Zurich - Researching Swimming Watches

Garmin Forerunner 735 XT

In the end I decided I needed to replace the Suunto Ambit 3 swimming watch that I’d lost. Although I liked the Suunto, I could also conceive of there being a better option out there, so I went (yet again) on a research mission. Of course, as you read about different products, you like features from some, and other things from others, and no one watch has everything.

For the record (in case any swimming watch designers are reading this), after looking at almost everything, these are the features I most wanted:

• Track the following: number of lengths swum for varying pool sizes (25m, 50m), total distance, speed [pace], SWOLF (a swimming measurement of efficiency), number of strokes per minute. Most watches do all of this. 
• A buzzer that I could set to tell me when my desired distance was complete, so that I don’t have to stop and check while swimming; a buzzer to tell me if I was swimming too slowly. Both on the same swim would be good, but I don’t think any watch offered that and they’d need to program two different kinds of buzzers. 
• Ability to be used for open water swimming to measure my speed, distance, number of strokes, etc. I got very confused as to whether GPS or a velocimeter would measure this better, since I believe neither is perfectly reliable. 
• For open water swimming, I’d be really interested to know the temperature of the water. 
• A record of my personal bests (distance, speed, strokes per min, pace) over various distances and how this compares to various other populations (everyone, women of my age group, all women, men etc, and where I am in that overall range). I’d also like to see how my performance in this respect changes over time (if it does!). 
• Ability to track my progress – am I getting faster, swimming more efficiently, am I swimming further, how regularly am I managing to go swimming? 
• Preferably, the watch should be able to discern my stroke (crawl, breast stroke, etc). 
• Ability to sort my swims by lap length, open water swimming and also to tag my swims so that I can analyse those swims separately (eg, look at swims in 25m pools only; look at swims in sea water only, swims in a wetsuit, swims in lakes, swims where I do a proper turn, etc); preferably also compare some common ones (eg speed for certain lap lengths) to the general population. 
• Ability to show me metrics for each lap so that I can see if I have a dead phase during my swim (and whether the watch has misrecorded a few). 
•  Most importantly, the ability to view the data via my laptop; not be dependent on having a smart phone 

It wasn’t easy to find out some of this information in the specifications. Also, I looked at many reviews (eg, reviews of best swimming trackers in 2017) and some of these weren’t reliable. One overview claimed that a particular watch could be used for open water swimming, but when I looked up the user manual, it explicitly said that it wasn’t suitable. That was an important feature for me, so I had to be sure, since not having it was a deal breaker.

Many watches were multi-sport, so if I looked on amazon for reviews, I sometimes wasn’t sure whether the good reviews were from, eg, runners rather than swimmers. If I was lucky, “swimming” would be a filter I could use, but this wasn’t always the case. I was put off by the TomTom, which had great reviews, but the reviewers referred to it as a runner’s watch and both Janice (who I know from El Andalous) and one of the online reviewers recommended swimmers to buy a swimming-specific watch. Some people indicated that it may not be entirely accurate for swimming.

I almost bought the Swimovate Poolmate because of its buzzer option to alert you when you’d reached your goal, but when I read reviews, people seemed to think the buzz was so faint that you tended to miss it. The buzzer option only seemed to be on the Poolmate and Swimmo watches.

Swimmo was a crowd-funded watch that I may buy at some later point but for now I think it’s too early in the development phase. An open water update to the software is coming in August 2018, but reviews of the initially launched watch for pool swimming indicated that the first couple of versions hadn't even been properly waterproof. Others were complaining about lack of accuracy of counting the lengths, but there had been several upgrades since, so I suspect that might be fixed. Because it can be purchased only directly from the manufacturer, it was  difficult to find reviews that you knew hadn’t been hand-selected. In the end, the deal breaker was the inability to analyse the data via my laptop and they weren’t even planning that for the near future. It all had to be done on a smartphone or on the watch itself. Too small and fiddly for me!

I ended up with the Garmin Forerunner 735 XT. I was initially put off by the price (what if I lose it again!) and by the fact it was a multi-sport (and primarily running) watch. I’d have preferred a swimming-specific one. It has a heart-rate monitor but it doesn't work under water; however, I wasn't fussed about recording my heart rate, so that didn't matter.

What sold it to me were the good reviews on amazon – much better than reviews for any of the swimming-specific watches. Even swimmers seemed pleased enough. Another superficial part of my decision was that the design of the watch appealed to me much more than many of the others (including Suunto). I fell in love with the aqua colour! I guess this means that unwittingly the watch’s appearance was also a factor that I considered. And, not least, it had most of the features I wanted apart from buzzing me to tell me when my session was complete. I’ll report back on how it performs!

Zurich - Renewing my UK Passport

So Much Effort for This Uninspiring Photograph!

There were a few things I needed to get sorted on my return. My tax return was one and another was to renew my UK passport. One problem with going to Egypt so often is that the visas have taken up all of the space in my passport and I have no spare pages left. It’s a bit annoying as it’s not due to expire until 2021. On the plus side, maybe by renewing early, I’ll manage to retain a European passport for another ten years rather than having a UK-only passport.

You can now renew your UK passport online, which is so much better than having to go all the way to Bern to the British Embassy (and I think from there, the passport was sent to France, which I always thought was a bit bizarre). In this digital age, they’ll now take a JPEG as your photograph. This is a good thing, but it also puts greater pressure on you to get a good photograph. It’s impractical to stay in one of those booths until you get a good photo, so I’d always resigned myself to having to settle for whatever came out after the first attempt. However, if you can do the photograph yourself it doesn’t cost any money to take photographs over and over again until you get one that you like. And there’s the rub.

I was beginning to despair. I’d done quite a few selfies in Egypt, but they all made me look so old. Am I really that old? Oh, don’t answer that. I got Ann to take a few photographs of me after I’d dressed up for Kathryn’s party. The first few came out making me look red-faced and drunk until I realized that the camera was still on underwater mode. Once we’d corrected that, the photos just came out making me look old again. That was surely wrong?

One possible solution was that I needed my hair cut and maybe that was the problem. I hadn’t had time to go to the hairdresser during my last months in Egypt. I hadn’t been happy with my previous haircut in Zurich and didn’t want to go back there, so I did a search online for somewhere nearby. To my great surprise, the hairdresser who had just won some kind of world championships of hairdressing had his salon just round the corner from where I live. The salon had five-star reviews on google. Incredible. I didn’t even know it was there.

I strolled over to see if they had a free appointment and my luck was in. They were able to cut my hair straight away. The salon itself was quite funky and two other people were already having their hair done. Winning trophies were lined up along the reception desk. The hairdresser kindly complimented me on the beautiful colour of my hair, which I appreciated since most hairdressers are keen to advise me to get it coloured when they see all the grey. Besides, I hate being upsold (but I know it’s their job).

I left feeling happy about life. Finally, I might get a decent passport photograph. Once home, I looked up how to use the self-timer on my newish camera. It was easy. But, lo and behold, when I saw the shots, I still looked old. Surely not! After analyzing the photos, I decided that the problem lay not with me actually being old, but rather due to having light shining to the side of my face and highlighting unwanted features. Maybe if the light was evenly dispersed, I would look like my youthful self?

This did actually work. Well, OK, I still look a little old, but I guess that can’t be wholly avoided. I would have carried on trying for something better, but I must have done something to my camera, because it started to take only out-of-focus shots. I’m not sure what I did there. Maybe the camera was trying to tell me something (ie, that my brain’s out of focus with reality?). The out-of-focus shots looked pretty good.

Anyway, this is an example of how a “small” admin task can explode into a whole series of other tasks and take forever to do as a result. The rest of the application process was really very smooth and I’m impressed with it so far. But I haven’t sent my old passport off yet and nor have I got the new one, so there’s still room for error. However, for now, I’m happy!

Zurich - Winter Returns

My Suitcase as a Snow Plough

I was a bit petrified of returning to Zurich. Everyone I know seems to have come down with a horrible flu-like virus at least once over the winter. I felt nice and safe in Egypt sitting outside on my balcony with the sun shining and the palm trees waving gently in the breeze, but in Europe it appears that you don’t know what’s lurking invisibly in the air. The idea of getting on a plane, bus or a tram with all those people potentially spreading an illness was pretty scary. I don’t really understand why it’s not on the news. Before, when we’ve had reports of bird flu, the media has made it appear that millions of people are suffering but I haven’t known anyone to have it. Now, everyone is ill, but the media is silent.

Another reason for being scared about returning was the reports of temperatures of -17 degrees. I don’t do cold any more. My last memory of being in the freezing cold was when I came over from Egypt for my interview for my current job, which is about three years ago now (or is it four, I can’t remember). I’d thought I would go shopping afterwards, but my ears froze as soon as I stepped outside and I couldn’t bear the thought of staying out in that, so I sat in my hotel the whole time instead.

Anyway, this time I got off the plane and overheard one guy phoning a friend to say that the public transport was a disaster with all the snow. I fretted about whether I’d be stuck in the airport for long (it’s not the worst place to be!), but it turned out that my bus was running to time. Thank you, Switzerland!

I had a hat and a warmish jacket with me but no gloves; to my surprise, even though it was snowing as I got out of the bus, it didn’t feel so cold and I was perfectly fine without anything on my hands as I pulled my suitcase. My shoes weren’t really designed for the snow (those shoes are in Switzerland and not in Egypt), but they coped surprisingly well and I trod carefully so as not to slip. As I turned down my road, one guy skidded on his moped and fell into the middle of the street amidst all the traffic. The moped driver was OK, though, I’m happy to report. Well, he got back on his moped again and drove off at any rate.

Again, it felt as if life over here was fraught with danger: invisible germs floating around, freezing weather to give you frostbite, perilous ground conditions. My life was at constant risk and yet people say that Egypt is dangerous and Switzerland is safe!

I dragged my suitcase along behind me and it acted as a snow plough – every now and then I had to pick it up and lift it over the heap of snow that it was gathering in front of it. It’s such a different life and I was wondering if it was a wise decision to come back a bit earlier this year.

But as usual, I was happy to be back in my Zurich home. My flat was surprisingly clean and warm. There was a lot of post waiting for me, but only one thing was urgent (an unpaid insurance bill). I always worry that there’s something critical that I’ve missed.

I’ve had the usual problems of adapting back – this time, I couldn’t remember how to operate my TV streaming device (not helped by the fact that the battery suddenly stopped working), I keep on forgetting that you have to separate out the rubbish (my rubbish bag has quite a bit of composting stuff in there now), and, as usual, I couldn’t recall what I did or didn’t have or where exactly I might keep some of the stuff (such as spare batteries).

Staying inside seemed to be the safest strategy for my first day back to ensure I didn’t get the flu straight away, so I settled down and did my Swiss tax return. Well, quite a lot of procrastinating was also involved, but once I’d got started, it was hard to stop, and I ended up going to bed far too late. At the moment, staying inside and seeing snow are both things that have a certain novelty factor, so it wasn’t a great hardship and I was glad to be able to do my tax return without thinking I was missing out on a good opportunity to snorkel.

El Andalous - Scorpions

Clear Waters: My Desired Easy and Uncomplicated Life

This blog would be a lot more exciting if I were a more dynamic person. I sit back and put up with things most of the time, since my preference is for an easy and uncomplicated life. Still, I can live the excitement through others.

Apparently, Kathryn and Stephen took a taxi back to El Andalous one day and got ripped off (she was telling the story in the context of our maintenance fees!). Security in our complex is good and all vehicles are logged with their times of entrance and departure. Kathryn went to security to get the taxi driver’s name and subsequently reported him to the tourist police.

The tourist police asked her to come in to confirm the identification of the driver. She was a bit puzzled when she saw him, because he looked like the driver but much fatter and there was no way he could have put on so much weight in such a short space of time. The tourist police laughed and said that the driver had sent his twin brother in instead.

She was then asked what punishment she wanted to give the driver. This is very Egyptian – their justice seems to be based on personal retribution. Naturally, she was bit baffled. The police suggested prison, but this would mean the driver’s wife and children would have no income, so Kathyrn was reluctant. The police said this was a bad man who needed to be punished. She opted for just getting her money back.

A few days later, the driver returned to the police station with the money, all in small 5 LE notes (that’s about 20p) in a huge bundle. Kathryn asked the policeman to check it since she was a bit overwhelmed by it all. He counted it out and it transpired that the driver had brought only half of the money with him and was trying to pass it off as the full amount. The bad people will still continue to try to scam you at all times, even in front of the police when they're bound to get caught. It’s hard to understand the mentality at times.

We were discussing the meeting about our maintenance fees and those present at the meeting appeared to believe that the management company would happily put concrete in our swimming pools if we refused to pay our maintenance on the basis that it hadn’t been done properly, even though filling the pools with concrete would destroy their own property and reputation and do themselves more harm than good in the process. I said this didn’t make sense.

Kathryn gave the story of the frog and the scorpion. The scorpion asks the frog to carry it over the Nile. The frog refuses, saying that the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion replies “Why would I do that? If I sting you, you die, and then I’d die too.” The frog thinks that this makes sense and agrees to take the scorpion across the river. Half way across, the frog feels a sting. In his dying breath, he says “Why did you do that? Now we’ll both die!”. The scorpion shrugs and says “That’s just my nature. I’m a scorpion.” And that’s what it can be like over here.

I would like to stress that there are many, many lovely Egyptians. I love the people, I love being in Egypt, and they’d give you anything if you are in need. You just need to watch out for the scorpions.