Full house, for now...

Blogging seems to have lost out in my crowded schedule these days. We are again hosting, this time my mother and Bob for three weeks, as well as a two-night visit from one of Markus' old school friends. This has meant more than the usual number of trips to the grocery store, but also more fun and the kids are really enjoying family. We have been to visit Markus' brother and family in the countryside again (where we attended a strange blessing-of-the-farm service on a farm, tucked in among the tractors and cow milking sheds.) We also met his folks for a day in Radolfzell which is a charming small town on the Bodensee. There we had a fabulous lunch that makes a return trip appealing. During that trip the train took us past the Rhine falls, which are like a small Niagara. Mom and Bob are back for another look at that close up today. Unfortunately, the weather has been rainy for two weeks now, and is about to turn colder as well. We have been having thunder and lightening almost every evening, and the rivers are full of muddy water from all the rain. I am really ready for some prolonged sun!

The other big news from here is that the European soccer cup is going on here. Switzerland, afforded a place as a host country, has now lost two games and been eliminated, so the excitement here has abated somewhat. But there is a real sense of party and fun here that I think is normally missing in this staid country. It also means that that there are tons of Swiss t-shirts that are about to go on sale....

While we have had babysitters we have been out to the movies, and this was a real event in itself. We decided to see Sex in the City since we were ready for something fun and decadent. The movies are expensive here, $18 a person (which really tests my spending limit!) But as we were buying tickets (which means that you must pick a specific seat in the theater, such as row D seats 31 and 32, even though there were 20 people in a huge theater for this 5:30 showing) we noticed there were several seating options. If you agreed to sit in the front row, you could spend only $13. Whether they make sure you sit there, I don't know. Or, if you want to reserve one of the three "private" balconies in the back of the seating for two people that is only $90! Now that is an expensive movie. And for that price, are they really watching the film at all?

Sex in the City, like most movies here is generally dubbed into German (hard to imagine Sarah Jessica Parker saying "Ach, ja".) But we went to a theater that had it in original English with German and french subtitles. I wondered how they did this, but it turns out that they just put one line of German and one line of French at the same time. It took up a lot of the movie screen and must have been confusing to those reading them (I guess I am lucky) but I guess that is the concession you make in a multilingual society.

The movie got underway after 20 minutes of advertisements. Part way through the movie the film just stopped mid-sentence and there was apparently a 15 minute intermission. We didn't know if the tape just broke (do theaters even use tape any more?) and didn't know how long it would last. But several of the people got up and came back with popcorn. As we found out later, they might have run to the bathrooms which would take a while as they are on another floor of the theater. Eventually the movie started again, somewhere other than it had ended and we watched the rest. Afterwards we headed to the bathrooms ourselves. What a trip. Now 8:00 the theater is packed with people and loud music. The bathrooms are very high-tech with fancy sinks and high-wind hand dryers. In the toilet stall there were video screens mounted in the floor to watch movie previews while you sat down (or stood up in the men's room). We topped off the evening with a trip to a hip Indian restaurant and a long walk home. How romantic!

There is one last adventure to include here. I received a letter from the city a week ago telling me that I have not got the right visa to remain in Switzerland (thank you Google) and so I must leave the country on June 23. And the kids too as they are Americans and not Germans. Markus got right on to the HR at Google to see if they can fix this, and we are still awaiting their results. However, if we do not get some kind of an exception then we will be leaving Zurich for a while (as yet unclear for how long). As you can imagine this has been something of a nasty shock. Markus' parents are happy at the prospect that we will be moving in with them, but I am not sure they have thought this through. It will be a bit wild and noisy if the kids and I move in with them for long! We are still not clear what this will mean for our stay here, but we will at least hold out until July as we have tickets to visit Denmark in the end of that month. And of course we have rented the apartment until September and as the case would be it is quite hard to end these things prematurely here. As it is we are holding off making more plans for the end of the summer...