Well, it has been a while since we got to take a vacation, so over the Thanksgiving break we decided to go to Switzerland and France with some good friends (Shea, Joel, Hannah, and Trent).
Trent and Hannah on the left and Shea and Joel on the right
We set out on Thursday morning to Zürich, Switzerland with the girls in one car and the boys in the other. Of course it was freezing and snowing but that didn't stop us (the girls anyway) from chatting away and eating all of the yummy car snacks that we packed. After a few GPS related mishaps we made it to our hotel just outside of the city of Zürich. We enjoyed a few glasses of wine in our hotel before making our way to the tram/streetcar stop that was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Let me say that I am in love with any city that has some sort of organized, easy to use, public transportation and Zürich did not disappoint.
It was extremely easy to navigate the city while our cars stayed in the hotel parking lot. We had a wonderful dinner (for Thanksgiving) at Restaurant Reithalle which used to be a horse stable. The walls are still lined with the feeding troughs for the horses. I had an amazing gnocchi with pumpkin sauce which I will dream about for years to come. Rick had a seafood linguine which ended up being a lot of work to pull the mussels out of their shells, but well worth the effort. We ended our evening at a cozy bar that served us some nice cold Heineken while we watched the snow fall outside (wishing that we didn't have to go back out into it)!
The next day (Friday) we toured around Zürich and visited the Grossmünster Church. Before we went into the church, we stopped out by the river to take some pictures and it really started to snow. As we were standing there looking at the river and the beautiful old buildings in the middle of the blizzard, someone (I think it was Hannah) said that she felt like she was in a real life snow globe! It couldn't have been more true.
We climbed the church tower and took some pictures. It was beautiful but very snowy, so I would love to do it again in the spring or summer.
That night, Hannah and Trent headed off to meet her college friend and her husband for dinner. Rick and I along with Joel and Shea jumped on the train to a city called Winterthur to attend the Taste of Chaos concert. It was 4 bands-Halestorm, Buckcherry (my favorite!), Papa Roach, and Disturbed. We had a great time at the concert and we even got to meet Buckcherry and take a picture with the lead singer (Josh Todd)!
On Saturday we shopped around Zürich at little bit more and then headed off to Strasbourg, France. We took the snowy drive through the mountains fairly slow and ended up getting to Strasbourg after dark. We were staying in a hostel that turned out to be not so easy to find, so it took us a lot of driving back and forth from Germany into France and back again before we actually found it. Luckily we met an American guy at our hostel who was nice enough to show us the bus and tram to take us into the city. We walked around the Christmas market and then found a wonderful Italian restaurant for dinner. It was warm and they had plenty of wine, so we were happy! The only unfortunate event involved Hannah's white coat. It was redesigned with red wine spots thanks to a lovely French family that was completely oblivious to the fact that their toddler was running loose in the restaurant wreaking havoc. Ugh!
We made it back to the hostel that night and we were split in two rooms-the boys room and the girls room. It really felt like we were at camp, so Hannah, Shea, and I had a good time giggling like we were teenagers before we fell asleep. We could hear lots of snoring coming from the boys room across the hall, so we were very happy to have a room all to ourselves!
The next morning we went back into the city of Strasbourg to shop a little more in the Christmas markets and explore the city. It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful city that we will be visiting again. It's only about a 3 hour drive for us and I can't wait to see all that the city has to offer when I'm not frozen to the bone! I am happy however that we did get to see it at Christmas time. I'm fairly sure that Christmas was invented in Europe. I say this because it's so beautiful with the snow and the Christmas decorations are always so beautiful and tasteful-just like the pages of a story book.
To sum it all up, Zürich was incredibly amazing and also incredibly expensive. We won't be able to visit there very often, but I'm glad that we were able to experience it. Strasbourg was a beautiful treasure of a city and we will be going back there for a visit as soon as Spring comes along! We had such a wonderful time enjoying new places with good friends. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will say that I am so very thankful for my family, friends, and the amazing opportunities that I've been given in this life...
Looks like your White Friday was better than Black Friday here. Very cool about Buckcherry!
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