A tropical outing

The kids and I headed out into the swirling snow after school today, to see Das Dschungelbuch, or The Jungle Book.

We met up with a couple of other 'Spouses and Partners of...' and their kids at the Bernhard Theater, which is right in the Opera House and theatre hot-spot in Zürich city.

Part way into the show I was starting to panic because I understood literally NOTHING of what was being said.

[Thinks: Why don't I get this? I'm sure my German's better than this... Where's my brain when I need it?]

Happily, I realised shortly after that - when one of the characters started counting to five - that it was in fact Swiss-German, which is quite different to High German (e.g. drüü instead of drei for three). Usually it's really easy to tell the difference, but for some reason my brain and ears were at loggerheads up to that point.

The play was, happily, a little slapstick, which kept me - and many children - thoroughly entertained.

DD said she had no idea what they were saying, and DS asked a lot of questions very loudly throughout. They did enjoy it, though, as did I, and it was rather fun to see bright tropical costumes on a wintry Zürich day.

Poor old DS was drop-dead exhausted by 4pm, as he is every day since kindy is all in Swiss-German, except for a couple of children who speak English (including one very lovely chatty girl to whom DS has taken rather a shine).

It was still snowing as we arrived back at Horgen station.