The One Where We Begin Urban Hiking

We are back in Switzerland! We had a nice four weeks in the States. We spent time in Chicago and Lawrenceville, Illinois and Bloomington, Indiana. In addition, I took a side trip to visit friends in St. Louis and Tobi and I both went to southern California for his business trip, which also included a little rest and relaxation since the kids stayed in Bloomington with Grandma & Grandpa.

Now we're back home and gearing up for school and back to the "routine" of Swiss daily life. We decided that instead of always going out into nature to hike, we might like to get to know our city better. So we're focusing on urban hiking and hoping we can get familiar with the less-touristy aspects of Zurich.

The girls on the bus, ready for some urban hiking!

Amazing foodstuffs, everywhere you look.

Today we decided to go to Markthalle Im Viaduct. This is a year old indoor marketplace, open 6 days a week. There are individual foodstuffs shops in one large market. They've used the old viaduct for the city as the building and enclosed it - it's beautiful. I've been missing Whole Foods and Foodstuffs in Evanston as well as Schaefer's in Skokie for all my gourmet foodstuffs. This is a fantastic find! There's even an English foods shop, The British Cheese Centre, with amazing cheddars, English beers, meat pies, and the holy grail of my summer drink, Pimms No. 1. There are beautiful breads, fruits & vegetables, a butcher, and a fish counter. It also has a wine shop and a restaurant. There was even an ice cream shop. If you know our children, you know we also got ice cream.

Beautiful flowers at the florist

Swiss breads, why are you so delicious?

Charlie wanted to know why the blueberries were so huge!

OMG! Pimm's!!

The boys found the thing they liked most.

Caroline liked the mango ice cream the best.

We left the market and walked back toward Old Town. It was kind of a long walk, but the kids were troupers. We wandered through parks where the Petanque Club of Zurich was holding its picnic and tournament (of course, at first, we thought it was bocce because we'd never heard of Petanque - see the things you learn when you urban hike??). Then we made our way down along the river and watched the people who were swimming the river today as part of an organized swim (complete with floats that looked like rubber ducks - the kids loved this).

Zurich has great fountains all over the city - perfect for the hot weather.

Charlie loves to swing.

So does Caroline, as long as Grant's doing the pushing.

View of the river with the rubber duckie swimmers,

with the twin spires of Grossmunster in the distance.

We stopped in our favorite park (we don't even really know what the name is, but we call it the Thornbush Park) for the kids to play and to get cooled off in the fountain. Instead of seeing beauty in the natural, like we would on a nature hike, we see the beauty in buildings and parks. Like the beautiful row houses or the cobblestone streets of Old Town.

You can even find ruins, if you look closely enough.

I love the color of these shutters.

A favorite hill in Old Town, with St. Peter's behind it.

Finally, we made our way down the Bahnhofstrasse (kinda like Zurich's version of Rodeo Drive or Michigan Avenue), where I taught Caroline to identify important things not found in nature. Like Ferragamo (her pronunciation was perfect, thank you very much) or Chanel.

I can't understand why they wouldn't let us in.

At the end of the day Grant said, "I thought today might be boring, but it was actually a lot of fun." Sometimes it's surprising what treasures you'll find if you just search for them.

Cheers!

Tiffany

The One Where We Go to Munich

We went to Munich last weekend for a long weekend. After our visit to Dachau, we headed into the city to the Marriott. Yeah, the Marriott. Marriott might not have old world charm or the local flavor, but they are great for traveling with three kids. They're modern, thus modern amenities (like bathrooms bigger than a breadbox and comfortable beds). Also, because Tobi has traveled so much, he has about a million Marriott points. And nothing beats free.

We checked in and immediately the children started jumping on the beds. Do your kids do this? I don't allow them to jump on the beds at home, but the rule has always been you can always jump on hotel beds (sorry, Marriott). We got our bearings, had a snack, and watched Anderson Cooper narrate the last NASA shuttle mission for us. Ahhh, I miss television sometimes.

The English Garden, with the Seehaus beer garden in the distance.

Cheers!

After that, we decided to take the subway, which was only a few minutes' walk from the hotel, into the tourist area. We walked through the beautiful English Garden, where we found our first beer garden, the Seehaus. It was very crowded, but it had lots of seats. After filling our plates with mountains of wurst, potato salad and pretzels, we sat at picnic tables and had dinner. The kids loved the playground (European restaurants with playgrounds are the BEST!) and Tobi loved the beer.

Munich's Town Hall (with rainbow flags!)

On Saturday morning we headed back into the Marianplatz area of the city to look around. The Munich Gay Pride Parade was also taking place that day. That was interesting. As much as I love and support my gay friends, I wanted to try to steer a bit clear of the parade route. I've been to the Chicago Gay Pride Parade and it was a blast. But I'm not sure it's the most appropriate thing for an eight year old. We did see a drag queen. That was a fun discussion. Grant: "That's a man?"

The boys enjoyed the Munich Toy Museum.

Especially the robots!

We decided the toy museum might be a more appropriate venue and the boys enjoyed that. We also decided to pour some tourist dollars (francs, Euros, whatevs) into the local Munich economy by hitting up the local toy store, Obletter.

I just thought this was so pretty with all the flower boxes!

Street markets selling fresh fruit

After all that, we were exhausted and nothing sounded better to anyone than a big German-style lunch. So we headed to Munich's most famous beer hall, Hofbräuhaus. The kids enjoyed that and we did multiple rounds of "Cheers!" (side note: I kinda wish we hadn't taught the kids this fun trick. The amount of cheersing we do in this family is ridiculous). After lunch and much too much wurst, we headed back to the hotel for Caroline (and Tobi) to nap while the boys and I swam in the indoor pool.

The square at the Hofbrauhaus.

A family that does "cheers!" together

We enjoyed the Oompah Band at the Hofbrauhaus!

Our dear friends -- Trish, Tod, Will, Fyn, and Mara -- from England, were visiting friends of theirs in Munich for the weekend. Trish and Tod used to live in Evanston and Will and Grant were preschool buddies. Tobi and I had dinner with Trish and Tod last year in London, but the kids hadn't seen each other in quite a while. On Saturday night we met up with their family and their friends at yet another beer garden, Aumeister. We were able to get a little bit of play time in (another playground in a beer garden - yea!) and dinner before a storm approached. Trish & Tod's friends were kind enough to invite us to their house for a while so the kids could play and the grown ups could chat. We had a lovely time and planned to meet again (European city TBD)!

Will & Grant - friends since age two.

On Sunday we decided to tackle what was open of the BMW Museum. I had contacted them earlier in the week about scheduling a private tour only to be told that the museum had sustained water damage and most of it would not be open. We went anyway and we were so glad we did. The BMW Welt (German translation: BMW World) was open, which is more of a brainwashing of why BMW is the best car in the world. Yes, we do have a Koolaid-drinker in our family. Tobi just sold his baby in February. The pain is still too great to talk about.

Tobi's next car? This one got a thumbs up.

A vintage BMW

The utterly amazing BMW Isetta. WANT.

ZOMG! It's Kelly Taylor's car!

(I know some of you will adore this reference!)

The Museum wasn't open, save for the Art Cars exhibit. But what an amazing exhibit. BMW asked famous artists (the likes of Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol) to transform cars into works of art (or as Tobi says, "put works of art upon works of art"). It was a very cool exhibit and I would recommend it for any art or BMW enthusiast.

After that, we headed back to the Aumeister for a late lunch (yes, 4 beer gardens in 48 hours, thankyouverymuch) and then we hit the road to get back to Zurich.

The kids, discussing the merits of modernism vs. pointillism.

Or, "red is pretty!"

The Andy Warhol car

A side note on Bitsy, my beloved Volvo. Bitsy made her way to us a few weeks ago after an arduous process of paperwork and shipping containers and barges. She's been outfitted with new plates. And a Switzerland sticker (contrary to popular belief, CH doesn't stand for Cheese or Chocolate, but Confoederatio Helvetica)! However, even though her odometer says she goes up to 160 miles per hour, sadly she does not. I drove her on the German autobahn and she maybe got up to 106mph. Maybe. She was still passed by Volkswagens and Audis and maybe a Ford. But seeing as though I'm primarily concerned with the safety of my family and thus a Volvo owner, this didn't bother me in the least. Nope, not at all.

And that concludes Act I of the Laczkowski family's excellent European field trip. The blog will be on hiatus until at least the end of August as we are heading back to the good ol' U.S. of A for a while.

Cheers! *clink*

Tiffany

Dachau

On our way to Munich on Friday, we stopped to visit Dachau, the first concentration camp in Germany, predating the war.

I had asked a friend, before we went, what she thought of taking Grant in with us. At first she said she wouldn't recommend it, but later she said she'd asked her husband his opinion and he thought it was OK. I thought long and hard about it. On the one hand, I don't want to strip him of his innocence before age nine; on the other hand, I don't ever want to lie to him. We could and did easily tell Charlie it was just a museum. Charlie is our most rambunctious child, but when we go into churches he seems to understand that it's important to be quiet and respectful. I explained that it was a museum and that he needed to be quiet, that he might see people praying or crying. Amazingly, he was totally quiet while on the grounds. Grant and I went in first and Tobi stayed out by the visitor center with Charlie and Caroline.

The front gate of Dachau, with the infamous saying,

"Arbeit macht frei" - work sets you free.

The moment you walk through the front gate, the oppressive sadness seeps into your bones. I wasn't prepared for that. But it hits you straight away. Despite the many tour groups, it was very quiet. Lots of people taking pictures, reading the signs, contemplating.

A cell ward for SS soldiers, suspected of treason

The day was beautiful - breezy and sunny. It was in stark contrast to the way one feels when walking around the grounds. The beauty of the swaying trees lining the alley where the barracks once stood was juxtaposed with the ugliness of what occurred there. Grant read every sign. I joked with Tobi later that he is his father's child. If you've ever gone into a museum with Tobi, you know you won't get out of there anytime soon. He reads everything. Grant did as well. I think it was partly because he was happy to be able to read it on his own without asking me to read it to him. He also asked very thoughtful questions. As only a child can, he asked some that were impossible to answer. He also reasoned with his childlike innocence. He asked me why they constructed a crematorium. I explained that there were too many bodies for burial, to which he replied, "Shouldn't that have been their first clue that they were killing too many people?" He also asked me if there were any people who tried to escape. I said, "Yes, but it was very difficult," to which he replied, "Well, I'd wait until the guards went on lunch break."

The 69 original barracks were destroyed,

two have been reconstructed to look like the originals.

One of seven watch towers

The thing that most struck me of the experience were the expressions of art dotting the buildings (you can read more about the art here). There are numerous plaques and sculptures. The memorials were beautiful. Some, like the Catholic and Jewish memorials, were elaborate and beautifully done. Others, like the Polish memorial, were austere and understated.

A sculpture linking all the various badges the prisoners were forced to wear

The Jewish Memorial

The Polish Memorial, on the Catholic Memorial

The Polish Memorial reads: Here in Dachau, every third victim was a Pole. One of every two Polish priests was martyred + their holy memory is venerated here by their fellow prisoners of the Polish clergy.

The barbed wire fence still stands.

Memorial at the crematorium. "Think about how we died here."

To honor the dead, to the living a reminder

I still don't know if I did the right or wrong thing by taking Grant in and letting him see the truth of what happened in the camp. There were not a lot of photos on the signs, which was lucky on our part, because that would have been difficult to shield him from. But at the end of the visit, he did see one disturbing photo and he looked at me and said, "Mom, this is too much. Can we go now?" I felt like he mirrored my sentiments exactly.

The bells rang out late in the day during our visit. It was the most beautiful arrangement of bells I think I've ever heard. They started off very loud and gradually they lessened to the sound of mostly echoes. It sounded like voices echoing from long ago. The profound sorrow too great to ever really fall silent.