European Vacation

More about our whirlwind trip

Before I start forgetting things I am going to write down my memories from my trip. 

The trip started out on a coffee filled whim one morning.  I was just sitting at my desk about to start working and my wife kept asking me when we are going to take a vacation.  I kept saying things are too busy right now maybe we should wait until next year and she wouldn't take that for an answer.  I opened up my calendar and started to see that next year was getting very busy for weddings already and we might not have more than one week off to travel.  Looking at this summers schedule August, September and October were full but I did have 2 weeks at the end of July to take off.  I told her "let's just take off to Europe for 2 weeks" and she got all excited.

So that began our journey.  Over the next week we had to get expedited passports for her and Andrew (lisa's cousin who lives with us), call Delta Miles to redeem our miles we have accured over the last few years for 3 FREE round trip tickets :)
and a day after getting the tickets were off to Zurich, Switzerland.

Since we were using mile tickets that were secured last minute our trip out there was pretty interesting.  We flew out at 6:00 am from San Jose to Portland Oregon.  Then a few hours later flew back to Ca to LAX.  Then after a few more hours waiting at LAX flew to Ansterdam and a few more hours wait to our final detination of Zurich, Switzerland.

After arriving in Zurich we had one hour to find the main train station and catch our train to Bellinzona (about a 3 hour train ride to southern Switzerland).
Luckily the people at the airport spoke english and showed us where to get a train at the airport to the main Zurich station.  When arriving at Zurich we had about 10 minutes to find the next train and got on that one no problem.  The only thing was we didn't know that we got in the first class car and when the ticket guy came by he had to move us to the 2nd class section.  (we learned so much about train travel on this trip, more to come about that later when I talk about the experience we had a few times in the Milan station trying to get in the right seats).

After about an hour we had to get off in a small little station and transfer to another train that left in a few minutes, that was pretty hectic but we did barely make it onto the final train to Bellinzona.  We arrived there on Sunday at 8:00 local time and were greeted at the Train station by my Cousin Monica and her mother Sodonia.  They took us to Monica's house in Bellinzona where we stayed for the next week.  They also had dinner ready for us outside and it was a wonderful spread of meats (Carne Seca), fresh tomatoes, and good Swiss cheese.  It was a wonderful, fresh meal and so great to be greeted by family that were all so adorable and hospitable.  One thing that this trip did teach me is that people really make the difference in your life, a vacation without all of the wonderful family and friends that we met wouldn't have been the same at all.

That was our trip there and I will write down more a little bit later.