Off to Asia

Sept 11-12 (Tues-Wed)

Already time to leave for Nepal. Been a whirlwind, less than 2 weeks after agreeing to come on the mission trip with Journey Church. We got the kids to school (Katie was dropped off early) and headed down to Kenosha to meet up with everyone at 9:30. Everybody’s bags were loaded by 10 and we headed to O’hare. After boarding it turned out that the flight was not fully booked and we all got to spread out! I had a window seat on this leg of the flight, and with moving around had no one directly next to me. This was approximately 13 hour flight so it was nice to be able to have a little extra leg room. I ended trying to sleep early on in the flight to get a jump start on transitioning to Nepali time, in total I slept about 2-3 hours. The best airline food I probably ever had (lamb, almost like a shepherds pie) came relatively early in the flight. I also watched a few movies to pass the time (Christopher Robin, Ready Player One, The Greatest Showman)

It was amazing seeing the different landscapes as the sun rose and morning went on. How brown and barren the middle east looked, the oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. We landed in Abu Dhabi around 11 local time.

It's a scorcher    O__O

Our home for the last 13 hours!

After maybe an hour we began to board the next flight, as the time change really started to bother me. This was probably 2am central time, and 13 hours sitting on a plane. I probably ended up crashing within 30 minutes of takeoff, and slept the whole 4 hour ride, interrupted but relatively solidly.  We had some issues once we disembarked, mainly one of our bags was lost, as well as having to pay some customs fees for the Jeep parts in our luggage, but everyone was safe and we made it without much incident, only some lost time. Arriving at the hotel we had a quick rundown of tomorrow’s schedule and room assignments, so it was almost midnight by the time I got to sleep. I never would have made it the entire way to the hotel without the sleep during that 2nd flight.

Mom's Day Out in Zurich

Not all the Yatzecks went abroad this time - just the mom! I flew over to Switzerland for about a week to take care of my niece while my sister and her husband went on vacation. As I spent most of the time tending to a two year old, I didn't have a lot of time for adventuring about the country. However, I was able to enjoy one day in Zurich. Enjoy the photo tour.

Waiting for the train - all by myself!

Random rhino on the streets of Zurich

I decided to do a free walking tour of the city. There was actually quite a large group of people there - maybe 30 or 35 - and the weather was gorgeous.

This is a trade guild building. It's hard to see, but there are some funny looking faces caved on the side of it. Apparently these are caricatures of those who didn't pay their fees.

This is a building where local politicians work and vote on things. There is only one door, and it is on the opposite side from the river. Apparently the fire inspector said this was a problem, and a second exit had to be added. Instead, the politicians had a vote and decided in case of fire they would all jump out the first floor windows into the river below.  

The statue in the distance is of a man on a horse. He was the mayor of Zurich, and was murdered by the people of Zurich who were angry at how much he had raised the taxes. This statue is placed in an area where politicians pass by every day between buildings, as a reminder not to make that mistake again - ha!

Many of the houses have German inscriptions over the door, or signs with images. These two are known as the House of the Little Mosquito and the House of the Big Mosquito. All the houses in Zurich used to have names like this instead of numbers, because people weren't educated enough to use numbered addresses. During Napoleon's occupation of Switzerland he switched over to the numerical address system, saying it would be easier for the post. Some say he and his soldiers were just having a hard time with all the German names.

The oldest clock in Zurich. The small windows at the top are for a watchman to look over the city and watch for fire, one of the biggest dangers to a city long ago. If they saw anything they would sound an alarm and signal where the fire was. It was actively in use until 1913. Our tour guide also pointed out that the Roman numeral for four is written as "IIII" on the clock, and that this is done intentionally on most clocks because it looks better - more balanced, and all the X's and V's are together.

Our tour guide, Julian. This is a copy of an ancient Roman gravestone unearthed nearby. It was for a Roman boy who was only a little over a year old. The inscription uses the old name of the city - Turicum - and says his father worked at a toll station, which makes sense because the city was located on the border of the Roman empire at one time. We also walked down a side alley where you could see ancient Roman ruins underneath the street.

One of many drinking fountains in the city. There are actually over 1200 in Zurich alone! The public drinking fountains are excellent water quality, and are on a completely separate network from tap water. The idea is that if one water source becomes poisoned or contaminated somehow, they can use the other as a backup. The statue on top is of a woman dressed as a warrior. Apparently in 1292 almost all the men in the city had gone off to fight in a war. An attacking army thought they would use the opportunity to take over the city and gathered around, poised to attack. All the women of the city scrounged up whatever battle gear they could and stood on top of this hill in the middle of the city and tried to look menacing. The invading army believed it was a large military force and gave up their plan to attack!

Julian was a really informative tour guide and shared lots of interesting bits of knowledge about Zurich and Switzerland in general. For example, he said that there are spaces for over 8.5 million people in underground bunkers in Switzerland, even though the population is only about 8 million. In the World War II era a building code was enacted requiring new construction projects with 38 rooms or more to build bunkers or face large fines. My sister's house has a bunker!

The other interesting thing was that Switzerland has mandatory military service for all males, starting with a few months the first year around age 20, and then one month out of every year until you are about 30. There is an option to serve in the civil service instead, but a large portion do military service and end up taking the gun back home afterward, resulting in a relatively high percentage of gun owners in the population.

He also talked a little bit about education in Switzerland. Apparently kids have to take pretty serious exams around age 11 or so, and these exams determine whether you are on a path to go to university or not. Only about 20% pass and earn the chance to go to college! I can't imagine a system where a test at such a young age determines the whole course of your life. Students who don't score high enough to go to college start practical training, apprenticeships, and technical college pathways.

This tower was built in the style of the watch towers surrounding the city for defense purposes, but it was located in the middle of the city in what looks to be a terrible place for a watchtower. Historians believe it was built as a "prestige tower" - simply to show off wealth, rather than for a practical use.

Julian suddenly veered off the main street and into a place where I didn't see any signs, and there was this really cool model of the city as it looked into the middle of the 18th century! You could see how the side of the city across the river in this photo was heavily protected with two layers of walls and a waterway all the way around it. This is where all the big banks and wealthier families are. It's still more expensive on that side of the city today. The other side of the river only has one wall and it doesn't even go all the way around the whole city. 

The inscription says this is the apartment where Lenin lived at one time.

This is a bar where Lenin frequently visited and played chess. It was also where the artistic movement known as dadaism began. The art was all about chaos and nonsense, and began amid the chaos of the first World War. 

Our tour group!

Julian gave everyone a sample of some Swiss chocolate. These were chocolate champagne truffles - AMAZING.

This is a model of the Grossmunster church, in a courtyard right next to the actual church. It's a tactile model for visually impaired folks to be able to appreciate the architecture of the building. You might notice the rear tower is skewed and different in color - this is because of it's widespread notoriety as "the lucky charm of Zurich", and many visitors rub this part of the church for luck. Originally, all three towers were pointy wooden ones, but a fire burned a large portion of the church and the large towers were rebuilt out of stone in this style. The third tower survived, and remains today in its original wooden form - hence it's "lucky charm" status.

Looking up from the base of one of the Grossmunster towers. Legend has it that Charles the Great was hunting when his horse suddenly stopped on this spot, and it was discovered to be the grave site of two martyrs of the Church, who were beheaded down near the river and then proceeded to pick up their heads and carry them up the hill where they prayed, and then died. So Charles the Great decided it was a good spot for a church, and that's a giant statue of Charles the Great up there on the side of the tower. Another legend says that statue comes to life once a year in April and gives bread to the poor (actually a local baker throws bread out a window just above his head). Coinciding with this festival is a sort of Swiss Groundhog day that predicts whether the summer will be a good one or a bad one. They fire burning arrows at a snowman filled with explosives and see how long it takes for him to explode. 

After the tour ended, I decided to climb up the tower to get a view of the city from up high. The regular entrance fee was 4 CHF (about $4). There was a reduced rate for students and children 16 and under. The older gentleman manning the ticket booth asked if I was a student, and when I said "no" he said "But you are so young! Child rate!" and only charged me 2 CHF. Made my day!

Here's a bunch of photos from the top of the Grossmunster tower. It was such a nice clear day you could see the mountains in the distance.

Upon the recommendation of the tour guide, I tried a restaurant called Cafe Henrici. I ordered the "Alpino" - it was nice they had a menu in English and the waiter also spoke English.

My lunch! It was really delicious. Also I got to eat on a table outside in the square. 

Most of the churches in Zurich are part of what is known as the Reformed Church - a local brand of Protestantism. Most of the big churches were originally Catholic, but are now Reformed. It was kind of sad and disappointing to go inside, because they mostly looked completely whitewashed and stripped of all the original artwork.

I wonder what this looked like originally.

 I checked Google Maps and found one Catholic church in downtown Zurich, and it wasn't far to walk so I decided to check it out. Here's the outside:

And the inside - Beautiful! It's hard to see in the photo, but the ceiling was intricately painted in traditional Swiss style. The church was completely empty, but I found a door outside marked "Crypto" and when I went in there I found an underground chapel where they were having Adoration, and there were at least a dozen people praying in there, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. Pretty neat. 

Alas, my day out had to come to an end, but not before I went shopping and bought these shoes:

Until next time!

...and back again

Well all good things come to an end eventually.  Our trip was officially over at the end of the day today, and it wasn't a very fun day either.  We woke up to our alarms at 4:30.  Luckily we had packed everything up last night and all we had to do was put our pajamas into one of the backpacks and change into our traveling clothes, which were set out.  We left the hotel around 5 after Melissa had the front desk call a cab (made sure it was a van) and we all piled in. It was probably 5:20 or so when we got to the airport and checked in. The woman working the desk was astounded in our packing:

"You have 6 people?"     yes

"Four Kids??"    yes

"No checked bags?!?!?"     yes

"....I love your family."

She wasn't the only one today to be amazed at how little we had packed for such a long trip either. We had comments from other travelers, customs workers, and stewardesses.  But back to the nitty-gritty...  Our first flight was about 2 hours, from Naples to Frankfurt, Germany. Our seats were not booked together, and it wouldn't let us check in and reserve any, but we were assured by the family-lover that we could get that worked out when boarding, but nobody ever told anyone else, because when finally somebody came to the gangway desk and we brought it up, she couldn't do anything either, and assured it could be done in the plane.  So they made us wait until EVERYONE else was seated, and then one of the stewards politely asked people if they would like to change seats. To a worse seat. Probably without mentioning they were trying to seat a family together. Eventually they got 2 seats together so Melis and Katie could sit, and a time later they got 2 seats across the aisle and Mary and Joey sat there.  And then nobody else would move. We asked if they could offer the people to sit in business class but apparently they couldn't offer upgrades like that. But the steward was getting pretty irritated and finally just said to us, "okay just sit there (business class), we don't have any meals for you but we need to leave so just sit there, it'll be fine".  Okay that was reassuring I guess, but I'd like to sit and take off please, so we sat there. I was surprised how little difference there was between business class and the cheap seats, other than a little more butt and leg room. Not really worth the difference in price to me, but that's me.

Once in Frankfurt we had a pretty short layover, and kinda had to do the same process all over again.  Our seats were all over the place, but Melissa handled the woman at the desk while I ran over and got some plane snacks for the kids.  And I guess the woman told Melis that she could have gone and reserved seats herself, for only a small fee of 25 Euros, per person, per leg of the trip. Umm, for about $500, no I think we will just have you change them now. For free.

We boarded for this flight and after a little while I was tapped on my shoulder.  Excuse me I think you're in my seat. No they changed things at the desk, my ticket is for this seat since I'm with my kids. No, I booked this seat when I bought it, see here's my ticket.  No they changes things at the desk, I need to sit by my kids.  Well I don't know since this was my seat all along.  Fine. So we went and talked to the stewardess about it, and then she had to call the desk, and then someone had to make the decision that, yes someone with 2 kids needs to sit next to them and she needed to move to the other seat. Which was still an aisle seat, and a little further up the plane. I understand that she didn't get to sit next to her friends, but so be it.  She really was pretty good about the whole thing, more irritated that it would happen.  This flight was 9 hours or so, and we just watched movies the whole time, other than taking Joey and Lily to the bathroom like 5 times, and it's not easy to fit 2 people into those little bathrooms. Melis got Katie to sleep for a few hours, so I'm sure her flight was much better than on the way here. Mary occupied herself the whole time which was awesome.

We got to O'hare and the way their international terminal is situated is stupid. You have to take a train over to the main terminals, outside security by the way, so we had to go back through security a second time. Why they couldn't have that train go to the secure side I don't know, but there it is. Oh, you have like one ounce of water in your bottles, so we have to check things. We can't drink it or throw it out here, it has to be on the other side of security, and then have to send the empty bottle back through the scanner to make sure that there's nothing inside. Even though they were the ones dumping said bottle. Still gotta take our shoes off too. I'm a little sour of the whole thing, even though I should have known better.  Good thing we had 3 hours layover, because it was almost an hour and a half spent waiting in this security line.

We killed the rest of the time and boarded our plane. Lily was asleep before we even took off, after all we had been travelling for the last 16 hours.  And then we took off and 20-50 minutes later we were home. We were a bit loopy so I don't know how long a flight it actually was. My dad was waiting for us right outside security and told us he thought he saw Melissa's aunt Karen.  It turns out they were on their way back from a little trip of their own and they must have been on THE EXACT SAME PLANE. They had been bumped to first class and arrived after we had already boarded, and if they hadn't been bumped would have been sitting like 2 rows in front of us. It's a small world sometimes.

Half an hour after Dad picked us up we were back in our own house, and probably half an hour after getting inside our house we were back in our own beds.  We had gone there and back again, and it's something that we [hopefully] won't ever forget.

We Climbed a Volcano!

Today was our last day of sightseeing in Italy, as our flight home was very early the next morning. Joey in particular was especially excited about our plans on this day, as he had been looking forward to it the entire trip - climbing Mount Vesuvius and visiting the ruins of Pompeii!

We got up early and walked towards the train station. This is the view of Vesuvius from just outside our hotel.

It was a little confusing, but we managed to sort out our own self-organized trip to Pompeii and Vesuvius rather than booking with some kind of coach bus tour group, which would have been more expensive and lacked the flexibility our family needs. I wish I would have written down the details because now I can't remember them. We bought commuter train tickets on the Circumvesuviana Railway from Naples to Pompeii Scavi, a stop that was much closer to the base of Vesuvius. These weren't nice, clean, on-time trains like the ones in Switzerland. These were more like a city metro, loud and crowded, and definitely not running on schedule. But we bought some pastries for breakfast, squeezed ourselves onto a bench (well, everyone except dad), and waited for our train.

Mary wore through her pants by this point on the trip! We threw them out later that night - not worth bringing home again!

Once on the train, we were entertained for a little while by some musicians who boarded and played one of my favorite Italian songs. When we got off the train, we saw lots of coach buses and people and signs trying to get you to sign up for a guided tour to the top of Vesuvius. We had read about these, and had a better plan in mind. Inside the station we found a poster with a timetable of a public bus service to the top of Vesuvius. The fare is much cheaper than with any of the other buses available, and there were several departures/arrivals throughout the day. We didn't have to wait long for the blue bus to arrive to take us to the top, and we were able to buy tickets directly from the bus driver. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the ONLY ones on this bus! It was a nice coach bus, no different than all the others lined up to collect tourists, other than the fact that it was cheaper and there were no pushy people trying to get you to buy tickets for it. We also noticed that many of those other buses sat around waiting while the tour guides tried to collect enough people to fill them up, while ours headed right up the mountain on schedule!

The bus ride up Vesuvius was long and winding, but with excellent views of the Gulf of Naples.

Lava dome formation

We had to buy separate tickets to enter the park and hike up to the crater at the top of Mount Vesuvius. The weather forecast for the day had been a little worrisome - there was a chance of clouds and rain - so we weren't sure if we would have any kind of a view from the top. However, luck seemed to be on our side! We started hiking up around 11:00 am, and made it to the top by 11:30 - even hiking at kid-pace, and had plenty of great views of the surrounding Gulf of Naples.

We made it! Getting ready to hike up to the crater!

Hiking up...

And up!

At the top we got to look down into the crater. At some points you could smell sulfurous fumes, and you could definitely see steam rising up from the crater. The kids all thought it was amazing that we were on top of an active volcano! Here is a video showing the crater, and here is a video of Mary and Joey talking about their experience.

View inside the crater

Inside the crater

Top of Vesuvius

Mary and the crater atop Vesuvius

Lily and the volcano

Joey was on top of the world today! He absolutely LOVED getting to see a real volcano up close!

While we were at the top, some clouds blew in, and totally obscured our view of the Bay of Naples. The kids were actually super excited about this. "We are INSIDE A CLOUD!!!" "I'm EATING the CLOUDS!" 

We ate our packed lunch at the top, and then headed back down the mountain. Here we are disappearing down into the clouds.

Unfortunately no climbing is permitted. It really did look dangerous though - lots of loose gravelly rock.

View of the path heading down. There were other tourists there, but it was not very crowded. Some local school groups were hiking that day as well.

After a short time the clouds parted again, and we had great views of the gulf once more.

The kids bought some souvenirs at Vesuvius. Joey bought a little collection of volcanic rocks, all neatly laid out in a wooden box and labeled in Italian. Lily bought a tiny replica of Vesuvius exploding. Mary bought a necklace with a turtle charm made from volcanic rock. Our bus showed up right on time, and once again we were the only ones on board! I can't believe more people don't know about this option! The bus took us back to the train station, and it was a short walk from there to the ruined city of Pompeii. It was too bad that we only had a few hours in the afternoon to tour this vast city. I could have spent days there wandering from house to house and reading all the descriptions in all the guidebooks. However, I think for the kids one afternoon was a good amount of time. We did end up cutting our visit a little short, as it started to rain and we hadn't packed our umbrellas. This was actually my fault, as Joe had packed them, and I had said the chance of rain was so small that we probably wouldn't need them. Karma? In any case, we already had like ten umbrellas in our possession on this trip and the kids were ready to go, so we headed for the hotel in Naples rather than buying more umbrellas so we could look at Pompeii in the rain.

Inside the city's amphitheater. It was similar to the Colosseum, but much smaller. Like the Colosseum, battles to the death between gladiators and animals were staged here for Roman entertainment. 

Joey in Pompeii. You can see the outside of the amphitheater in the background.

Ancient Roman street crossing! In the evenings, the streets were flushed with water to wash away daily debris. These stepping stones allowed pedestrians to cross the street without getting wet. The space between the rocks allowed for chariots to pass. This was a moderately busy street, with enough lanes for chariots to pass in two directions. There were also smaller, one lane streets, and even larger streets with three or four lanes. I thought it was really cool that you could see places where chariot wheels had worn grooves into the stones.

Joe standing just outside the main gate to the city of Pompeii. The larger archway was the main entrance, open during the day to let chariots enter the city. At night only the smaller, guarded arched entrance was open.

It turns out these columns were not ruined during the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii. There was a large earthquake about 18 years before that eruption that left much of the city in ruins. Here is where the ancient Roman people were beginning construction of a new temple area.

Inside an ancient bath house

This was one of many restaurants on one of the main streets of Pompeii. You could see the grooves in the doorsteps of where the sliding doors would have been. There were holes in the counter tops where hot food would be on display in large dishes for sale. Ancient fast food! 

Ancient "Beware of Dog" mosaic entryway

Ancient welcome mat mosaic

Fountain in the courtyard of one of the largest and most impressive houses in the ancient city of Pompeii

Mosaic showing Alexander the Great in battle

Interesting floor mosaic pattern

More chariot grooves

Carved sculpture inside the city's theater. In the background you can see that Katie has just retrieved a piece of garbage that looks like a used tissue which a previous visitor had wedged into the support scaffolding, and I am about to snatch it away in disgust. 

This was a nice place to visit with kids - there was lots of room for them to run around and explore.

Plaster cast of one of the victims of the volcanic eruption that destoryed Pompeii

Katie with ruined remains of a chariot wheel

As we were leaving, thunder was heard booming in the distance, and Vesuvius was visible in the background, so of course the kids re-enacted the ancient Romans fleeing the city as the volcano erupted.

Far in the distance you can see small holes inside of stone squares sticking off the outer walls of the city. Those were for tying up ships, as this used to be the edge of the sea! It is now located thousands of feet further away as a result of the lava flows after the eruption.

Back at the hotel there was some debate about what to do for dinner. I wanted to do one last Italian restaurant, but the kids were longing for comfort food. We ended up getting fried chicken and french fries and burgers for dinner, but we did go out for gelato one last time. Then it was time to pack up everything and get ready for our flight home. We had to get up very early, as our flight left at 7:00 am. We put the kids to bed, lined our backpacks and traveling clothes up near the door, and settled in for one last European night. It had been an amazing adventure, but we were all looking forward to sleeping in our very own beds at home again.