Knabenschiessen and other things

Today is a holiday for Zurich. Knabenschiessen to be exact. I had absolutely no idea what it was about so I did some digging around on wikipedia and came up with:

"Knabenschiessen is a traditional target shooting competition in Zürich.^[1] held on the second weekend of September each year.^[2] The festival is one of the oldest in Switzerland, dating back to the 17th century.^[2]

The competition is open to 13-17 year olds, who either reside or are enrolled in a school in the canton of Zürich. Originally reserved for boys (Knaben), the competition has been open to female participants since 1991. The shooting is with the Swiss Army ordonnance rifle, SIG SG 550."- via

The girls will not be participating in this shooting thing. For the girls, the most important part is that they get off of school for today and tomorrow (unclear why tomorrow, although I think a teacher work day.)

So with their day off I unfortunately had to miss my German class that started last week. This was no great loss. To say my German class was easy, would be an understatement. The people in the class are nice mostly in their 30s and from a variety of places- Cuba, Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia, Ireland, Singapore and Switzerland(the Italian part). There is one girl younger than me who's 16 and also an au pair (a 16 year old! SOOO YOUNG!). The teacher is nice, but the pace of the class is the slowest I have ever had. The class is intensive so 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. My favorite day of class so far? numbers for 45 minutes. 45 MINUTES! There is a lot of repetition to make sure it stays with us which is probably good, but I want to be learning at a faster pace to make sure I can get at least the basics down. Luckily, only 3 more weeks of the class!

To end on a positive note, I went to see Tosca at the Zurich Opera this past Saturday with another au pair. The soprano was quite good and I really enjoyed it over all. I really liked the minimal set they had as it really allowed for the focus on the music. The conductor was also fun to watch as his body movements were very big during the entire performance. I am hoping to go to several more operas this year as it is so close!

occupation: housewife!

This past Saturday and Sunday I spent the weekend with Olin and Nikki as well Nikki's father and his wife. We did a lot of walking around and floating down the river, which was a lot of fun! You get to float a long ways down the river and they have these bags to put all your stuff in as you float down so it won't get wet. They look like fish as you can see:
They are very handy to have as we walked pretty far up in order to float down back to where our bikes were. After this and some Bananagrams playing during the weekend, I was off Monday to Zurich just in time for dinner with the family.
A little about the family. The mom and dad both work outside the home, one in music the other in science. They are both very prominent in their fields, and the mom travels quite a bit for her job. here on out they will be known as H(mom) and S(dad). They have two little girls who are 4(J) and 8(M). They are the sweetest little girls and in my few days of knowing them are very well behaved. J is in kindergarten every morning until 12pm, while M is in 3rd grade full time. The schedule for school varies depending on the day and so my schedule is never the same on any given day.
The family has been so welcoming and they have been slowly helping me get into a routine. As the title says, essentially I am a housewife. I am doing a lot of the washing, I help with lunch and dinner, I do a lot of dishes and make sure the girls are doing what they need to get done, whether it be homework or practicing for M or simply playing with J. The mom, H, would like to add a few more things into the mix this year like a weekly library date and having me work a little on rhythms and notes with M. J does not play an instrument yet although desperately wants to play violin. The dad, S, has asked that if I can help J to learn some tunes on the piano that this would be great fun for J. I am not so sure about that, but I guess we will see as time goes on. My days generally are 1-2 hours of housework in the morning including making lunch and dinner prep, as well as laundry and making of the girls beds. Then either I or H pick up Julia from kindergarten and have lunch ready for her. Because H will be gone for the next week, I have had to pick up the routine fairly quickly. Luckily her mother is coming into town to help out with the girls. This is followed by some play time and waiting for M to get home from school. Then M does her homework while J and I play or help to make dinner of some sort. Once Dinner and dishes are done, I am generally off the hook for the rest of the evening.
Other than getting into a routine here I have been unable to do much else as I am living with the family until this weekend because my apartment is being repainted and new things were added. I was able to see the apartment however and it is very much like a dorm room. I will post pictures later but it's got a small kitchenette and bathroom and then the bedroom area with a desk and chair. I am moving my stuff in this weekend but will stay with the family until Monday.
I was able to go to a coffee meet up to meet some other au pairs which went okay. It'll be hard to make friends here I think with my wacky schedule but I hope to make some soon! I am meeting another au pair tomorrow and then will attend the coffee thing next week as well I hope! My German classes start a week from this Monday and I will be taking intensive German from 8:30am-12:30pm 5 days a week. I'm not sure how this will go but hopefully I will be able to pick it up fairly quickly.
The family also has a soundproof music room that I am able to use which includes a baby grand piano and lots of music! I have a found a few music stores and am hoping to find more in order to get some music to learn. I am hoping to find a voice teacher in October after my German lessons are done to start doing some Jazz but will wait a little bit before I start looking.
The family is gone this weekend so I will be sightseeing around Zurich and might head to see Olin and Nikki for the day or something like that.
Whew! Sorry for the long post. They will get shorter I promise! and updated more often!