Spring is coming...

Spring is trying really hard to appear. We've had a few days of clear skies and warmish weather, around 10 degrees C./50 F. Everyone tells me to be patient and it WILL get warmer. O.K.

We had a terrific visit with my San Mateo friend-since-we-were-born Janet Fohner and her son Daniel, who is currently doing a junior year abroad in England. We had a lot of fun touring around Zurich.

Daniel and Janet munching on a wurst near Lake Zurich

Miles and I spend a lot of time on weekends walking around in the hills above ETH. The architecture is very special and the gardens are just beginning to bloom.

This home is right next to the Zurichburg forest where we love to hike

Church in the neighborhood

I love the spring flowers

Many Swiss have a plot of land in a public garden area and love working there on weekends.

Miles' ETH colleague Sasha and his girlfriend Alina, have a plot near the Zurichburg forest and we visited last Sat. The tulips are blooming, but the rest right now is a work in progress.

The garden and cozy hut

On the 18th, Miles joined me with the ZIWA women on a 3-hour train trip to Stuttgart, Germany to see the Porsche Museum. There are a few hundred cars in the collection and about 40 on display at any given time. Here's a sample:

This is a prototype of Porsche #1 built in 1948

Porsche race cars--no test drives for us, however

Hey Uncle Roy! This 914's for you!

We then had an interesting guided tour of the very modern 1-year old building. This monolithic exhibition hall was designed to convey a sense of arrival and approachability. You get the sense it is floating and moving at the same time.





We also went to downtown Stuttgart and walked around the beautiful public park area. We actually had a sunny warm day and there were throngs of people milling about, having picnics, listening to musicians and enjoying the spring day.

Ahhh...sunshine!

This is the Glass Cube Museum in downtown Stuttgart

On April 19, there was the Zurich-only Sechselauten Spring Festival. This annual event is split into 2 main activities: the first is a fantastic parade with representatives of the 26 guilds (unions) in Zurich. Each guild has their own costumes, bands, floats and horses all decked out with beautiful spring flowers.

I really like those ear warmers (on the horse!)

The second part is the burning of the Boogg, a cotton snowman set on top of a wooden structure. This structure is lit precisely at 6pm and the fire crawls up the pile, eventually burning the snowman which has fireworks inside. Lots of noise and cheers from the crowd. Legend has it that if the fire burns quickly, there will be a long, warm summer. This year, it took 13 minutes to burn up to the snowman (the time can be between 6 and 40 minutes) so we're in for a good season!

Going...

going...

Gone!