sooooooooo many photos.

In case it wasn't entirely obvious from my last post or two, the weather here has turned into spring, and with a vengeance. It is ridiculously nice here, every single day (with one exception), or at least, it has been for the last two weeks (or thereabouts). Although I feel like I might be calling down some sort of bad meteorological karma on myself in saying this, since the winters here are reputedly SO depressing, and everyone else here had to survive this past one, whereas I just waltzed in in February. Whatever happens, here's what it looks like now.

These flowers are as big as my HAND. And there are whole trees of them!

Double tulips: they're a thing.

Those are clouds in the background. AND Alps.

Lots of steep streets ending in views of the lake. There are like a million of these.

Warning: schmaltziness ahead.

So I've been taking lots of walks around our neighborhood, just to see what's out there and to learn my way around a little bit. Having lived in the high desert for a few years, the flowers and trees and general greenness of this place are a bit overwhelming for someone who's as big a fan of the horticultural arts as I am. I found myself on a quiet, fancy-schmancy street last week, one lined with high hedges and flowering trees and fancy gates and giant old villas, breathing in as much air as I could fit into my mildly asthmatic and out-of-shape lungs because everything smelled so GREEN and springy and fantastic. I think I have an addiction to spring, and it can only be cured by MORE COWBELL. No, wait...that's not quite right. Whatever the case, IT IS GORGEOUS HERE AND I LOVE SPRING. 

So do the Swiss, apparently! Or at least, they seriously LOVE EASTER. My cat food delivery this week had a chocolate bunny and a few chocolate eggs nestled in some fake grass in the bottom. And then there were these:

Taller than me.

Also taller than me.

Giant displays in our neighborhood department store.

THEY ARE FANS.

I, myself, have bought no fewer than three chocolate bunnies thus far, but I feel compelled to give each and every variety a chance to prove to me its superiority over the others. (Milk chocolate! Dark chocolate! Milk with almond and marzipan!)

And now, I'm changing the "five minutes" segment to something slightly broader and more generic, like "Things I've Seen on Walks." Here's a truly random assortment of that.

Surf shop. On my street.

It's real, and you can buy it next door to our apartment.

Just NEAT.

Where can one procure a door such as this? 'Cause I'd like to.

Yaaaaay, spring!

Butcher shop. Wait, yours doesn't look like this...?

So...much...old...architecture...and conveniently dated, just for geeks like me! 

This looks all crazy back-lit 'cause it is. I'm really not a good photographer.

No clue...I just love the stone- and woodwork.

I love these row houses that they build with different styles...SO neat. 

Oooh, and on a spring-related note, we stopped by the Botanic Gardens today, wherein their ponds are FULL OF FROGS and TADPOLES and those creepy intermediate forms with tails AND legs. 

I LOVE THE GREEN STRIPES.

They were NOISY, too. This is only two of them, but at one point there were at least four of them sounding off.

I really, reeeeeeally wanted to bring some tadpoles home, and I had visions of building some sort of fantastical system of ponds on our balcony, but then I remembered the creepy legs-and-tail stage, and left them all where they were. I am, however, going to go visit them. Often.