Pris Adventures: Whirlwind trip to Zürich

We took a 2-hour drive to Zürich recently to see my friend, Beverly and her family from Singapore.

We met them when we visited Singapore in January this year. Her two boys are around the same age as mine, so playdates are awesome. Sammy remembered Hunter and Carter too and he was so excited to see them, he went to bed the night before saying, "Yay, we're gonna see Hunter and Carter tomorrow!"

Originally, we had planned to spend the weekend at Zürich and stayover at a friend's place, but poor Gabe had a bad fall on Thursday. We had to observe him for the next 24 - 48 hrs so I didn't want to make any trips within that time frame.

Hence, we had to cancel out on my friend, but still decided to drive down to Zurich on Sunday. It was after all only a 2-hour drive away.

It turned out to be a fantastic idea to drive on a Sunday, cos the roads were empty!!! Apparently long vehicles are prohibited from driving on Sundays unless they had a special permit and I guess most people do road trips on a Friday or Saturday.

One thing I must say is that drivers in Switzerland are super obedient! They would always keep to the speed limit, whether or not there are traffic cameras around. I told hubby that they have probably been "fined into obedience!" Traffic fines in Switzerland are known to be cut-throat! My Dad once drove in Switzerland and was caught on a traffic camera for "speeding" at only 58km/h where 50km/h was allowed.

Guess how much he had to pay???

80 CHF!!! That's 80€ for exceeding the speed limit at less than 10km/h!

The weather was scorching hot that day! A real proper heatwave. So the girls made a spontaneous decision to go to the outdoor swim area at the lake rather than to the park as we had originally arranged.

The boys had to borrow swimtrunks from Bev's friend and I decided to be the offical photographer for obvious reasons that I had no swimwear and it was also that time of the month.

It was a beautiful outdoor swim area. They had cordoned off part of the Zurich lake so the boys went down a giant water slide right into lake which temperature was only a meagre 19 degrees!!!

I was so proud of my boys, cos although they were shivered (the younger ones), they very much kept wanting to go on that slide repeatedly!

We alternated between the chilly lake waters and the baby waddling pool which water was a little bit warmer. Read: little.

After a couple of hours at the pool where lunch was a mix of food we brought along with us and a pizza that cost a staggering 20CHF (that's double the price of pizzas in a restaurant in Stuttgart), we adjourned to a playground at the nearby park for even more outdoor play.

It was quite a cool experience to meet a fellow friend from back home, halfway across the world and share some common experiences on our continent.

The kids were so knackered they fell asleep on the way home.

We got home by about 10pm and since the kids had slept in the car on the way home, they were awake until close to midnight before falling asleep again.

I'm so keen to head back to Zurich lake and try some outdoor swimming for myself! If only Zurich weren't so expensive, it would definitely be on one of our favourite daytrip destinations!