Paris

Photos from Paris! Unfortunately no Pat or Federbär for this trip, I (Katie) went on a trip with my oldest friend, Eleanor! We took the train up on a Saturday and I came back on the Monday, and El stayed a bit longer before rejoining her family. About 80% of the photos I took are of the Palace of Versailles so I might put them in a separate post. Here are the other photos: 

Us on a train! It's about 4 hours from Zürich to Paris.

We approached Notre Dame from behind, this is me standing in front of the back.

Notre Dame from the front

This photo doesn't do it justice, but this is the impressive organ in Notre Dame for the enjoyment of my dad.

It was my first time in Paris, I can't not visit the Eiffel Tower, didn't bother going up though. 

The Seine

The missing Berlin Bears! When I was in Berlin last November, we'd heard about these bears and went to see them but couldn't find them anywhere, despite asking about 5 people for directions near where they were supposed to be. Turns out, they'd been moved to Paris! 

If you look closely this Creme Brûlée is still on fire (I was too slow taking my camera out) 

Sacré-Cœur Basilica, this was on the hill just above our hotel, very pretty at night, and an awesome view over Paris form the top of the hill.

A cheese dish with snails in it. Yes, I ate snails.

We happened to walk past the Moulin Rouge, so I thought I'd grab a picture.

All in all,  a really fun weekend! Plenty of good food and good company and Paris is definitely a very busy and lively city (maybe I'm just getting used to quiet Zürich) it reminded me a lot of New York, it's at least as dirty. :P The highlight was definitely Versailles (we spent a whole day there), so I'll have to post some more pictures.

Snow!

While Katie is away this weekend in Paris, I was keeping Federbaer company back in Zurich (comforting him after the lost final in Basel) when I found out on the Friday what the forecast was...0 degrees and snow!

I had already lined up some cold-weather clothes shopping for Saturday and a walk for Sunday, and lo and behold, while walking around on the Saturday some flakes started to appear. I wouldn't have called it snow at that stage though; nothing was staying on the ground, and it fell more like...light rain. As the sun set however, the flakes got slightly bigger. You can see on the left, the roof is still brown, but the fall itself was definitely visible.

So I fell asleep that night, with a Christmas-like hope that I'd get a picturesque present out the window the next morning (Oh, and an extra hour sleep. Although I think I have an increased hatred for DST now that I work on a calendaring system...). Thankfully, Zurich delivered, as overnight the snow had continued, and now it covered the ground and was still coating everything with white. The same view out the window was now:

I didn't bring my proper camera on the day's trip later (not sure how well it'd survive being snowed on. Federbaer stayed at home citing the same reason...), but managed to take this collection on my phone:

People often say, when hearing that I came from Australia, that Sydney has great weather. In reality, I'm a huge fan of cold weather, where you can explore with a coat, beanie, scarf, gloves, boots, ... so I look forwards to sharing more of these shots over the winter!
In other less exciting-weather news, we also managed to stretch out for a tame hike down the side of Lake Zurich last weekend to the Au Halbinsel*, which should be covered soon, stay tuned.
(*German word for the day: Halbinsel = 'half-island', quite close to paene insula = peninsula. Latin actually coming in useful...)

Lindenhof

There is a small hill near the middle of the really old old-town in Zurich, called Lindenof hill, which has a nice view over the main northern exit to the lake, but also has an amazingly impressive history - ranging from BC bronze-age settlements, and including substantial Roman, Celtic and Middle-age ruins. Recently, Federbär decided to take us there to see the sites, and explore the slightly more northern section of town.

This is also the site for the vines-on-a-bridge, vines-on-a-lamp and headless trio from the previous post - and as you can see from the skies, it was a wonderful day to explore. What is more, as seen below, Federbär managed to find some locals playing chess (including, I kid you not, an older gruff looking man with a suit and pipe).

Federbär's analysis: win to black?

After Lindenhof, we headed east across the water to the old town area where Katie had stayed on her first visit, and then up the hill to the university ETH Zurich - one of the top ranked Unis in the world, and which counts Einstein and John Von Neumann among its Alumni! Students certainly seemed to have some great views out the front of the main building, and I'm sure the classes inside are equally as impressive. I decided to take this opportunity to test making videos with the miniature setting of mine phone too, resulting in:

One of the university buildings

At the end, after a day of walking up and down two hills that was enough for all three of us (even the one being carried by others...), more photos are available in this album, but this restaurant in particular caught our eye as one to come back and try at some point. Make sure to click to zoom in to get a good view of the meal names!

Random photos from around Zürich

Here's a bunch of photos I've taken around Zürich which didn't seem to fit into any cohesive story or statement. Also, a lot of them the most interesting thing in the photo is some kind of vine, what can I say? I like vines. :)

You wouldn't guess this is practically in the city, and it's 3min walk from our new  place!

The same building a little closer, it's apparently an art museum, but we haven't been inside yet.

Vines....

More (and prettier) vines.

Two headless women and one headless man, it's also one the many drinking water fountains around Zürich. 

Vines on a bridge!

Vines on a street lamp!

Swan 

A clock made of plants, and it actually tells the correct time (how could it not?)

Found this out the back of a local church, no idea what these stairs are meant to be for... or why they go nowhere...

Uetliberg 2 - photos

We had a few hours to spare on Saturday, and it was a really nice day, so I decided to test my new camera out and follow Federbaer up Uetliberg, the mountain that had been staring over us all week long. Most of this was covered last post, but I thought I'd give it from another view, and with the fruits of my new camera :)
I'd made the mistake last trip of trying to walk up it on a Sunny day, so this time instead we took the train to the top, enjoying the views over Zurich along the way. Even getting of the train, our journey was not yet over however, and after about another 10 minutes of walking up hill we reached the peak, with Katie and Federbear enjoying the view:

It was a great view from up the top, both giving a sense of the size of the city (not actually all that big, compared to e.g. Sydney, but very flat) but also they lay of the land - from the top, you still couldn't see the end of the lake, but you could see plenty of Alps (including Snow! very far away...) plus lots of small towns in the middle of forrested hills when facing the other side of the mountain.

Meanwhile, as it happened there was a big shooting festival going on just at the bottom of the slope where it turns back into civilisation - which meant from where we stood, you could here the contestants firing, and also admire the views of the tiny people riding the tiny rollercoasters and ferris wheel. It seemed the perfect opportunity to test out the 'miniature' setting on my camera:

The latter photo is from the top of a radio tower at the peak which you can walk up, and get an even higher view of town. It was at the bottom of that where Federbaer enjoyed his iced coffee mentioned in the previous post, and after which we headed down a hiking slope to reach the bottom, surrounded by greenery and flowing water (and odd numbered light posts) all the way down, some of us taking a rest part way:

Finally, the entire album is available to browser here. I leave you today though with the best shot of them all - one of the outtakes from the trip was when I was trying to take another Zurich panorama and Federbaer managed to photobomb his way into the shot:

Uetliberg and Knabenschiessen!

On Saturday we finally tried out the bakery near where we're staying and then spent the morning at some fairly uneventful apartment inspections around Wiedikon. We've now got a list of more places we would like to check out, and will probably be spending a lot of time next week visiting and applying for places. After the inspections we stopped at an italian place for lunch, where the waiter tried to teach me to say "Es schmeckt gut!" (it tastes good!) in a more swiss way, which I don't remember now... :/

 

Since it was a clear and sunny day, we decided to head up Uetliberg, the local mountain, which is near Zürich. Because it was very hot and we're lazy, we took the train up almost to the top and then walked down. Here are some pictures from the top. I didn't take many because Pat has a much fancier camera and took much better shots. (coming soon)

Federbär and the lake

The west side of Zürich

Zürich and the lake

At the top we stopped at a restaurant, and had some food, Pat ordered an iced coffee and I had a hot chocolate. The iced coffee, strangely enough, had the viscosity of pudding, I mean it was delicious, just unexpected. Here is Federbär having a taste...

When you come visit us here in Zürich, I highly recommend the trip up to the top of Uetliberg, it's a great view and the walk through the forest is great! Everything is so green! The path down is very steep, but since you're going down it's not so bad (or there is still the train). 

From up there we could hear gun shots from the Knabenschiessen, a shooting competition for high school kids. We get a half-day public holiday on Monday for the purpose of this event, there is also a Fair. It turns out that the fair ground is just at the bottom on Uetliberg on our way home. So we walked straight through it.

Not a great picture, but the only one I took of the fair

I bought some Biberli which is a kind of packet made of Lebkuchen (same texture as soft gingerbread but not ginger flavour) and filled with a sweet paste made from nuts, in this case Hazelnuts (Haselnuss). It was awesome, definitely will look out for that one again.

We also had some Raclette which is a delicious mixture of melted cheese on either Bread or Potatoes, and Pat bought some beef on a stick, which came with some bread on the end too, which we don't recall the name of. 

Raclette mit Kartoffeln (Raclette cheese with potatoes)

Pat with beef on a stick

At the end of the day, our feet were sore but we'd had a great time. Pat has much better photos from Uetliberg, which he'll post here sometime next week.