The Hole in This Blog of Cheese is Swiss.

Our Swiss post is not the only hole in our blog but it's definitely one of the furthest behind.  We first trained through Zurich in late September early in our trip on the way from Berlin to Milan.  Having looked at hostelworld.com we decided that Zurich was way out of our budget. The cheapest hostel/hotel we found was 25 Euros per person a night.


Then to my surprise an old friend from Vancouver, Omar, having read on Facebook that we were travelling through Europe, got in touch with  me.  Omar and I had worked together at a few different bars back home.  Last I heard he had moved back to Mexico with his fiancee Belinda who was originally from Switzerland and who'd also worked with us at AuBar Night Club.  Now he was living near Zurich in a beautiful little town on the Eurail path called Wil (pronounced Veal).  The two of them had just gotten married the week before.  The dust having barely settled from the wedding, and the out of town guests, Omar's mom, having left a day or two before.  They again invited guests in the form of a couple weary travellers.  They met us at the train station, drove us to their home, set us up with a bed and Belinda made us dinner having just done a full days work.  Omar walked us around Wil that night as we caught up.


The next day we made our way into Zurich for the day.  At the train station we found a tourist office and a walking map that started near the train station.  It was a perfect walk: time wise and lengthwise.  It worked out as we didn't have a lot of time in Zurich with the breakneck speed we were travelling at and also the sun setting early working against us.   Most of the tour centered around the Limmat River, tiny cobble-stoned alleys and water fountains that may or may not be for drinking.  I had no adverse effect from the water, but a few double takes from other tourists.

We made our way back to the Wil train station where we found the unique, to us at least, women only parking stalls that are located close to the entrance, similar to wheel chair stalls.  They are intended to give women a safer option late at night to park closer to the entrance.  Great idea in my opinion.  We ended our day with a dinner with our hosts at a great Tex-Mex restaurant in a beautiful town St. Gallen about 100 kms to the east.  The next morning we spent what little Swiss francs we had left at a grocer across from the train station, buying mostly the cheapest/best chocolate ever.  Even the "no-name" brand was better than what we're used to back home.  Wish we had more time and more importantly more money for this beautiful country.

Thank you for your more than generous hospitality and kindess, Belinda and Omar.

The Yank

The 19 Hour Couch Cruise - Spain to Italy

"So, you've decided to become a bum" - John Travolta as Vincent, Pulp Fiction.

To get to Italy from Spain, we decided to try out the ferry option offered by the Eurail pass. Getting to the Barcelona port, we ended up walking around in cirlces for an hour being pointed in several different directions trying to find the right ticketing office (Gremodli Lines). We finally found it and bought tickets to make the 19 hour boat ride across the Mediterranean. It would have cost us either 47 euros for a "reclining" train seat or 27 euros on a ferry (that's with a 20% discount, one of the many  bonuses offerred with the Eurail). Really though, the boat isn't much of a ferry at all. Actually, I had totally imagined ourselves bedding down with some local farm life fighting over hay space. Unfortunatly, there wasn't any farm-like quality about the ship. There weren't even rows of seats that you could pass out under like the ferry boats running imbetween Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Instead, more like a hotel lobby, you have ultra-sheek couches randomly arranged throughout the lobby ways.

It was here that we officially bummed out for the first time on our trip. We attached our packs together (good luck trying to lift both those suckers up together), made clothes pillows and wrapped our eyes with head wraps. Of the few couches we'd spotted, we obviously picked the one right next to the boat's arcade room, home to the world's loudest game ever. Every few minutes the game's computer voice would sound "Virtual Tennis, 3" followed by some whooshing sounds most probably a combination of dashing serves and aces. Not even the earplugs could block out C3PO's earsplitting jinggle. I wondered if Nadal would have anything to do with the cruise's top arcade game being ultimate tennis. I suddenly decided I hated tennis.

We woke up to one of the boat's staff telling us that we couldn't sleep there. That's 9 hours after we'd splayed out our best on the red Ikea shapes. All that changed was us parrallel to perpendicular. Still on the couch. For the rest of the day we'd have the ship's guests and passengers walk past asking if we'd had a good sleep. It was "Virtually" awesome guys, common. I know you all walked past us before you all snuggled into your premium cabins.

A practice fire alarm would sound and we'd be privy to hear the beforehand security warning reminding passengers that there was no smoking during a fire. A following announcement would call for a staff member's attention and went something like this: "Charlie Dima, Charlie Dima, Charlie Dima, Charlie Dima, Charlie Dima, Charlie Dima. Attention. Please report to Port 9, port side, port side, port side, port side. Attention please, for what?... Please report to Port 9, port side." Gotta love the Spanish.­­

There's a non-profit group called CouchSurfing devoted to creating memorable experiences for travellers by connecting them with local people. "CouchSurfing members share hospitality with one another. These exchanges are a uniquely rich form of cultural interaction. Hosts have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world without leaving home. "Surfers," or travelers, are able to participate in the local life of the places they visit. We also give more people the chance to become travelers, because "surfing" lowers the financial cost of exploration." Unfortunately there are no cruise ship options. See more about about how you can participate on there website.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/about.html

The Limey

Eurail Pass - Is It Worth It? Update

First off, happy birthday Kate for November 16th !!

Second, I'd like to provide an update regarding our Eurail pass.  With one month down and one month to go on it, we've  gotten the value out of it already and then some.  That's including the supplements, the extra non-optional charges for mandatory reservations and for sleeping cars.  We have a first class Eurail as we're both unable to get a second class pass being over 25 years old, but for the sake of this exercise we've used second class pricing to figure value because that's how we would normaly have travelled.  We've been able to avoid some supplements by sitting second class with the first class ticket. 

The Eurail's enabled us to travel to a lot of places we may not have otherwise, and it's given us options when we've encountered problems like:  Linds and I,"Paris!".  Milan agent,"Nope, there's a stike in France.".  Us,"Barcelona!!".  Agent,"Nope, have to go though France."  After conferring with the map, "Prague!!".  An 18€ supplement later and we had a night train to Prague via Munich and Verona.  We've travelled through 10 countries already in mainland Europe and been able to chase good weather.  We've travelled very comfortably in first and even second class, aside from some couchette night trains.  We haven't spent a lot of time in a few of the cities we've been to, but we've figured out how to make the most of what time we've had.  We've resided in the fact that we can't see it all; there's just too much to see in two months and not enough money to see all of Europe.  You could blow an entire lottery fortune here and still not see it all. 

With an initial cost of 2027€ (986€x2+20 ins+35 s&h), plus supplements 230.40€, gives us a total cost of 2257.40€ for the Eurail Global Pass (two months continuous) .  Having done 2816€ worth of second class travelling gives us a surplus of 558.60€ with a month left to gain more value on top.  The question I'd have if considering buying the Eurail is what do I want to see?  If you know exactly what  you want to see, and maybe your travels are not as far flung as ours have been, there are other passes that are less expensive and more centralized.

Flights in Europe all also a cheap way to get around however they ding you if you have a lot of luggage or a rucksack.  If available, it advantagous to book your large bags ahead of time because it's cheaper than just showing up with your large luggage and paying before you hop on a plane.  Airports are also not as convienent nor centrally located as train stations.  Airports usally require a train to get you to your eventual location.  Every city we've visited has had a train station in the middle of the city that's been close to accomodation, metro, and sightseeing.  You can show up 10 minutes before a train and get right on, Spain being the only country so far with security checks similar to flights, but they only took  a couple of minutes to navigate.  Airports require you to arrive 1-3 hours before departure, sometimes this extra time in itself takes the advantage, time wise, away from flying over training.

All in all, we've really enjoyed our train travel in Europe.  It's been a relaxing way to travel, convienient, and time saving.  I'd definitely recommend it for this kind of travel.  The Eurail pass is expensive, but worth it if you want to see a lot of Europe and to keep your options whilst in Europe open.

If anyone is thinking of or knows anyone else that's thinking of getting an Eurail pass don't hesitate to ask any more specific questions. 

The Yank