Taking a bath together

Like I said in an earlier post, we had all sorts of creative ideas for bathing Mikael while in Switzerland. This one was the only that seemed at all popular. He and I are sitting together in the bathtub in the hotel.B

Kissing in the park

Liya displays her affection for a Mikael who seems somewhat nonplussed. It's hard to tell from the video, but they are both lying on the grass of the shores of Lake Zurich.

On top of the Uetilberg

Mikael hated the top of the Uetilberg. We'd left his stroller down by the last train station, and it was time for a nap and it was hot and he did not want to be in the Ergo or wearing the hat or anything. He was certain we were torturing him out of personal spite, and he was willing to enlist the aid of any and every passing stranger if he could just scream loudly enough for them to notice. As a result, we didn't spend very long on top of the Uetilberg. Luckily, we will always have these pictures to remember what an amazing view it has. In the background, of course, you can see the Zurichberg, where we had been the day before.

Blue hat

Although these may seem like cute portraits of Mikael, they are actually fashion shots of the hat. Very good purchase this hat.

 
 

Up the Uetilberg

We got off two stops before the top of the Uetilberg, and climbed the rest of the way up. Most of the way, Mikael rode in the ergo and Liya pushed the stroller. It felt kind of silly, but it worked. The stroller really proved itself, though, giving Mikael a comfortable ride over some very smooth terrain. As the pictures show, we also took time to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom on our way to the top.

 
 
 

Towards the Uetilberg

We woke up on Sunday morning and checked out of the hotel bright and early (11:00 AM) after bathing and showering and packing and feeding and so on and so on. We stowed our stuff in the Hauptbahnhof, and grabbed some very expensive breafkast on Bahnhofstrasse, and finally headed up on the Uetilbergbahn towards the Uetilberg. You see us here waiting for the train, and also (in the last picture) putting on our sunblock.

Zurichdiner

Well, actually, the restaurant was called Santa Lucia and it had very good, if pricey, Italian food. Food in Switzerland is all measured carefully. We shared 200 cc of Tortellinni soup including 6 tortellinis, 15 slices of carpaccio (100 cc) with 6 slices of bread, 300 g of fish, and 18 gnocchi with a meat and cream sauce. Afterwards, we wandered back along Marktgasse in the old town. All of Zurich's young and old were out drinking bier and listening to Musich on a Saturday night. It looked like fun, but Mikael was asleep in the stroller and we eventually escaped down to the riverside where things were quieter.

 
 

Zurichhorn

There's a certain monotonous consitency to the naming of things in and around Zurich. The Zurichhorn is the tip of the park by the Zurichsee (in the shade of the Zurichberg) where the shoreline suddenly turns westwards. We spent some time here watching people bathe in the lake and hang out on the grass.

 
 
 

Zurichsee

After climbing the Zurichberg, we wandered around Bahnhofstrasse looking for chocolate stores. That eventually brought us to the lake. We walked along the lake to a small and not-stroller-friendly Chinese garden. The Chinese garden is sweet but perhaps not truly worthy of its place on the tourist map. The lake front itself, however, was very nice and worth a visit.

Zurichberg

After spending the entire morning in the Baby shop, we were eager to go do something and walked all the way up the Zurichberg. Here is the view from the best lookout spot we could find. In the background, on the other side of Zurich, you can see the Uetilberg, which we climbed the next day.

 

The Ergo-Bjorn

Mikael and I have reached a compromise on the Ergo: as long as he can treat like a Baby Bjorn, he's very happy to use it. Occasionally, he's willing to fall asleep in it in the normal facing-in posture, but you have to get him turned around pretty quickly once he wakes up or it will take a while before he calms down and forgives you.

 
 

Babyhaus Wehrli

One of the things I was sort of hoping we'd get to do in Zurich is see what the European version of Shilav (the baby store) looks like. By strange coincidence, it turned out that Bebehaus Wehrli (German only, of course) was just a block down the street from our hotel. I noticd it because there was a huge sign of a baby stroller painted on a building we could see across the street. We went to check it out our first morning in Zurich and ended up buying a baby hat to protect Mikael against the sun and a new (used) stroller! You'll see the stroller featuring prominently in the rest of the Zurich pictures. The stroller itself ran about 500 CHF instead of the 990 that a new version was supposed to cost (although I think I just saw it new for $500 on an American site). That includes a new stroller seat. We also bought a TFK (Trends for Kids) "baby nest" which converts the stroller into a comfortable bed for Mikael. It's cheaper (and much lighter) than their 'carry cot,' and we had a lot of fun with it. It's the orange thing you see in the pictures.


Now we have to get rid of the Mutzi stroller.

Anyway, the store was cool and we almost bought all kinds of things including a baby hammock that you can hang from the ceiling and gently rock your baby and the baby rocker that you see Liya playing with below.


























































Here he is sleeping in the baby nest during a ride on the Zurich tram. The baby nest was definitely a place where he felt comfortable and safe.

Bathing in Zurich

The hotel in Zurich had a bath, so Mikael and I filled the bath with warm water and tried it out. It definitely wasn't as fun as the plastic tub we use in Tel Aviv, but it was much much better than showering together or being washed in the sink. The only problem was that the bath was too small for me, so the following mornign Liya and Mikael took their bath together.

Train

 


Here's a cute video of me and Liya trying to get Mikael to have a conversation with me while on the train:

Hiking the ridge south of Tete de Ran

In the afternoon after the course ended, Adi and Liya and I took a walk along the ridge south of the Tete de Ran 'peak'. We walked along the ridge until we came to this beautiful field overlooking Lake Neuchatel, and then headed down the other side of the ridge and back along a dirt road home with cow bells pealing on all sides.

 
 

In bed

This portrait was taken immediately after a nice massage the morning of the last day of the course.