This week, we had two sets of visitors - Oma and Papa came back for a few days after having a wonderful time on their cruise down the Danube river. And Jay hosted a week-long meeting with many of his colleagues from Baxter's Deerfield office - which meant we got to see two of our good friends - Bob Probst (pictured) and Mike Shapiro.
Bob arrived on Sunday to spend Mother's Day with us - we had wonderful weather, and had a great time showing him around Zurich with the kids. He was a great sport and probably walked/ran about 10 miles (on no sleep!) just to see everything... that must have been why he was so happy to finally sit down for dinner (and order a beer) at Terasse on Sunday night. We had a great visit and Bob was kind enough to act as our "mule," bringing us many items from Lands End and PB Kids that we had ordered. Then Jay was off for a exhausting week - all-day meetings and dinners til midnight each night... Finally, on Thursday night, he was all done - and we had dinner with Mike Shapiro, along with a few other colleagues from Baxter. It was great to see Mike and get caught up on home.
While Jay was putting in the long hours, the kids and I were lucky to have Oma and Papa in town for a few more days. We had a nice time at the local parks, cafes and even found our new favorite restaurant - Pizza Pasta Ciao. The restaurant offers supervised babysitting in a huge playroom - and the kids can play down there before/after their delicious meals... which means a relaxing dinner for the adults - and fun for the kids. Our only problem was leaving - Jack literally cried the entire way home, saying, "I don't want to leave Pizza... Pasta....Ciao." We're taking Jay there tonight so he can see it for himself. And Oma and Papa were a huge help to me, allowing me to make a run to Ikea to load up on those electronic items we will absolutely need when we move into our apartment in 2 weeks - lamps and a coffee pot.
My Ikea experience was terrific - in that this time (in contrast to my last visit there) I did not (a) almost get arrested for shoplifting items from the electronics store, and (b) get stuck in the parking garage, confusing "Frei" for "no charge for parking" rather than "parking available" - which is what it really means. Everything was great until the point when, after carefully selecting lamps that were less elaborate than those we had in our dorm rooms in college, the final bill came - 800CHF! When the ATM machine asked me to approve the total by reading "800CHF OK?" I felt like telling the sales assistant - no, this is not OK... but I didn't think she'd get my sarcasm. But alas, we will now have lights when we move into our apartment - including light fixtures, which you as the tenant have to purchase.
We had a nice visit with Oma and Papa, and are looking forward to our next set of grandparents - Ami and Bapa, who will arrive in one week with Chopper in tow!
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