Happy Halloween

Our dear friend, Sydnie, sent the girls a box of Halloween goodies from the States and while the girls loved everything, they especially enjoyed the fake vampire teeth. We will be attending a Halloween party on the 4th of November! Until then, I can't wait to show you pictures of the girls in their costumes.

Saturday Lunch

It's snowing (!) in Zürich but that didn't stop us from making a trip to the city to visit our favorite Asian grocery store. We were pleasantly surprised by a free Chinese lunch. The store owners were offering (gratis) lunches of battered shrimp, lo-mein, and soup. I am not sure why they were offering free lunches. The store is always packed even during the week.  We also noticed signs throughout the city advertising extended shopping hours for stores. The season is upon us and I can't wait to get to our first Christmas market. Zürich's Market opens on the 22nd of November.

Lugano, CH

Our trip to London has been postponed and after Istanbul I don't think I had it in me to take another long distance trip. The turnaround time between our return from Istanbul and leaving for London was two days. Too much laundry and not enough time. We considered doing an easier trip to Milan (less than four hours by train from Zürich) for the weekend but this too seemed tiring. In the end, we packed up the car and drove to Lugano, Switzerland for the weekend.

Lugano is about an hour from Milan and in the Italian region of Switzerland. Our hotel, Parco Paradiso, was very pleasant and Lugano was very relaxing. The Swiss from this region were more outgoing and friendlier than where we currently live. So this made the trip feel more like a "vacation" even though we were less than three hours from home. The town also thrives on tourism so it behooves them to be friendly, I guess.

There wasn't too much to do but just enough to fill a weekend. We rented a paddle boat, took a ride up the Funicolare Monte San Salvatore. This was a very steep and fast (see the technical data) funicular. There were two cars required to get to the top of the mountain. The views were nothing less than breathtaking. This seems to be the rule in Switzerland rather than the exception. Semplicemente bella!

View from our balcony.

Another view from the same balcony.

This is how Ally likes to ride in her stroller which makes me think she's getting too old to ride in a stroller.

A barometer/thermometer in the park.

One of a few beautiful fountains in the center of Lugano.

Miniaturk

One very real aspect of traveling with young children is the inability to see and do everything you might want to do if you didn't have little ones in tow. There were so many things we wanted to see i.e., the whirling dervishes that due to timing conflicts were impossible. We were content to spend a morning at Miniatürk. A park with miniature replicas of over 120 famous landmarks that are done in 1/25 scale.  According to Miniaturk's website, models vary from the Hagia Sophia to Selimiye, from Rumeli Fortress to Galata Tower, from Safranbolu Houses to the Sumela Monastry, from Qubbat As-Sakhrah to the ruins of Mount Nemrut. We did get to see the Hagia Sohpia and the Blue Mosque in person and both are pretty fantastic. Rob and I would especially like to see Cappadocia some day.

The girls enjoyed scanning their admission tickets to hear an audio explanation at each mini monument. I enjoyed being somewhere they could run around without speeding cars and hordes of people all around. They still had the occasional head rubbing from a complete stranger but were easily distracted when this would happen.

CAPPADOCIA

THE HAGIA SOPHIA

A TROJAN HORSE AT THE PLAYGROUND

THE REAL DEAL. THAT'S THE HAGIA SOPHIA IN THE BACKGROUND.