What I didn't do on my summer vacation

It was such a perfect morning, all sunshine and bluebirds, that I really wanted an excuse not to take Joey to his play group this morning: it seemed like too pretty a day to spend in a community center basement.  But Joey has had a change of heart, and instead of the "No, 'fraid not" that he's been giving me when it's time to go to class, this morning he was dancing around, happily: "Yay! Time f'school!"

His class doesn't start until about 9:45, though, so I decided we'd at least spend some of the pretty morning on the playground.  I packed up my coffee thermos and he and I walked Alex to school.  When I dropped him off, I popped inside to say hi to Frau Langen, his Friday teacher, who told me that she wouldn't be working with the class at all next year.  That made me sad, and I told her as much: I told her how much Alex likes her, and how, almost every night when he goes to sleep, he asks, "is tomorrow Frau Langen day?" I wasn't quite sure how to translate that, but "FrauLangenTag" seemed to work, and she beamed "Oh, ich liebe Alex auch!"  and bent over for a hug.

Reading his stories on the tramway to school

While I was talking, a little queue of Kindergarteners had formed behind Alex, waiting to shake hands good morning with their teacher.  And Alex was completely disconcerted: he didn't understand what we were saying, and stood uncertainly and stiffly during his hug, and then held out his hand, offering a manly shake.  I was messing with the system!

Because we'd had to leave so early, Joey and I had to stop at a bakery for fresh croissants for breakfast (pity poor us!) and we munched them as I tried a new route to the park.  My path wove through a very large retirement community and all of the beautiful little garden plots that they tend, many with a tiny little shed that the owners have converted into a garden house, with trellis and table and a few stray wine glasses and candle stubs.  And many of them had little flag poles, flying the Swiss cross.

Joey and the chickens, both pouting

And so many of the gardens have the most beautiful fruits and vegetables growing in them. I lack the talent and patience to grow my own food, but I love looking at vegetable gardens and seeing things grow.  Susannah lives very close to the gardens, and says that, one afternoon, one gardner surreptitiously pulled her aside and offered to sell her kilos of fresh-from-the tree cherries.  She was a very willing customer.

Joey took his morning meal with a little friend

Joey and I walked around the little farmyard, where both he and the chickens were very disappointed in me for not letting Joey share his croissant.  And then I let Joe play while I had a little picnic breakfast for myself, one of the last few quiet mornings I'll have this month.

I've spent some time, lately,  thinking about what I'd like to do with the kids during their short summer break.  I found some pools and beaches that I'd really like to try, and some playgrounds and museums that look like they shouldn't be missed. But, assuming I'll be telling you all about those soon enough, I'll instead let you in on a short list of things that I won't be doing on my summer vacation.

1) Sleeping in the Straw, or in a Teepee, or in a Wine Barrel
The Schlaf im Stroh (or Sleep in the Straw) program gets a lot of buzz on the expatriot websites.  Because Swiss farmers send their cattle out to graze in the summer months, some of them earn a little extra money by opening their barns to tourists. There are about 300 farms in on the program, most in remote areas with few or expensive guest houses, where an inexpensive alternative is welcome. For about 20 francs per person, you're given space in the barns and a bread-and-coffee breakfast in the morning.  I've read that it can be a fun way to travel.  But you have to be careful: the conditions of the sleeping quarters can vary: some are very nice and welcoming, and some offer only vaguely clean blankets and no electricity or lighting. And, especially in the early summer, the quarters can be...well, pungent.  You know, because they were recently the the home of a hundred head of cattle and their accompanying flies.

There are alternatives.  For one,  I've seen several camping areas that with teepee villages. The Swiss have an interesting obsession with the Native Americans. I've seen dozens of shops in the area selling dreamcatchers and kachina dolls, and Zürich apparently has a respectably sized North American Indian museum.  For the kids, feather headdresses are popular costumes at Fasnacht, and I've seen more than one Native American-themed summer program at community centers.

But I stumbled across my favorite place-that-I-won't-be-sleeping-in this morning: the Fass hotel, which has fashioned sleeping quarters out of wine barrels: one barrel sleeps six, apparently, with beds stacked atop one another like train-car sleeping berths.  "Great for kids!" the website says.

2) Seeing the Tour de France
I really regret this one.  Dennis loves watching the Tour each year, and I thought it would be pretty incredible to see.  The tour crosses into Northern Italy during one stage this year: it's close, but not quite close enough. And the logistics of hauling the kids out to remote road daunt even me.  I think we've resigned ourselves to saving this for the future.

3) Zürich OrangeCinema
Each year several cities in Seattle do free outdoor cinemas: it's tricky at our latitude, because the sun doesn't start to set until well after 9:00 in the summer. But, still, every weekend, cities put up large screens, inflatable or otherwise, and people come together to watch second-run movies under the stars.

Zürich has it's outdoor cinema as well, and the most popular is the OrangeCinema, hosted in ZürichHorn.  Although, since this is Zürich, it's fancier and it isn't free. In fact, it costs roughly $22 per person, but for the cost you get a cushy riser seat and an ice cream bar, so there's that.  At least half of the movies are in English, which might be appealing.

But the shows don't start until 9:30, which isn't appealing, because I'm old. Especially since, in Swiss movie theaters, most shows start at the very convenient 8 o'clock hour: the standard 9:00 start that you see in America is much more rare.  But for an outdoor movie, the late start is unavoidable: Zürich is at almost precisely the same latitude as Kirkland. (Actually, Dennis tells me it's the same latitude as Renton, two cities to the south of Kirkland.)

Anyway, with three small ones to chase around all day, I'm going to have to see Harry Potter 7 indoors, at an earlier hour.

I've learned my lesson well: the kids needed to get outside this afternoon. So when school was out for the day, I took my three and nochElla up to the pool for an hour's swim.  It turned cool and cloudy while we were there, but the kids didn't even notice, except to gloat that they had the pool almost to themselves.  The girls really wanted to play with Joey in the water, but he abstained: because of the rain yesterday, the paths were covered with little yellow snails, and Joey was having a wonderful time collecting and herding them into a little corner of the grass.  Whenever the girls came to him, to try to lure him into the water, Joey gave them a long an enthusiastic lecture on the merits of his new pets: "Look! Snails! Snails funny! Look! Hold snail?"

Might be a little much for the kids

"Oh, yes, um...very nice, Joey!" the girls told him, but they soon stopped coming around.

Charlie rejoined us this evening, after a triumphant three days of hiking in the Oberland. That's another thing I won't be doing on my summer vacation, although Charlie says that many stretches of the trail have train stations right on them, so hopefully we'll be able to pop up there and play on the snow for an afternoon.

He took beautiful pictures, however, and he's agreed to let me share a few...Here's what it looks like on top of the world.