Day 1 - Zurich. The Cycling Europe Adventure begins

The tandem is packed

Joan's View

Das Abenteuer hat begonnen! Yeah! Our adventure has begun and we are in Zurich after a smooth flight (no monitors on the seat backs though & I spilled Tony's orange juice). We managed to find our 2nd Uber driver in Zurich because we figured out that they pickup on the departure level of the airport. Who knew? It was much easier in Dayton using our free Uber driver, Cara.

As expected, we got in early to our Airbnb, around 10:30, and since our room wasn't available until 3:00, Tony asked to use the building garage to start to assemble the tandem. It was pretty quiet and Tony assembled the tandem in what seemed like record time although we had to press the light button about every 10 minutes because it was on a timer.

Tony starting to assemble.                          The little elevator to the garage.

We managed to chat with the cleaning people and got in early to our room. However, our room was up some winding steps. You saw the picture of the elevator so there was no way the tandem would fit in there. Tony took it up the steps as far as possible and then disassembled the front part that holds the fairing, front pedals and chain, and he got it in the room. Whew! We both took a nap.

After some clean up, we headed out to explore Zurich a little. Our Airbnb is in a university district. We walked to the Old Town center which is in the older part of the city, but very busy.

We found something to eat at a "fast food" place. It was "yum" as our grandson, Luke, used to say. We had roasted lamb meat and Tony had a combination lamb / beef burger. 

We strolled back to our room and walked by Liebfrauenkirche, one of the old Catholic churches in Zurich. It happened to be the start of mass with lots of people coming in so we stayed for mass. It was in German which is OK with me since I am still relearning and / or learning German.

Back near the room, we found a grocery store that is frequented by college students, and bought some nice  breakfast foods.

We will both sleep well tonight!

 Tony's Extras
What a full day, I slept pretty good on the plane, so when we got to the garage I was able to put the tandem together in record time, just over 3 hours, yea. 

As you can see from the photo on the right, Joan was doing her best to help. Even with this extraordinary help the bicycle went together well. I included the picture above from home to show what the tandem bicylce looked like before packing it. Each side of the ping pong table net is a different suitcase. You have to love the organization. 😀😀 I am really looking forward to this challenge and it is especially sweet since Choice One Engineering is paying for it. This is my 25th Anniversary Trip. They give a trip to all employees for every 5 years they work there and the value of the trip increases every 5 years. I guess they think I still work there. We just need to make sure the Choice One people keep thinking that. Make sure you don't tell them otherwise.