6 Months in Zurich

We've been in Zurich for almost 6 months, hard to believe...  The time has gone quickly - first with getting settled and learning our way around, and then with being very busy at work (for me) and school (for Claire).

Next weekend is Christmas, and we'll be in Salzburg - then staying in a little village near Salzburg to ski for a few days - then on to Munich for some shopping and New Years Eve.  We're looking forward to vacation!

However, despite being very busy we've managed to get out and do something fun almost every week or weekend though.  Not all of these events have been mentioned on the blog, as most of them weren't really exciting, or I didn't take a lot of pictures!

But since we're coming down to the end of the year, I thought I'd do a wrap-up post with a few of those things...

In October, we went to the Jucker Pumpkin Farm - it's a slightly odd but charming attraction, a farm which has turned itself into a weekend outing destination by building huge replicas of "Swiss Cliches" out of ... pumpkins!  And of course they sell pumpkins and squash, at least a dozen kinds, apples, preserves, baking, pumpkin soup, and since this is Switzerland beer and sausages as well.

 

 

Mid-November I went to the Zurich Slow Food festival:

I got the equivalent of a large meal, just wandering around tasting cheese, olive oil, coffee, chocolate, wine, sausage, sake, cured meat, and much, much more.

It was amazing - a huge event, hundreds of vendors, thousands of people.    There were cooking shows (in German) too.

Below is a hand-made, hand-pump espresso machine, not very convenient to use, and not very affordable at 3665 Swiss Francs (just under 4000 dollars...) but it made really, really excellent coffee.

I came home with a shopping bag stuffed with about 40 pounds of food.  Some of it is being sent back to Canada as Christmas gifts...

On December 4th we went to a music concert at the Grossmunster cathedral.  It was Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, four male voices and a soprano saxophone.  The sax was like a "5th voice" and the style of music was somewhere between medieval choral and free jazz... it worked really well in the echo-ey interior of the cathedral.

We also have visited the Zurich Christmas market, and done a bit of Christmas shopping in and around the main shopping district.  Zurich is beautifully decorated, with lights everywhere and huge Christmas trees.

Bahnhofstrasse, (the main shopping street) late at night after the stores have closed.

Window display of a store selling mostly chocolate & candy

A huge Christmas tree in front of Credit Suisse in Paradeplatz.
The "Occupy / 99%" protesters were here just a few weeks earlier.

And that's it for now.  We've got one week of work left and then we're off to Austria!