The Friday afternoon traffic wasn't too bad as we arrived in Zurich. The only issue we had was that the road authorities were making the most of the summer weather and there was construction work happening on many roads. This included the road our hotel was on - there were benefits in this as well as there was no through traffic so was quieter. We off loaded our bags and checked in then returned the rental car. We had driven some 1956 kilometres in the seventeen days we had the car so not a huge mileage. We were fortunate that the drop off depot was only about 1.5 kilometres from the hotel so we enjoyed a walk back. We had selected this hotel as Sarah's apartment is just across the road so very convenient. It was so good to see Sarah again - it is seven years since we last saw our "lonely Swiss girl". (When Sarah completed her exchange papers she had written she was a lonely child rather than an only child so she was always referred to as our "lonely child"). Sarah introduced us to her partner, Christoph and their little son, Hendrik, who is just four months old. We enjoyed a leisurely couple of hours catching up and then Chris cooked us a lovely dinner. One of the lovely advantages of our travels is that we get to meet local people in their own homes rather than always being a tourist and being treated as such. With a leisurely start to the day we met up with Sarah, Chris and baby Hendrik and also Sarah's mother, Marie-Therese who we have met a number of times. We travelled by tram to the lake and walked through the park to the Chinese Gardens. These gardens were a gift from Zurich's Chinese partner town, Kunming, as thanks for Zurich's technical and scientific assistance during the development of Kunming's City drinking water supply and drainage. Once stepping inside the garden walls you could think that you were indeed in a Chinese City garden. It is beautifully maintained and a delightful place to visit. We lunched on the shores of Lame Zurich. It was a lovely warm day and being Saturday it seemed that everyone who could get outside had. People were sunbathing, having picnics (like we did), swimming and generally enjoying a leisurely time in the sun. There is an unusual large sculpture in the park called the Heureka. It consists of iron bars, steel wheels, metal pipes, wooden wheels and various electrical motors. The sculpture comes to life twice a day and we were able to see it "play". To say it is unusual is an understatement and is certainly contemporary. We caught a boat on the lake back to the old town of Zurich and enjoyed meandering this part of the city, ice creams in hand. Sarah worked in a restaurant in this part of the old town when we had previously visited so it was good to revisit. Later in the day we enjoyed a lovely barbecue sitting on the balcony of Sarah and Chris's apartment. The balcony looks to the rear and overlooks a secondary school building and a lovely large park where many groups were having dinner and enjoying the warm evening. Sunday, along with Sarah and Hendrik, we again took the tram to the city and visited the university where Sarah had studied and enjoyed a picnic lunch in one of the small city parks. We wandered the side streets to another section of the old town and stopped for coffee in a very famous cafe. Walking in we visited the Fraumünster which is built on the remains of a former abbey from the year 853 and is now the Evangelical Reformed Church. The choir of the abbey has five lead light windows that were built in 1970 and are very different from the standard lead light windows in the colour. As it was our last evening in Zurich Sarah and Chris had made a booking at a very traditional Swiss restaurant (Zeughauskeller) in the city where we were able to enjoy very traditional Swiss dishes. It was a lovely meal and we did enjoy that experience with Sarah and Chris. A coffee back in the restaurant of our hotel and it was soon time to say good-bye. Sarah will always be very special, and we loved meeting her partner Chris, and of course their little son, Hendrik along with Sarah's mother, Marie-Therese. A special thank you to Sarah and Chris for making our time in Zurich so memorable. Over the years we have found that relationships built through hosting have provided us with wonderful friends in various parts of the world - what lucky people we are. We had an early start to Monday - up at 03.30 am to meet a taxi at 04.45 am to take us to the airport. It was raining so must be time for us to leave. We waved our good-bye to Sarah's apartment which was all in darkness. We had no problems checking our luggage directly through to Raleigh-Durham in the USA and we took the airport fast train to our gateway. It was time to say good-bye to Switzerland and head to London where we were connecting with our American Airlines flight. Arrival in London at 07.30 am and Heathrow was frantic. There was a queue to get through security and I was taken aside and just about strip searched! I have never had a security person ask me to undo the top button in my trousers so that she could check down past the waist band. Then she asked me about my knee and if I could show her the scars to prove it. I declined as I was wearing surgical stocks to help with blood circulation and wasn't removing those in general public. After a thorough rub down, arms up, arms down, one leg to this direction then the other, climb up on a step with one leg, then the other, just about asked if she wanted me to turn around and clap my hands! Eventually I was given the all clear and allowed to continue. It was interesting to have such a thorough search when we had gone through security in Zurich Airport and had only just arrived in England and hadn't been outside the airport building. Oh well, I knew I was clear so no worries. We had to change terminal from terminal 5 to terminal 3 - all easy with the bus provided. The kind check in guy at American Airlines asked if we would like two aisle seats and he would block out the three seats between us. How kind! A delay of an hour, great English breakfast of mushrooms with spinach on sour dough bread and we were soon on the flight. We were so lucky, the seats between us were not allocated and I enjoyed a great flight, sitting with my legs up while I watched a movie, and then laid down and slept for the next five hours. A perfect flight and we were so pleased we had not requested an upgrade, we had great service from the American Airlines staff, and excellent food.