Up the Uetliberg

Tuesday 5 October

Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous: two golden autumn days.  The skies were clear and you could see the snow capped Alps from the city: clearer than I'd ever seen them before. The lovely weather was a gift from a Fohn wind: the same one that sweeps across France. I don't know how it did it and I don't care: I was too busy enjoying its effects!

On Saturday, I made the mistake of going shopping with Greg. "Shopping" is an inaccurate descriptor because the only things we bought were food and flowers from the morning market.  The rest of the day we spent looking, not shopping, which was pretty frustrating on my part! I must say, though, that we did get kind of attached to this lamp.  I think it was only 5,000 francs.

On Sunday, we took a train up the Uetliberg, the highest spot in Zurich. In the photo below (taken from our dining room window), it is right where you see the tall spire at the top of the hill. 

The train rails are the steepest normal (as in non cog) rails in Europe. We got off at the top station and walked about 15 minutes to the top of the mountain. Moose (who said there are no moose in Switzerland?) guided us to the restaurant and tower perched at the mountain's summit.

We took a ton of pictures and then sat on the restaurant terrace for a light lunch. I think the waiter misunderstood when we said we were going to share a small plate of the venison (sliced raw with parmesian grated on top) and the capri salad (layered mozzarella and tomatoes). He brought us a large portion of each!  Both were delicious as you can tell from our empty plates. (Our light lunch ended up costing $140 but that included the bottle of wine. Ah, it is Switzerland!)

I made Greg take a picture in the general area of our apartment and was delighted to be able to pick out our apartment, shown by the lopsided circle and no I wasn't drinking when I drew it.

We're the bluish building right smack in the center. Our building is the half on the left. We're on the 2nd floor which is really the 3rd floor since they don't count the ground floor.  So ... our apartment is the one right under the dormers.

We saw a plethora of bicyclists huffing their way painfully to the top of the mountain and then careening happily back down. This dog carried his own rucksack and was showing a lot more enthusiasm than his rather pudgy cyclist owner. 

We even met a colleague of Greg's as we walked down. (Wow! Of all the places in all of Zurich ...) He was cycling up but right after he stopped to speak with us, he blew a tire and ended up walking part way down with us.  We may have taken the train UP but I'm proud to say that we walked all the way DOWN and I'll take down over up any day!

This morning was drizzly and cloudy but the sun is now poking its way through the clouds.  I was feeling a little flu-ish and so stayed home and got lots of exercise running up and down the stairs doing laundry with our quaint little laundry set up.

You know, I thought that there would be days when I would get homesick but nope! Not so far!  Of course, as I'm trying to get all the disparate parts of my body wet in our child size shower or ironing sheets because they didn't get completely dry in the baby's breath of wind coming from the laundry fan, I do wish I could teleport back to Florida for just long enough to shower or do laundry (and to love on poor Abby who does not seem to be taking our absence at all well).

Now that we're settled, I can admit that I did have some trepedition about moving to Switzerland but I can honestly say that I'm really, really glad we did!

We saw this doll carefully perched on a railing. The next time we went by, it was gone. You've got to love a city where people stop long enough to pick up a child's lost doll.