Return to the Schlitterweg

Joey packed himself a bag for our
big adventure.  Just the essential:
a bottle of water, a dozen pretzels,
and ten Mr. Men books.  That's
my boy!

This morning we met Susannah and her kids, and Susannah's mother-in-law, Monika, too, for a trip up to the top of Ütliberg.  Monika, a visitor to Zürich, had never been, so we walked up to Uto Kulm for the view, and then back down to the playground for the children.  Susannah had big plans to continue hiking back down the mountain and, once I realized that Joey and I had over an hour to spare, I decided to join her for a part of her walk. I'm always happy to walk down a mountan: up, not so much, but down is lovely.

Susannah was aiming for the playground that the kids and I had stumbled upon back in January, when we took our sled down the Schlitterweg, the multi-kilometer sledding trail that weaves down the mountain.  Running along the wide, pebbled paths was hike that even Joey could manage.

Joey and Monkia, running to catch up

Joey recently told me, very solemnly, apropos of nothing, "Bugs my favorite."  When questioned further, he revealed that butterflies are his favorite-favorite, but spiders are a close second.  He's got that keen eye for tiny things that toddlers always possess, finding and becoming transfixed by tiny little bugs along our paths.  He's constantly calling me over to inspect a beetle or to move a slug off the trail.

Joey and one of the many drainage pipes

Well, there are many drain pipes along the Schlitterweg, presumably to handle the spring melt.  Monika noticed a perfect spider web inside the first pipe on the trail; Joey made a game of running from pipe to pipe (spread less than 100 M apart), peering into each, and reporting on the spider web status.  It was an excellent carrot to keep him going.

Thus, we made our way down to the playground, where we had to leave our friends so that we could get home in time to meet Ella and Alex for lunch. There are are several train stops on the way down Ütliberg, convenient to nothing but the forest trails.  We had to walk over half a mile to get to the closest one, but Susannah had slipped us some chocolate chip cookies to make the walk go faster, especially since we had to leave our spiders behind.

When we arrived at the train station, as Joey and I settled down to finish our cookies, a group of two dozen elderly men paraded past us, out for their own easy walk in down the hill.  Now, although Americans have a reputation of being too friendly and too quick to laugh, the Swiss definitely have the corner on formal courtesy. As they filed by, every one, to a man, gave us a nod and a greeting: "Grüezi."  "Grüezi." "Grüezi mitenand." "Grüezi."

Joey, playing his favorite train-ride game, pretending that
he's a bridge for my fingers to walk across.

I had a sneaking suspicion that they were messing around with me, making me hand out two dozen greetings in return, especially as the last few in the line broke into small smiles. But I figured better to be foolish than rude, and so Joey and I played along and responded in kind to each and every. I had to fight a weird urge to curtsey.

Dennis came home so that I could shuffle off to my German class.  My teacher is at his home in Germany for the next two weeks; our substitute was a half-Swiss, half-British guy named Tim. For some reason, he thought we were a level 3 class instead of a level 2: as he was teaching, I noticed how he kept backing up, and backing up, offering more and more review, looking confused at our ignorance but completely polite and professional.

Finally, confused myself, and a little embarrassed, I asked him what level he thought we were, and when the mistake was revealed, he broke into English: "Oh my God! Well, that explains...well, that just explains everything!  Oh, God! I'm so sorry!"

Berlitz teachers are never supposed to speak in any language but that which they're teaching, and so that was the first time we heard him speak English, which was his first language. I was amused to find that, in English, his voice was all soft and gentle, but as soon as he switched back to German, it once again became overly loud and deep.  It might be just that he's affected a "teachering voice," but, I think it's equally likely that it's just impossible to speak German without sounding stentorian.

Because he'd come home to watch the kids, Dennis had to stay at work a little later this evening.  Today was one of the warmest days we've had, so I really wanted to squeeze in a trip to the swimming pool.  So the kids and I inhaled an early dinner, and then we ran down the street, the kids sucking on ice cream pops, for two hours of swimming.  Ella and Alex got into an epic splash battle against another family, and then all four kids took off, paddling around the pool on a raft.  And Joey made a game of standing coyly on the edge of the water, watching me out of the corner of his eye, giggling in anticipation as I snuck up on him to throw him (gently) into the pool.

Bedtime was particularly easy!