Zürich HB on a rainy Saturday night.

There is nothing quite like the Zürich HB on a rainy Saturday night. (It hasn't stopped raining for 36 hours, I think...) 

This Saturday night it is a bizarre mixture of business professionals in suits attending a young innovators competition, enthusiastic football (soccer) fans wearing their team scarves and waving flags, Turkish people protesting something (maybe the shooting that happened earlier this week?) and waving flags, multiple hen party groups dressed wildly (some with flaming pink hats, others in bright striped outfits) and taking shots exuberantly, the usual harried travelers just arriving in Zürich, some motorcycle fans who are waving flags and rallying about something, hikers returning from a day out, a man in a full-length rain slicker with a pointy hat that makes him look like a wizard, and a nun or two. 

Seriously, this place is fantastic for people-watching. 

No people in this photo- I missed them all! Bummer...

A bovine interlude.

After my lovely day in Paris, I had still more good things in store for me, in the form of Brian, Jessi, and Jessi Jr. Patton, who were waiting for me at the Lison train station in Normandy. It was so nice to see them again!

We had a nice dinner of galettes and crepes in a nearby town (Isigny-sur-Mer). The region that we traveled around is famous for its salted butter caramel (who knew?), and we definitely enjoyed some amazing crepes with salted butter caramel filling. Yum!

After dinner, we went back to our gîte (holiday cottage). It was super cute on the inside!

We took a post-dinner stroll up the grassy hill behind our gîte and enjoyed the beautiful views. We also found a meadow of cows.

We stayed in the left half of this house. How cute is it?

Jessi Jr. has learned the sounds that the animals make, so, when she saw the cows, she started ferociously and exuberantly moo-ing. Seriously, she sounded like a little mad cow or something. It was super cute.

The cows also seemed to find this demonstration very interesting and started moving closer to investigate. There was one cow (or bull? I'm a city girl and have no idea...) that seemed to be the ringleader. S/he was always in front of the other cows, and s/he'd signal to them to come closer. It was really bizarre and pretty funny. 

The ringleader approaches.

Closer...

Closer...

Well, hello!

In the end, the cows were right up against the fence. Maybe they thought we were going to feed them? Or that Jessi Jr. was singing the song of their people and that they needed to reclaim her? Or they were thinking that they had heard of this strange thing called an American, but they didn't realize how loud and ridiculous they would be in person? Who knows. Maybe French cows are just curious?

The sad thing is, this whole time, they never moo-ed once! They just sort of... sniffed at us! Poor babycakes is going to think that we're making up the sound that cows make...