Hallo Familien und Freunden,
Thanks for everyone’s nice responses to our newsletters. We are glad to hear you are enjoying hearing about our adventures. We enjoy your e-mails, comments, suggestions, so keep them coming. Many of you have indicated that the only thing that gets you through the month is knowing you will get the next newsletter. While we think this is very sad, we have a solution. Also, many of you have indicated that you would like to see more pictures, or the pictures we attach with the monthly newsletter are blocked by your company’s firewall. Given the technology available today, where we can make free, unlimited overseas phone calls and are able to record and watch the local Minneapolis news in our apartment in Zurich via our Slingbox, we have decided to create a blog to share our experiences. While we will continue to send out a monthly newsletter, the blog will include additional postings and pictures. The website address is: http://nelsonsinzurich.blogspot.com/.
The month of May welcomed us with warm weather and a chance to enjoy many outdoor activities. We had bought our bikes over here and until this month, they sat is our storage room with flat tires. We replaced the inner tubes on the tires and finally we were ready to go. Zurich is a great place to bike, because there are bike lanes on many streets and most importantly around Zurichsee (Lake Zurich). Since we live so close to the lake, it is a great place to bike and run. The lake itself is quite large, over 70km around if you take the bridge over at the half way point in Rapperswil. One weekend, we decided to head out and explore and we made it to Zollikon Bahnhof (train station), a quarter of the way around the lake. Have we mentioned that the lakes and mountains are beautiful here? It’s amazing to be able to see the snow-capped mountains looming on the opposite side of the lake on clear days in Zurich, while biking or running in 80 degree weather!
We’ve been able to take advantage of all the Swiss holidays and we planned a trip over the last long-weekend. We wanted to explore Italy, and Steve suggested that we go to Florence, Bologna, and Venice…we had 4 days to cover these cities. Steve mentioned our plans to his co-workers and person after person said to him, “you guys are crazy you should spend the whole trip in one of those cities, as there’s so much to see in Florence alone.” We both still agreed that we wanted to go to multiple places and there was something in each place we were excited to explore. So we set out with our Click & Rail discount train tickets we had purchased on the Swiss website. We knew when we left Zurich there might be many people planning to travel to Italy for the holiday, as well. Since we didn’t have reserved seats on the train, we thought we’d get to the Bahnhof a little early and we’d claim seats that weren’t reserved. To our dismay, when we got to the train and went from car to car, we realized each and every seat was reserved already! We were optimistic still and assumed some people wouldn’t show up and claim their seats, however, it certainly seemed that almost everyone arrived. Chris sat down next to a Swiss woman, Evi, who said her friend was getting on at the next stop, but then she must have been a little sympathetic for us, because she kept talking and said we could have one seat that appeared open next to her. We basically had that one seat and traded off using it for the first couple of hours of the trip. Then, a girl interjected after a couple of hours and said you’re sitting in my seat. Chris apologized profusely and the girl said “it’s no problem” (in broken English) “you were having such a nice conversation, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Then, we decided to hang out in the bar car where you could stand without having to block the aisle of the train, we enjoyed a hot chocolate for a couple of hours…this was turning out to be quite the experience (it was a 7 hour train ride to Florence!) We hopped between seats for awhile when people would tell us to take their place while they went for a drink in the bar car. Evi and her friend even offered us their seats for a little while they stood; then finally half-way into the trip 2 seats opened up and we snagged them for the remainder.
We learned an important lesson, apparently, they sell these discount tickets on-line even without their being availability. Several people told us they had reserved their seats 2 months in advance and they were told at that point, there were very few seats free. In the future, we decided to only take these deals on the weekends when there is not a major holiday.
This was not the only lesson learned on our trip, once in Florence we were walking the streets and decided to try the Italian Gelato, which everyone was enjoying. We went from shop to shop, looking for the best flavors. We chose an open-air shop on a corner which seemed to have a lot of flavors. Chris ordered a cone of a mocha/chocolate flavor, to her surprise the worker starts filling up a large waffle cone and didn’t soon stop. The next thing she knows, she is handed a HUGE cone filled with scoop after scoop of gelato. Before she can alert Steve, he has ordered his cone and receives the same thing. Realizing we were not going to need dinner that night, we head to the cash register and think we hear 24 Euros as the price? We thought with the language barrier, he must have meant 2 or 4 Euros? Nope, 24 Euros…this converts to $30!!!! They really made out on all the naïve Americans. Outside the shop, we notice a group of backpackers eating their Gelato, who were also complaining about the price. While the Gelato was very good, it wasn’t much fun eating these cones (first, because they were too big and melted faster than we could eat them and secondly, we knew we were ripped off!).
We had a great time roaming through the streets of all three towns. We toured leather and produce markets in Florence, saw the Statue of David, and climbed to the top of Duomo for an aerial view of the city. In Bologna, we found more markets (similar to Chinatown) and enjoyed the food and their specialty, the Mortadella (a bologne-type meat). Venice was the most beautiful of all the cities, and we only got lost once finding our way through the canal-filled streets. The weather was warm and sunny, and a nice break from the cool, rainy weeks we had in late May in Zurich.
On the work front, Chris decided to accept an offer with a new company. She’s decided to leave Ernst & Young behind and the countless good memories and experiences, and she is excited to embark on a new journey with PartnerRe, a reinsurance company (and to work in the same time zone that she lives!). We will return to the US for the first two weeks in July, and then she’ll begin her new role after we return in mid-July.
We miss you all, hope to see many of you when we’re back, and would love to hear from you, too!
Steve & Chris
Thanks for everyone’s nice responses to our newsletters. We are glad to hear you are enjoying hearing about our adventures. We enjoy your e-mails, comments, suggestions, so keep them coming. Many of you have indicated that the only thing that gets you through the month is knowing you will get the next newsletter. While we think this is very sad, we have a solution. Also, many of you have indicated that you would like to see more pictures, or the pictures we attach with the monthly newsletter are blocked by your company’s firewall. Given the technology available today, where we can make free, unlimited overseas phone calls and are able to record and watch the local Minneapolis news in our apartment in Zurich via our Slingbox, we have decided to create a blog to share our experiences. While we will continue to send out a monthly newsletter, the blog will include additional postings and pictures. The website address is: http://nelsonsinzurich.blogspot.com/.
The month of May welcomed us with warm weather and a chance to enjoy many outdoor activities. We had bought our bikes over here and until this month, they sat is our storage room with flat tires. We replaced the inner tubes on the tires and finally we were ready to go. Zurich is a great place to bike, because there are bike lanes on many streets and most importantly around Zurichsee (Lake Zurich). Since we live so close to the lake, it is a great place to bike and run. The lake itself is quite large, over 70km around if you take the bridge over at the half way point in Rapperswil. One weekend, we decided to head out and explore and we made it to Zollikon Bahnhof (train station), a quarter of the way around the lake. Have we mentioned that the lakes and mountains are beautiful here? It’s amazing to be able to see the snow-capped mountains looming on the opposite side of the lake on clear days in Zurich, while biking or running in 80 degree weather!
We’ve been able to take advantage of all the Swiss holidays and we planned a trip over the last long-weekend. We wanted to explore Italy, and Steve suggested that we go to Florence, Bologna, and Venice…we had 4 days to cover these cities. Steve mentioned our plans to his co-workers and person after person said to him, “you guys are crazy you should spend the whole trip in one of those cities, as there’s so much to see in Florence alone.” We both still agreed that we wanted to go to multiple places and there was something in each place we were excited to explore. So we set out with our Click & Rail discount train tickets we had purchased on the Swiss website. We knew when we left Zurich there might be many people planning to travel to Italy for the holiday, as well. Since we didn’t have reserved seats on the train, we thought we’d get to the Bahnhof a little early and we’d claim seats that weren’t reserved. To our dismay, when we got to the train and went from car to car, we realized each and every seat was reserved already! We were optimistic still and assumed some people wouldn’t show up and claim their seats, however, it certainly seemed that almost everyone arrived. Chris sat down next to a Swiss woman, Evi, who said her friend was getting on at the next stop, but then she must have been a little sympathetic for us, because she kept talking and said we could have one seat that appeared open next to her. We basically had that one seat and traded off using it for the first couple of hours of the trip. Then, a girl interjected after a couple of hours and said you’re sitting in my seat. Chris apologized profusely and the girl said “it’s no problem” (in broken English) “you were having such a nice conversation, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Then, we decided to hang out in the bar car where you could stand without having to block the aisle of the train, we enjoyed a hot chocolate for a couple of hours…this was turning out to be quite the experience (it was a 7 hour train ride to Florence!) We hopped between seats for awhile when people would tell us to take their place while they went for a drink in the bar car. Evi and her friend even offered us their seats for a little while they stood; then finally half-way into the trip 2 seats opened up and we snagged them for the remainder.
We learned an important lesson, apparently, they sell these discount tickets on-line even without their being availability. Several people told us they had reserved their seats 2 months in advance and they were told at that point, there were very few seats free. In the future, we decided to only take these deals on the weekends when there is not a major holiday.
This was not the only lesson learned on our trip, once in Florence we were walking the streets and decided to try the Italian Gelato, which everyone was enjoying. We went from shop to shop, looking for the best flavors. We chose an open-air shop on a corner which seemed to have a lot of flavors. Chris ordered a cone of a mocha/chocolate flavor, to her surprise the worker starts filling up a large waffle cone and didn’t soon stop. The next thing she knows, she is handed a HUGE cone filled with scoop after scoop of gelato. Before she can alert Steve, he has ordered his cone and receives the same thing. Realizing we were not going to need dinner that night, we head to the cash register and think we hear 24 Euros as the price? We thought with the language barrier, he must have meant 2 or 4 Euros? Nope, 24 Euros…this converts to $30!!!! They really made out on all the naïve Americans. Outside the shop, we notice a group of backpackers eating their Gelato, who were also complaining about the price. While the Gelato was very good, it wasn’t much fun eating these cones (first, because they were too big and melted faster than we could eat them and secondly, we knew we were ripped off!).
We had a great time roaming through the streets of all three towns. We toured leather and produce markets in Florence, saw the Statue of David, and climbed to the top of Duomo for an aerial view of the city. In Bologna, we found more markets (similar to Chinatown) and enjoyed the food and their specialty, the Mortadella (a bologne-type meat). Venice was the most beautiful of all the cities, and we only got lost once finding our way through the canal-filled streets. The weather was warm and sunny, and a nice break from the cool, rainy weeks we had in late May in Zurich.
On the work front, Chris decided to accept an offer with a new company. She’s decided to leave Ernst & Young behind and the countless good memories and experiences, and she is excited to embark on a new journey with PartnerRe, a reinsurance company (and to work in the same time zone that she lives!). We will return to the US for the first two weeks in July, and then she’ll begin her new role after we return in mid-July.
We miss you all, hope to see many of you when we’re back, and would love to hear from you, too!
Steve & Chris
