I'll drink to that

Friday night was big. I went on an outing with a group of 'Spouses and Partners of...', to Caduff's Wine Loft, for a rather civilised wine-tasting.

Of course I thought, 'Great! A wine loft!', and immediately envisaged a quaint chalet high above street-level, with mountain views and the fecund aroma of a pregnant vinyard drifting through the window on a mellifluous breeze. (Not going overboard, am I?)

Well, we shed our jackets and followed a waitress through the restaurant, past (smoking) punters, tables weighed down with juicy slabs of meat, and swilling wine-glasses as big as melons... to the cellar. (Of course it doesn't make any sense at all to keep wine in a balmy loft.)

The cellar was candle-lit and atmospheric if a little cooler than the restaurant upstairs. We stood amid wall-to-wall wine racks, and were offered bread.

I have to admit that in the slightly cramped environment, I was very aware that I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the equivalent of a $2,200 bottle of white. One wrong move could have be disastrous...

As the cellar-keeper said, "Wine is different for everyone. Mostly you have to be ready to drink it."

Here's a truncated version of his comments:

WHITES
Schlossgut Diel, Riesling, 2000, Germany
"Fruity, tropical, dry."

Weingut Robert Weil, Riesling, 1999, Germany
"Fruity and dry also, but a year older, and you can taste the change in the wine. It has a stone flavour (if you imagine a moist stone on a hot day in your hands), and a slight petrol aftertaste. You wouldn't drink this with food. It would be on its own with you reading a book naked in a hammock on a hot day."

(didn't get the name), Switzerland
"The Swiss don't drink their own wines."

REDS
Monta Peloso, Toscana, 2004, Italy
"Darker, stronger; smooth, good for vegetarian food, or red meat, venison."

(didn't get the name), 2005, Spain
"No corners, soft, round, good with pasta"

Petit Castel, 1999, Israel
"Gritty, and you can start to taste the new flavours which come as it gets older. Truffle, and dirt in the forest. Also like a horse." (Although, on consideration, maybe he meant: good to drink if you're eating horse?)

And there's a rumour that the next 'Spouses and Partners of...' beverage outing might take us to the best hot chocolates in Switzerland...

...so this is what our apartment looks like

Ha. Just kidding.

'Kids! Dinner's on the... floor.'

One of my brief child-free excursions this week led me to 'BrockenMaus', which I guess is a play on 'Brockenhaus', the term used for a second-hand store.

BrockenMaus is housed in an old, very Swiss house near the train station which is further up The Hill and closer to our house than the main station (which is down by the lake).

It is pretty ramshackle as houses go, with 3 storeys, rickety old stairs and four saucepans on the floor of the attic to catch the water. It is wall-to-wall trash and treasure... and filled with cigarette smoke of course, thanks to the guy who runs it (who incidentally speaks about one word of English, is very tall, tanned and somewhat portly, with a number 2 buzz-cut and powder-pink Gucci-framed reading glasses).

The collector in me resisted buying a Bee Gees record, a wood-saw , a snowboard, a cuckoo clock and a Hello Kitty denim wallet, and I headed upstairs to the furniture to see if they had a table.

In the attic there were quite a few tables, but none of them was in very good shape except one to which I'd seen an equivalent in IKEA. I enquired (rather cleverly in German I thought), only to discover that it was rather more expensive than its Swedish counterpart. Not only that, but a bed I looked at, which was your basic cheap-as-chips metal frame with old slats, was more expensive again.

Truly: what is to become of the world when second-hand furniture is more expensive than new?

(By the way, I promise I will get a proper picture of the OGT soon so you can see how orange it really is.)

First week of school!

This week has brought big changes for us all.

Kids started school; I met another person; DH finally ordered a back-pack for his laptop. Yes, a big week.

(Small break while I eat a chocolate coin.)

The littlies (five-year-olds) do in fact walk to school by themselves - for the most part. This I am not willing to let DS do; partly because of his 5-y.o. unpredictability, but also because there is one road he must cross which doesn't have the usual yellow-striped crossing. Our town is not really rev-head central or anything, but still: it only takes one car going a bit too fast...

DS is not happy about this. On Day 2 he waved me away with his as yet un-gloved hand. 'You are not supposed to be here,' he told me. 'I can do it by myself.'

'We'll see about that, mein Junge,' I thought to myself. So I said, 'OK, you walk ahead. I'll follow.'

Need I say, he had no idea which way to go, and twice headed off into the Alpine yonder at breakneck speed. If I hadn't been laughing so hard I would have caught up faster, but luckily he's well trained to stop at roads, so all's well that ends well.

I should just say that the kids look outrageously cute in their puffy jackets, gloves, hats etc. with obligatory orange reflector bib, as they head off into the misty mornings. This morning, all I could see of DS was his nose.

The Littleness of Us

The overall excitement of a trip to Höllgrotten (or Hell's Grotto limestone caves near Baar) was somewhat overshadowed by the excitement upon encountering snowflakes that stayed on our nose and eyelashes (to coin a phrase).

Again, it was 5 degrees, but this time we had loads more clothes and a picnic lunch. We caught a 15-minute train to Zug, and then a bus which landed us on a country road, where we were watched only by a startled sheep as we stood at the crossroads... under an ominous sign pointing the way to Höllgrotten...

As we approached the caves, it grew markedly cooler. We took a steep descending track, and then a bit of a ramble through the forest until, at the base of the caves was a hut complete with (smoking) local ready to dispense tickets. (I still get confused about the fact that there's no red line through the circle. To me, this sign looks like it says: 'Need to smoke it up? Do it in the caves!' In fact, it means the opposite.)

There was a bit of waiting around while DS munched on a sandwich, but then we took the plunge. Turns out that the caves were discovered at the end of the 19th century during the removal of tofaceous limestone.




We weren't sure if it was the road to the underworld, or if it was a cold front which just happened to pass, but as we emerged from the caves (which were surprisingly warm), it began to snow.

It was short-lived, but it happened! And you don't have to be a child to feel the thrill of being in a forest as the first flakes of snow fall.

A cool, food-related day

Wiedikon is the last train station before the Hauptbahnhof Zürich if you're coming from our direction.

We'd done a bit of research and discovered that there were two Asian food shops in the Wiedikon area and so, armed with addresses, we set off... into the skull-numbingly freezing day.

We assured ourselves (through chattering teeth) that it wasn't that cold. Just like a cool Canberra day...

Wiedikon turned out to be a mix of old and new - old houses being torn down, new apartments being built, and rather a lot of trams at one particular junction.

Once again, it was joy to the Hausfau's senses to enter the New Asia Market - all the wonderful smells of various Asian cuisine in one supermarket. We stashed up on curry pastes, fish sauce, coconut milk, chilli sauce and so-on. We made ourselves feel so hungry that we decided to head off again to a place not far from our favourite Turkish supermarket (in the Industriequartier-ish area) to eat falafel, Swiss-style.

Now, we all consider ourselves to be seasoned falafel-eaters, but we were somewhat unprepared to discover - in the falafel rolls - cabbage and pickles (sliced gherkin kind of pickles). It seems that they also put hot chips in some of the other rolls. (That kind of greeny-grey chip-shaped thing is actually pickle.)

I have to say it was downright yummy, and we all ate with gusto. Not least because we were frozen solid by the time we got to the eating part of the expedition.

When we looked online later at the temperatures in Zürich we discovered it had been 5 whole degrees that day.

Welcome to Winter!

Rain; not rain; rain

• Walk out of the house at 10am. Raining.
• Run down The Hill getting wet. Kids remind me I need an umbrella.
  
• Catch train to Zürich, where it is not raining.
• Spend day in Zürich with kids, including another visit to the white-clothes-on-a-yacht-at-sunset Doctor because DS's throat looks suspect.

• Doc: I acknowledge he had a smooth virus, sure, and now he has angina.
• Me: Angina?
• Doc: Sure.
• Me: Um... heart disease?
• Doc: No, a streptoccocus throat. [So much for my hearing. I still don't know what he meant. Let's just hope that he knows what he meant.]

• Back on the train home.
• Step off the train. Raining. Kids remind me I need to get an umbrella.
  

Industriequartier and other curious stuff

This is a rather interesting part of town - for me, at least, who likes looking at massive refurbed buildings and yawning facades that reek of a different time and function.

You can probably guess from its name what Industriequartier is: a whole bunch of businesses housed in enormous warehouses and old factories. The area abuts the 'less savoury' part of town, according to the Ralph Lauren Umbrella-brandishing narrative.

That may be true, but I'm not sure if 'usavoury' in Zürich isn't just the equivalent of 'colourful' in other cities. It is certainly a much more multicultural part of town. We discovered, with much joy on a previous expedition, a substantial Turkish supermarket, where we acquired fresh-from-oven bread, delicious sheep's feta which was consumed by all members of the family in record time, and - oh joy - coriander.

Zürich is surprisingly safe generally, though that doesn't mean it doesn't have its fair share of the usual underbelly goings-on. So they say. And if it's going to happen anywhere, it's alleged to happen in West Zürich, where they say it's best not to walk the streets late at night. (When most people are in bed and adhering to house rules.)

Obviously, to be able to give an accurate summary of the allegedly hip night-life in this area, I would need to be in a parallel universe.

Back to my child-friendly expedition.

The kids and I were interested to discover train lines in the footpath, which were slowly being dug up. We wondered where the trains went in the past, and why they stopped using the lines.

BTW, I'm finding information hard to acquire, since my German is so abysmal. Even Googling is proving highly frustrating.

So my take on it all is that there is a fair bit of construction going on, and (thanks again to eavesdropping on Infotech Central conversation) I discovered that the regulations with regard to building sites in Switzerland are rather different to those in Oz. (Those Infotech Central boys know so much stuff.)

I've noticed that workers don't always have hard hats on. I even saw one chap in jeans and a t-shirt wafting around one of the enormous mobile diggers doing something that looked like spot-cleaning with a little water sprayer. (?!)

Cranes can be plonked anywhere, and don't appear to be cordoned off with much regulation (on a previous expedition we practically climbed on the base of one). And I'm told that the statistics of fatalities on building sites reflect this. (Of course I don't have those statistics to hand because it's all hear-say and I can't find the source, can I?)

Anyway, we escaped unscathed, and headed back to good old safe-as-houses Geranium Central.

The obligatory post about chocolate and roses

Firstly, there is a lot of chocolate in the shops.

This pic was taken in the local Co-op supermarket. Some of it is kind of 'whatever', but some of it is outrageously delicious and confusingly cheap.

The most bafflingly cheap we've seen is a rather scrummy 100g block of dark choc soft-centres (pineapple, strawberry and orange - yes, we bought it) for the equivalent of 35c. Scary. DD thought it was Christmas, and it was well and truly gone by the time we got to the top of The Hill.

And then there are the roses.

Every supermarket carries buckets of 'em. The colours are very zingy and would be enough to cheer up even the dullest of personalities. (I will try to get some better snaps - these ones really don't do them justice.)

Of course, you can't do much better than Roses in Chocolate Shop...

House rules

Various people have asked me whether there really are restrictions and rules when it comes to living in apartments.

Here is an excerpt from our House Rules:

4. Please observe the following restrictions:
- Do not empty anything or shake eiderdowns etc. out of windows or from terraces or balconies.

- Do not beat carpets before 07.00 or after 20.00 or between 12.00 and 13.30, nor on Sundays or public holidays.

- Do not play a musical instrument before 08.00, after 21.00 or between 12.00 and 13.30. Sound systems such as radio, television, stereo system and musical instruments must be played at appropriate indoor volume levels to ensure no third parties are disturbed.

- Do not use washing-machines or tumblers between 22.00 and 06.00, and always run/drain water softly between 22.00 and 06.00. [In our previous House Rules it was stated that gentlemen were to sit rather than stand when using the toilet during those hours.]

- Do not leave waste bags standing around outside of your apartment. If containers are on hand, please deposit waste in closed waste bags directly in such containers.

- Do not leave objects in the entrance hall, corridors or in other communal areas, and never transport heavy loads such as crates and the like over stairs and floors without protective padding.

As we are on the first floor, it is our responsibility to keep the stairs (including windows) nearest our apartment clean, also clean the cellar stairs and the foyer, and to clear the front path of snow in some kind of weekly rotation which we haven't discovered yet.

Sunday (again)

Yesterday saw us on another Sunday expedition: this time after a highly reviving won-ton soup at the home of one of DH's Infotech Central mates. The coriander and other spices were pure joy to the Hausfrau's taste-buds.

After toasting to his new apartment (which smelled delightful in comparison to ours, let me tell you), we all went for a walk up to the base of the Felsenegg 'little mountain', which is part of the Uetliberg range of hills. There, we caught a cable car, which had been much anticipated by DS.

[The previous night, while tucking him into bed: 'But Mum, where are the doors on the cable car? And do they go vvvvt like this, or is it like a bus?']

We happened to choose a hazy day which, as haze sometimes does, made me wonder if I should be feeling nostalgic for something.

Needless to say, the air at the top was so fresh it almost hurt (or maybe that's because it really is starting to get cold), and the kids were leaping about like fawns - especially when we discovered more children swarming all over a playground built in an old ruin.

We were also interested to find a restaurant at the top which served fondue - something which I just recently discovered is much anticipated because it is only eaten in winter.


PS. Turns out Felsenegg is just over 800m above sea-level: not much different from Black Mountain, in Canberra. (Witness the advantages of spending time with Infotech Central chaps who seem to be bottomless pits of information.) But because you start going up at about 400m above sea-level instead of the 600-odd of Canberra, it seems very high and Alpine. Plus the drop is very steep, and feels like the side of the mountain has been blown away leaving Lake Zürich at the bottom of a big bowl of dolls' houses.

Luck be a Hausfrau

I feel compelled to put this in because, as some of you may already know, I have a knack with four-leafed clovers. True! I often just look down and there they are.

This skill isn't uncommon, by the way. I know two other people who do this. So don't worry, I'm not having delusions of grandeur, or delusions of Luckiness.

And just to prove that today wasn't any luckier than any other day, I will go for the dot-point summary:

• Kids wouldn't eat breakfast and fought over Lego. (Lose.)
  
• Walked down The Hill to the post office where I managed to fax the proof that we'd registered ourselves in this town to the Relocation office who are dealing with our sea-freight delivery. (Win.)
• Went to supermarket where kids fought loudly over who got to carry what. (Lose.)
• Bought bread and other stuff I needed, including Desperate Hausfrau frozen lasagne. (Win.)
• Forgot the onions. (Lose.)
• Skyped with a friend who made me laugh my head off. (Win.)
• Made Desperate Hausfrau lasagne which looked like vomit and tasted not much better. (Lose.)
• Got a few jobs around the house done and decided to go on an outing, to relive the Card-game In The Cafe scenario because the kids loved it so much last time. (Win.)
• Kids fought all the way over the scooter (DH had taken the other one to work). And was given advice on the train from a totally poker-faced local about parenting. (Lose.)

• Me: (To screeching children who both want the same seat.) Shhhh! Kids! Shhhhh!
• Lecturing Local: Swiss-German stuff.
• Me: Shhh! Sit down please!
• LL: Swiss-German stuff.
• Me: Right! Follow me! (Exit train carriage Stage Left to stand in the 'lobby' of the carriage with children in tow.)
  
• Lecturing Local (following me): There is plenty of room for you all to sit.
• Me: Thankyou, it's alright.
  
• LL: Really, you should not parent like this.
• Me: I see.
  
• LL: I know this is how you feel, but it's not the way.
• Me: I'm sorry. They were being a little too loud.
• LL: No. They should listen to you. Not to the people in the train, not to anyone else. They should listen to you. (Thumps his chest.) Have you ever read Daniel Stern?
• Me: Um, no. (Thinks: Is this really happening?)
  
• LL: You should read it. It will help you.
• Me: Thankyou.
• LL: Stern! (Steps off train.)
  
• A moment of panic as I think: 'Please let this not be my stop so I don't have to follow this man... Is it or isn't it? Crikey! Where's the sign? What if I end up in the wrong place? Where am I? What am I doing here anyway? At least my children have stopped arguing...' etc. Kids are looking at me in shock.)
  
• DD: Mum, was that good or bad?
  

• At cafe, had a cup of tea. (Win.)
• DS, in taking off his jumper, sent hot tea into the air and onto one of my legs. (Lose.)
• Had a fun game of something we invented because even though I had my dictionary with me, I still couldn't decipher the rules of Schwarzer Peter. (Win.)
• DD, in inspecting her cup, poured dregs of hot chocolate over the other one of my legs. (Lose, but actually by this time it was all starting to become kind of farcical, and I began laughing hysterically.) (Win.)
• Made it home in one piece, and found a 4-leafed clover along the way.
  

By popular demand: The Flour Sifter

It arrived in a package from DM. She'd observed my distress at having neglected to put it in the air freight.

Me: But Mum, what am I going to do?! It doesn't fit in my backpack!

[Thinks: Maybe I could cram it in one of the kids' hand-luggage in between the fourteen soft toys and eight packets of textas and twenty-three bits of technicoloured, unidentifiable land-fill.]

DM: Is it a very special one?
Me: Oh yes. It's the best flour sifter in the whole wide world.
DM: Well, I'll just have to post it to you.

Imagine the Hausfrau's joy!

From here on, it's nothing but no-mess, one-handed, slick and efficient sifting for me. (Just as soon as I get a bowl and muffin tins and all that gaff.)

Read my... public notice

DD and I got the giggles about this public notice on the trams, as I'm sure everyone does when they first arrive here.

(At first we thought he was sitting on a pillow, and then we thought he might have been an angel with wings coming out of his rear end.)

About a Chef who is secretly a Space Cadet

I just have to mention that after a long day of scrubbing and airing out the house, and feeling stinky and friendless, I put on some very average dinner (in the old baking tray), fed the kids, got them into bed...

DH got home after a late meeting at Infotech Central and asked how my day was.

Me: I need a huge thing of chocolate.
DH: Hmm. If the shops were open I'd get you some.
Me: What did you have for lunch?
DH: Um... Sushi. And roast ostrich. And banana curry sauce on the side.

This is not a joke! They actually had this on the menu!

A few clues that it's Autumn

Another Sunday

The air was very fresh outside (!) today when we went for an outing to nearby Thalwil.

Next to the railway station we discovered a slightly freaky but rather Swiss-looking kids' roundabout thingy.

We spent a bit of time on the bridge above the railway watching trains, which continue to be a source of much excitement and anticipation, for DS especially.


A couple of weeks ago we bought scooters, and the kids scooted happily across the bridge while we did a bit of trainspotting.

Then we went to (believe it or not) Starbucks, where we played cards - Sleeping Queens, which is the kids' favourite card game at the moment. It was great fun, and it seems it was not such an original idea, as there was a stack of German card games for kids in a box next to the straws and napkins.