Zurich multimobil

As my friend commented this evening, there are a lot of festivals in Switzerland. And we didn't have to go far for today's: this afternoon, downtown Zürich was given over to the Multimobil Festival, held in celebration of environmentally friendly forms of transportation. All the way up and down the Limmat river, there were booths, most of them with little kids' activities or giveaways.  It sounded like a relatively easy way to spend the morning, so the kids and I gave Dennis a quiet morning at home (where he played around with Charlie's treasure box and reprogrammed it with a hunt for the kids to do when they got home) and went off in search of amusement and free swag.

There was plenty of both, although we could have easily have spent the whole morning and afternoon at the first station we came across, a bridge covered with free bouncy castles, a roped off area of tricycles and other wheeled toys, a kid-powered train,

Joey's new favorite transportation alternative:
sister-power.

and the most clever Kugelbahn that you ever did see. 

As tantalizing as all of that was, I finally convinced the kids that there might be even greater wonders on down the road. And so we slowly walked length of the festival, seeing what there was to see:

This stand was sponsored by a bike shop: each of the kids won thier
own water bottle, which came in handy on this hot day.

Filling out a survey on energy usage for our household: we were told we
would earn a cookie if we did, and there's nothing we won't do for a cookie.
The survey was in German, so Ella took the lead on translation.

But most of the free stuff was just there for the taking, and the kids had a wonderful time, running up the street with lucre-crazed eyes, stuffing things in the carrying basket of the stroller: a cardboard model of a Zürich tram (much assembly required), foam balls, stickers, a memory game with pictures of alternate energy sources, lollypops, T-shirts....

Balloons: I had six tied to my stroller by the time
we went home

And then our favorite: cunning little buttons with the
Zürich tram numbers. The kids went home with their
ages proudly pinned to their chests.

But our favorite were the shows: in one section, a local circus school (promoting elephants and unicycles as alternative transportation modes?) was giving half-hour gymnastics lessons, and Ella signed herself up and practiced cartwheels and tightrope walking before the class was interrupted for a trick bicycling exhibition by some of the circus students.

And in another temporary stage, some boys put on an odd little show of urban ninja stunts (promoting running up walls as an alternative to high-energy-consuming elevators?).  

Apparently the kids had eaten their fill of sausages at yesterday's festival: none of the plethora of sausages available at the festival tempted them today, so we snacked our way through the festival and then went home for a late lunch. And most of us were still conscious by the time we arrived.