This particular holiday was slightly talismanic for me - I have been increasingly feeling as though my world is getting smaller, my horizons narrower. I have found reasons and excuses not to travel. I have felt thwarted and trapped by my own inability to lift my head up and face the world. So I promised myself I would start with a small step. I would go to Zurich, where my friends live, where I've been before, where I know I can cope. And I didn't just promise myself, I looked two of my good friends in the eye when I said it, and they made me promise to stick with it, to not let life defeat me. And in my head, I built this trip up to be Something Important. It was to be the first step in travelling to more far flung destinations. If I couldn't do this, then there would be no hope for me.
Nothing like piling the pressure on myself is there?
Which is obviously how I came to be sat on GrannyBear's sofa the night before we flew crying that it was all too hard, and too scary and I couldn't do it. BigBear even offered to let me bottle out if that was what I wanted. I hadn't told him about my inner promises though, or that this trip represented something bigger to me than just visiting friends in Zurich. (I expect him to mind-read. For some reason he thinks this is unreasonable).
However, to cut to the chase, we went, everything was fine, and we had a lovely time. But since I'm not, generally, prone to writing the kind of blog posts that paint my life as some kind of Instagrammable perfection, I thought I'd share some of the odder aspects with you instead...
Like the fact that my awesome planning saw us renting an apartment in a relatively central location. Just off a road called Langstrasse. And while it's not exactly the Reeperbahn, it is very definitely the red light district, and party district, and drugs district. Both prostitution and cannabis are legal in Zurich. Let me introduce you to the bar on the ground floor of our building.
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| Ideal for children |
And perhaps we should all pause to ask ourselves what kind of an apartment needs individual red lights above the bedroom doors?
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| Anyone worried? |
I was distinctly relieved that the only question that LittleBear asked was "Why is that shop called 'Acid'?" pointing to a shop with the characteristic smiley face in the window. That and asking why the bakery along the road needed to be open 24 hours a day. We decided not to explain the concept of the munchies. The bakery, however, proved to be a great blessing, allowing me to pop out every morning for fresh baked goods only a minute from our front door. And thus it was that we discovered that LittleBear has a passion for shoggi gipfeli. Those of you who are not already familiar with this confection may be tempted to Google it and determine that it is a chocolate croissant. But you would only know half the story, for a shoggi gipfeli from the "Happy Bakery" is nothing so ordinary sounding as a chocolate croissant. I cannot really do it justice other than by showing you my small boy attempting to tackle one.
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| Nearly as big as his own head |
Despite our insalubrious surroundings, we explored Zurich, mastered the tram system (even went to the tram museum) and introduced LittleBear to a variety of food stuffs that weren't all cheese or chocolate. A lot of them were cheese or chocolate, but they came in different formats, such as raclette and rosti, chocolate meringue and ruby chocolate. He also ate sourdough and bacon and coffee ice-cream, not to mention tackling gruyere and emmental, which are considerably cheesier than red leicester. To be honest, I was more impressed that we managed to go out for dinner with a vegetarian, a coeliac and someone with lactose intolerance and find things they could all eat. LittleBear has almost ceased to be the hardest person to find food for.
I will leave you with what I think should be the cover for a rap album. Taken under a tram.
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