I Heart Zurich

Last night, Jason and I took advantage of the free baby-sitting services of my visiting mom and aunt and headed out into the city. We love going into the city, anytime, but during nice weather, Zurich is the best!

We met for dinner at a department store. Odd, you think? Nope, it's a great store that has an awesome Asian restaurant and sushi bar. We ate some yummo curry, pad thai, and sushi and drank some yummy wine. Then we just wandered. Here, there, everywhere!

The cool thing about Zurich is that you don't have to have a "plan". The city is small enough to go all over and check out many different things to do. Plus, there is always something going on in the city. We don't usually know about these things in advance since ads are written in German, but we do a good job of stumbling upon cool events!

Last night, we stumbled upon a really cool park area, called Lindenhof. This park was featured in the Travel Channel DVD we bought before moving here, but we hadn't found the park until last night. We found the park by following the noise of a carnival. There was an event there promoting tourism in a region of Switzerland called Schaffhausen. It was a ton of fun! There was a tent with local bands (commentary in German, all songs in English!), wine tasting (right up our alley!), casino games (all free, just for fun!), and a huge slide (for adults!) that sent you way down from the park to the riverside below. The view of the city from up high was amazing. The lights were twinkling on buildings, you could see buildings so far away and up on the mountain that you can't normally see from the main streets in Zurich. The view was just breathtaking. And of course, I had a small "party purse" that a camera wouldn't fit inside of. Ugh. Missed out on some prime photo ops. But, luckily, I live here so I can go back up to Lidenhof another night and take the pics! The events may change, but the scenery stays!Zurich is just the most beautiful city. After the park, we wandered more and found a piano bar and listed to more American music there. We wanted to take a boat ride on the river into the lake, but we missed the last one (they don't run very late until May).

There is just so much to do on an ordinary night or day in the city. I'm sure it's the same in Chicago or New York, on a bigger scale, but we've never had the chance to live near a good big city. I try to go into the city at least 2-3 times each week, just to shop or have dinner or whatever. Choosing our apartment here had everything to do with living close to the city. Everyday I'm glad that we sacrificed more space or a view of the lake for proximity to the city. If we weren't so close to a train line that takes only 10 minutes from our stop to the city, I doubt we'd get into the city much. I can have a bigger house anywhere, but I can't enjoy the city of Zurich anywhere but here.