The End

Friday, September 21, 2012

As this trip is ending, here are some additional thoughts.  Ok, yes, I loved Switzerland, but honestly who can afford to live there?  During one meal we got charged 1 Euro for 1 pat of butter.  Cokes and water routinely cost 5 Euros for a small bottle.  The car train was the only thing that was reasonably priced.

We finished out Switzerland with one night in Luzern (cool town) and a brief stop in Bern to see the bears.  Unfortunately, the bears weren't out, but it was a good chance to see the city which is lovely. After leaving Bern we headed to France and spent the night in Chamonix.  We had considered doing the cable car up Mt. Blanc, but it would have cost around $100 and we just didn't want to go that badly.  One funny thing about Chamonix was the hotel.  The bathroom was so small that in order to fit in the toilet, about a third of it took up part of the door opening.  Never saw anything like that before!  Although the hotel in Luzern and again in Chamonix promised WiFi in the room, in both places our rooms were in dead zones.  I had to do an application for work, so we ended up taking the laptop to the hotel's business center and I was able to get it done there.

The other big event in Chamonix was Brian breaking out in a horrible rash all over his body.  It stung and itched and generally looked awful.  This morning it had spread so he went down to the pharmacy. They sold him some type of pill, and so, just to double check, he stopped in at a second pharmacy.  They told him that he needed to see a doctor immediately.  Just so happened that there was a doctor right around the corner.  He stopped in and was given an appointment for a little later this morning.  She saw him promptly, diagnosed a contact allergy, cause unknown, and wrote him two prescriptions.  She had very limited English, so it was interesting to watch her try to explain when and how much of each medicine he would take.  She billed us 40 Euros, which we paid directly to her, then she wrote a note in French for us to send to Aetna.  That should be good for a laugh.  At any rate, we got the scripts filled, and went on our merry way back to Italy and to our last hotel right by the airport.

Life is Good

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

OMG, I love the Swiss! They have toilet seats, car trains, and AAA discounts. Not to be putting down the Italians, but what is with their obsession about having no toilet seats in the restrooms?? And who knew about car trains? Never saw any mention of them in the guidebooks, either. Good thing we stopped at a tourist info booth in Zermatt to ask about the shortest way to Grindelwald. By the way, Zermatt is a picture postcard village at the foot of the Matterhorn. We now have a very detailed Swiss road map (only cost about $20). We could see a shortcut, but on the map it looked like there was no road between two of the small towns. So we stopped to ask about that and found out about the car train. In the first town, you drive your car right onto the train and remain seated in the car. The train takes you through a mountain, pitch dark in the tunnel. About 15 minutes later you drive right off the train and continue on your merry way. It costs 22 Swiss francs. To have gone the long way around would have added several hours to the trip as well as costing a fortune in gas. We have been spending well over $100 a tank for fuel on this trip, so the cost of the train seemed like a real bargain. Plus, it was a very cool experience. Yesterday we went up a series of cable cars to the top of the Schilthorn. This is not the highest mountain in the area, but this is the mountain featured in the James Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" At the top is a revolving restaurant and views of the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau. We ate lunch, which was about $50. We couldn't help laughing about that and remembering the $50 lunch we had by accident in Liechtenstein two years ago. Yesterday was by far the better value, and best of all, when we bought out tickets for the cable cars, the ticket lady asked if we had AAA. We never would have thought to ask for a AAA discount, but it saved us about $30. And now you know why we love the Swiss. Not to mention the incredible beauty of this country. The most fantastic thing of all yesterday is that Cindy and Jason called us to relay the awesome news that Jason passed his bar exam. 

Catching Up

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Haven't posted in a while for a couple of reasons. Usually I'm just too tired, but we did spend a couple of days in a delightful medieval walled village and had no internet access. The town, San Gimignano, is wonderful, and we had a great hotel. The first morning after we arrived we set out for Pisa -- which was terrific-- and then headed to Firenze. That's where we got into major trouble. We never could figure out where Garmin was taking us, but we also never got close to where we were headed. We never even got to a spot that I could find on the map. Around and around we went with narrow, crowded streets and maniacal drivers, and then the Garmin died. At that point we decided to bag the Duomo and after a lot of trouble we found our way out of town. Without using the Garmin, we made it to Venice easily, got parked and onto the water bus and had no trouble finding the hotel, getting our gondola ride and seeing St. Mark's Square. No adventures to report. Today, we came across the Simplon Pass into Switzerland, and had no trouble finding our way to Tasch. Tomorrow we go to Zermatt to look at the Matterhorn. 

Lessons Learned

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

If nothing else, this trip has vividly demonstrated to us that we aren't spring chickens anymore and just can't keep up the frantic pace we used to do on trips. We were supposed to go to Capri today, but now Brian isn't feeling too great. When he told me this, it took absolutely no time for me to say, "yeah, lets skip Capri and do it when we hit Naples on the cruise next year." All I could think about was getting a chance to sleep in, read a book, do the laundry and watch a movie, while lounging around in the hotel room. We also think that this will be our last trip to a foreign country where we rent a car and drive ourselves. That's just not as fun as it used to be, either. So, no funny adventures today and no interesting pictures either. Tomorrow is another day! 

Out of the Frying Pan

Monday, September 10, 

I now understand why my brother and sister-in-law took a whole week to see Rome. At the time it just didn't make any sense to me, and so, when it was my turn to plan this trip I only allotted three days in Rome. What I did not figure in was how tired and sick I was by the time we arrived and so we didn't accomplish anything the first day. The second day I still was feeling bad but charged ahead to the Vatican. By the time we were finished there, I was completely out of energy and still not keeping food down. After an all too short rest, we went on a three hour Segway tour of Rome at night. I thought I would die, but we saw so much that we would have missed otherwise, and Segways are a lot of fun to ride. We finally got something to eat about 10:30 p.m. which was about the first food that I was able to eat in two days. The next day we did the Colosseum and the catacombs and wasted a couple of hours waiting for the bus. We had a very tasty and relaxing dinner at Campo di Fiori, and then took in the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We did everything that we wanted to do, but it was just too hard to do all of that in two days. This morning we took a bus out to Fiumicino to pick up the rental car. What a nightmare! The whole shebang took about three hours, and then to add insult to injury we have no way to charge anything in the car. That shouldn't be a problem since we have been able to charge the laptop, my phone, and my nook in our rooms. We always keep the car charger plugged in when using the Garmin, and there we were with no idea if the Garmin would last long enough to get us to Sorrento. We kept it off as long as possible but took a wrong turn as we were leaving Naples. That is when we turned it on, in the middle of some city. It was in the midst of telling us how to get out of the town when it totally died. It took us forever to find our way just using the Atlas, but when we got to Sorrento we couldn't find the hotel. Finally, we stopped at another hotel and they showed us on a town map how to get to where we wanted to go. Driving in Italy is not a lot of fun. Between the stick shift, the wild drivers all around us, the suicidal scooters riders, and the giant buses, it was all Brian could do to get us here. That's why we decided to go with the tour options for Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Both will pick us up here and drop us off at the end of the day. That is also why we are going to eat tonight at a restaurant that will pick us up and deliver us back. We honestly thought that getting out of Rome would end the crowds and narrow streets, and the traffic, but we went from the frying pan to the fire today. 

Italy for Beginners

Friday, September 7, 2012

This time we are off to Italy and Switzerland 

Got to Rome this morning, but I was not feeling all too well. Actually, I lost my breakfast on the train tracks at the airport. Maybe you don't need to know that, however. We took the train into the center city, and then stumbled our way around the Termini looking for the hop on hop off tour office. Once we took care of that, we set out for the hotel, which was very easy to find, but by the time we got here, dragging our luggage, I was so tired that I lay down to "rest my eyes". Two hours later, I came to, and was ready to venture out looking for the catacombs. We were told that there are some near the Circus Maximus, so we blundered our way over there. Of course, we couldn't find them, so back we came to the train station where we had started out. At least we got our feet wet on the Metro and have a general idea what we are supposed to do tomorrow. 

The Talk To Me Tattoo

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The “Talk to Me” Tattoo 

It happened last year in Germany when I must have had the "talk to me in German" tattoo on my forehead. Well, what a surprise! It now reads, "talk to me in Portuguese". Yep, the same thing happened--a woman beside me on a bench starts conversing with me in Portuguese. I used one of the few Portuguese expressions that I know to tell her that I don't speak Portuguese and that I couldn't understand her. So what does she do? The same thing as her German counterpart. She just spoke slower and louder!

And ok, I confess, I did get up and learn the Samba last night, but only because my son made me. We all tremendously enjoyed the Samba club and have some good pictures of the Caldows cutting loose.

Today we did the bucket list of things to do in Rio, by going up to the base of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovada, then taking the cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf. Rio is just as beautiful in person as it is in the photos.

We finished the day with Brazilian pizza, which is excellent. Well, I can't say that the day was quite finished after dinner, because we ended up playing cards til 1 am. This is significant only in that Brian's usually sound asleep by 9:45! He is really adapting to the Carioca lifestyle of sleeping in, getting a late start on the day, eating lunch in the middle of the afternoon, dinner at 8 or later, then some activity until the wee hours. We have also found that Rio time can be rather fluid.

But one last thing I need to mention. The taxis are very plentiful, but they are all wild and crazy drivers. Even the public buses race down the streets. We feel like we are on Mr. Toad's wild ride every time we go anywhere. What is truly amazing is that there aren't more crashes. And lastly, what's with all the taxi's showing empty on their gas gauge. That just fascinates us.