Friday, December 31, 2010

New Years in Zurich

Guess what I am in Zurich and it is way past New Years. It was awesome but i wish I wasn't such a clutz. Broke the screen on my brand new camera. :( it still works I just have to use the viewfinder. I will blog more tomorrow I am going to sleep.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Pics to go with previous post























Hurry up and wait: The Chronicles ofAir Canada and Arriving in Zurich

On Wednesday Dec 29 we left for Philadelphia International Airport to catch a 3pm flight to Toronto, Canada. We rushed there because of traffic and dilly dallying we seemed a bit late. We got to the gate with PLENTY of time to make our 3pm flight. That’s when we found out there was going to be a slight delay. That slight delay turned into an epic delay of 3 hours. We waited and waited and finally the plane arrived, apparently the plane had some mechanical issues and it didn’t even leave Toronto until 4pm.
 We boarded at 6pm and took off shortly thereafter. We had some fun with the Canadian entertainment system onboard and we started watching The Expendables, which when we landed had 15 minutes of the most epic part left. We disembarked and rushed to catch our connection which turned from a 4 hour layover to a 45 minute one. We reached our gate and were informed of a 40 min delay; we were relieved that would be able to catch a bite to eat. We lined up at the gate and then stood there for another 30 minutes because the plane was apperently exceptionally dirty.
 The ride to Zurich was fairly uneventful except for the fact that it was an 8.5 hour flight. We finally got to finish The Expendables (totally worth the wait and very unpredictable, NOOOOOT) Then we watched The Social Network, great movie but not really what I expected. We finally got to what you could call sleep but was more awake than not. We woke up with 1.5 hours to Zurich, realizing this was the exact length of Guardians of Gahoole, we watched that even though it was in the kids section of movies. 
We landed and decided to take things slow, we found the Train office, booked trains, got an unlimited 3 day pass for Zurich, and got directions to the Hostel. We embarked on our train trip to the Hostel where we met a Swiss man named Peter. He turned to liking us and decided he would see us to the Hostel (it wasn’t weird; he was very cool, even if he was a little random). We took some way different from what the person had told us in the train station, but that was ok because we figured a Swiss man had way more experience than us. It turned out being an epic adventure that ended with a 10 block walk to the Hostel (with all of our luggage). We greatly thanked Peter and he left us at the Hostel after we had gotten our room assignment.
 We went up to our room to find one other occupant in our 4 person room. He is a German speaking man that speaks almost no English and is kinda weird. We have decided that, what we first thought was just a built room smell, is emitting from him. Oh well we are in a youth hostel that cost $50 a night and we are getting what we paid for. Other than that small inconvience the place is amazing and so much more than I expected. It has a bar (with beer), Ping Pong, Pool, Foosball, and a cook with free breakfast. The internet is expensive and that’s why I am writing this offline and posting it all at once.
 After showering we set out to check out our corner of Zurich. We found 2 local grocery stores COOP and Migros, both being awesome. We returned to the hostel to plan our next leg. We set out on a Tram that had an almost unknown destination, just that it was heading toward the center of Zurich. We ended up at a major shopping and food district where we stopped for a $10 Irish coffee and an amazing Bratwurst. We walked around a while, again stopping at a COOP. I now sit in the ground floor lounge writing this blog post and drinking >$1 Swiss beer that we purchased from the Grocery store. In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg found out the hard way that blogging and drinking can go horribly wrong, obviously he isn’t as bright as me (Mark Zuckerberg is the programmer and creator of Facebook).

Sunday, December 26, 2010

My Trip begins Wednesday Dec 29

I am leaving on Wednesday 29 for a month long trip to Germany. We leave in the afternoon on Air Canada. I have never flown Air Canada so it should be an adventure. Keep watching my blog for updates, pictures, and daily entries from me while I am in Germany.