T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
I just returned from a retina-burning couple of hours at the Zurich Kunsthaus, where the exhibit Feast of Color is in full, vibrant swing. The 200 or so paintings and sculptures come from the private collection of Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher, an apparently insanely wealthy couple with a passion for intense colors and early-20ith-century European … Read more
Becoming a legal resident in a foreign country is often about as fun as, say, having a root canal every week for months on end (ok, that’s not really fair—I’ve never had a root canal, so what do I know? The point is that it sucks.). When my husband and I moved to Milan in … Read more
Since today was turning out to be too warm to ski, we decided to head to the other end of Lake Zurich to check out Rapperswil, a cute little medieval town complete with castle. After wandering through the town, eating lunch, and exploring said castle (and its Polish museum), we headed down to the bustling … Read more
Recently a gigantic grey box has sprung up in downtown Zurich, right next to the lake. Its bright orange signs let passersby know that it contains something that has to do with the The Gates. The Gates was an installation in Central Park by artists Jeanne-Claude and Christo, whose famous works include the Wrapped Reichstag … Read more
In a shocking twist of events, the city of Zurich has reversed its no-mariachis-on-trams policy! The pictures were quietly replaced over the past few days. A little internet research revealed that the Mexican consulate complained to the city about the signs after having received many angry calls from the community. The replacement of the signs … Read more
We just got back from a glorious long weekend in Mürren, an excessively adorable little skiing village in the Swiss Alps. To get there one must take an incline railway to a cog-wheel train to the town. Once you get to the town itself, the only way to get your luggage to your hotel is … Read more
Nevermind that Lent has already started – Zurichers braved the snow by the tens this weekend to revel in the streets with a bunch of funnily-dressed marching bands. I’m guessing that Zurich celebrates carnival the weekend after the rest of the world because all the good bands are busy during the real carnival playing in … Read more
Saturday it snowed all day long… …and into the night. Not bad for a camera phone, eh? So far we’re at a foot and a half, and it’s still coming down. I’ll let you know when it stops. 2:00 AM update… still snowing. We just went out and made snow angels. And at the … Read more
Nobody warned me substantially enough about Swiss German. To call it “Swiss German” in the first place is ridiculously misleading… it implies that the language is, in the end, a kind of German. Kind of like “American English”… to get from here to British English, all you have to do is say “boot” instead of … Read more