Back At Home

It's been quite a few days since I came back (Tuesday), but it was much needed rest. The trip home was, interesting. When we landed in Philly after a so-so 8 hour flight, we were greeted by customs, immigration, and a 2-hour security line... After that hell, we found that our flight was in the eastmost terminal. We were in the westmost terminal. In that terminal, we found our flight to be delayed. Finally, at 9PM, we were in Providence, and drove home.

It's now Sunday Morning, and I'm preparing for my own summer plans. I'd like to thank a few people and things for making this blog possible:

My Dad, who brought me through Europe

Google, who provided the blog site, the maps for us, a way of showing you pictures, an a place to look for things to do.

Carlsberg Beer, which we used to cool our computer, as it was old and overheated easily in the hot European Sun.

And you, who kept me motivated to write this blog and keep it updated daily with pictures.

My Journey is over, and I thank you all for following the blog, and hope you've learned something from my experiences. For know, I'm signing off, but if I travel again, I'll be back.

Barcelona Day 3

Today was our third and final day in Barcelona, as tomorrow, we'll be going straight to the airport and flying home. As usual, we had our filling breakfast, but then, we took a metro to Sagrada Familia. As I already told you, it is cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi in the 1800s, and its construction is still taking place today. After waiting in a half hour line, and then another 15 minute line to get our audioguides, we experienced the Sagrada Familia as it is today. I have to say, Gaudi was amazing. He focused on every little detail and nothing about its construction is an accident or coincidence. For example, the nativity facade faces the east where the sun rises and the passion facade faces the west where the sun sets. Every little design symbolizes something, and you would need a 1,000 page book to explain every piece of symbolism. When the church is finished in about 30 years, we will see Gaudi's imagination come alive after 150 years of work.

After the Sagrada Familia, we took a metro downtown to the market, where we explored the traditional way of buying goods, and had a few snacks on our way. After the market, explored the historical part of Barcelona with its huge cathedral and the Royal Square. The Royal Square, compared to what we've seen in the past 14 days and what I've seen in my life, was somewhat dissapointing, although it was very interesting, it was nothing compared to what we've seen. From the square, we returned to the hotel to rest, just like the Spanish and Mexicans do for "Siesta", and then went to the beach, to conclude our 2-week journey through Europe. Tomorrow, we'll be going to the airport and returning home. When I'm home, I'll write a final entry, providing closure for the blog.

Pictures from today and yesterday are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/BarcelonaDay2

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/BarcelonaDay3

Barcelona Day 2

Today was an interesting day, and there's a lot to talk about. After breakfast, we took a metro towards cable car station we tried yesterday. At the station, we bought a round trip. After about 30 minutes of waiting at the top of the tower which actually had great views of Barcelona, we got on a 5 minute cable car ride to the other station, providing not only transport from the port to the Mountain, but scenic views of the region. After spending some time at the top of the mountain, we took the trip back, and then went towards the metro. We needed a method to get from our hotel to the airport on Tuesday so we could catch our flight home. We took about two hours and travelled crazily around Barcelona's confusing metro network and we found and tested a method that will take us from the metro station near our hotel to the airport in about 1.5 hours, for only 2.70€. (We could take a taxi for 25€) During our travels in the metro, we had two pickpockets trying to steal from us, and now we know how Barcelonian pickpockets work. After that experience, we were able to identify 2 more pickpockets targetting other people. They were so obvious.

After our preparing for Tuesday, we went to a Picasso Museum, since it was free after 3PM on a Sunday. Although it was crowded, I saw how Picasso's art started extremely good, and eventually turned into art that a third grader could draw. After the art museum, we walked to Spains version of the Arc De Triomphe. It was called Arc De Triomf, had the same shape, and had a similar location. How original. From there, we walked through an unimpressive city park (compared to what we've seen) to get to a metro station to get back to our hotel. From our hotel, we tried Barcelona's beach for the first time. I was amazed. The water was very nice, the beaches were sandy, the waves were perfect, and we spent about an hour as it was getting late. After this good experience, we plan to spend most of tomorrow at the beach, as it will be around 90 degrees all day. After the beach, we took metro to one of the main streets to experience it at night, and then ate dinner at a restaurant that was ideal for our situation. The funny thing is, the restaurant was called "IDEAL RESTAURANT". We didn't notice until we saw the menu.

After dinner, we took metro back to the hotel and now I'm sitting here updating the blog. Tomorrow, we'll be seeinf the Sagrada Familia, then going to the beach for most of the day, and on Tuesday, we'll be taking our flight home. I won't have enough time now to post any pictures, so I'll try to do them tomorrow. I'll end the entry here.

First Day in Barcelona

Today was an interesting day. First, we had breakfast in our new hotel, after that, we caught a bus to Barcelona's main square, Placa Catalunya. From there, we bought a day pass for the Barcelona City Tour Bus. The bus took two routes aroun Barcelona and had headphones to describe each place you saw, and stopped at many of Barcelona's main attractions. The first bus went around the east part of town. Attractions we saw included the Olympic Port, La Sagrada Familia (An unfinished cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi (in the 1800s), that is scheduled to be completed in 2026, which probably means it'll be done 2050), and Park Guell. Park Guell is one of Gaudi's other creations, and it is where we stopped for about an hour. There were many great pieces of architectures, ingenious uses of the environment, structures that look like they'll fall apart but are very stable, and just a ton of eye candy. There was one area in the park with a stone tower and a cross on top. When you climb the tower, you have a panoramic view of the entire Barcelona area (This finished our panoramic views of all the cities we visited. We had a panoramic view of Zurich, Montreux, Nice, Cannes, Monaco, and now Barcelona).

After the first bus, we took the second bus around the western part of town. We didn't stop, but we saw monuments including The Olypmic Stadium, The Cristopher Columbus monument, the gardens of Miramar, and the Diagonal Avenue (Barcelona's main avenue which runs diagonally through the city from the top of a mountain to the sea. After that bus, we walked towards one of Barcelona's cable car stations to see if we could ride them. After the half-hour walk, we were told that they closed 15 minutes ago... We'll go back tomorrow. We returned to the hotel by bus, rested for a bit, and then had dinner at a nearby restaurant. We covered a lot of ground today and I'm tired, so hopefully tomorrow will be more relaxed.

The pictures from Nice Day 4, our train ride, and our first day in Barcelona are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/NiceDay4

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/TrainRide

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/BarcelonaDay1

A Long, Long Ride

For me, it seems like ages since I last posted, but it was really last night. That's because I was on trains for 10 hours. After we woke up and had breakfast, we went straight to the train station to catch a train to Montpelier. This train was a decent French train, took 4 hours, and was quite scenic. The ride was not bad. In Montpelier, the poorly designed station took us in a circle to get to our next platform, where grass was coming out of the tracks and a rusty train was sitting. The rusty piece of metal was what was going to take me to Barcelona for the next 6 hours. When I stepped inside, the smell was the first thing I noticed, it was bad... Thank god it was air-conditioned. The ride would only be 4.5 hours, but they doubled up with passport control, taking 30 minutes in both France and Spain, and then, in the Barcelona area, we had to keep stopping to let traffic by as we were a low priority train.

After the train finally stopped in the right station, we got off, and were greeted to the nice Barcelona station. After taking metro to our hotel, we got our room and were happy to find a nice open space and free internet. Before starting to write, we went out to eat a snack and check out the beach at night. It was a long and boring day, but we made it.

Note: I will start working on adding pictures from our last day in Nice and the train. They may either be available later tonight or with tomorrow's post.

A nice day in Nice

Today, we just kicked back, and relaxed in preparation for our long train ride tomorrow. First, we had breakfast, but then we decided to walk through Nice's old town. It was pretty interesting, but the best part was the hill. There was a hill, used as a fort in the old days, and from there, there was a panoramic view of all of Nice. We could even see the airport and the plane's approaching it. After the hill, we decided to go to the beach. The water was quite cold and hard to get used to, so we only stayed for a little while. After the beach, we went back to the old town for an early dinner. Because it was early, around 7PM, we were charged extra, as French usually eat very late in the summer.

On our way back to the hotel, we heard some music from the ampitheater. They turned out to be rehersals for a concert to happen that night. We decided to see who was playing so we had something to do that night. It featured the band featuring Sting's son Joe Sumner, a tribute to Marillion, a band important to my dad's childhood, and some French rock band. We decided to pay the 25€ per person to see the concert. It was pretty good, and it was usefully located across from our hotel. Now I'm here, writing this blog entry.

My internet expires in 15 minutes so I won't be able to upload pictures, but I'll try to upload them in Barcelona. It's going to be a while before my next entry, so hang in there. Tomorrow, I'll be taking 2 trains, a total of 8 hours, to Barcelona, Spain, where I'll spend the remainder of my journey.

Pictures

Here are the pictures from the previous entry:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/NiceDay1

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/Monaco

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/Cannes

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/NiceDay3

Be sure to read the previous entry, "Monaco by Elevator + Cannes is Overrated", if you haven't already at http://aceurope.blogspot.com

Monaco by Elevator + Cannes is Overrated

The past 2 days have been busy, and with interesting experiences. First of all, it has come to my attention that people do not know how to access the actual website of my blog at http://aceurope.blogspot.com

There , you can access previous posts and comment on posts. I will post a link to the blog at the top of each entry, but if you recieve the blog by email, the bottom of the e-mail says:

A Traveler's Blog

Second of all, just to clear up any possible confusion, Nice is a city in France pronounced "Nees". The difference between nice and Nice is the capital 'N'.

And it will take you to the same page. Now to the good stuff.

After writing the previous entry, we left Montreux and took a relatively short train to Geneva. From the Geneva Airport, we took a delayed plane to Nice, France on the Cote d'Azur. The plane ride was only 30 minutes, but easyJet, the airline, complicated the system so much, that it took over an hour to get everyone on the plane, by busing us to a new building, checking our passports 3 times, and waiting at 2 gates. After taking a bus from Nice Airport to our hotel, we settled and took a short stroll around the city. It turns out the French eat out at midnight in the middle of the week. Anyways, we took a dip in the Meditteranean Sea, and it was very nice as the water was warm and very easy to get used to. Since it was a rock beach, we didn't to worry about getting sand all over ourselves, and we got a free foot massage as we walked.

The next morning we first had breakfast at the hotel, then went to Gare Routiere, a multi-platform bus station. First of all, the place was dirty, with trash everywhere, lights flickering and neon signs buzzing. Second of all, the signs of the bus schedules looked like they were put up in the 60s, and there were no people to give information or sell tickets. We were lucky to find the bus that went to Monaco, and for only 1€($1.5). The bus ride wasn't that bad, and it was scenic too. We arrived in Monaco after about 30 minutes on the bus.

The fisrt thing we did in Monaco was just stroll around. We saw the casino, the port filled with boats of billionares, and the hotels that drain your life earnings in a night. Next, we took a walk to the Aquarium. The aquarium is situated on the Rock of Monaco. The city of Monaco is just the Rock, which contains the Old Town, The Palace, and the Museum. The rest of the city is Monte-Carlo, which is technically another city. Anyways, the aquarium was very interesting, it had all the fish you could imagine, and the roof had a panoramic view of the city. After that, we started on our way to Jardin Exotique, or Exotic Garden. On our way, we stopped by Monaco's Cathedral, Monaco's Palace (Monaco is a modern monarchy), and learned Monaco's elevator network. Basically, Monaco was built on the side of a mountain, and people don't like climbing up and down stairs. So, they built a network of elevators all around the city to get up and down without climbing. After about an hour and 4 elevator rides, we reached Jardin Exotique. First of all, there was a cactus garden, it was interesting, but the main attraction was panoramic view of Monaco. From there, we finally understood that Monaco and Monte-Carlo were seperate cities. After the garden, we stopped by Monaco's train station to buy tickets for our trip back, as we weren't going to be able to take a bus back very late. The station is built in the mountain, and there are about 4 access points in the city that lead to walkways to the station, the main one being in Monte-Carlo. After buying tickets, we found a very nice, relatively cheap, pizzeria. The pizza was some of the best I've ever had and the people there, although not very good in English, they were extremely nice.

For dessert, I got some ice cream, and I was lucky. I wanted mint ice-cream, but they put it away before I got there. I decided to practice some of my French at the store. Because I asked in French, they went to the fridge, managed to open the locked commercial refridgerator, and got me the ice cream. If I were to ask in English, they would've probably said "It's no more". After dessert, we went back to Monte-Carlo (via 3 elevators), and sat on the park roof of a luxury hotel, waiting for a firework contest. At 10PM, the fireworks started, and they were probably the most amazing fireworks I've seen. There was one part where they accidentally launched some fireworks into the water, and they exploded underwater creating huge, bright, colorful, splashes. After 20 minutes of fireworks, we went back to the train station, caught a train to Nice, and settled once again. It was a great day.

The next day, today, we woke up, had breakfast, and prepared to go to Cannes, supposedly a beautiful resort city with amazing beaches, clean streets and an endless list of things to do. We once again went to the crummy bus station, and took bus 200 to Cannes. One tip for travelling on the Cote d'Azur. NEVER take bus 200. Although it was 1€, it took 2 hot hours in a crowded bus with countless stops and jams to get to Cannes. They dropped us off at the train station. We immediately bought train tickets back for only 5€ more, so we wouldn't have to take bus 200 again.

The first thing we did in Cannes was walk the boulevard by the beach. It was really nothing special, and the street was pretty dirty. After that, we took a walk to the old town where there was a primitve art museum and a tower with a panoramic view of the city. The view was actually very nice and made Cannes look nicer, but it wasn't much. After the tower, we walked down to the beach, passing the walk of fame where famous actors had handprints. The only problem was they were all French and we could only recognize 1 or 2 names. Then, there was the beach. You always imagine Cannes as the beautiful city with the nice warm beaches. The beach was COLD, you couldn't get used to the water, and after 10 feet into the water, it becomes rocky and uncomfortable to swim in. After the beach, we walked down to the train station and took a train back to Nice. The train was much better than bus 200, ohh much better. The train took 30 minutes, bus 200 120 minutes. The train was air-conditioned, bus 200 wasn't. Lastly, the train was spacious and erm... bus 200 wasn't... Overall, Cannes wasn't BAD, but it only took 3 hours to see everything that needed to be seen, and it was way too overrated. I'm sure the city is a lot nicer during the film festival, and if we visited Montreux when it wasn't the jazz festival, we'd have the same opinion as Cannes.

After Cannes, we went to a beach in Nice. The waves were very rough, but the water was nice. We probably spent an hour, and then went to the hotel to prepare for dinner. For dinner, we ate at an authentic Nice restaurant. It was very good and after that, we took a stroll through the center of the town to see the action at night, and then returned to the hotel. I'm now sitting here, writing this massive blog entry and posting pictures. Tomorrow, I'll be spending the day in Nice, the day after tomorrow I'll be riding a train all day to Barcelona, and the rest of the days, I'll be in Barcelona before taking a plane home.

I do not have time to upload pictures today, but I will try to have them ready tomorrow, so I will link to them in another entry.

Pictures

The Pictures (and video) relating to the previous entry are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/ZurichDay4

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/MontreuxJuly462009

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/July4ConcertInMontreux

Be sure to read the previous entry if you haven't already.

Montreux

It's been a long 2 days in Montreux. I'm writing this in the
lobby of our hotel in Montreux. In an hour, I'll be taking a train to
Geneva and from there, a plane to Nice, where we'll spend 4 nights. I
shall now summarize the events of the past 3 days.

First thing in the morning two days ago, before leaving Zurich
for Montreux, we visited a Museum of Design. It was quite interesting,
but the feature was the robot exhibition. After the museum, we took a
train to Lausanne, and from there to Montreux.

When we arrived in Montreux, we had a late lunch, and then went
to one of the free venues of the festival to watch some bands and
other artists. At around 7PM, we started to wait in line for the big
concert with Steely Dan, Dave Matthews Band, and Chickenfoot. At
around 8:05, Steely Dan took the stage and performed for about an hour
and a half. I have to say, I didn't really enjoy their performance as
it was repetitive, and they didn't play their hit songs. Next was the
Dave Matthews Band. Before, I've never really listened to a Dave
Matthews Song, but now I'm a fan. At last, at around half past
midnight, Chickenfoot took the stage. Although the sound quality could
be improved, I had a ton of fun. As the concerts passed, I got closer
and closer to the front. By the time the Chickenfoot concert started,
I was literally in front, my hands on the stage, high-fiving a drunk
Sammy Hagar as he sung. 2 short hours passed, and we left the
Convention Center to go to the hotel. We were basically deaf after the
concert, and it wasn't fun falling asleep with loudly ringing ears but
nontheless, I slept till 1PM the next day.

The next day, we experienced the side aspect of the festival.
There were a few Jazz Bands and songwriters, but they could not
compare to the previous night. Halfway through the performances, we
decided to visit Château Chillon, or Chillon Castle. It was quite
interesting. It was built on a rock in Lake Geneva, and was the
capital of the nearby region. An iPod audio guide guided me through
the castle and it's nice areas with viewpoints of the whole region.

After the castle, we returned to the festival to eat dinner.
After, we wanted to watch another artist, but a thunderstorm brought
us inside the Convention Center. We got tickets to this slot machine
game. I instantly won a pen and a hat. On the ground by the machines,
there were hundreds of used tickets, but they can be reused every two
hours. For probably 2 periods of 2 hours, I checked every ticket,
organized them by time remaining, played tens of times and cashed in
countless prizes. By the time the rain had passed, I won pens, candy
boxes, VIP badge lanyards, a hat, around 10 useless Swiss iTunes
cards, countless 20% off cards for CDs, and 30 Francs in gift cards
which I used to get a Deep Purple in Montreux DVD for free. After
that, we went to see a last performer, and took a bus back to the hotel.

The next morning, or this morning, we packed, and then took a short
stroll through Montreux and noticed the unusual. How can a palm tree
grow in Switzerland. Anyways, after our stroll, we returned to the
hotel, and am now writing this before we depart for Nice.

I cannot upload the hundreds of pictures I have yet, but I will
try ASAP and will update this post or make a new one.

I will write again either tonight or tomorrow night.

Sent from my iPod

The Third Day in Zurich

This blog is sponsored by Carlsberg Beer, you probably wonder why... A can of it is laying on our laptop to cool it to usable temperature (Not An Ad) :)

Today was probably the most exciting day in Zurich so far.

First, after breakfast we went back to Uetliberg, and hiked from Kulm, the village with a TV tower and restaurant, to Felsenegg, with a cable car servie back to Zurich. One interesring part of the trail was the Planet Trail. The trail started at a model sun. A few meters after that, there was Mercury, then Venus, Earth, etc. What it actually is, is a scale model of our solar system. At the beginning of the trail, a semi-large sphere represents the sun. Along the trail to Felsenegg, aka the Planet Trail, small models represent the planets and their distance to scale. Pluto, a grain of sand, is at the end, in Felsenegg, after 5 km of hiking. If the trail was 1 billion times larger, it would be a copy of our solar system. In Felsenegg, a regular Cable Car service took us down to a train station that brought us back into the city. Looking at the map in the photo album will help.

After the hike, we visited Kulturama, a human history museum which displayed human evolution, a display on mummies, and a room full of human and animal biology exhibits. Although it was all in German, we were lucky to have a guide who wanted to practice her English, and gave us a free, private tour of the museum. What a treat it is to have a Zurich Card. On our way to lunch, we visited the church, the Grossmunster. For only 3 Swiss Francs, we climbed to the top, and took amazing pictures of Zurich for probably twenty minutes. After that, we found a little, relatively cheap place to lunch. We decided to go to the hotel after that, but we took another walk down Banhofstrasse and had some Italian Ice Cream. There, we observed the most ridiculous thing on the street. There was a blackberry, except the brand was Ferrari. It was priced at 10,500 Francs, or $10,000. From that point on, we just avoided walking Banhofstrasse again... :)

After resting at the hotel, we went to a Latino Music "Festival", but it was rather dissapointing as there was barely any live music, it was more like a street party, and a rainstorm broke up the crowds. Since we had some time, we went down to Lake Zurich for the last time, and took in the moment. Tomorrow, we will pack, visit a Museum of Design for about an hour, and then go on a train to Montreux and epxerience the Jazz Festival. I may not be able to blog for the next few days, so bye for now, and I hope you've enjoyed reading the blog thus far. After Montreux, we'll be going to the French Riviera, and Barcelona after that. I will surely miss Zurich as it was one of the best places in the world I've visited.

Notes:

Today's Picture Album is at http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/ZurichDay3

Be sure to check out the map as it gives you a sense of where the pictures were taken.

Day 2 In Zurich

10:20PM GMT+1 7/2/2009 Zurich, Switzerland

Today was another day in Switzerland, but it was longer and more interesting. I'll tell you about it in the best summary I can.

We woke up this morning, very tired and had breakfast at our restaurant, and I have to say, the food was not bad. After breakfast, we went to the train station and took a 20 minute metro ride to Uetliberg, the highest point in Zurich. After a short, 5 minute hike, we reached Kulm, a village featuring the highest hotel and restaurant in Zurich, a viewing tower that overlooked Zurich, Lake Zurich, and the Swiss Alps, and a TV Tower for Zurich. We didn't spend too much time there, but we plan to go again tomorrow and hike the full trail and take cable cars back into Zurich.

As we left the mountain, the rush of tourists arrived and we were lucky to not have to deal with them. After returning to the town center, we visited the swiss "Landesmuseum", or Swiss National Museum. It was small, but interesting. We followed the history of humans on earth, and saw artifacts from the Roman Age, Medieval Age, and some Swiss Army Arms. There was also a special exhibit on Swiss Humor (A lot about their punctuality, conservativeness, and neutrality). It was all in German though and we could not understand it, except for the picture only ones which were very understandable.

When we left the Museum, we decided to take the Riverboat Cruise down to the lake. It was comparable to Amsterdam's tour boats, except in Zurich, they are used for commute and transport rather than tourism. On the river, in turns out that the water extremely clean and people swim in it like they would in a pool. We arrived at the end of the river and decided to walk back to the station via Banhofstrasse. We walked down again, saw more extremely expensive watches and jewelry, and ate at was probably one of the most expensive McDonalds in the world. We paid 14 Swiss Francs (~13USD) for a typical meal. We also saw how much Michael Jackson is being remembered around the world with a big memorial on the side of the road with candles, flowers, pictures, signatures, and offerings.

At the train station, we left the Tourist Information Booth and took a walking tour through Zurich's Old Town. The tour was extremely interesting and we learned about Zurich's history, we saw its culture, and we strolled through its historical district. After this long tour, we took the guide's advice and ate at a local Swiss Restaurant. I had a Pork Snitchzel with fries and it was quite a good place to eat. On our way back to the hotel, we went to the top of a restaurant and had an amazing view of the City of Zurich, the main streets, the mountains, and the lake.

I am now at the hotel, and we are planning tomorrow's adventures. We plan to go to Uetliberg, do a long hike through the mountain and take a cable car down, then go to a Swiss Culture museum. Then we will go to a Latino Music Festival, and from there, we don't really have any solid plans. Today was a long day, and I will get pictures in as soon as possible. Be sure to check http://picasaweb.google.com/guitargodadamp.

Goodbye for now.

Update:

Pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/ZurichDay2

Be sure to check out the map either online or Google Earth, it gives you a sense of where those pictures were taken.

Zurich In 5 Hours

9:30PM GMT+1 7/1/2009 in Zurich, Switzerland

I'm now going to talk about my day in Zurich today. After leaving the train from the airport we went straight to our hotel to rest from our 16-hour journey. After about half an hour we went out to go on a walking tour of the city scheduld for 3:00. We arrived at 3:02, but we were late. The Swiss are so punctual, that they say you can set your watch to their trains, buses, boats, etc. Because we missed the tour, we decided to guide ourselves down one of the main streets, Banhoftstrasse, which starts at the train station and goes down to Lake Zurich. It was a very "expensive" street, comparable to Champs-Uysesses in Paris, France. We passed by many stores to see the ridiculous prices. There was a watch store that sold Rolex watches for 20,400 Swiss Francs (Approx. 19,500 USD), and the restaurants sold a simple lunch for what was equal to around $30. At the end of the street by the lake, we got admission on a boat ride around the lake. Although the boats are used to commute between the many villages of Zurich, many tourists ride them to view the scenic lake by the alps. The ride was to start at 4:00 and return at 5:30. According to our watches, we left the main port at the second 4:00 started and the anchor was dropped on our return at precisely 5:30. No wonder the Swiss are obsessed with watches. After the boat ride, we walked through downtown Zurich and by the river. After about an hour of walking and eating, we took the tram back to our hotel by the train station and were there by about 7:00PM. We got the internet to work at the hotel for 4 hours so that's why I'm writing now. Tomorrow morning, I'll be going on a ride up a Swiss Mountain to have a view of the beautiful Swiss Landscape.

By the way, the way we can do so many things in Zurich for free such as the boats, trams, and tours is the Zurich Card and the Junior Card. The two things together let us do so much in Zurich, and they paid for themselves minutes after we bought them.

Today's Pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/ZurichDay1

Note about Pictures: I will try to upload the pictures of my travels at http://picasaweb.google.com/guitargodadamp

Delayed On The Plane

5:30PM EST 6/30/2009 in Providence, RI
I am now on the plane to Philly. Well actually on the ground waiting for a departure slot. Due to thunderstorms in Philly, all planes to and from there are grounded. Our plane was originally supposed to leave at 3:45, but now it's 5:30 and we're still stuck in Providence. Chances are, we'll have to take a plane from Philly to Munich, then Zurich. We may even need to stay overnight. I'm going to stop now and pray that we'll leave soon.

I don't have Internet at the time of writing this, but I will post it as soon as I have access.

Update 1:

5:50PM EST 6/30/09 in Providence, RI

Our captain has just issued another wait time. Now at 5:50, we'll be getting an "update" at 6:30. If we left on time, we'd be on our way to Zurich now. Maybe since all Philly flights were delayed, maybe ours to Zurich was too. I'll write again as soon as possible.

Update 2:

6:25PM EST 6/30/09 in Connecticut Airspace

We're finally in the air, and it's 6:25. The pilots say we'll be in Philly at around 7:05. I'll write then.

Update 3: 

8:00PM EST in Philadelphia, PA

It's 8:00PM now and it's been hectic. I am now in Philly, sitting in a plane bound for Frankfurt, Germany. From there we'll be able to catch a flight to Zurich. We rushed throuh the very large airport and a very nice guy was able to get us on a flight to Germany at the last minute.   

It'll now be a long, 8-hour flight across the Atlantic and I'll write if anything interesting happens.

Update 4: 

7:20 GMT+1 7/1/09 in Zurich, Switzerland

I am in a hotel bed in Zurich, and it's been a long day. When we landed in Frankfurt at around noon, I was too airsick go write. From Frankfurt, we took a half-hour flight to Zurich, and then took a train to our hotel. This ends my first entry. My second entry will be what I dId in Zurich today.

Sent from my iPod

A New Trip, A New Adventure

It's been almost a year since I last posted, but it's for good reason. I'm going on another trip!
This time I'll be spanning four countries: Switzerland, France, Monaco, and Spain.

First, I'll give you the schedule for the trip.

Tomorrow (June 30), I will leave from Providence, fly to Philly and from there, I'll land in Zurich, Switzerland.
We'll be spending 3 days in Zurich and on July 4, we'll take a train to Montreux. On that day, I'll be attending a concert as part of the Montreux Jazz Festival. The concert features Chickenfoot, Steely Dan, and The Dave Matthews Band. After 2 days in Montreux, we'll take a train to Geneva and from there, a plane to Nice, France. We'll be spending a few days in Nice, and due to its close proximity to Monaco and Cannes, we will visit them as well. After spending a few days in France, we will take a train ride through the Pyrenees, into Spain, and we'll be spending our last few days in Barcelona, Spain before flying back to the U.S. on July 14.

I won't have access to the internet the entire time, so posts might come late, but I'll try to get them in whenever I can. I have to go now, but I'll post back as soon as possible to update my progress,