It is not yet summer in England

I (Swiss Mister) know this because I am sitting in Jon & Michelle's apartment in Oxford, listening to Jon cook sausages AND bacon for breakfast! Damn, these people know how to live over here. I have been accused of not blogging enough, and I've taken the criticism to heart. So here is the story of yesterday, for your viewing pleasure (?)

Zurich, 22C, sunny. Good Friday indeed. Woke up at 9 (Swiss Mister decided to set an alarm, saving us from a 1pm wakeup), and the word of the day was "bikes". We sent them by air so we could be mobile in Zurich, and today was the day to take them for a spin. Swiss Miss wanted me to come with her for her first ride in Zurich; lots of tram tracks and strange signs were making her antsy. And I wanted to geek out and mount our new Garmin GPS thingy to Swiss Miss' bike! Before we left Toronto I mail-ordered a "Ram-Mount" from the good folks at New Product Innovations. The mount was supposed to attach our Garmin to a bike handebar; unfortunately, it weighs about 4 pounds because it is meant for a motorbike, but it looked good. It also looked like it needed a wrench, which is in our toolbox somewhere near Antwerp apparently (don't ask). So instead of the full-fledged Ram Mount (are you out there, Ram?) we settled for half the mount, attached to Laura's bike basket, using a sacrificial sock to provide necessary padding for the mount. And look at that smile on her navigatorial face now!!


And Garmin, ladies and gentlemen, did not disappoint. Swiss Miss has a problem with navigation. If we need to go left, she will point to the right. If the store is up, she heads for the down escalator. If home is this way, she has already gone that way. It is profound. We used to joke that Garmin saved our relationship in LA two years ago (rental car + GPS = excellence), and Garmin will definitely have a good impact on Laura's biking in Zurich, because now, 100 metres before she needs to, Garmin will tell her to turn left.

So we biked along the river, once more past Rossligasse 3 (where we are still waiting for the lease contract to materialize....) and down to the Zurichsee. People were sunbathing in bikinis everywhere (this is something the Swiss Germans share with their Germanic neighbours apparently). We found a public waterslide, the Chinagarten, lovely cafes with frowning serving frauleins (they have been "on" for 10 straight days... no days off till it rains), and had to switch places at lunch to avoid sunburns. April 10. OMG.
And then we came home, packed a little overnight bag, and flew off to London to meet Jon & Michelle from across the pond. Well actually, we took tram 11 to the train station, took a train to the airport, ate an ice cream bar to soothe Laura's savage soul (see picture), then a packed plane to London, and finally a bus to Oxford. Two pub pints and a dinner of crisps and weird bread things later, we were happily in their flat, sleeping on a strange Ikea-style hideabed.