Just passing through Zurich redux

Here I am, passing through Zurich once again. But, first I digress to our trip to Paris. Henry and I flew from Zurich to CDG on Air France. This was a huge concession by Henry, as Air France is not part of United's Star Alliance. Thus, he did not receive any Mileage Plus miles to add to the million he has collected over his years of travel. A further concession came on our return from Paris. Alas, although we were able to go to the Lufthansa (part of the Star Alliance) lounge in Zurich before our departure to Paris, we were unable to do the same at Charles deGaulle Airport on our way home. Air France has its own terminal at CDG; the other airlines are in terminals a train ride away, with their lounges beyond the security checkpoints for which we had no boarding passes. Henry definitely gets benefits from being a loyal United/Star Alliance customer, but I'm more used to sitting in steerage! In any event, Air France not only feeds its passengers (okay, it was a snack, but the chocolate filled croissants were rather decent), but also offers wine at no extra cost. Once upon a time, the U.S. airlines did that too!

Although it snowed during our visit to Paris, we had enough sunshine to take the elevator up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. Well, two out of three of us went up--Henry preferred the comfort of a park bench at ground level. Going up at all, no less to the second level, was a major feat for Sara and me, as we both have a fear of heights. My acrophobia, however, has definitely diminished over the years--maybe it's from taking long deep breaths and years of sitting on Taos Ski Valley safety bar-less chairlifts. While Sara immediately moved to the back of the elevator, I stayed in front to take pictures. The views were fantastic, and we were quite content with foregoing the third (top) floor.

The day before, while we waited for Sara to return from a class trip to Strasbourg, Henry and I visited the Musee d'Orsay (sorry for the absence of accent marks), one of my all time favorite museums--right up there with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Orsay has an outstanding collection of Impressionist paintings. While with Sara and attempting to find somewhere she had not yet been, we went to the Museum of Jewish Art and History. The exhibit tracked the movement of Jews as they were expelled from country after country in the last millennium. It was especially interesting to see aspects of Jewish communities in northern Africa.

For those of you that can remember back to our French class in seventh grade, our hotel was very near "Place d'Italie." That's where the fictional family in our French textbook had an apartment! It turned out that our hotel was also just around the corner from Rue Mouffetard, a Latin Quarter street known for its daily outdoor markets. I'm a sucker for wandering from stall to stall--buying is not a necessity, but taking lots of pictures is! On Sunday morning, I took myself over to a much bigger market next to the Bastille. I succumbed there, but only to buy some home-brewed hard cider for Sara, who we had just discovered is very fond of it. The photos range from pig heads to langoustines and fruits and vegetables to flavored salts and fresh spices. It was obvious that the locals who frequent the market have their favorite vendors--vendors and customers appeared to be on a first name basis, and although many vendors sold the same things, all of them had people lined up to buy their supplies.

Of course, we managed to eat well, but to our surprise, prices for most items (not just food) were generally a noticeable amount cheaper than in Zurich. Indeed, I bought a bunch of postcards and quickly wrote and sent them off before our departure! In any event, Sara made our trip a delight--she is comfortable in her surroundings, speaks French fluently, and has managed both to work hard and to take advantage of her time abroad. She might need to sleep the entire time she is in Zurich in mid-March on her way back to San Diego, but she definitely will have earned it! No, she won't sleep the entire time--she has already informed us she is saving her dirty laundry to wash at our apartment!

My skiing at Hoch-Ybrig during the week was a bit of a disappointment--mostly because of white-out conditions. It snowed the entire time I was there, which brought nice powder, but it wasn't until I got to the lower third of the ski runs that I could see! Every time I would ski a bit and then stop in the white-out area, I would get momentarily dizzy and disoriented. I should have figured out that the solution was not to stop until I could see!! I'm sure that's what my usual skiing partner, sister Judi, would say!! Right, Judi?? Anyway, I'm moving on to a big-time area tomorrow--the Jungfrau region, which includes Wengen, Murren, and Grindelwald. For the James Bond fans out there, Murren-Schilthorn is where the skiing scene in "On her Majesty's Secret Service" was filmed.

Yesterday, Henry and I went to Basel, just a one-hour train ride from Zurich. Beyond the very nice exhibit of Picasso etching prints at the Kunstmuseum, the highlight of our day was a delicious lunch at a Michelin recommended restaurant. It was one of those places where we had to watch our table manners, but they didn't throw us out when we moved our forks from our left hands to our right hands after cutting our food!

I'm still working on my German, even though I'm not continuing with the classes. I did have several humorous moments while skiing. One was this past week when I was having lunch at one of the slopeside restaurants. Trying to make use of my German language skills, I said to the server, "Ich mochte (sorry for the lack of umlauts) bestellen" when I was finished with my meal and wanted to pay. I couldn't understand why she asked me what more I wanted to order and then walked away when I said "Nein." When she didn't otherwise appear to be interested in taking my money, I realized that I meant to say, "Ich mochte bezahlen." The former means I want to order; the latter means I want to pay. I went somewhere else to eat the next day! When I was at Andermatt and renting skis, the young fellow who helped me spoke some English, but when he was adjusting the DIN settings on the skis (these settings alter how much pressure is needed for the bindings to release), he asked me, "How do you drive?" I couldn't understand what he was talking about until I remembered that the German translation of "to ski" is "Ski fahren." "Fahren" is the German word for "to drive." Not only is it used in the context of driving a car, it's also used in other contexts, such as cycling ("Rad fahren")!