A Tentative Spring

I've been hesitant to blog about this, as I was concerned the day I did would be the day Mother Nature found her sense of humor and decided to dump feet of snow on Zurich (or maybe because it snowed well into April last winter). But it's been almost a week now of almost daily sun and blue skies, and green leaves are starting to assert themselves above the damp earth.

Flower! I get disproportionately excited about these things - it's been a dreary winter.

These buds are significant because they were personally planted by moi (and moi's parents) last fall, and now they're poking through. They're like my dozen little children that only need occasional watering.

Pictures of Switzerland in winter usually portray gorgeous snow-topped mountains against a striking blue background:

Gorgeous, right? And with just a few wispy clouds. Also unrealistic. However, if you go to the Wikipedia page of the Matterhorn (which this is a picture of - don't call it the Jungfrau like I once did. It's the equivalent of some visitor in the US referring to the Statue of Liberty as the Washington Monument. Very uncool and does not go over well with the locals) - what was I saying? Oh yes - practically every picture of the mountain has it against beautiful clear skies. I'm not saying they're lying, per se, I'm just saying that I've been told by people in the know that if you want to even see the Matterhorn (not to mention take stunning pictures), you probably should book three or four nights at Zermatt, the local village, to up your chances.

These photographs are beautiful, no doubt. However, they don't mention (perhaps because pictures don't talk) the fact that the majority of the Swiss population don't live on these majestic peaks above the cloud cover, mainly because we like an indoors to retreat to (no diss to abominable snowmen - in fact, major respect). The vast majority of us live in lower elevation valleys, surrounded by peaks of various heights. 

And as you may remember from middle school science, valleys surrounded by mountains often have fog due to something about evaporation of water (I said you may remember it - I don't). Lots of fog. Switzerland, as special and lovely as it is (and honestly, it is - no sarcasm intended), is no exception to this. Thus, in winter - especially in one as warm as this has been - there are often days or even weeks straight of heavy, gray skies that may or may not spit rain or something vaguely resembling it. Occasionally the fog or cloud cover may dissipate, but by that time it's usually close to 4 pm and the sun, having done its minimum, has already retreated behind the nearby mountains. I believe that I made comparisons to All Summer in a Day (short story here and short video here - I won't judge which one you click on) last year, and that comparison remains apt.

To prove my point, this is the picture I just pulled from the webcam on the Matterhorn's official website:

Yep, that looks about right.

Except this winter, it hasn't even had the courtesy to snow in the valleys. I like snow - the whiteness brightens things up and it's nostalgic and it crunches and it's purty.

This is the most snow I saw ALL WINTER - pathetic. My family in North Carolina got more than this (although they probably are just as thrilled about that as I am). Also note the grey and fog, as per my original point.

I'm not sure I trust a Swiss spring that begins in mid-February, but I remain cautiously optimistic. Meanwhile, I will join the random cat on our patio in soaking up the sun while it's around - however short that may be.

PS - I took too long to write this, and of course the sun has not come out today. I will hold off judging the mean sense of humor Nature has until tomorrow, but then I'm calling her on it.

Knabenschiessen

B and I leave tomorrow morning for a week's vacation, and I have many errands and cleaning to do. So, of course, I prioritized a blog post.

Things have been pretty quiet here the past few weeks. The weather is turning cooler and the air has picked up a crispness that I cannot get enough of. The berries are slowly starting to disappear from the supermarket shelves, sadly, but are being replaced with dozens of apples and various gourds. Fall has definitely arrived.

This past weekend, Zurich held one of its major local festivals (the other, Sechseläuten, is held in April) called Knabenschiessen. I had never heard of the festival, and for a beginner's guide, this Newly Swissed article briefly gives its history. Literally translated, it means 'boys' shooting' - an ambiguous term at best (are the boys doing the shooting or being shot themselves? Luckily, it's the former). Apparently, the Zurich canton started the festival back in the 1890s as a way to get boys interested in their upcoming mandatory military service (a service requirement that is still in effect today). In order to participate, boys must be between 13 and 17 and live or otherwise be affiliated with the canton of Zurich (either through parents or school). In 1991, the competition opened to girls of the same age. It's a sharpshooting contest, and the children are scored out of a maximum of 35 points.

The festival starts on Saturday, and students in the Zurich canton are given a half day of school on Monday, the final day of the festival. The main street taken over by carnival rides and vendor tents is the street where B works, so I headed up there on Monday afternoon to take a gander.

A trolley that (I believe) took families/children directly to the shooting range. I chose to go the long route - a choice that resulted in me never actually reaching the actual destination.

 My first impression was that the street fair was much, much bigger than I expected. 'Traditional' street fair booths, such as jewelry, food, and schoggifrüchte (schoggi is Swiss german for chocolate - in other words, chocolate dipped fruit), abounded, but there were also many, many booths that were less traditional. My two personal favorites were a pillow vendor, which seemed rather deserted, and a live plant auction, which was doing a surprisingly booming business.

He had a lot of plants to sell.

I was disappointed to see that this abbreviation has made its way across the Atlantic.

Candy stand. I refrained. I'm so strong.

A textile booth with an interesting mix of traditional Swiss patterns/embroidery (left) and patterns from further afield (right).

An American flag! Selling hot dogs and corn on the cob - the latter, frankly, looked a little withered, to my disappointment.

This booth was quite busy with a young female clientele. I admit, I got one of these in my hair on a high school trip to Montreal. I thought it was awesome. I failed to think about the later consequence of having to cut it out of my hair.

A random geek booth. It had some impressive statues.

Yes, I wanted to buy one of these. ADORABLE BABY DRAGONS, what's not to love?

My second impression was that I was a fish out of water. I was at the fair for an hour, and not only did I hear no English, I also didn't hear any other languages (except German). In a city where 50% of the population are Auslanders, I'd finally stumbled into the Swiss population.

A traditional Swiss organ grinder! Wait, what?

I'm sorry to report that I never made it out of the kilometers of tents to actually witness the shooting competition (I'm not great in crowds). I did, however, treat myself to a skewer of chocolate-dipped pineapple and strawberries and some Chnoblibröt, garlic bread. And refrained from buying a palm tree from the persuasive-even-in-Swiss-German auctioneer, so B is probably grateful for that.

Ok, if you insist.

Garlic bread! The tag line underneath reads "against Vampires and small hunger."

It was greasy, oily, and very, very garlicky. Mission accomplished.

Mini cactus garden (Pinterest-inspired)

So just before we left for the US, I took it upon myself to try my first Pinterest-inspired home decor. Other than crochet designs - do afghans count as home decor?

I started with a picture from this blog:

Sooo cute. Also, her photography is wonderful. Way better than mine.

It's so pretty! Cute! Small! Multi-colored (This is key - my existence has been devoted to finding ways to add color to the white-monochrome that is our apartment)! When B and I went to Ikea several weeks ago, I purchased a 3-set of small cacti and figured I'd try it out for myself. Unfortunately, after several visits to area garden stores, I wasn't able to find any significant variety in cactus colors, nor could I find any adorable shallow planters that I thought would be suitable.

Not to be discouraged, I dropped by Manor. And forgot how expensive stuff is. But I managed to find this glass bowl for only 15 CHF (yes, that's cheap - although since that time I have discovered the Swiss equivalent of Goodwill and realized my mistake - future upcycled-craft-type items will be from here):

I spent much too long in the Manor craft section poring over their paints and trying to decipher which ones were appropriate for wood/glass/ceramic/metal/fabric/large hadron nuclear collidors. I finally cracked their German-only code and decided on a shiny, teal color (hopefully that will complement my now-finished lap afghan that will be artfully draped over our as-yet-non-existent couch - see, it's all part of a plan).

I wrapped up my purchase with a set of paintbrushes (I'm really, really not a painter, but every crafter needs paintbrushes, right?) and headed home to try it out. Of course I forgot to get pictures of the process as always, but it was incredibly easy and fast, even for nonpainter me. I painted the inside of the bowl, since I wanted to keep some of the glass-y shine, and although the paint didn't work the way I thought it would, I ended up liking the wavey/streaky result:

I may not have cracked the German craft code as well as I thought - but regardless, it turned out fun!

I let the bowl dry overnight and planted in it the next day.

I bought a small pot of succulents at Coop bau+hobby and scattered them around the three ikea cacti. I was very, very glad I had previously purchased garden gloves - arranging cacti is quite the prickly business. I used a bit of my left-over potting soil in the bottom, and then used some sand (also from bau+hobby) to sprinkle on the top, to give it a bit more cactus-like feel.

Pleasantly surprised that yay, it's cute, and I made it! Now I'm going to go start on those photography lectures my parents bought me for Christmas...

As a first home decor project, it was very encouraging. Quick, easy, no disasters other than a few pricked fingers. I'm a bit concerned that the succulents may not be on the same watering-schedule as the cacti, but it's been almost a month now and they seem to be holding up.

Now we just need a coffee table to put it on.

PS - Does anyone else get addicted to the "Next blog" button at the top of blogs hosted by Google? I definitely do - I like to retroactively guess how Google thinks blogs are related. I follow several craft blogs and like to click around on those, but somehow I inevitably end up at some Mormon family's website, where there are many babies and everybody looks happy and healthy (and white). I had no idea Mormons (or other religious groups) were such prolific bloggers. I tried the "next blog" with my own site this morning and within three clicks ended up in a series of real estate/mortgage blogs - a wee depressing. I need to stop talking about apartments, apparently?

Starting the garden

Just before Easter, I bought several herb and strawberry plants and a variety of supplies, thinking that I would get them planted during the long weekend. Unfortunately, the Zürich weather did not cooperate and continued to drop to freezing regularly at night (as well as being grey and cloudy and all-around depressing during the day), and I was hesitant to put the plants out on our balcony. So I delayed, and somehow ten days went by.

Very sad herbs. Of course the sun was out for the 10 minutes I took pictures.

The plants are obviously not meant to stay in their original containers for such a length of time, so yesterday morning I decided I needed to repot despite the uncooperative weather. Such activities should probably take place outside, but it was cold and I wanted to stay in my pajamas (coz I'm classy like that), so I just spread out the supplies on our floor.

Post herb-replanting. I did clean up after myself (so B never saw the apartment in this state - hi honey!), but we seriously need to get more than a dustpan and brush. 

I was surprised that the strawberry plants actually survived the best out of all the plants in their tiny little cases. I chose the 4 best looking (out of the half-dozen purchased) for replanting - I hadn't bought a large enough planter for all six.

You'd never guess they were in these tiny little containers for 10+ days! Well, unless you look closely at the front left one.

Of course, by the time I got them up on the windowsill, the sun had disappeared and it started raining about 20 minutes later.

Immediately post-replanting. Note the wet pavement outside. Zürich is like the Seattle of Europe. Also note how disappointed all the plants are about this as well. Me too, fellows.

I am happy that all plants - except perhaps the rosemary, which it may be too late for - look in much better spirits today.

This morning, in the 5 minutes of sunshine. Seriously, how does anyone grow plants around here when there is no sun, ever? Despite that, they have definitely perked up.

Happy strawberry plants. They are definitely planted too close together, but I had no more soil or containers. I will probably replant post-apartment move.

I still have several packets of seeds that I am not sure if I will get to before we move - we don't really have room here to set them up - but I also got some tips from a local this weekend about where to get plantlings instead of just seeds, which makes me feel better about getting such a late start on the garden. She suggested a nursery close to our new apartment, so I will definitely be checking that out immediately post-move. It's probably a good idea to remember how big our new patio will be before I go crazy. In my mind, we have limitless space, and I want fruits and veggies and flowers and tubers and fruit trees in those big pots! This is why B accompanies me on shopping trips. That, and to help carry the items he can't talk me out of - our relationship works on many levels.