More Christmas Activities

As the news has been reporting, Europe has had quite a cold and snowy winter so far (my mother pointed out that it technically isn't even winter yet, which is kind of a depressing thought).  Zürich usually stays above freezing and while it snows, it rarely sticks, but we have had a lot of snow in the city this year.  Here is a picture I took last week of the view from our balcony outside our bedroom.

As for more exciting things, there were some more great Christmas activities last week here in Zürich!  Last Monday, I went with some friends from church to see the Samichlaus tram.  This is the Samichlaus tram:

Sadly, only children can ride the Samichlaus tram

The tram drives around downtown Zürich for about twenty minutes while Samichlaus and his angel helpers tell the children stories and give them treats.  It is a fun little thing for children to do without their parents.  My friends take their children every year and they love it.

Samichlaus greets the children as they get on the tram

Then, Thursday was the annual Lichtershwimmen, which means "swimming lights".  On the third Thursday in December, hundreds of young children release little boats with candles inside down the Limmat River exactly at 6 pm.  I haven't been able to find any information on the significance of this tradition, but everyone knows about it and attends.  There were definitely hundreds of people all along the riverfront waiting for the candle boats.

Tiny boats with candles floating down the river

So how do the children know when it is exactly 6 pm?  Well, this is when big church bells come in handy.  The movie below is just when the Grossmünster bells started to chime at 6 pm.  I then tried to point the camera at where the boats where coming from, but people were in the way.

 I'm pretty proud of this shot I took of Grossmünster, still kind of grainy though

So now you can see in this video the boats coming down the river.  It's just right in the beginning, so watch carefully.  Then I panned around to show what downtown looked like.

Or you can just look at the picture below to see the boats traveling down the river.

I showed you a while back the lighting ceremony of the main street in Zürich and that it was kind of underwhelming.  Well, I think the smaller side streets are much prettier and just so picturesque.  They are exactly like the cute, little European streets you imagine and I can't get enough of them.  When my step-mom comes, she will take infinitely better pictures to highlight the cuteness, but for now, you'll have to deal with my poor-quality shots.

On Thursday, our tree also finally arrived in the mail!  We ordered it from Amazon Germany.  I got it up and we decorated it right away to try and enjoy it for a week!

The tree is six-feet-tall, but we are kind of giant people

We also went to France this past weekend, so I will post about that tomorrow!