Our last full day in Europe. Man, we are so ready to get back home. We were tired of doing the traditional "tourist" things (museums, looking at architecture, learning about history), so we just took a leisurely stroll through Zurich with Eduard (who had, again, taken the day off work). We walked along the "5th Avenue" of Zurich - where all of the expensive shops are and then got to the main shopping area of the town. We were still on the hunt for Birkenstocks, so we stopped in several stores to look for them. Unfortunately, most stores didn't carry them. In one store, we approached the sandal section in search of the shoes, but didn't see them. Susan asked the sales clerk if they carried Birkenstocks. The woman apologetically said that they didn't carry them and then Claire noticed them on the shelf. When the woman saw what Claire was pointing at, she said: "Oh, 'Byer-kin-shtocks'." - Yeah - apparently we don't pronounce it correctly in English!! They only had one style, which we weren't keen on, so we still didn't end up buying a pair, but we ended up with a good story at the end :)

We walked along the river and went to a few elevated spots with great views of the city. We stopped for lunch at an outdoor biergarten and by mid-afternoon were quite tired. Although we had planned to spend the evening with Eduard again, we were just too tired and decided to call it a day. We returned to the hostel and took naps and then got ready for our big day tomorrow: our trip home!!

Labels: Europe 2008, Switzerland

Susan has decided - she hates Italy and would be perfectly content to never return. Well, maybe that language is too strong, but today we had several misadventures, so that's what's on her mind right now.

The day started out great with a nice buffet breakfast at our hotel. We wanted to get on the road by 10am, but when we went to check out we encountered a problem. We had already paid PriceLine for the hotel, but somehow PriceLine had failed to transfer the money to the hotel, so the hotel was charging us again - and charging a rate that was WAY more than what we had agreed upon via PriceLine. Eventually, after an hour of checking our account on the internet and being on teh phone with PriceLine, we understood what caused the problem, but PriceLine's cusotmer service department wouldn't be open for another 3 hours. We were already getting a later start than we had hoped, so we weren't going to wait around in Milan for PriceLine to open, so we paid the bill and left - hopefully things will go smoothlyt with PriceLine and we'll be refunded later.

The next misadventure was with the toll roads. Unline America, it's not clearly written how much you'll have to pay, so it's a scramble at the last minute to get the right money available. We went to pay one toll and the woman had a problem that we couldn't understand (she didn't speak English) but the end result was that she took an extra 0,55 Euros that she shouldn't have. It was so lame. By the time we realized the error it was too late. At least in Switzerland you just buy a vignette and don't have to worry about paying tolls every few kilometers. And the lines to pay the tolls in Italy are far too long!

Anyways, we arrived in Zurich much later than expected and Ivan's friend, Eduard, had taken all day off work to hang out with us! He was waiting for us when we arrived and helped us return the car. Thankfully, the agent spoke English and we didn't have any problems. Then, we went to Eduard's house for dinner - a traditional Swiss dinner of macaroni, 2 types of Swiss cheese, potatoes, and onions - in a casserole - so delicious!! After dinner we retunred to the hostel and went to bed.

Labels: Europe 2008, Italy, Switzerland