A quiet - but very productive - day

It was strange to wake up today without Lynn around - I miss her a lot already, and she's only been gone since yesterday! :-(  Fortunately, I didn't have much time to brood about it this morning, as I had to get to the office by 8am for another lesson in using the modeling tool.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Two hours later, Maxi and Mark spent some time working on business strategy, which Marc and I continued through lunch (Maxi had to leave for another appointment).

We took lunch at the brand new 'Hin und Weg Gare' in the brand new commercial extension of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof (main railway station).  Last time Lynn and I were in Zurich, we discovered the original Hin und Weg which, by coincidence, was located just a few blocks from our current apartment.  It was a little hole-in-the-wall cafe, but everything was quite delicious and reasonable.  Apparently, it took off in a big way, because now they have left their old location and expanded dramatically into two locations, one focused on catering, and the other this new 'Gare' retail location.  Here's a picture of one of their menu items, served in a signature glass canning jar:



Unfortunately, the new location, which just opened two weeks ago, is comparatively rather cold and sterile, with very little of the quaint touches we loved before.  Worse yet, they seem to favor very loud rock music which makes it difficult to chat.  Also, the food was rather mediocre.  I hope just is just due to 'birth pains', but now I feel a bit sad to have lost the charming original location to 'progress'.

After lunch I headed home to catch up on more correspondence and, of course, to update this blog :-)

The Lynnie heads to Florence, I go to the spa

Today I took Lynnie to the Zurich Hauptbahnhof for her send-off to Florence.  I hadn't realized (until she told me) that this was her first major train trip in Europe by herself.  She was a little nervous about the trip, so I'm glad we splurged a little and got her a first class seat.  Even so, the 6-hour trip was less than $200, a real bargain to go from town-center to town-center.  She has to change trains in Bellinzona, Switzerland (about an hour-and-a-half north of Milan), and then in Milan.  She's travelling pretty light, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Sure enough, she called in the late afternoon to tell me it was a very pleasant trip during which she read, slept, and admired the Alpine scenery.  Her old friend Sean, an NYU professor on assignment at NYU's 'La Pietra' campus in Florence, met her at the Florence railway station and whisked her back to his lovely apartment just across the street from the main synagogue in Florence.  The apartment has a view of not only the famous synagogue (immediately below), but also the even more famous Duomo (below that).





Something tells me she's going to have a lot of fun!

Meanwhile, I consoled myself by a trip to the Hurlimann Spa here in Zurich.  What a great place!  Right in the middle of Zurich, just a very pleasant five-minute walk from our house, a cavernous old brick brewery building has been transformed into a Romanesque spa.  It is huge: five big pools, including a stunning 'endless' one on the rooftop with views over all of Florence, and a quiet 'meditation' pool.  Here's some pictures:









On this rainy Sunday, it was no surprise the place was packed, but it is so huge that it wasn't really a problem. In fact, it was perfect for people watching.  All kinds of folks, with lots of families and couples.  You can stay all day if you like, as there nice rest areas and lovely cafe-restaurant with - surprise - reasonable prices on a great-looking array of salads, sandwiches, entrees, desserts and snacks.  Admission is just 32CHF (Swiss Francs), about $35 - not bad for all that all day long. Anyway, I'll certainly be back soon, with Lynnie in tow.

Somehow I managed to tear myself away from the spa so I could visit Marco, his wife Jeannine, and their two kids, Chloe and Eitan, at their beautiful apartment in Zollikon, which overlooks Lake Zurich.  I already told you about Marco, who is a champion swimmer, now running his own swim school here in Zurich.  Jeannine also has an interesting job - running the passenger rail system (SBB) for all of Switzerland!  At dinner, she described the many challenges that the SBB faces - a fascinating story to say the least.

Bright, sunny day

Today we were blessed with a bright, sunny day.  According to the weather forecast, we are in for cooler, rainer days over the next week or two, so we aimed to enjoy it, especially since Lynnie plans to leave for Florence tomorrow to spend a few days with her old friend Sean.  So, we headed off to one of Lynnie's favorite venues in Zurich, the open-air Burliplatz Flohmarket (flea market), right across from the main pier of the Zurichersee (Lake Zurich).

Today's market did not disappoint.  There was a wide selection of very interesting stuff at mostly reasonable prices.   So, although we were just browsing, Lynnie actually ended up buying some beautiful scarves and a cool pair of shoes.  Here's some of what we saw:

And here's Lynnie cool 'new' shoes:

After an hour or two of browsing, I had hoped we would take a boat ride on the lake, one of my favorite things to do in Zurich, on what was probably one of last good days to do this season.  Unfortunately, I started feeling very weak and tired, so much so that we decided instead to head home to rest.  Good thing, because it turned out I had some kind of intestinal problem, which fortunately didn't last too long.  Later that evening we were able to take another stroll before we had to get Lynnie packed and ready to go to Florence. 

Another very busy day

Today I got up early and did some cooking and clothes washing.  The apartment has its own small washer-dryer unit - a very handy feature that avoids having to us the communal laundry area in the dank basement.  However, the instructions are all in German, so I had to find the manual online and then put it into Google translate.  The result was rather mixed, and it took me quite a while to figure out how to set it up.  I was tempted to give up, but persisted until I got it to run properly.  Meanwhile, I had set up a stew - which generally lasts for several days - and some hard-boiled eggs, which make a very tasty, convenient, and transportable snack.  As I do more of this kind of housework, it makes the apartment fell more and more like home :-)

At 10am I headed to the Zurich Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) to meet another friend, Hans-Peter.  I worked with Hans-Peter some years ago at a big Swiss bank.  He moved on to a position at an IT consulting company, and he wanted to pick my brain about how best to proceed with a couple of clients he's been working with.  Unfortunately, I somehow managed to completely screw up in terms of my train connections and arrived twenty minutes late :-(.  Nonetheless, we had a great meeting.  I made up for the time lost by joining Hans-Peter on his train ride back to his office, which almost exactly made up the twenty minutes!

Then I headed back to the Hauptbahnhof to meet Marco, one of my more unusual Swiss friends.  I met Marco because he teaches a special form of swimming called 'Total Immersion', which another US friend once told me about.  A few years ago, when I was in Zurich for a few months, I noticed that there was a TI school in Zurich, which turned out to be headed by Marco.  I studied with him for a couple months and, though I never mastered TI, I was very impressed by TI and, even more, by Marco.  It turned out Marco was a champion swimmer, and a damned good teacher to boot.  He's the tall guy in this picture:



It also turned out that Marco had spent a part of his childhood in Delaware, very near our home in Pennsylvania.  His mother was a teacher at the Sanford School, where they lived on campus.  After we got to know Marco, his wife Jeanine, and their two children, we invited them to visit us in the US.  To our surprise, they agreed, although Jeanine had to cancel at the last minute.  So, Marco and his kids stayed with us for several days a couple years ago.  Besides taking them to Longwood, Wintherthur and Hagley, we arranged to take them to Sanford and meet the current principal and staff, some of whom remembered his mother!  This was a walk down Memory Lane for Marco, and also gave the kids an interesting experience.

Anyway, today Marco was in a great mood, despite the fact that he recently discovered he needs some surgery on his shoulder, a common problem for competitive swimmers.  But otherwise, things are going well for him and his family.  Besides catching up on personal news, he told us some great stories about his swimming the English Channel and Bosporus Straits - really one-of-a-kind experiences.  All this over an outside lunch on a beautiful sunny day in downtown Zurich at the restaurant "Movie".





After saying adieu to Marco, we wandered around downtown Zurich, then headed home for what turned out to be - for Lynnie - another long nap.  I did some catching up on email and Facebook, plus reading about the fallout from the first 2012 Presidential debate which took place Wednesday.  Around 5pm I got a call from Philipp saying he was still in Zurich (he lives in Winterthur, another city about 30 minutes away) and would like to get together.  So, he ended up taking a tram to our area, and we met him for a drink.  We had a long discussion about my earlier meeting with Hans-Peter - also a friend of his - and we discussed some new business ideas.  Finally, we headed home to a light - and late - dinner, plus a Skype call to Lynn's Mom.  Time to say good night .......

A very busy day

Today was a very busy day for me.  Early in the morning I went to see Philipp and Maxi and review their new business analysis software tool code-named 'MCore'.  Lynnie was gracious enough to get up early as well and accompany me to Philipp's office.  She spent time with Philipp talking about art and photography while Maxi ran MCore through its paces. Since this is a travel blog, I won't discuss MCore here, but suffice it to say that it provides a very novel way to analyze business problems and then design and test solutions.  Later that day I went with Philipp to present a demo of MCore to a potential customer and this went very well.

Around 4pm I headed home, arriving just before it started pouring.  Lynnie and I spent some time catching up before heading out to dinner with our friend Andrea (see earlier post), who is leaving for a two-week vacation in NYC on Saturday.  As you can imagine, we talked a lot about New York and the US in general, with Andrea soaking up all our advice for her trip.  After she left, we took a long walk before heading home for a much-needed and well-earned night's sleep.

The return of the Lynnie

I broke my own rules again, and failed to post on Tuesday.  However, I have a great excuse - Lynnie arrived!  As usual, she managed to sleep soundly on the plane - six hours! - and arrived slightly dazed but full of energy.  This resulted in our taking a three-hour hike through our old haunts in downtown Zurich. We topped this off with an impromptu roasted chicken lunch at Lynnie's favorite spots, the Sternen G Grill at Bellevue:




Then, all of a sudden, right after lunch (around 3pm) she finally crashed, falling asleep on the tram home. After a 3-hour nap at home, she was revved up again, peppering me with questions and comments about Zurich, her new iPad, and various friends and relations.  She assumed full velocity again, so we took another 3-hour hike, exploring the area around our apartment.  When we got home at 11p, just in time for another 2 hours of questions and comments :-).  Well, I certainly don't have to worry about sitting around on this trip!!

Here's Lynnie gracing our new (temporary) Zurich home:

Wednesday was a bit more relaxed.  We went food shopping in the morning, discovering a great ethic grocery right across from a big, beautiful Migros - basically everything we need at one intersection just a few blocks from the apartment.

Afterwards, Lynnie conked out again, obviously still working through jetlag. After a light dinner at home we went out on another marathon walk, ultimately finding our way back to the Volkhaus, where I had a great lunch on Monday.  It turns out they also have a cool and very atmospheric cafe with wonderful desserts.  Lynnie had a knockout chestnut cake - light and flavorful, with cherry ice cream.  I rarely have desserts, but I really enjoyed my two scoops of homemade ice cream - fig and lemon-lime.  We'll be back.  Then home again, a quick goodnight call to Lynn's Mom, and then finally to bed - I have an early day tomorrow.....

A new apartment

Today I somewhat reluctantly packed up and left my very comfortable quarters in Illnau for a new adventure: our apartment rental in the Wiedikon area of Zurich.  We found the apartment on AirBnB.  It belongs to Reto, a young Swiss entrepreneur who is currently working and studying in San Francisco.  We are his third AirBnB renter, so he has the routine down very well.  He also told me he rented apartments himself on AirBnB, which is why he felt comfortable renting out his own.  So, around 10am, I arrived and was greeted by his parents, who spoke no English, effectively putting my high school German to the test.  Fortunately, it passed, and everyone was happy.

The apartment building is on a mildly busy road, but the apartment is way up on the 6th floor, so the street noise is muffled.  There's a little porch out back with a great view of the Uetliburg, the highest point in the immediate area of Zurich.  Everything seems in order and very comfortable.  There's a great little Turkish grocery and produce market right around the corner, and I quickly stocked up on provisions.  Here's some preliminary pictures of the apartment, including window views:

After moving in, I went have lunch with Philipp and his team at Volkhaus, a restaurant at Helvetiaplatz, which is near their office.  The ambiance was elegant, the food delicious, and the prices quite reasonable, especially for Zurich.  Philipp always knows how to pick great restaurants:





Afterwards, we then went back to Phillip's new office, where we worked on setting up desks, wiring the network, and installing software.  By 6pm I was quite ready to go home and put my dogs up for the evening.