Zürich Flughafen

We've decorated our living room with what we have: lots of kid art, and many, many maps.  One of them, which I taped up at kid level, is drawn in sort of a cartoony fashion and is bordered by pictures of attractions in the greater Zürich area.  Joey, in particular, spends a lot of time staring at this map. This morning, after I ushered Ella and Alex out the door for school, I came back to the living room to find Joey shifting his weight from foot to foot, studying that map.

"I wanna go there and there and there and there," he said, pointing all around the map. "Right now."

I wasn't planning on going anywhere farther than the grocery store this morning, but a morning out with Joey sounded like so much more fun.  So packed us up for a trip to the easiest trip on the map, one that I knew that Joey, of all the kids, would appreciate the most.

And I'm awfully glad I did. Otherwise I'd have nothing to write about this evening except for the chicken paprikash that I nursed into existence from scratch and then, with one accidental slip, unceremoniously dumped into a sink filled with dirty dishes. Ah well. At least I didn't spill it all over the floor.  And the kids were probably much happier with the scrambled eggs that they got to eat for dinner.

And, luckily, that's all I need to say about that, because I have a whole entire trip to the Zürich airport to write about tonight.

Clevelanders, I don't know if you remember visiting the Hopkins Airport, walking through security (without a ticket!) and past the gates, all the way to the observation deck.  My mom took us kids there several times, and, oh man, I loved the roar of the airplanes as they took off.

Of course, for reasons many and sad, there are only a very few airports with public observation decks now. Cleveland, of course, is no longer among these, but Zürich is.  And since trains leave from the Zurich Hauptbahnhof for the airport just about constantly, getting there is trivial.

The inter-regional train that Joey and I took this morning was packed with what I think must have been kids leaving for military service training.  Joey gaped at the Swiss army men, particularly at the semi-automatics slung over their shoulders. Eventually he chose a quiet and nonthreatening  businessman for us to sit next to, instead.

To get to the airport observation deck, you have to buy a 2-CHF ticket for a shuttle from the main terminal.  And to get to the shuttle bus, you have to exit the airport, out towards parking lot, following a bike lane. I never would have found it if it hadn't been so clearly marked.  

Of course, I certainly didn't know the German word for "Observation Deck." It was the excellent little icon that clued me in as to where we were going.  The international symbol for "fun thing for a mommy to do with her kid when the older siblings are away at school."

Of course, this being Zürich, there was playground equipment on the observation deck

but this got short shrift, because even more exciting than a merry-go-round or a wobbly plane is...

Airplanes!

As far as I can figure, Joey and I spent a full hour in our little corner of the observation deck, watching the airplanes take off. I have to admit, I don't really know much about planes.  My commentary was just about on par with Joey's: something along the lines of "Wow! That's a big, big airplane! Hey, look, that funny! Little car pulling the big, big airplane! Wow! That airplane is loud. That airplane is going to go up, up up!"

And, of course, "I love airplanes."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is an Airbus A380,
the, largest commercial airliner. I would kind of love
to see this take off

But the planes we saw today were more of this variety

We could see all the runways from the deck, and, through
 this box, we could also listen to all of the pilot chatter. It
was totally fun, listening to all of the different languages,
and to watch them following the tower's instructions.

Although we stayed a long time, Joey was really sad when it was time to go.  "But I wanna do it, mom! I wanna fly in an airplane." I promised that we'd come back and watch the planes again, some fine day.  Perhaps we'll do that in December, close to the time of our flight.  He probably doesn't remember the last time we flew, so our trip home to Washington will surely be exciting for Joey.

We left the observation deck with a little bit of a cushion, since the shuttles to and from the deck only leave every half hour.  It left us enough time to sit and watch the people running around the terminals with their suitcases, and even a few minutes to buy my favorite airport treat.

mmm, Starbucks cookie!

And now, those of you with small children, bring them to the computer, because I have thirty seconds of entertainment for them.  I'm willing to bet they'll be every bit as riveted as Joey.  And you'll be able to enjoy Joey's and my expert commentary.  We give you: Plane Taking Off.