Welcome, Karen and Kevin!

Today has been long-anticipated: after breakfast this morning, Dennis left for the train station to pick up our last visitors of the year, our dear old friend Kevin (whom Dennis and I have known since college) and his lovely girlfriend, whom we've been looking forward to meeting for months.  The two of them had taken an overnight train from Prague: they looked remarkably alert, considering.

And that was a very good thing, because the kids had been plotting and planning all morning about all of the fun things we'd do when "Uncle Kevin" arrived.  In particular, they gathered presents for their friend and made a treasure hunt using Charlie's treasure box.  Alex made three pictures, while Ella assembled a little trove of Halloween candy (including some chocolate! She really does love Kevin!) and thirty Rappen. 

But first, because Ella remembered Uncle Kevin loves board games as much as she does, she suggested playing the our Zürich-based game, to give Kevin a crash-refresher on Swiss geography and the German language.

And then it was time for a walk: Dennis and the kids showed Kevin and Karen around the neighborhood, stopping at the kids' schools and then the local grocery store to grab some sundries.

Success! Kevin finds his prize.

Since it was such a beautiful, warm day, Dennis and I thought it would be fun to take our guests up to Ütliberg for a short hike and some lunch.  But it was already noon when everyone made it back from the store, so we paused at home for a very Swiss snack: bread, sausage, cheese...more cheese. Then we bundled up for our trip, fearing the elevation change, but when we got to the top of the mountain, we found it couldn't have been warmer, or prettier. 

Ella and Alex preferred to stay down with me.

Joey and Dennis, peering down from the
observation tower.

We spent a lot of time puttering on the playground and scrambling around on the rocks on the top of the mountain, but apparently we ate a little too much sausage and cheese: we couldn't quite work up an appetite for that late lunch we'd been planning.  So we decided to shift our plans to an early dinner and phoned in a reservation to the very Swiss Zeughauskeller, in downtown Zürich. 

The restaurant has shifted to a winter menu since we last were there, heavy on venison.  When we were en route to Liechtenstein, we passed by a deer farm, the first I'd ever seen: deer meet is a big thing here. Since the meat was local, and since this particular restaurant seemed to specialize it, I sort of had to try it (although I didn't mention it to the children).  And you know, it was delicious, but not as good as the spätzel and the cabbage. The Swiss do a few things very, very well.

While we were eating, we half-watched the television near our table, displaying an international women's powerlifting competition.  Ella and Alex were particularly riveted, wanting to know exactly how many Ellas or Alexes any given woman was hefting.  We also had the fun of bumping into a family from Alex's school, one of those things that really makes you feel like you belong to a city. It turned out to be a really fun dinner.

Although it was only about 6:00 when we left, it was already quite dark. The kids are very seldom out of the house after sunset, and so they were fully affected by the thrill of being downtown at night. The Christmas lights that have been strung along Bahnhofstrasse won't be lit for another week or two, but the lights were still bouncing reflections from the street lamps, sending the kids into spasms of excitement (and prompting Ella to sing as many verses of "The 12 Days of Christmas" as she could remember). We also walked by Paradeplatz, the site of our very own "Occupy Wall Street" satellite protest: it's a festive one, with a little band improvising some jazz, with costumed protesters dancing out of boredom. Joey stopped to watch a man fly a little airplane on a string, and himself caught the eye of a man who was dressed up as some sort of corporate monster: he pulled down his mask for Joey, who loved it and clapped his hands: he happily accepted a protest flyer disguised as an American dollar. "Monster gave me money," he chortled to his brother and sister, who immediately shouted out "NO FAIR!"

Joey, curling up in the little bed he made for his new
Smurf dolly, a gift from Kevin.

Kevin had some souvenirs to buy at Sprüngli, Switzerland's most famous chocolate shop, so the rest of us took a minute to ogle their hundred-dollar gingerbread houses. And then, in a vain attempt to walk off some of that dinner, Kevin, Karen, Ella, and I wandered the length of Bahnhofstrasse before heading home.

The boys were past ready for bed when we got home.  But even after that long day of hiking and other excitement, we found our indomitable Ella sizing up the room for opponents for another game.  My, but we do love having guests!