Stop over in Zurich and Frankfurt, yes please!

First off, hi again. I’d like to apologize for our HUGE delay in posting anything. As most of you know we went home for April for my sisters wedding. She was a beautiful bride and we all had a great time. Here are some highlights from the wedding.

Chris starting the train.

Dave in his custom made suit from India!

The family.

The lovely couple.

On our way home and back to southeast Asia we got to stop in Europe! Both of us knew we could never afford to go to Europe as part of this trip, but lucky us we got a glimpse of it in the few short hours that we had between flights.

Our stop over on the way home in April was in Zurich, Switzerland. Which is rated the most expensive city in the world! They were right with that title. I think we spent $100 in the 7 hours we had between our flights. Eek. That’s why we can only stay the day and not a couple of months.

But, on a refreshing note, we blended in. It was a stark difference from what we had just come from, India and Nepal. In those two countries we stood out like a sore thumb and therefore hassled by rickshaw drivers and touts. There was absolutely zero of that in Zurich. Instead, there was a very punctual, although expensive, train that took you from the airport to downtown in 10 minutes, no rickshaw driver necessary. AHHHH. It was nice to be in a familiar setting again.

Unfortunately, Zurich was also going through their early spring and had a very chilly, overcast day. We were suppose to be able to see the Alps, but the clouds were hiding them all day-a huge bummer as we are mountain people-so we decided to do a brief walking tour and then head indoors to the heat and the museum.

While we were there, we did get to try some local cuisine; a Swiss chocolate Easter bunny-since it was a couple days after Easter-and a street stall weiner. Both very tasty.

At the end of the day, we were very excited that we were almost home. After 5 months being away from home, 2 and half of those months in India, we were sure glad to be home. There is no place like home.

The month that we spent back in the U.S. was just enough time for us to reset and be excited to travel again. But what made it even more exciting was that a majority of my family was coming with us. My mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, and my cousin and her boyfriend were all spending their vacation with us in Thailand. We got to share with them the lovely country of Thailand, one of our favorites, and experience the joy of traveling to a new and very different place through their eyes.

On our way over, we had a layover in Frankfurt, Germany. We lucked out with the weather this time, Frankfurt was having a beautiful spring day.

We got to do a walking tour, enjoy some local beers, get a coffee or ice cream and enjoy it outdoors, and of course enjoy some curry bratwurst recommended to us by a local. None of us spoke German, so it was a little interesting trying to order. Thankfully the local who recommended us the curry bratwurst, was nice enough to order them for us too. One interesting thing about this food stall was that they had a slicer for the bratwurst, you plop the bratwurst in and out comes perfectly sized slices. It’s amazing what companies come up with when labor costs so much. For most of the other countries we’ve visited, they’d have a one person just slicing the bratwurst by hand. Very cool to see the differences between developing and developed countries.

Beer from giant mugs

This was a very large wall with all of the people killed during the holocaust.

Second honeymoon

Still not fully sure how this works. We think the guy on top is sitting on plywood. Still impressive.

Our time spent in Germany was a lot more enjoyable than our time spent in Zurich. I think it had a lot to do with the freezing weather in Zurich and the added company we had in Germany. Overall both were fun and someday we’ll be able to afford to see more in Europe.

As a last note, since we have some new travel buddies, we will likely have some guest bloggers. Stay tuned!