7/17/2017: Herrliberg, speed-boating on Lake Zurich

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Today we spent almost the entire day on Lake Zurich -- swimming, speed boating, water skiing, mon-skiing, "oreo" rafting, eating at an island restaurant, and getting sun burnt.

I took a break in the middle to go grocery shopping and I also configured a bastion network with all six security cameras in this house in Herrliberg as well as a VPN to access the camera functions for my brother-in-law.  It has become much easier with web GUIs and Fritzbox than typing iptables commands and editing arcane configuration files.  Now he can watch his house, inside and out from anywhere on his mobile phone.  Tomorrow we shall set up his home-automation system (that requires flash, yuck) for VPN access.

The weather in St Moritz and the Engadin region is stormy so we stayed in Zurich this week.

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7/16/2017: Regensberg

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Today we drove to Regensberg castle on top of a mountain and hiked for a few hours.  We made a fire at a camp site and cooked lunch, then hiked back to the trail head.   During the hike I had some time to chat with my youngest son and separately with my brother-in-law. The hiking trail had model solar system planets whose sizes and distances from each other are the correct ratio / size scale for a model solar system.

We attended an informal dinner party at a neighbor's house; it was very comfortable and low-key.

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7/15/2017 Herrliberg, Liestal, Solar-Bob

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We stayed in Herrliberg in the morning, herding the cats towards a hike in the mountains near Forch. In the afternoon we re-united with my youngest son, his friend, and the Basel contingent of in-laws near Basel.  We went to a small bobsled / ropes course that was much better than it appeared.

We had a fantastic bar-b-q dinner in Liestal with all the noisy kids and stayed late.

Eight years ago in a similar bobsled course, I was sitting behind my 4-year-old daughter while she drove the sled and we had a life-threatening wipe-out when we flew off the track:

This time, she drove by herself and had a great time.

It was great to see the family and have the cousins play together.




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7/14/2017 Herrliberg, Zurich

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Friday was another "down" day of laundry, errands, jogging, short hikes, swimming, and "hanging out" together with my in-laws (my real purpose for this visit).  I was able to meet old friends in Zurich again.

Today we plan to get together with the Basel contingent at a ropes course.





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7/13/2017 Lac de Mont Salvans et Chateau Chillion

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We were up early and on the hiking trail after we checked out of the fantastic AirBnB apartment.  We hiked around the local lakes, along the lake trail, then we toured the Castle at Chillion.

Finally we drove back to Herrliberg through terrible traffic.




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7/12/2017 Switzerland Day 3: Murten, St Peters Island, . . .

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Today we drove for five hours to see the local sites. We started in Murten, walked the entire walking tour with all 20 sites; then we drove to St Peters Island (where Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote the philosophical ideas that became the USA's Declaration of Independence and the USA's Constitution). We hiked the entire length of the Island, which took longer than expected. We had lunch about a quarter of the way in. Then we drove to Grandson castle and finally drove home.  We went through four different Cantons and all of the locals are completely bilingual French/German. Our daughter decided to speak German. It was a long day. For dinner at 8pm I made local Raclette, salad, & some other stuff with local cheeses, other local ingredients in the awesome flat from AirBnB. The local dairy products are to-die-for awesome (Yogurt, milk, cheeses).

Tomorrow we shall make one or two stops locally on our way back to Herrliberg.






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7/11/2017 Switzerland day 2: Gruyer

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Last night we celebrated my birthday in Herrliberg.

Today we rented a car from a neighbor in Herrliberg and drove for a few hours to the French speaking part of Switzerland (Suisse Romande, Welch-Schweiz).  We are at an AirBnB that is probably the best place we have ever stayed in all of our years of using FlipKey, VRBO, HomeAway, and (recently) AirBnB. This condo is new, up-scale, extremely large, sleeps eight, has two large bathrooms, etc.  We cooked an amazing dinner for ourselves. . . Here.  We are very happy here.

We drove first to the Cailler chocolate factory tour, then to the Giger museum tour, then we hiked around the castle; then we bought the ingredients for dinner at a local (walking-distance) supermarket, and finally came back to our AirBnB condo to cook and eat.  It was awesome!!

French numbers and French conversations snaps into place quickly and easily.  Even my 13-year-old can function in simple French.  We should travel to French-speaking regions of the world with her more-frequently!


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7/10/2017 Herrliberg / Zurich Day 1

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Today was a laundry / rest day.  We slept in; I met up with a few friends in Zurich; it was too cold to go swimming in Lake Zurich.  I went for a long, 15 Km jog.  My daughter caught up with her cousins when they came back from school and we spent an enormous amount of time snacking, chatting, cooking, and "hanging out" with my in-laws -- our real purpose for coming here.

Our friends with whom we were in Israel arrived safely home and I posted copies of some of their pictures here.

It started thunderstorming / raining at 20:30 with beautiful lightning over the lake.

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7/9/17 Israel -> Switzerland

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Sunday was a travel day; we left our apartment in Jerusalem, drove to Ben Gurion airport.  We were four hours too early so we hung out at the airport all day and then flew in the evening to Zurich.  The airport has some cool posters:

On Monday I we plan to do laundry and hang out with in-laws.


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7/8/2017 Israel Day 12: Israel Museum & Old City at night

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Today we went to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and spent the entire day there.  The museum is very large and we had to skip many areas (buildings of the large campus) and zip through some interesting stuff.  It is similar to the British museum of London in that you cannot see everything in one day and there is something of interest to everyone.  We took a few hundred photos.  In the archeology section is the result of a dig in which my oldest daughter participated!

The display explains that the prehistoric Shaman lady was buried with her mystical tortoise shells. But the students who did all the work on the dig for the archeologists gossiped that they thought the hermit "cat lady" (turtle lady) was an outcast spinster shunned by the tribe.  Who is right?

In the evening we walked back to the old city to photograph the City of Gold at sunset.  We were not disappointed.

We walked along the ramparts to the Kotel and watched the Havdalah service there.  At our vantage point we participated in our own service with a group from Spain.  They had a flamenco  twist to the songs and prayers we know so well.  It was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we fly to Switzerland.  We had a great time here and hope to come back again soon.


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