Thursday Day 3 - Zurich to St. Gallen to Innsbruck

Lots of traveling had to be done on Thursday.

Ina and I woke up early on Wednesay morning (we had 7 hours of sleep on Wednesday after we landed, then again we slept for 8 hours that night!) The Crown Hotel (aka Intercontinental) had a wonderful breakfast buffet. We sat at a table next to this couple with the cutest kid! Ina is a great socializer and managed to flirt some Spa tickets out of our waiter, so we went to the fitness center after breakfast! This was great because it gave Paul some time to wake up, AND we got to go check out the hot tub. The pool was being used for an aerobic exercise class and I got yelled at for swimming in the pool while they were occupying the other half. Whatever.

We ran into the couple that had the cute kid from breakfast- the hubby is a dead ringer for Jude Law. We also ran into an American girl who is living in Zurich with her husband. Ina got numbers for both these ladies, and I am looking forward to visiting our new friends.

Europe vacation - Tuesday Day 1

Whew! Getting ready for this trip has been crazy! The last few weeks of work have been busy getting ready to leave (and trying to finish a last minute project in every case I have worked on). I have this funny feeling I will be getting a call in St. Gallen asking how long it will take to get to our Geneva Sidley office (anyone want to place bets on this?)

Since I had been working on my days off and the weekend, I took Friday off to spend time with Paul. We went to Disneyland with some friends, Glenna and Jeff.

Friday night should have been my first night of trying to get acclimated to Europe time. In typical engi-nerd fashion, Paul drew up an Excel chart of our sleep schedule so that we could be on Zurich time when we landed there. However, a hot day in the sun at DL only led to me falling asleep at 6pm; there was no way I was staying up that night.

Saturday I spent trying to accomplish some last minute errands... I had not picked up our scuba tanks from the shop, we had to pick up a webcam so Paul and I can stay in touch over the Internet, needed money to travel, student ID card, rail passes, pack, email, hotel reservations,etc. So we ran around to Hollywoodivers and Fry's, got some food, and headed back to pack. I had two more days to get all my tasks done, so no biggie, right?

Sunday I had dinner with some of my CGU friends at Korean BBQ (yumm-o!!). I have to learn how to cook this stuff myself. And then it was back to frantic packing. I thought I had most of my packing figured out until Paul told me the average temperature in Europe was about 65 F. Er... methinks my shorts and tank tops will not be enough clothing for me to survive. So I rearranged to have warmer clothes with me on my two week vacation.



Monday I ran around to the bank (which doesn't carry Euros or travellers cheques in Euros), to STA travel for that international student card (that was closed until 11 am), to Starbucks for breakfast (since you DO NOT want to see me hungry), then miscellaneous errands. Then there was the packing AGAIN. I had to make sure everything was under 50 pounds, that I remembered all my chargers, that the two bags were packed with the right stuff. My plan was to stay up all night in a last ditch effort to be on schedule with Paul's sleeping (and also Zurich time). He came home from work on Monday and went right to sleep.

I did actually fall asleep around 1 am, and Paul came downstairs in a rush at almost 3 am (we meant to be on the road by then, awake by 2 am). We got all our stuffs together, fed and squeezed the cats, then flew out of the house, just to run to Rancho and wake up our friends Glenna and Jeff, to drive us to the airport (what great friends, eh? They woke up at 3am just to drop us off at the airport. Thanks you guys!!!)

I feel asleep from sheer exhaustion on the flight from California to Texas. It is too bad, because, then I couldn't sleep the whole flight to Zurich. I kept waking up because I was so uncomfortable, and then of course, I broke the light so I could not read. Awake and BORED.



We finally arrived in Zurich after a flight from Ontario to Dallas, then a 3 hour layover, then our 9 hour trip from Dallas to Zurich.

Wine-o-clock

It has been wine-o-clock all weekend long! Paul and I are in Solvang, CA enjoying a weekend together before I run off to Switzerland for a semester. We arrived on Saturday after sleeping in (I have been feeling terribly sick) and packing hastily (Laura forgot her phone charger, we forgot the camera cord, and Paul did not pack a bathing suit). Saturday was dedicated to getting dinner and wandering around the touristy town. All the buildings are built in traditional German style, and there is a noticeable absence of suburban type shops (minus the requisite Subway restaurant). All the inns are in the same style as the town, and as I noticed, are ALWAYS full on Fridays and Saturday nights. If you want to take a trip to Solvang, you cannot plan it last minute!





Sunday morning we woke up ready to hit the wine tastings, which, by the way, are everywhere! I was envisioning just a few large wineries in the area, with sophisticated wine tasting setups, all of which you had to drive down an estate entrance to get to. No, no... everyone has a winery here. It is like truck gardens in Pennsylvania. You cannot pass a street without a winery. So, walking through even the small town, you can go to wine tastings at little local wine tasting shops, or even at the mini mart! We started off with LUCAS & LEWELLEN which has a satellite wine tasting in town. Although I liked some of their wines, particularly their port wine, I was not in love with them. For a moment, I thought going to Volcano winery as my first ever wine tasting might have spoiled me (they had incredibly unique wines there... try the Guava or Honey wines!). However, as the day progressed, I did find some special wines.

We then headed out of town to a lil' winery called Mosby wines. The guy working the wine tasting bar was a good salesperson, but the wine was also really good, so we bought some to take with us:






Of course this is only the second winery we had ventured to, but I needed to eat. Thank goodness Paul was smart enough to stop by Subway and pick up some sandwiches (which I had already broken into.) We headed down to Sunharvest winery, which Paul had read had a picnic area (check!) The winery was the prettiest one we visited and had a nice picnic area. Their Rose wine was fabulous, as was the $75 dollar Cab, but we passed on the later of the two.









I got some chocolate in lieu of the Cab (this chocolate went VERY well with the wine, yumm-o).



As we were tasting each wine at all these vineyards, Paul and I were taking notes. Not serious wine afficianto notes, like flavors and smells, but rather a ranking system... 1 to 10 and "I like that one a lot, let's get some = BUY" on our notes. Ironically, even after seeing us wolf down subway sandwiches, so uncouth and unsophisticated by wine tasting standards, we were asked by a young lady whether we knew what we were doing since she saw us taking notes. LOL!

After this vineyard, I was almost toast, so I said let's make one more winery stop, then it is snack time (aka first dinner). We decided to venture into Los Olivas and went to a conglomerate wine tasting. I have no idea what the technical term for this is, but this group buys wines from local vineyards and labels them, or mixes and makes them, however, they have no real crops of their own.




The town was all but two square blocks with a traffic circle in the center, but they had an outdoor cafe that served cheese plates, salads, and beef skewers- perfect to top off a day of wine tasting.



Paul's idea of a vacation:



And a cool picture of us:

Babies

My sister works at a zoo in Arizona. She and her husband are out there opening the first aquarium in Arizona. While Jeff does plumbing and building plans, she is working as a zoo keeper and has a bunch of babies that are so adorable:

The baby giraffe:

The news channel in Surprise Arizona, did a short piece on The New Giraffe









The baby tiggers:





I went to visit Christa January of 2007, and I got to fed the monkeys (fed the monkeys!).





Amy, the zoo keeper, was showing me how to hand the monkeys the banana pieces. Christa turned to Amy and asked, "So are you going to give her the speech?" I turned and asked, "What speech?" It was right then that a long skinny hairy arm reached out and nearly grabbed me as I jumped backwards... Amy said," That's the speech. You are standing too close."

The hills are alive with the sound of... packing

Whew! This summer has gone by in a flash... I had so many plans, and thought I was going to have infinite amounts of time! But, uh, I barely caught my breath from all the events of the summer and behold- I have two weeks before I leave for Switzerland!

I am excited to be studying abroad (this is my second semester overseas), but I am barely ready to brave a cold winter there, let alone travel for two weeks before! I have so many things to do!

Well, if someone actually reads this blog (outside of my 3 dedicated readers), let me know if you want my address to write me while I am gone! I will of course be checking my email and hopefully, keeping everyone up to date on my adventures through this blog.

Eureka! Not just a Sci-fi show anymore...

Paul and I went to his hometown this past weekend for Paul's 20 year high school reunion. Whoot! After little sleep on Thursday, we got up early for a flight through LAX (did I not already decide to avoid LAX at ALL costs?? What are we doing there AGAIN?). This trip to LAX was no better than any other trip we have had through there or have heard about (Yes, Celia, I remember... 3 hours is NOT enough time to make it through the airport to catch your flight.) We walked in to the airport, passing a HUGE line of people that had probably been waiting for more than an hour, and walked up to the Alaska electronic ticket kiosk. We got our boarding passes and proceed to stand behind a relatively short line of people checking in their luggage. The line outside, we had thought, was for the security check or another airlines... wrong! They were all waiting to check bags for Alaska Airlines flights. We somehow avoided the guardian at the gate and totally snaked the line! I felt bad, but I could see Paul's point that there was no way in hell we were getting in that other line since we already made it into the line we wanted to be in. We dropped off our bags then headed to the next line in the line of lines to get on a plane- security. Man alive do people get cranky! This line also wrapped around multiple places and was about an hour long. People were getting histarical about missing their flights (if you don't want that to happen... get there 5 hours early and consider using a different airport!) Then there was the dumbass who sent through his ID and boarding pass on the scanner and the TSA guard who would not let him through (go girl!) He apparently was being a total jackass and get a load of this, in addition, he was carrying a taboo item- some small clipper set that had a knife looking utensil. NICE.

Okay, we through all that, then we get on a small twin engine plane that holds 70 people and is headed towards Eureka/ Arcata. The flight attendant keeps calling our destination Arcadia, which is next to Pasadena here in the LA area, haha!

Have you ever been in an airplane that is taxiing to the runway, then turns to face the lift off direction and immediately guns it? The kind of plane you think has to be piloted by a cowboy? This was NOT that plane. I like the fast takeoffs; you can feel the power of the jet and there is no doubt to the goal- get up and get going! No, this plane was the Fred Flintstone version. I think there were actually people in the baggage compartment peddling to get this plane in the air. After that anticlimatic takeoff, We climbed for a few seconds and were immediately at our cruising altitude (12000 feet or so.)

I am usually lulled to sleep on airplanes, and shortly after we leveled off, I was catching some shut-eye. The plane approached Arcata airport a couple of hours later, and I watched as we came over the mountains and decended into a thick cloud layer. The sky was beautiful at the top of the moutain, but the valley was socked in. We even lowered our landing gear BEFORE we went into the clouds. There must have been 300 feet of clouds that we went through, because we did not see anything until we were just feet off the ground. I was amazed they landed in that thick cloud coverage.

Friday night was Paul's reunion ice breaker. I think the ice breaker was a great idea because it made the reunion a little easier to enjoy since we had already met a few people. Everyone dressed up for the reunion, which was not the case the night before (can I just say, what are some people thinking, really!) The reunion was nice (er, much nicer than say my overpriced 10 year reunion at the local Taco mart in H-town) and dinner was even good! I was the first to grab food- everyone was walking by the table and I was pretty sure they were finished setting up, so I just picked up a plate and had at it. Plus, no one would have been really happy if I had not eaten soon. Apparently Paul was nicely complimented on his young wife (as I have heard it said- his arm candy).



We also spent some time sight seeing in Ferndale and taking a little walk in the redwood forrest.



Monday morning Paul asked to go to Samoa Cookhouse where breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served family style with one menu only. It is a neat experience since the cookhouse has not altered the way they do business since the days when they catered to the loggers in the NW.