Spielplatz 99 and 101

Today was another super-hot day, and our superintendent was mowing the lawns, so I decided it would be another good morning to leave the house for a while. I gave Ella and Alex the new clothes I'd bought for them last night: Ella was so excited about her new shirts that she put on one of them, insisting that she wouldn't be too hot in the long sleeves, in spite of the 90+ degree heat.  I wonder for how much longer Ella will believe that the clothes I buy for her are übercool.

My three collected a lot of smiles from the other riders on the bus this morning: they curled up, three in a row, and Ella passed the ride with reading the boys a book she'd written in school last year.

The playground I chose, Spielplatz 99, is in a corner of Zürich I'd never visited, the Viaduct, but it's a pretty popular place.  Under the bridge spanning the river are a bunch of chichi shops, mostly selling food, and adjacent is a playground with a large splash pool. The trains rumble over the bridge every few minutes, which was fun for the kids: we've gone by this playground on those trains many times, and I've always meant to check it out.

The pool, with a sprinklers at one end

The splash pool turned out to be ice cold, but both Ella and Joey took their turns in it.  Joey had a great time pretending he was a shark.  It's a game we started playing in Croatia, with me putting my hand up on my head for a fin and chasing my giggling minnow, chanting the theme song from Jaws.  Joey tried to mimic me, but he's not quite there. Instead of a fin, he puts his hand in a fist on the side of his head, and, he's added words to the Jaws song, a very menacing "Do-nut! Do-nut! Do-nut-do-nut-do-nut-do-nut..."

Susannah brought her kids to the park to join us, and Caroline outlasted all of the kids in the icy water. Meanwhile, Alex took care of Joey in the sandbox and Ella spent a lot of time playing with super-cute baby Christopher, pushing him on the swings an helping him get all covered with sand.

As much time as we've spent here, our boys still don't speak very much German: I think Alex understands a bit, but he's shy to speak. It's clear that the words Joey's picked up are all from the playground. I heard Joey shout out "Nein nein nein!" when some little boys tried to fill in the hole that he was digging. And at one point, when I was pushing him on a merry-go-ground, he shouted out "Supershnelle, mommy!" Super-fast!

Susannah had to leave us at lunchtime, and we decided to go soon after, looking for some food of our own. We found a grocery store and grabbed a bread-and-cheese picnic before continuing on to a different park, Spielplatz 101. Ella and Alex were really quiet on the way there, noses to the ground looking for BBs that some kids had shot off into the street, and Joey fell asleep in the absence of their chatter.

The second playground was kind of interesting-looking, formed out of the shell of a building, but the biggest attraction was a basketball hoop and we didn't have a ball, so we didn't stay long. Instead, I decided to take advantage of Joey's unconsciousness and took the kids shopping.  We stopped in a toy store for a moment, just to look around, and left with a $5 set of bocce balls. And then I took them to Migros to get a few things for dinner, and ice cream and school supplies, too.

The teachers didn't send home any kind of a list of things for the kids to bring, so I gave it my best guess. I got Ella some new markers and colored pencils for her Etui, the little folio that all of the kids need to organize their all art supplies: markers, pencils, a fountain pen, extra ink cartridges, and an eraser.

But that's all I could think of for Ella, and Alex only needed a toothbrush and shoes for his class, which we already had.  So that was it for back-to-school shopping this year.

Back at home, one of our neighbors was outside with his boy, Enea, who is just Joey's age, playing with a sling-shot airplane.  My kids had a great time joining them in play, and then teaching Enea how to play bocce ball with their new set. And so we kind of eased into the evening. A quick dinner, a short trip to the pool to play on the waterslide with nochElla.

But then tonight we had a little treat. Dennis's coworker Nikhil is in town with his wife, Ashwini: the two of them are stealing a quick trip to Paris this weekend, and they asked if we could hang on to some of their luggage for them while they were gone. So we got to have a little visit with them this evening, and Nikhil came bearing a gift.

The teams at google are given a budget to use for fun: dinners out, little trips, and general team bonding.  And sometimes they buy themselves little gifts with that money: one team got themselves google-embossed Snuggies. For some reason, right before Dennis left, a whole bunch of the teams decided it would be really cool to use their mad-money to buy themselves the most powerful flashlight known to man, the Fire Sword.  Dennis wasn't in town long enough to get his, but Nikhil brought it along for us.  So now we have a $400 flashlight? For...lighting things?

Of course Dennis had a great time with it, immediately dismantling it to see how it worked, and turning it on to discover that it's bright enough to light our entire courtyard.  As ridiculous (and dangerous! With 3,000+ Lumens, we have to keep it away from the kids!) as it seems to have an over-powerful and over-expensive flashlight, it sure would have been nice to have it in January, when we first moved in and had no ceiling lights.  It could have lit the whole apartment for us.

It's a shame they don't celebrate Halloween here.  But you won't be able the Geels clan, next year, when we go trick-or-treating.  I suspect you'll be able to see us all the way from Redmond.