back to school...twice

Oh my, it's been a while. Well. So. Three weeks ago today, the kids went back to school. Both full-time, in person, corona-related measures minimal to nonexistent. Because...I guess the case numbers are low here? Though when I try to make comparisons I don't see how they are sooo very different from, say, Seattle, where everything is still very shut down? It's a bit worrying. But societies are built on trust so we're going to trust the authorities...not that we have a choice, there are hefty fines here for keeping your kids home from school without permission. So off they go.

Week 1: Off to a good start. Christopher likes his new teacher and is eager to get back to his extracurricular gym classes; Caroline doesn't seem too unhappy to be back and we start biking together to school in the morning, which is good for us and saves her some public transit stress. On Wednesday it's still warm so Daniel and I sneak to the pool in the morning after the kids are off. Like a date! Thursday I go to a meeting just over the cantonal border in Aargau (like real grownup work! scary! but exciting!). I manage to do the playgroup thing on Friday morning; only one mom comes and that's just fine with me.

In which Lino the bunny is going with the flow.

Week 2: Covid scare! Still biking in the morning. It's still hot. Christopher doesn't want to go to parkour class on Wednesday so we go to the pool instead. Something is blooming and my allergies are bad. Then Thursday night I feel super tired and achy and my throat hurts - I manage to cook dinner but then go straight to bed. On Friday morning things aren't much better so I decide to punt on playgroup and go get a covid test, which involves standing in line for FOUR HOURS at the local public hospital. (Not because there are tons of people there to get tested, but because the line moves impossibly slowly - apparently they have a test capacity of about 100 people/day...this experience made me seriously worried about the covid statistics here...) I have to cancel going to Aargau again. At midnight we get an email from Christopher's school saying that his teacher tested positive and that the whole class has to go into quarantine for ten days counting from Wednesday, which means he can't go to his rescheduled-from-April First Communion on Sunday. He's crushed. I'm sick and not sure if I should be touching anyone but on Saturday afternoon I get my test result back and it's negative. Thank goodness! But Christopher being in quarantine effectively means that we are too (unless we want to isolate him in his room, which is what the official directions say to do but this seems...unrealistic?) so we prepare for a fun week of lockdown-revisited.

Nothing to see here.

Week 3: Carbs@home. I slowly recover from my apparently non-covid cold and Caroline comes down with it - which is good only because it gives us an excuse to keep her home from school for a few days. We make cookies and spätzle. And then borrow a deep fryer and make donuts, because desperate times call for desperate measures (as previously noted: there are many wonderful and delicious pastries in Switzerland, but no good donuts). Christopher does not get sick. On Friday Caroline goes back to school and I decide to go to work, praying desperately that no one will come to playgroup. No one comes to playgroup. Proof that there is a God?

The bright side of quarantine: possibly the only glazed old fashioneds in the whole country.

On Saturday Christopher was finally allowed to leave the house and on Sunday we took a drive back to the "beach" at the Walensee, which four weeks ago was packed with "beach"goers and now is nearly empty and piled high with driftwood from a storm. It was our anniversary, so we ordered takeout from the sushi restaurant we noticed there last time - "best sushi in Switzerland!" says one review, which is not a high bar, but the sushi was, indeed, very good, and by Zurich standards surprisingly affordable. 

My Seattle friends have been posting socially-distanced beach pictures, which generally feature family members with windblown hair scrambling over rocks in deserted grey beach-scapes. Frankly, I was getting jealous. So we tried to reproduce the experience as best we could. The waves could use some work.

Today both kids were back to school, again. I hope it sticks this time...though also I hope that the authorities will have the good sense to re-lock-down if they need to. I wish I were feeling more confident about that.