Our good friend, Katherine, took us to the airport on our day of departure. I always get a little nervous traveling over here, mostly because of the communication barrier. For some reason both Jordan and I were feeling a bit uneasy about our trip. Katherine is a professional at traveling, living in Turkey...and just about everything else, so I was verbally going over everything with her. She casually mentioned that we needed Jordan's orders to get out of Istanbul, because they were stamped when we came into the country. We had no idea we needed Jordan's orders!! We thought our passports were enough! So Katherine, being the amazing woman that she is, turned the car around. We drove the 20 minutes back to base, grabbed the orders, and headed back to the airport. We made it just in time! Thank God for Katherine, or we would still be stuck in Istanbul! Thankfully the rest of our travel was uneventful.
Vacation Day 1
Hotels in Europe are different, especially if you are on a budget! By the time we made it to our hotel, it was about 11pm. There was no reception and we got our key out of a little box after punching in the magic code. Our room was very basic. The bed was actually 2 twin mattresses, and we both had our own bedding...apparently if you both want to sleep in the same bed you need to request a "French bed". Who knew.
Our first day in Zurich was a Sunday, and we didn't realize that practically everything is closed on Sundays! We walked around for ages looking for coffee and breakfast. We finally found some at the museum cafe and it was slap-your-momma expensive. Around $5.00 for a single shot of espresso. We begrudgingly paid $10 to feed our coffee addiction. We then decided to check out the museum...but it would have cost $50 for both of us! This is when we realized that Switzerland tricked us! They roped us in with ridiculously cheap plane tickets only to realize that we can't even afford a cup of coffee. What jerks!
We walked all around the old town, which was just beautiful. Everything was decorated for Christmas and there were twinkle lights everywhere! We stumbled upon a very talented man playing the accordion. He played Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor". Jordan was really excited, because it's his favorite Bach piece.
Awhile later we stumbled upon the Singing Christmas Tree! We were able to have our first taste of Gluhwein, which is hot spiced wine. They serve it all over Europe in the winter and it is just delicious! We also had some roasted chestnuts for the first time!
While we were out and about, Jordan spotted a sign advertising a free Mozart concert at a church. Free sounded really good at this point, so we hopped on a bus and found the church. The concert was great! They did Mozart's Requiem and we both really enjoyed it a lot.
After the concert, we stumbled upon our first Christmas market! We had a blast looking at all the booths and enjoying the festivities.
Vacation Day 2
Our second day was rainy and dreary. After we ate a granola bar and got a little expensive coffee in our systems, we decided to spend the day at the zoo! We both love the zoo so much, so we had a lot of fun looking at all the animals, even though the weather was terrible. It actually reminded us of home, so we weren't disappointed at all. There were lots of animals at this zoo that I have never seen before. My favorite exhibit was the rain forest in a giant green house. It was hot and humid and there were all sorts of birds and monkeys roaming free.
After the zoo, we were hungry for dinner. We brought a guide book with us, and there was an "inexpensive" Thai restaurant that we wanted to try. Unfortunately there is next to no Asian food in Turkey...and we have both been craving it for months! Once we finally made it to the restaurant, it was closed! We were about starving by this time. We were very excited to stumble upon a Pho restaurant, but when we looked at the prices...it was literally $20 for a bowl of Pho soup! The same exact soup costs $6 at home! So we decided to have pizza instead. The pizza was expensive too. Sigh. I would not recommend traveling in Switzerland on a budget.
This was the day we discovered Swiss Truffles at the chocolate shop. This is literally the most delicious chocolate I have ever had in my life. Melt in your mouth chocolatey deliciousness! My mouth is seriously watering right now!
Vacation Day 3
Jordan finally caved and bought us coffee at Starbucks. It was slap-your-momma expensive, as usual. We then took a train to Old Town to do some good old window shopping! We walked around town munching on delicious soft pretzels having a grand time.
We went to look at the Grossmunster church, which was built in 1100. It was crazy to be in something so old! We spent a lot of time exploring. We climbed 194 steps to the very top and enjoyed a great view of the city. It was so peaceful to be up above the bustling world below us!
We found an amazing toy store in town. It had 5 different floors of any kind of toy you can imagine! Most of the toys in Europe are much less complicated than the ones at home. I don't think there were any toys in this store that even required batteries. They were just good, old fashioned toys! We probably spent over an hour looking around and playing. =)
We were starting to lose some steam by this point, so we had a coffee break! Then we were off to a giant music store to explore! I really wanted to buy some piano sheet music, but as usual, it was way too expensive. It was sure fun to look at all the nice pianos though!
We decided to head back to the Thai place for dinner...because we were still craving Thai and we knew they would be open. We fully enjoyed some pad thai and tom ka! I have a feeling that it will be a really long time until I have Thai food again. We then headed back to out hotel to pack up our bags for the next leg of our journey!
 |
| This was a beautiful fountain in the courtyard of old town, Zurich |
 |
| Swiss cheese!! This cheese smelled TERRIBLE, but sure tasted delicious! |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment