I'm shaking it but you can't tell

So, following with one of my 2013 Mottos "do stuff and move your butt" I signed myself up for a belly dancind course.

If you know me this might be your reaction:

Yes, I have no measurable sense of Rythm. I'm the poor one in gym class that stays in a corner and is unable to follow any choreography, the one you think "maybe its her first day" but in fact has been attending to that same class for one year!

But hey, when 4 different people tells you "oh that could be good for your hip and its fun" you tell yourself, wtf forget Shakira I'm coming!

It is fun, it is difficult.  I can't wait to wear a candleholder in my head around the house....


Until I learn I'll do my own thng, like this little dude, shake it babe!

Tieffenbrunnen Strandbad

I don't really like fishing but if my brother ever comes to town I'll try it. 

Shitty souvenirs Made in Spain

I always wonder who the hell travels to Barcelona and think "Oh yes I going to get this crappy Mexicano hat, that’s the great souvenir I want to bring back home to remember Barcelona".
There are plenty of awful souvenirs, many of them including toros bravos "Spanish bulls" or sevillanas and many people like me wonder "who buys this stuff?" and "when they buy it are they actually going to use it?".

Well apparently some Swiss people do buy this stuff and oh yes, they use it!

Some flowers around home

Last day

Yesterday was my last day of Aquafit (maybe I'll start again but I want to try Pilates first). Usually you do all those water activities with music. Our last teacher included some songs of Paulina Rubio but the new one prefers traditional swiss music like this:



And I'm not kidding.

She also included some old italian summer hits, this song for example would suit her selection pretty good!

Ice skating

I know its been a while without any "tourist" updates about Zürich, two weeks ago we went ice skating to the Dolder but until now I could get some time to post aboutit.

The Dolder is an open-air ice rink build in 1930 where swiss people show off what they have and tourist like me crawl around trying to keep their buts away from the ground.

We did it. You can rent the shoes for a quite affordable price (amazing in Zurich!) and "slide" to your swiss citizenship. Its close to the zoo and probably the area in Zurich with more kinds pro square meter.

Oh yes the picture, I know... my pants are falling down. 

I'm alive, wool pants are itchy

I have a lot fo things to explain, a fun night at the karaoke, my flu and a girls weekend in Düsseldorf, the only thing I don't have is time!!!

I'll start with the karaoke night!

Some weeks ago I meet with some freinds at la Stanza (great place to look for a husband) after the drink we went for some dinner and when whe were thinking, well its time to go home.... Placid said "let's go to a karaoke, there is one next door".

Well.... I had fun but the place is really creepy and dirty. Alcohol is cheap, (you will realise why the day after).

If you want to have a fun surrealistic night thats your place.

Schwimmbad Forchbad

So, last-last Sunday we went here to float like veggies in a soup.

I loved it.

At firdt we thought there was a secret entrance to Narnia, Eurodisney or something like that, there is no other explanation to the 45509684736261784 kids jumping, screaming half naked in the dressing room.

Yes, just one dressing room for everyone. You can fight with a huge Swiss family for a small cabin to put of your swim suit alone or make the funny "towel-ass-underwear-trouser" technique. (I will post a video about that one, without the ass part).

The place is huge, they have like 4 or 5 different pools outside (you cannot used them now of course), even a warm one (kids not allowed iuju!) to sit, relax, and freeze your ears.

We sat there until our toes looked like raisins, when we got inside (where you can find 2 more swimming pools we discoverer a worderful watterslide "for the kids".

Just for kids? Ja! I left half of them deaf screaming iujuju! while sliding down.

Penguin Parade poing poing

So, I went to the Zoo by myself on thursday (nobody was working back home -the 6th of January its a holiday- and I decided to celebrate my own 2 magic kings day in the Zoo).

I havent been a big fan of Zoos (?) since I went to the one in Barcelona many years ago. A piece of advice, don't go there, its depressing its falling apart too small for the animals, they should definitely close it (there hare rumours a big and worderful new Zoo is going to be build but these rumors exist since.... allways! and the awful small Zoo is stille there, and the poor animals too).

But I realise many other countries do it better and the Zürcher Zoo apperas to be a good one, one where animals are actually in good conditions and feel alive.

On the other side this Zoo has really popular atraction, the Penguin Parade. Evryday, when its cold enoguth (under 10ºC) the penguis make a little walk around the Zoo. You can stay there and watch them walk.

Sounds silly? Who cares they are super fun and cute. They walk around with the cooles attitude you can imagine, like they own the place.

A friend told me some years ago they walk down Bahnhofstrasse :-P

Twilight

These picture look like a wattercolour made by someone without a lot of money to buy colors, its blurred, all blue and you see nothing but I like it.


Its not a cool App for Android, its the result of no light + fog + my hands frozen. Walking around on such days is beautiful, its worth to spend more than 30 minutes getting dressed (I'm wearing more layers than a cake!).

Christmas

So to sum up,

Swiss housewifes (Hausfrau) do their own candles for the Advent Kalender in the small Kerzenziehen places around Switzerland where (depending on the time, money and patience you have) you can get a small rope and dip it until it becomes something similar to a candle.

They also do wonderful wreaths and Christmas decorations for an ecological Christmas tree their super-macho men cut on the forest (ok I made this up but I promise there is a special day to "go and cut it yoursef!").

We cannot forget they also bake delicious cookies (Migros O love you sooo much)

But there is more....

They take their 103.405 kids to the singing christmas tree, a torture instrument where they sit for hours freezing and singing (not very well I have to say) christmas songs and some hits from Rihanna.

Lucky me with some warm vine everything sounds great, I might even sing along!

All pictures from www.estrellaesteve.com

Crazy flowers

Someone should buy her a calendar.... I swear I made this picture today and this mornign it was -9ºC!

Weekend

The flat is finished, on Suday we built the cheapest closet ever and we have decided not to buy or do anything more until spring at least! Ikea forget where I live!!

Well we will get just one more thing a Christmas tree!

On Sunday I went to the Sukkulenten Sammlung in Zürich, its a free small botanical garden full of cactus, really beautiful in fact much better than the offical Botanical Garden. The next time I promise some pictures.

There I got a nice flyer (made of recycled paper of course!) about the eco-Zürich -made-christmas-trees. Here everything is "eco" so you can go to the city forest and get your own tree.

And by get I mean CUT! Placid is really excited but we still don't know if you need to bring your own axe!

And to keep on with the autum mood of  the weekend we started the get-fat-before-the-winter-comes-and-freezes-your-ass season by baking 2 tons of cookies!

The cooker

The results.

I won't put a picture about the indigestion I got after eating 2 kilos of cookies :-(

Uetliberg!

The Uetliberg is a little mountain close to Zurich, if you have been in Barcelona its like the Tibidabo but better organised.

The view is great and there are some restaurants on it, to go up you can choose between many different paths to go for a walk, ride a bike or, if you're lazy like me or have 134.578 kids like many people around here use the train!

I hadn't been there yet (bad Julia bad!) and we thought it would be a relaxing little excursions for the weekend, Ja! half Zurich was there!

On the top of the Uetliberg (871m) the is a 72 m2 high tower to take pictures or freeze yourself while enjoying a nice view.

The wind was blowing and was freezing but we saw many people sitting around enjoying the terrace eating french fries. ¿?

If you go there bring a hat and a comb, also some cash is a good idea, we forgot it and we didn't pay for the train back ups!

Super autum

This really is autumn1 You can almost see the influenza virus parading through the streets happy to be alive! From 20ºC to -3ºC in 5 days and back to almost 20ºC, its impossible to decide how to dress.
I have to admit this weather brings some good things, we had 2 consecutive days of clear sky (the air is so dry that my hands look like my great-grandfathers on a bad day!) Days to go for a walk to the lake and buy roasted chestnuts.
I only took a ride, the official opening hours of the chesnut sellers are crazy, they open at 13.30 and at 17.00 they close again! no stress

Things you don't expect to see in Zürich HB

Yesterday I went with Placid to the doctor, he has been sick for one week now. We go to Permanence a place allways open in Zurich Central Station (I know it sounds weird to go to the doctor there but its a great place!).

We got our number and while we were waitng went for a coffee, and thats what we found inside the central station:

Because my dear, its Octoberfest!!!

Nice Zürich nice

The weather is cold this days, enough –for me- to make riding a bike without a scarf or a hat a little torture, but the right clothes is really pleasant.

 Picture source: me

Long weekend

So, this weekend we got the worst weather ever, it was raining like hell but we did everything we had planned.

We went to Sprüngli, got fat in Zeughauskeller, picked some flowers here, visit Luezern (a rainy and foggy Luzern), saw 200 cows in Weggis, visit the Kyburg Schloss and a Charterhouse (I don't know where) and got wet! a lot!


all the pictures by estrellaesteve.com

Shit! I missed that!

The anual Kurbisregatta! How is cool is that?

Autum

 

Its autum and swiss people is crazy about saison products. There are pumkins everywhere, figs  and some stuff I still don't know what it is looks like the gastronomic offer is getting ready to make us a little bit fat for the hard winter. I'll do my best so, soups, pumkins, wonderful bread and marroni here I come!