And speaking of Heidi – Das Musical…

It still makes me giggle when German articles are applied to English words. On the train (on the way to das Musical), I had a discussion with some locals about whether it’s der Blog or das Blog (which reminds me – I also giggle when English words get German verb endings… ich blogge, du bloggst, … Read more

Heidi on the Walensee

Yesterday afternoon we took a train to Walenstadt (about an hour from Zurich), in search of some Swiss culture. We walked through the small town to the lake and hopped on a boat for a dinner cruise. The Walensee has some beautiful, dramatic scenery going on – on one side the mountain is so steep … Read more

Finding Chagall in small-town Switzerland

My trip to French-speaking Switzerland the other week had a purpose (beyond making fun of the newspapers, I mean)– our goal was to find art and look at it. Day one was spent in Lausanne, a lovely, hilly town on Lake Geneva, where after a lovely Middle Eastern lunch my friend Ali and I visited … Read more

Floating through the city

After two years of cancellation, Zurich’s annual Limmat River Swim was finally able to take place yesterday. The weather was gloriously sunny, making us oh-so-excited to jump in the cool water for a leisurely float through the city. The event was extremely well organized (as we should have expected). We purchased our 27-franc tickets near … Read more

Fondling food in the darkness

Last night we crossed another item off the things-we-should-do-in-Switzerland-but-haven’t-gotten-around-to-yet list: dining in the dark. Apparently dark restaurants are becoming quite trendy these days, but Zurich’s Blinde Kuh (German for ‘Blind Cow’) was the very first of them. I found myself giddily excited while anticipating the evening, something which almost never happens to me. We arrived … Read more

Zurich turns into one big party

Saturday was Zurich’s annual Street Parade, a gigantic techno party which takes over all of downtown. In addition to the parade with floats blaring out dance music, there were several stages with DJs blaring out dance music, and pretty much every restaurant and bar in the downtown area seemed to have hired a DJ to … Read more

Zurich Public Transport: 0, Mariachis: 2

For those of you following the Zurich trams vs. mariachis story with baited breath, here’s your long-awaited update. According to this morning’s 20 Minuten (which, in addition to The Daily Show, is the source of all my daily news intake), the VBZ has finally relented and pulled the commercial featuring mariachis busking on a tram. … Read more

Zurich: upcoming events

Just in case you find yourself in Zurich in the month of August, I figured I’d share some upcoming events we’re looking forward to… Street Parade – Time to break out the peacock-feather pasties, boys and girls! This coming Saturday, downtown Zurich will turn into one great big techno dance party, with floats, costumes, and … Read more

Doing Dublin

We spent a little time in Dublin at the beginning and end of our trip to Ireland, split up that way so we could take advantage of the direct flights between Dublin and Zurich on Aer Lingus. It was one of my first experiences with European discount airlines (since most don’t fly out of Zurich), … Read more