Hey Party People,

After an excrutiating 17 hour day of travelling, Cadry and I have made it back to Glendale California!  We ended up not going to Greece after all and spending the last week of our trip in Switzerland, after realizing that we would eat up an extra 3 days of travel time to go to Greece.  By this point in the trip we were over trains, planes, and (in theory) boats, so we decided to chill in our favorite of the countries we had seen so far.

We spent 3 days in Lucerne, one of the most charming and beatiful cities imaginable.  Whilst there we took a train (the steepest train in the world - it ascends at a 45 degree angle) to the top of Mount Pilatus, so named for the legend of it being Pontius Pilate's burial place.  Then we moved onto Zermatt and took another train to see the Matterhorn, the real mountain which lent it's likeness to the Disneyland ride.  This was by far the most impressive sight of the entire trip.  The mountains were covered with fresh snow, and the whole area looked like it was straight out of an animated Christmas special.  I kept expecting to see the Cold Miser or the Abominable Snowman come around the mountain!

Oue final destination was Zurich, and here was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.  We ate dinner at a restaurant called "Die Blinde Kuh", or "The Blind Cow".  This restaurant is designed to give you an idea of what it is like to be blind, and thus the entire dinner is carried out in complete blackness.  The servers and chefs are all blind or partially sighted, and we were led to our table by holding onto the shoulder of our server.  He took each of us to our chairs individually, and explained where our utensils were and what he was bringing out to us.  Then the evening carried on like any normal dinner, but with absolutely no sight!  We had to feel for our food and drinks, and were never quite sure if we were going to end up with more food on our clothes than our plates!  The experience was even more surreal since everybody else in the establishment was speaking German, so we felt completely isolated in our surroundings.  When we finally left after dinner, the light outside was so painful that we couldn't open our eyes for a few minutes, even though it was deliberately kept dim.  I highly recommend this if you are ever in Zurich, or if you come across a similar place somewhere else.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30am Zurich time to get ready to fly back to the States.  It had been an incredible trip, but we were also pretty exhausted, not to mention broke.  We did manage to hit one more country on the way out though, as we had a 90 minute layover in Deselforf, Germany.  We took advantage of the opportunity to buy a frudge magnet there so we could say we had a souvenir from every nation we visited!

Well that's all for now - I'm sure I'll be boring you with pictures and/or details when I see you in oerson!

Auf wiedersein,

David

Hey All,

Sorry it's been so long between postings, but we were in the mountains of Italy for several days and had no access to computers. 

We ended up spending three days in Interlaken, Switzerland, but unfortunately it rained the last two days, so we were unable to take the train ride up the mountain.  It was still beautiful, and the people were friendly, and thew food was great.  We would love to go back again someday.

We then moved on to Venice, which we like to think of affectionately as "Tijuana with Canals".  OK, maybe not affectionately - we really didn't care for it at all!  The whole town seemed like it was just three or four tourist shops in an endless rotation, with some extremely overpriced boat rides in between.  We stayed less than a day and then moved on to Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet.  This city was very nice - clean and beautiful.  We visited Juliet's tomb and her house, and got pictures of Cadry on the famous balcony.  (They claim that these are the actual locations that inspired the Shakespeare play, but we were a little skeptical - they may have been a bit retroactive in their accuracy...)  We checked out an ancient arena there which is the center of the town, and the local opera company was rehearsing for "Dracula:  The Rock Opera", which we got to watch part of.  We were tempted to stay the next day and see the premiere of it, but alas, the train was a-callin'.

Our next port of call was Assissi, as in "St. Francis of" fame.  We stayed at a cute little bed n breakfast in the hills, and took a hike up to St. Francis' basilica and saw his tomb.  Cadry was not allowed to show her arms there, and luckily I had worn long pants because shorts are not allowed either.  They like it quiet and reverent in the church, so there was a creepy man with a microphone who's only job was to announce "Silencio!" every few minutes when the tourists got excited about something.  He even said it to a crying baby, which was optomistic on his part, to say the least.

After two nights there, we moved on to Castille di Montali, a vegetarian resort hotel up in the mountains of Tavernalle.  This was gorgeous.  We had to rent a car to get up there, and it was a stick-shift, which neither one of us are very adept at driving.  The streets in Italy are very narrow and made up almost entirely of steep hill, which made the driving lots of fun!  The hotel was in the middle of an olive grove, and a gourmet breakfast and dinner were included every day.  The proprietor, Alberto, was extremely charming, and made a huge event out of dinner every night.  He greeted me as "Mr. Busch" and had a special table prepared for us, which was our table for the duration of our stay.  With each course, he would come to the table and quietly announce the food and what it was.  Every morsel was fantastic, and the wine was some of the best we have ever had.  We bought two bottles to bring back with us, we liked it so much.  There was also a fresh little of kittens that lived there, maybe 6-8 weeks old.  Since we have been missing our cats Spike and Jezebel so much, it was fun to play with them for a while.  My favorite was a little "runt" kitten that I named Peaches Patches, as she had two little peach-colored patches over her eyes.  Cadry's favorite was Checkers, a little kitten with a half-black, half-white face.  (Reminded me of the aliens from the original Star Trek episode - if you've seen it, you know what I mean!)

We arrived in Rome last night, and are only intending to stay for a day before moving on to Greece.  We will see the Collisseum today, and possibly the Vatican. 

Ciao for now!

-David

Hello Gentle Readers,

I have been on the road quite a bit, so have not had as much time to blog as I had hoped! Here is a whirlwind update:

On our last day in England, we went to Stonehenge to see how hard it rocks. (Sorry, couldn't resist!) The trip there by train was very familiar - it turns out that the English countryside looks exactly like Iowa, right down to the cows and corn stalks. The stones themselves were very big and stone-like.

The next day we hopped on a plane for a trip to Paris. Our original plan had been to take a train, but as it turns out, that would have been twice as expensive. So, we ended up flying on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, which was somewhat disconcerting. Paris was wonderful, though! We ate lots of baguettes and cheese and red wine, and despite the rumours to the contrary, the people there are incredibly friendly, even to us Imperialist Americans. We saw the Mona Lisa and went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and then ate more baguettes and cheese and red wine.

Our next stop was Disneyland Paris, which was pretty much like Disneyland California except all the songs/rides were in French. Many of the rides, such as Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion (Phantom Manor) are bigger and more adventurous.

We just got to Switzerland, so more about that later!
-D

Hello All,

The honeymoon is progressing well!  Wednesday night we went to see Mary Poppins on the West End, and it was a lot of fun. 

On Thursday we went to Picadilly Circus and shopped for a while.  (I'm sorry to break the news - there were no elephants or clowns at all!)  In the evening we attended a performance of "The Comedy of Errors" at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which was fantastic!  Extremely funny.

Today we had an appointment for a personal training session with Angie Dowds, one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser (UK), which Cadry had a lot of experience transcribing.  She trained us for an hour and a half on Kettlebells, which are heavy weights on handles that you swing around.  She promises us that we will be very sore tomorrow, and I do not doubt it!

Tonight I am hoping to meet up with my friend Frederick, who moved to London from LA a few months ago.  Perhaps a pub, or dinner somewhere.  We also have tickets to ride the London Eye, which may happen tonight.

Later! -David

Hello Friends and Family,

It is official - Cadry and I are on our honeymoon!!  Right now, we are sitting in a cyber-cafe a few minutes from Paddington Station, that of "Paddington Bear" fame.  We got in yesterday and saw Big Ben and the London Eye, and tonight we are going to the theatre to see Mary Poppins.

I'll be posting here regularly to keep you updated on our activities and make you jealous of them! 

-David