the general prices of clothing: sweaters from 5 Fr., ties starting at 2 Fr., and so forth. But, for all I know, the prices are at the whim of the cashier.  Today she was in a wonderful mood and seemed charmed by Joey, who was happily singing to himself and dragging his heavy little bag of marbles.

Joey will not be losing his marbles.

Which, blossoming engineer that he is, he took home and promptly organized.

And I did my best to translate the rules of our new toys.  One of them, Schweizer Reise, I bought more for me than the kids. As far as I can tell, you move around a map of Switzerland, visiting as many cities as possible, using "Adventure Cards" to hasten your movement.

It was almost as if they were daring me...

I don't know why, but I was feeling really worn out for most of the day, and, truthfully, was scarcely going through the motions.  So I was glad of those games when the kids came home. (Ella, for some mysterious reason, having only a half day of school.) I gave them their pick, and they chose the antique Disney one which was, inevitably, missing a tile and some playing pieces. So the kids shrugged and improvised a little.

And Ella and Alex played for about two hours, leaving me with Joey, whose mood had deteriorated.  But he refused to take the nap I so longed to have for myself.  There was squalling.

But, bless my husband: he called to check on me and could tell I needed a break. He came home a half-hour early and just about kicked me out the door with orders to go see a movie, get dinner, go for a walk...whatever.  I hesitated, because all I really wanted to do was curl up for a nap, but I don't get many evenings to myself, so I checked the movie listings and headed out.

I had my dinner at my favorite spot, my bathroom-adjacent dim sum restaurant, taking my order to go and eating on the bank of the river, watching the fish and kayakers pass by.  And then I killed some time on Bahnhofstrasse, finding clothes for the family at C&A and generally just wandering, spending more than a little time ogling the cars at the Tesla dealership.

Most fountains have a little ground-
level fountain for the dogs, as well.

My new favorite fountain

I think I've mentioned the wonderful fountains in Zürich.  All fountains are drinkable unless it is explicitly posted that they are not, and there are more than 1,200 fountains scattered across the city. Many of them are utilitarian, but some are beautifully decorated.  One closest to our house has a beautiful bronze stag guarding the water. Today, though, I think I found the best fountain of all.

Turns out there might have been a mermaid
in these trees as little as 24 hours before me.

In America, movies usually start at 6:00 and 9:00, or there abouts. Here, that's shifted up an hour, with movies clustered around 5:00 and 8:00.  So tonight I took myself to the 8:00 showing of Pirates of the Caribbean.  I figured I owed it to myself to see it: last summer, when Dennis and I snuck away to Kauai for a week, Johnny Depp et al were on the island at the same time.  We had to postpone our visit to the Allerton Gardens until our last day because it was closed for filming.  When we finally had our turn in the garden, we could see the marks in the grass left behind by the movie trailers.  But it was fun watching the movie, knowing that the Fountain of Youth isn't in the Caribbean at all: it's totally in Kauai.