Saturday morning: In search of a haircut
On Saturday, I first tried to get a haircut at a place near Transa (the Swiss equivalent of REI), which advertised haircuts for 27 bucks. Not bad, considering most places I saw charge 80 bucks or more. (I use "bucks" to refer to swiss franks too, since old habits are hard to change, and the exchange rate is pretty much 1:1.) It is near the train station, so we all went there, and Martin was going to take care of the kids while I got my hair cut, then we were going to jump into the train and head to our friends' house for the day. I was rather excited about finally finding a place that was not too expensive. Considering how many hairdressers/coffeuse/coffeur/coffure places there are, one would think that competition would be stiff, and prices reasonable. Not so. And all the places I have seen charge nearly double the price for women as for men. Discrimination, if you ask me.
We got to the hairdresser's, and the place was busy. All the chairs were occupied, plus one person waited. Then I noticed that all of the hairdressers were men. And all of the customers were men too. I double checked the sign, but couldn't see anything that said it's a men-only boutique. Since Martin was right there, he confirmed that on the sign that I saw, there was nothing to indicate it was for men only. Still, I got cold feet. No haircut for me that day. If I get courageous, may be I will go in there yet... or just wait till we go to the czech republic again, in couple week's time. Five bucks there for a haircut ... can't be beat.
Saturday afternoon: trampoline and picnic
Saturday afternoon we visited Martin's friends Murphy and Stephanie with their two kids, similar in age to ours, near Zofingen. Their next-door neighbors have twins tiny bit older than Sonja, and just installed a big trampoline in their yard. That is a big hit with the kids. They would run round and round, and round and round. Or jump and jump. Sonja got a hang of it too, though she wanted to only go on the trampoline when no one else was there, when she could keep her footing without too many problems.
Sonja holding up the train made up of Fabian, Jonathan and Franziska.
In the later afternoon, we went to a park nearby, on the edge of a hill, surrounded by forest. There is a big slide there to slide down on, things to climb up and through, and swing on and play in and grill on and picnic on. Very nicely done. Our first grilling party of the year. (Our second was yesterday, with Martin's sisters, near Luzern.) We will have to find some nice parks here near Zurich and try to do that periodically throughout summer.
At the Wikon picnic area and playground, with Stephanie and Murphy's family, and their neighbors.
Late night phone call
Saturday night after we got home and put the kids to bed and it was ten o'clock, the phone rang. Tinu was asking if Martin wanted to do a ski tour the next day. He could either come to sleep with them in Einsiedeln, about an hour by train away, or take the four o'clock train (as in: middle of the night) and meet Tinu along the way. Martin wasn't sure... then eventually he decided to do it. He packed up, got the alarm clock set, caught some sleep, and caught the four am train. He said that train was packed. Full of people returning from partying all night. Full of girls in miniskirts and people dressed up. Some people throwing up. And there was Martin, in his ski gear.
By the sound of it, Martin met Tinu without problem, they did their tour they planned to do, some 1700m vertically up, some beautiful skiing down, wonderful weather, ice cream on the way home... and he was definitely glad he got up at 3am to catch that 4am train.
Sunday
In the afternoon, we went to stroll along the Zurich lake, with ten thousand other people, and ended up in a playground that has a great sand pit and running water (and also swings and slides and a small climbing wall, but that was not of interest that day for Sonja).
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