The Dolderbahn and Polybahn

So you missed a little bit in the last couple of days.

In Alex's world, he got to go to a birthday party for his little friend Céline on Tuesday, one that started immediately after school and lasted an impressive four and a half hours. He always gets nervous about parties, but when he finally came home at the end of the day, he was happy and tired: they'd decorated gingerbread, and made tiny pizzas, played games.

But the best part? Alex reports that, for the goodie bags, Céline's mom set off a giant rocket that shot toys everywhere. I'm skeptical, but if it's true, but I want one. Apparently, when they were picking up the toys, they were only allowed to use two fingers, so that everyone would have a chance to get something.  Alex told me solemnly that he chose his two fingers very carefully: after much deliberation, he chose a thumb and a pointer on (and this is key) the same hand.

Alex also spent an afternoon at his friend Bleart's house: his mom invited us all for lunch, promising to cook something Albanian.  I was a little nervous about how my boys would react, particularly when she set in front of us enormous pieces of filo, filled thickly with green onions and tangy yogurt. Alex tried to eat it, he really did, but his lip got more and more quivery as he took teeny-tiny bites.  Joey was much less politic: "Mommy, I no like this. I be es'cused?" At that, Bedvije's kids unceremoniously pushed their plates away as well, rescuing Alex, who was handed a hot dog, along with the rest of the kids.

I did my best to make up for my picky kids, but my onions slid out of my pastry, making Bedvije assume I didn't like them, as did the fact that I only ate one enormous, plate-sized piece.  I tried to explain that dinner is usually the large meal in our house, but I worry that I offended her. No amount of training at my grandmother's table could have prepared me for this.

We went to Bedvije's on Wednesday and, although Ella was out of school for the afternoon, I decided not to bring her along: there wouldn't be anything there for her to do, I knew, and since their home was so close, I figured it might be a good chance to see how she did on her own.  Dennis and I are realizing more and more how much Ella enjoys responsibility and thrives on it.  I just asked that she finish her homework while we were gone, but, when I'd returned, she'd cleaned the entire house (picking up the toys and wiping down the bathrooms, of all things) and made lemonade for everyonel, as well. And she looked pleased as punch with herself.

She's still having a wonderful time in school: she was laughing, yesterday, because some sixth graders came up to her at recess and asked her "Are you a street cleaner?"

"I can always tell exactly what they've been studying in English class," Ella said.  While they were practicing their English on her, Ella pulled herself up on the playground equipment, which led one of them to declare "You are very muscular." Ella approved of that: "'Muscular' is a very good vocabulary word." She loves the attention from the older kids, and relishes her role as resident expert in English; she's developed the reputation among them of having a good sense of humor.

But, even better than being the center of attention with the older kids, is the attention that she's been getting from a certain little red-headed boy.  Ella shyly told me that she's walked home with her crush, Felix, twice. She recounted their conversation in great detail:

"Das ist die Schule für meinen Bruder. Ich habe zwei Brüder."

"Du hast mehr als ein Bruder? Ich sehe nur einem."

"Ein Bruder ist zu klein für die Schule." 

"Hier ist mein Haus...also...um...ciao!"

She concluded happily, "I think it was a really good talk!" You know what they say about German. It's the language of love.

But even better, yesterday, when her class was working on a goodbye surprise for her, she was sent to the other third grade classroom, where the teacher had her sit next to Felix for a dreamy half-hour. After that, she came home saying "Mom, today is the best day in the whole wide world, and there's nothing that could upset me, ever. Go on, Alex, give it your best shot!"

As for Joey, I've been doing my best to keep him busy and well-exercised.  We've been going on long scooter rides daily.

This was after our big breakfast at Google, which is, as you've
recently learned, Joey's favorite place in Switzerland.

Just vain enough to post a picture.

On Tuesday we spent the morning breakfasting at Google, followed by some vigorous play, to wear him out enough that he'd sit quietly for an hour while I had my hair cut.  I made the appointment on a whim last week, at a place that was on the way to Google. The boutique is a one-woman operation, Dominique's Coiffure, and Dominique is a darling grandmother who is friendly in a way that the Swiss seldom are.  She fine job, but I was amused when she complimented me: "You are very brave. Few people would trust a stranger with their hair. I thank you for your trust." It wasn't misplaced.

On Wednesday, Joey tagged along behind me on his little scooter for no fewer than three hours, walking to the Brockenhaus to drop off some things that we needed to give away, and then to a few stores, and then to the doctor's, to pick up some paperwork.

And today we took his scooter out again, this time riding it just to the tram, which we took downtown to the base of the Dolderbahn.

The east end of Zürich climbs up the Adlisberg and Zürichberg, on which sit, among other things, the ETH campus, the zoo, and the Dolder recreation park. The last is connected to downtown Zürich by a cog train, the Dolderbahn, which makes short work of the mile-long trip up the mountain slope.

I took a little video of our ride up and down the Dolderbahn: Joey absolutely loved it, and treated the ride like a long thrill ride, spicing it up by insisting asserting that the train going in the opposite direction was definitely going to bump into us, a vote of confidence that the conductor, who was sitting next to us, must surely have appreciated.

I took a little video, which includes Joey's and my riveting commentary.

In between our ascent and descent, we took a walk (and a scoot) around the top of the park, checking out the Dolder ice arena, which seems to be the most popular place in town to ice skate.  It was certainly pretty.  There's also a swimming pool and a mini golf course up there that were (sigh) shuttered for the winter.

We didn't stay long. It was blowsy up there on the mountain, and Joey resisted putting on the extra warm clothes that I'd brought for him, pushing away the snow pants because it decidedly wasn't snowing.

Since they won't wear over-clothes, I'm about an inch away from getting all three kids some pairs of the Strumphose that all of the kids here wear in the winter.  (Yesterday, one of my neighbors commented, surprised, that I didn't dress Alex in long woolen tights. But I grew up in zero-degree-wind-chill-factor snow-up-to-your-belly-button Cleveland without long underwear, so it never occurred to me to dress my kids in it.)

Instead of playing in Dolder park, we took a second frivolous train ride, this one on the Polybahn, the little funicular (or cable) railway that helps commuters get from Altstadt to the ETH campus. When Joey and I trundled on board, with our delight obvious on our faces, one of the passengers warned me to be careful: "I know moms who have had to ride this up and down ten times or more."

I was able to get Joey to stop after four nonstop round trips, racing out and around and through the turnstile after each ride. We particularly liked how you could stand outside, on the front of the little train.

Once we'd ridden enough times to convince Joey that we'd never, ever enjoy the excitement of being bumped by oncoming trains, we went off looking for other trouble.  We scooted up the river to our favorite gummy candy shop, where we bought enough candy to tide us over for a few months.  I sorrowfully told the owner (who knows Joey and me well by know) that we wouldn't be coming back, and he loaded Joey's pockets up with free samples and slipped me a big bag of my favorite sour candies.

Zürich looked pretty today.

Did I ever mention that there's an observatory, smack
dab in the middle of downtown Zürich? I'm not convinced
that they see much at the Urania observatory, but
it's fun that it's there. (It's in the upper left.)

And then we scooted back down the river to get my favorite public-bathroom-adjacent dim-sum takeaway for lunch.  They know me there, too, and told me that I'd come just in time: at the end of this afternoon, they'd be closing for three weeks, for a long holiday vacation.  So those are my last spicy dumplings.

Ah well.

Back at home, I stuffed Alex with fried rice and read him stories while Ella, who saw I was having trouble with a cranky-tired Joey, distracted him with toys.

When the kids went back to school, I took a little time weeding out the boys' room, trying to chip away at Alex's mountain of special things that he's stashed next to his bed.  When he came home from school, he approved of the work I'd done, thank goodness, freeing me to take two large trash bags of art projects (mostly made from toilet paper tubes) to the dumpster.

But we don't need to worry about packing this afternoon's art project with us: after school we went to the community center art room to decorate the some of the vast gingerbread cookies that they call "Biberli," or "little beavers."

After we finished with the cookies, Ella confessed that she doesn't actually like the gingerbread at all: "That's why I coated it with so much candy and icing, to make it worth it." She'd actually started to put on a second layer of icing and candy atop her first, to get more bang for her buk, I suppose, when I sent her out to play.

I left the boys to their own devices, too; they were sitting far from each other, so I was surprised at how similarly their cookies came out. They both placed each and every sprinkle singularly, meticulously. Since they each spent about an hour in the art room, playing with frosting and sugar, I suppose it's okay that these are the only three cookies that we'll be decorating this year.




















Dennis was enjoying his farewell dinner with his team tonight, so I decided to let the kids check out a couple of Christmas cartoons from the library to watch with our dinner, virtuous bowls of fruit and carrot pasta, which we got out of the way quickly before seizing our enormous frosted cookies.