Matt and Kat Brown

Last week in Zurich was nice and relaxing. I enjoyed sleeping in and spending afternoons visiting different places in the city. I visited a Museum of Design one day and the Zurich zoo on another. I wandered around the old city and browsed the shops a lot.

Zurich seemed very orderly and very expensive. The people there were generally quite reserved. Nobody smiled on the tram and most people are quite unwilling to speak English. Despite this the city is nice to explore because everything is so clean and organised with great tram, train and boat services. The city really runs like clockwork.

I was able to meet Matt at the Google offices for dinner a couple of nights and I enjoyed getting the grand tour. Pictures of the Zurich offices have been much discussed and puzzled over online ever since the makeover last year. It was cool to see each of the zany ideas in reality. My favorite part was lying in a bathtub filled with foam and watching the fishes in the fish tank. A bit surreal really.

I wasn’t allowed to take any photos Mum, but I can tell you I did try out the twisty metal slide that goes down to the cafeteria and it was somewhat embarrassing

On the Saturday before we left we took a boat down the lake to a town called Rapperswil. The slow cruise gave us good views of the houses and vine yards along the lakeside, very pretty. We walked around Rapperswil a bit and then met some of Matt’s colleagues in the afternoon for a UK beer and cheese tasting event! It was a little ironic to be ordering a stout and a wedge of wensleydale while in Switzerland but it was an enjoyable afternoon and evening with good company and tasty food.

Early on Sunday we headed off to the airport. We shed all our remaining swiss francs at the airport plus a wee bit more when we stocked up on toblerone, lindt and some luxemburgerli yum yum!!!

The only thing I didn’t do while in Switzerland which I still want to try is a  fondue dinner. Warm summer evenings are not well suited to meals of melted cheese so I think we’ll have to plan a return visit to Zurich in winter when the city is cold and snowy.

We’re relaxing at home today after an epic adventure yesterday. We went on a day trip with the Apex group (a bunch of 18-30yr olds) from our church to a theme park in Wales.

The theme park (Oakwood) was pretty awesome with some great rides, including a wooden roller coaster with plenty of twists and turns to get the adrenaline pumping. It was a very long day as we had to be up at 4am to leave Dublin on Satuday. We drove 2 hours to Rosslare, took a ferry for 2 1/2 hours from there to Fishguard in Wales, then a short bus ride to the park. 5 hours of theme park fun and then the reverse journey home. Phew, what a day! I was shattered by the time we got home at midnight but we had a great time and got to know a few new friends. We took a few photos along the way.

This was our second trip to the UK lately as we were in London a few weeks back for a fun city break. We spent the weekend in London enjoying the city. We took a ride down the Thames to the Greenwich Observatory, enjoyed the sunshine, and strolled the Camden and Spitalfields markets. We went to a Westend musical called ‘Wicked’ too after a few people we know had seen it and recommended it to us. It was a great night out and a very entertaining show.

It was no problem to find new things to do in London, even though we’ve been there before. The city is so big with so much variety in things to do and places to go to. It was great to catch up with friends from NZ living in London too – fun to swap experiences and observations we’ve made while living in the Northern hemisphere. We didn’t take as many photos in London this time, but we have added a few more to the London section of the gallery, starting from this one.

Photos from London and from our trip to Oakwood are in the gallery.
Our next public holiday here is the August bank holiday so we’d better start planning our next adventure soon…

On Sunday I found myself basking in a sunny afternoon, watching a game of croquet being played on the lawn by men in top hats and tails. As you might guess, we were not in Dublin anymore. We were in Cambridge, England for the wedding of Sam and Zoe Jansen (Sam is a friend of Matt’s from Waikato Uni). It was a fun weekend, really great to be able to attend the wedding and to catch up with some Kiwis over here.

We arrived in Cambridge at lunchtime on Saturday and spent the afternoon walking around Cambridge and taking in the some of the local sights. Cambridge University is comprised of many individual Colleges scattered throughout the town. Many of the colleges have very old, grand buildings on grounds with carefully manicured gardens and lawns that you have to keep off. We walked through Saint Johns College and oohed and aahed at the stained glass, arched doorways and columns throughout (pictures in the gallery).

We stayed at the ‘Home from Home B & B’ in Cambridge which was a good, affordably-priced, place to stay. It was reasonably central and had nice rooms. Would recommend to anyone visiting Cambridge in the future.

We also enjoyed watching the punting on the river which seems to be a very popular pass time in Cambridge with tourists and locals. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to go punting ourselves but it looked like a lot of fun. With so many punts on the river most of the time is spent trying to navigate around others without knocking anyone in!

We spent Saturday evening catching up with other kiwis who had come over for the wedding. The wedding was on Sunday at Downing College. Sam and Zoe had a wonderful wedding, the ceremony was lovely, the bride looked beautiful, and the whole day was very special.

The ceremony was at 1:00, after which there was champagne and canapes in the garden and a spot of croquet for those who were keen. It turns out Croquet is not the genteel British game it appears on the surface! Yes, once the real rules of the game were established people seemed to take great glee in knocking everyone else off course and more or less forgot about getting themselves through the course All good fun really.

Later in the afternoon we moved inside again for the ‘Wedding breakfast’ or reception as we would call it in NZ. We were all spoiled with a full five course dinner which was followed by some entertaining speeches and then a live band and dancing into the night. Everyone had a great day.

On Monday we headed back from Cambridge to Stansted Airport for our flight. We got to Stansted with what should have been plenty of time but due to the huge lines going through security we literally had to run through the terminal to catch our flight. We made it, luckily but will know in future to allow a lot longer than the minimum time to check in!