New piano

A friend's mother—apparently a shiatsu-loving eccentric—was exchanging her piano and had no further use for this beast of an instrument that is now sitting in our apartment. It's been great for Bea so far—more so than the three friends who helped lug it up the stairs—and he has been playing it an awful lot more than the electric piano. I'll post a video of a tune soon. . .

Child of the week!

Bea is "child of the week" at school this week and the teacher took this photo of him to bring home—there's a bigger one at school. So today he could take some toys in to show his classmates, and he gets to help the teacher in some duties (handing out work, etc). He was very chuffed, especially as he was the first one this term!

Tigers, toads and treetops

It's been about a year since our last visit, and that seems to be the secret to the kids enjoying the zoo. It was a Zurich holiday today and Bea and Ili whizzed around the zoo highly excited as if they'd never before seen an animal. It was a bit of a "seen it", move on, "seen it", move on, at times, with Ili asking "is it dead?" . . . . but they had a great time. The tropical "Masoala" has a new treetop walkway to ascend—27 degrees on the ground climbing to 34 degrees at the canopy (40 on a summers day!) giving you a good view down over the tropical house, birds, lemurs etc. Nice interactive European frog/toad display in the reptile house with all of the particular frog/toad croaks at the touch of a button, including the midwife toad that we've both heard and found in France (very small little toad). Was all good, and we don't have to visit again until 2014 ;-) and by then the new elephant enclosure will be ready—41 million CHF spent for half-a-dozen elephants and a rhino, and I'm sure they won't appreciate the architectural roof structure. This city has too much money! I wonder how far that sum would go towards elephant conservation.

Stumbled upon a circus

On a cycle out into town this evening—which was planned as a simple picnic in a the Josefwiese park—we stumbled upon a cool little free open air circus performing in the park—Zircus Chnopf. Great, child-friendly performance with acrobats, rope dancers, and a storyline.

Summer shines on . . .!

Been a busy, but great week. Sorry for lack of postings, but work is getting in the way.

Here's a few pics of the last week. . . . We found a cool little fish and chip cafe, in the uber-trendy part of town, and I think the guys serving were somewhat stoned. We're usually left feeling broke when eating out, but this time when handing over 50 CHF to pay, Frith was given 42 CHF back. After receiving a confused glance from Frith, the stoned server went back to his till and handed him another 5 CHF! Later on, the same guy tried to pour beer for the kids! We'll go back again ;-) And they've opened a fairly new cycle route that now easily connects our part of town via a renovated viaduct (full of new markets, cafes, etc), to this vibrant, 'alternative'  part of town, which is cool for us! More 3 CHF fish and chip suppers, please! The pic of Bea at the bottom is by Zurich's tallest building, the Prime Tower . . .  Not exactly the empire state building, but has become a bit of a landmark and sits in the middle of this developing quarter of the city.

We managed to get some lake swimming in last weekend at Küsnacht badi (further down the lake), and another trip to the Theatre Spektakel Saturday night for some more free street theater— but the three-week long festival is now over. The pic of Bea late at night is at Theatre Spektakel with his kite!

Theatre Spektakel

The annual Zurich Theatre Spektakel is on at the moment, which although we don't see the regular shows (mix of theatre, music and circus) there is always plenty of free street performances to see, which are excellent. I took the kids over to the lakeside venue by boat (only 10 mins) this afternoon, and papa joined us later. The kids had balloon animals made, and Bea requested a flying dinosaur, and that's what he got! We spent quite some hours watching the performances on Central stage (sorry, forgot to take pics!) before heading home again on the boat.

First week of school

Bea seemed to settle into his new school routine this week. New school music lessons on a Wednesday and weekly swimming classes on a Friday, along with the regular reading/writing/maths lessons throughout the week. He did make us laugh this week as the children go outside to eat their morning snack and play, and on Tuesday Bea was quite tired so he lay down on a bench, obviously for too long, as when he got up there was nobody in sight. Luckily he saw his old Kindergarten teacher in the playground and she explained the bell to him! Perhaps in such deep thought he didn't hear the bell ringing them back in! 

Finders keepers

I just like these pictures of Bea wearing a hat that he dug out of a skip this week.

X-ray

A trip to the hospital for Ili to see the specialist today, as when she was two-years-old the doctor noticed a dip in her growth rate. If you ask me, the nurse just didn't measure her properly one time! Anyhow, as we thought, this follow up check suggested all is fine. She had an x-ray — Bea enjoyed the x-ray room — just to check her "bone age" as some children just start developing later than others, but then continue growing longer, so the doc told me. He also astutely noticed (a very nice Professor.) that Bea had only one tooth through which is late for his age (he friends have many), and he suggested they are both likely to simply be "late bloomers".

Bea's first day of school!

Picnic lunch and lake swim

Had a lovely picnic lunch and played football (including mamas) with Bea's friend Vincent — to say goodbye before the summer holidays, and then on to the lake where we had our first dip in this year! Foolishly forgot to take pics. 

Piano evening

Trip to the badi this afternoon with Alligan, and then Bea had another opportunity to play piano on the big Steinway this evening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLagE2dIaKk&feature=youtu.be

Züri Fascht weekend

So many activities were on offer as part of the Züri festival this weekend, but after a late party night we were on "go slow" mode. From our terrace this morning we watched literally over a hundred paragliders launch from a circling plane over our heads to drop down into the city (apparently the Swiss team). The children were mesmerised as they just kept coming. Headed into town later, but it was really, way to crowded for comfort (music stalls, food stalls, bars, etc, and sooooo many people), but we found the kiddies area by the lake with a bit more space — and a sea of bouncy stuff — and chilled out watching some weird stuff on the lake and river. The children's favorite was true great inventor stuff, with a man levitating over the river Limmat using a water jet pack, which was funny. The river surfing on a horizontal bungy ("waveboarding") was a close second. Kids stayed up for the fireworks again, this time from our terrace.

Friday night fireworks and party

Frith left for Scotland this morning (for a fieldtrip), and we were invited to a roof terrace party in the evening at neighbours. The "Züri Fascht" (Zurich festival) was on this weekend, which comes around every three years, so the city was bursting at it's seams. Part of the attraction is a massive fireworks display set to music both nights, which we were able to see superbly from the party on the terrace.

Vernissage - leaving party

For the Kindergarten children's leaving party this evening the teachers had arranged a Vernissage (exhibition) of the last theme's art work. Bea said he doesn't want to leave Kindergarten and that he wants to stay six for ever! I think he's had a great time the last two years!