New Brand Names for Old Familiar Products

I love international marketing of consumer products. (Hey, I did get my MBA from Kellogg, so I guess I notice these things.) Here are some of my favorites:

• In the States it's called: Pledge (for cleaning wood) - In Switzerland it's called: Pronto
• In the States it's called: Glade (air freshener) - In Switzerland it's called: Briese

And my personal favorite:

• In the States it's called: Mr. Clean - In Switzerland it's called: Meister Proper

Oddly enough, Palmolive, is just Palmolive! Well, as long as they work...it's nice to see some familiar products.

Zurich Fashion Observations

Brady and I had an eventful afternoon. After realizing last week that he's outgrown all of his hats, I felt we needed to do a little shopping. (The sun has been out a lot and with his fair little head, I'm worried about sun burn.) I had heard that H&M had good kids clothes, so we set off for the Bahnhofstrasse (the main shopping street in downtown Zurich) to do some browsing. H&M is basically like Old Navy and although prices were still higher than Old Navy in the States, prices were very reasonable for Zurich. I found Brady a hat (that has a tie underneath his chin...he's started taking off his hat, even when he needs it.) And I found some summer things in the women's section. I bought Bill a new belt. We even made due with the different sizing system they have in Europe. Brady and I had lunch outside under some trees - beautiful. We were even asked to be video-taped for some news program that was asking people about their concerns for the upcoming election. I told the guy I was an "Auslander" (foreigner), so that quickly ended his interest. :)

So, we had a successful shopping trip and were able to enjoy the beautiful weather. I honestly don't think people work here. The entire time we were on the Bahnhofstrasse, the street and stores were swamped. Granted, it was noon when we first got there, but it was like 3:30 when we left and still crowded.

Now, onto the fashion observations. For the most part, anything goes here in Zurich. I have noted A LOT of leggings. Not a trend I'm particularly fond of. Those things weren't great in the '80s and I'm not excited they are making a comeback. The Zurich women seem to be super fond of the ballet/flat shoes. I can't believe they all walk around in those shoes...I can't wear them without my feet killing me if I've done lots of walking. The mens fashions have Bill and I stumped. Men here wear Capri pants! Now, in some cases, the Capris are like super long cargo shorts. Those might be acceptable. However, there have been some sightings where the men have on Capris that look like they belong on a woman. Strange. The other item is not really crazy, but I can't get over it. Many men wear suits for business here in Zurich, and I always find it funny when there's a man wearing a full-blown suit riding a bicycle. It happens a lot around here. I guess if that's your main mode of transportation, you've gotta do it, but it looks funny, none-the-less. Now, Bill and I are not very "fashionable" ourselves, but we've had fun checking out the differences between NJ and Zurich!

Kase Wochenende (Cheese Weekend)

Our friend, Heather, who lives in Frankfurt became our first visitor this past weekend. She flew in Saturday morning and the first official Kase Wochenende started. Our quest was to eat as much cheese as possible. I had attempted to start the Kase Wochenende off right by cooking a cheesecake. Unfortunately, I had a bit of an incident with our oven (they have too many buttons over here) and although it tastes good, it was a mess. It was not fit for guest consumption. So, then in an effort to replace the messy cheesecake, Heather and Bill bought a mini-cheesecake from Sprungli (a VERY good bakery/candy store here in Zurich) on their way home from the airport. We ate that for breakfast.

After showing Heather some of Zurich's sites, we headed over to the Restaurant Swiss Chuchi, which is a Swiss fondue/raclette restaurant in Zurich. I feasted on cheese fondue while Heather and Bill had Raclette. For those of you unfamiliar with Raclette, I have posted the Wikipedia definition:

"A modern way of serving raclette involves an electric table-top grill with small 'pans', known as coupelles, to heat slices of raclette cheese in. Generally the grill is surmounted by a hot plate or griddle. The cheese is brought to the table sliced, accompanied by platters of boiled or steamed
potatoes, other vegetables, charcuterie, and perhaps seafood. Diners create their own small packages of food by cooking small amounts of meat, vegetables and seafood on the griddle. These are then mixed with potatoes and topped with cheese in the small, wedge-shaped coupelles that are placed under the grill to melt and brown the cheese. Alternatively, slices of cheese may be melted and simply poured over food on the plate."

We thoroughly enjoyed our late lunch. Following Brady's afternoon nap, which the adults also participated in - eating cheese is EXHAUSTING - we enjoyed a Domino's pizza dinner at our apartment with a few folks that Bill works with. (Note - pizza introduced even more cheese to our weekend.) We all agreed that it was nice to taste some American-style pizza after being here in Europe for a month. Don't ask how much Domino's pizza is here in Zurich!

We did more walking around Zurich on Sunday with Heather. The weather was beautiful the entire weekend. All in all, it was a nice Kase Wochenende and, cholesterol aside, a nice way to enjoy Zurich with friends.

Pardon me, but do I have cheese on my chin?

It Isn't a Swiss Bank Account for Nothing

We opened a local bank account with UBS. (Union Bank of Switzerland) For those of you who might not be "in the know", the Swiss are known for their extreme privacy laws around banking. In fact, Switzerland is not part of the EU related partly to their unwillingness to revise their banking privacy rules (which are Swiss National Laws) and partly around their concern about giving up their autonomy. Anyway, we needed an account because Bill partially gets paid in Swiss Francs.

So, we opened a standard pay account that gives us a credit card and a Maestro card. (This is like a debit card.) We also signed up for online banking. We pretty much pay all of our bills online, so it seemed like the natural thing to do. Well, here's what you have to do to get online with a Swiss bank account:

1. Go to the UBS website, put in a contract number (that is not our acct. number). We received this contract number in the mail - registered mail that is. By doing this you get another number which you use in step 3 below.
   
2. Take our online banking card (which is not our Maestro card), place it in this calculator do-jigger. (The calculator do-jigger also came via registered mail.) Enter PIN - which is different than ATM pin. We received this pin via yet another registered mail letter.
   
3. Then enter a number into the calculator that the UBS website gives you, as mentioned above in step #1.
   
4. Then the calculator gives you a code that you use online...to finally get into your account.

Confused? Yep, we were too. Good thing Bill finally figured it out. I guess it's all part of protecting your account, but this seemed crazy!!!

Let the Pulling Up Begin...

Brady just started trying to pull up in the last couple of days. I took a picture of Brady in the act as evidence of his new milestone. I'm excited and worried at the same time. A somewhat non-mobile Brady has kept me on my toes...let's see what a mobile Brady does. :)

Today was another beautiful day. After all three of us took a nap around mid-day, we decided to walk around downtown. It was gorgeous, and it seems like most other Zurich-ers had the same idea. We walked around the Groesmuenster (a beautiful church) and crossed the river (Limmat River) a couple of times. This city is lovely!

For Those Who Wondered...The Curtains Are Done

Labor Day in Switzerland

May 1st is Labor Day in Switzerland. Today also happened to be Ascension Day - which would also be a national holiday of its own if it hadn't fallen on May 1st. Bill had today off from work. Most everything was closed, as we experienced first hand when we tried to go to our local bakery for breakfast. We decided to take the opportunity to explore the countryside, and ventured to the north of Zurich to the Neuhausen area to see the Rheinfalls.

The Rheinfalls is a large waterfall on the Rhein River. In fact, the Rheinfalls is the largest waterfall in Europe in terms of volume that flows through it. We viewed the falls from the Schloss Laufen, a castle overlooking the river/falls. The castle courtyard had beautiful flowers. Fortunately, we were able to enjoy the flowers while it was still sunny. It did start raining while we were overlooking the falls. Brady and I stayed at the top balcony, because the stairs were a little slippery, but Bill ventured down the path to the very end. Check out more Rheinfalls photos using the link under "Good links".

It was a beautiful sight and a nice way to spend the day. We also had lunch while at the Rheinfalls. We had brought a small picnic lunch of sandwiches (on fresh brotchen - or breadrolls) and we supplemented with some food purchased at the snack bar at the Schoss Laufen. (Pommes Frites - aka French Fries and beer!)