Today

I haven't done any school work today. I usually do a bit of planning, preparing, making resources, reading or researching for my English classes every day, but not today. Yesterday I was reading the UK curriculum for KS 2 & 3 after reading and making notes from the South African RNCS document for grade 4-6. I've got two older kids starting English first language with me soon. I'm looking forward to it, something different to cutting and colouring with the littlies!

I don't feel too bad for not working today. I did clean the house. Then I went to Ikea, firstly to get away from the chocolate cake in our fridge (I don't trust myself alone with a chocolate) and secondly because I know the way to Ikea and can drive there myself. I know where to park too. And I can do it without the GPS. AND I didn't knock my left hand against the door to change gears today! Ha! I'm getting good. I even had the radio on loud and the window down!

But sometime I had to come back home and the chocolate cake attacked me after lunch and forced me to eat a piece. Oh I went for a walk this morning too along the river so I feel slightly better about the cake. Or was the walking for yesterday's cake?

What else... did the washing, should do the ironing next, painted my nails for the weekend :-) We're going away for the night tomorrow. Not telling you where, you'll have to wait till after the weekend!

Oh we got new neighbours this week. Looks like a young couple. We should invite them over. Maybe we can be friends. First need to invite the landlord and his family over though. They hinted when we moved in, but we didn't have any wine glasses then! They are really nice people.

We're STILL waiting for our permits. It's been 3 1/2 months now.

Ok, I'm going to see what's on TV. Enjoy your weekend!

xx

Uetliberg hike

Here are some more photos taken by André from our hike on Sunday from Uetliberg to Falsenegg. He went up a tower, a really high one, and that is why I didn't go with him. It was too high! But he got some stunning pictures from up there of Zurich city and the lake.

My feet hurt!

We just got back from a hike at Uetliberg. It was great. Amazing views over Zurich and the Alps, the weather was perfect and the hike was just enough to say we did some walking without it being too hard! We did the 1 1/2 hr Planet walk from Uetliberg to Falsenegg. Then took the funicular down to Adliswil and the train back to HB. Walked around a bit in Zurich, had some great apfelstrudel... mmmm! There were so many people out. The grass was covered with bodies!! What a beautiful summers day.

In other weekend news: I tried to bake my first milk tart on Saturday. You can read about that here. Didn't turn out exactly as I wanted it to, but it's still good enough to eat!

Here are some pictures I took today on our hike. Will see what André has on his camera and if there's anything better I will post that later.

Have a great week! :-)

xx

Zurich Lake

The Alps

Bikini bodies in the sun at Zurich lake!

And cooling off in the lake.

Summer camp

Here are just some pictures of the summer camp I did with another teacher this week. It was a bilingual camp and the theme was The Jungle Book. We had lots of fun with the kids :-) Another one in two weeks time!

The board game the kids made with pictures of the Jungle Book animals and questions about the animals.

Origami wolves and paper mache tigers:

Spiral snakes:

A busy week with kids

It's been almost a week since my last post. I've had a really busy week. Hardly had any time with my laptop. I'm teaching at a summer camp all week. I haven't been this happy about it being Friday in a long time! I'm actually really enjoying it. The kids are great. A nice small group of 8 kids and we're 2 adults so I can't really complain. But I'm not used to it anymore and was exhausted after the first 2 days. Slowly getting used to it again now. But it's a long day with the kids - 8:30-16:30.

I'll write a proper blog tomorrow night and tell you all about it.

Is Switzerland changing my taste buds?

Could it be the good chocolate or freshly baked bread that has been totally changing my taste buds these past 3 months? For 29 years I did not eat pears, I hardly ate apples, I didn't drink coffee, definitely no espresso and didn't like sparkling water at all. What's happening? I now eat at least one apple and one pear every day and I love pears now! (psst... they come from South Africa :-) I've had a coffee and a cappuccino since arriving here and last Sunday I even had an espresso and it wasn't bad at all. I bought a sparkling water by accident and even that was drinkable. I'm eating stronger cheese and starting to find mild cheese a bit "boring" actually. Has all this got to do with settling in with the Swiss or with nearing 30?

Cycling along the Limmat

To work of the good Swiss food I either go for an hours cycling most mornings or a walk along the river Limmat. From our apartment I walk 5 min to the train station with André when he leaves for work. Then I pass underneath the train station to the other side where the river is. I cycle all along the one side, then cross a bridge and return home on the other side of the river. It's so beautiful especially on a sunny morning like today. Lots of other people are out walking their dogs, jogging or cycling and once in a while I pass a fisherman.

André bought me a purple girly cycling jacket this weekend for rainy days and it has pockets so I can take my camera along! I'll take it with until I can get a picture of the swan family here with their six fluffy babies. Didn't see them today..

So here's some photos from this morning's cycle.

A convent above. Isn't it beautiful?