Tour de Beaches

The driving age here is 18 years old. They can drive a Vespa or Moped at 16 but a car is 18. They can drink wine and beer at 16 and Strong liquor at 18. It makes some sense to me but I can be confident that Shannon is not too happy about having to wait until she is 18 to drive!!

We continue the beach tour today since it is another super hot and sunny day. Fun fact: this is the hottest summer in Switzerland since 1854!!!! They are actually getting concerned because it is so dry and hot and they are depleting the drinking water reserves. But in typical Swiss fashion, they are Uber prepared with plans and rules: camp fires in the forest are prohibited; and they already conserve about 70-90%of the water used in an average building by recycling and by trapping rain water. It is very

Shannon spent the afternoon with her school friend/ambassador yesterday and it sounds like she is a nice girl. That was a welcome break from hanging with me and Sarah and she seems to be in better spirits after that.  The real meeting of new friends will come when School starts on the 21st of August. And we have a few travels planned for the weekends before that, so that is nice. Sarah is spending time with the 13 yr old daughter of our landlord upstairs. She is so sweet and kind and active (like Sarah) so they seem to get along well. She has come with us to he outdoor gym a couple times, and we went to the outdoor pool with her yesterday.  The outdoor pool was very cool - we went early and by the time we left before lunch, there was a lineup outside to come in! And no wonder in this heat!! There are splash pads, wading pools, lap pools, diving platforms (1 m, 3m, 5m) outside and then a lazy river, hot tub, lap pool, diving pool and leisure pool inside!! I didn’t think I would enjoy going with the girls but I had a great time actually. 

I am so happy with our IKEA furniture. It looks great and works with out apartment. We had to change our typical traditional style to look a bit more modern and I really like it. The couch is huge and we can all sprawl out or we can cuddle close together. Our kitchen table is big enough for an easy 8 chairs so we can have friends over easily but we also have plenty of room for homework and work at the table. We also have a couch and chair on the balcony to enjoy the view and the outdoors.

Our Beach tour has been successful. Here is the rundown so far:

Zug Badi Seeliken: Great location, close to downtown Zug. Nice changeroom facilities so easy to meet Justin after work. Popular meeting spot for people of all ages. Almost entirely grass.

Strandbad Zug: Easy bike ride from the apartment. Super facilities including rest rooms plus a restaurant with drinks and ice cream. Plenty of bicycle parking. Super popular meeting spot for all ages, but it didn't feel too busy. Nice area to swim.

Bruggli Lido: We stumbled here before meeting Justin at Strandbad Zug. There are paddleboards for rent here, and it is a spread out area of beach. Easy bike ride from the apartment and only about a hundred meters from Strandbad Zug. It is next to where the Lorze river flows into Lake Zug.

Oberwil Bei Zug: This beach is much quieter than the other badis. It was an 8 km bike ride from the apartment, but an easy bike ride, now that Sarah and I know the way! We learned the hard way! Very rocky, so we better bring our flip flops next time. The water gets deep very very quickly, which was super nice.

I will update this as we go! There are still some beaches to discover:
Choller - apparently we can take the dog to this beach!
Cham Lido
Strandbad Hunenberg
Strandbad Unteraegari


Lots of work ahead of us in the next couple weeks!!