Europe

It's 8:07 on Saturday morning and I'm sitting at home, eating a egg-mushroom-turkey-onion & feta scramble and waiting for the UPS man to bring my Eurail pass - obviously and important part of my trip. I'm waiting for my overnight Saturday delivery...one that cost me $40, but notwithstanding...I wait...and hope that it arrives before I leave for Zurich Sunday morning. I watched via the tracking log as my Pass traveled from Northbrook, IL to Chicago last night...arrived in Louisville at 12:05AM...4:48AM departure from Louisville...5:39AM arrival in Ontario (CA, that is)...7:37 arrival in Anaheim...7:38 "out for delivery". I mean, how cool are computers? Which leads me to my next point: How did I get myself into this debacle?

My perception of Switzerland in general and even more specifically Swiss trains is sort of the cutting edge of technology. Switzerland has the most highly secured banks in the world, Swiss Francs are the most difficult to counterfeit and Swiss trains, well, I've heard the stories. So why am I having train documents overnighted from Chicago? As Ronnie explained to me on the phone yesterday, "although the trains are very sophisticated, since the trains travel multiple countries, there is is currently no way to do e-tickets." I might be an idiot, but my plane travels from Orange County to Newark, NJ to Zurich (multiple countries) and I didn't seem to have a problem printing an e-ticket for that. So Thursday - I'm halfway through the pass and ticket booking process when I get to "shipping options" - no e-ticket. No way to print anything out. I read further, "all pases are paper tickets and must be mailed". Scrambling, I search through about 13 pages of the web site and finally locate the US Eurail phone number - thinking I'll be able to talk to someone who will help me book this ticket.

"Sorry, I can't confirm you on that train, Italy's computers are closed for the night." Huh? Who "closes" their computers? Again, aren't we the e-commerce age where everything just works 24-7? "Yes, Sir - the computers in Italy close for the night at 10:30" - which is 2:30 Chicago time, which is 12:30 in OC and I look at the clock - 3:21.

In the end, at 2:05 Chicago time on Friday, I finally got the ticket booked and it began on its journey - which brings me back to where I am now - 8:30AM Saturday, sitting in my living room, waiting the knock on the door.

Hopefully, this isn't indicative of the way my trip will go: or maybe hopefully it will be. The best stories are when things go wrong. We're certainly leaving opportunity for things to go wrong. Of the 14 days that we'll spend in Europe, we currently have three nights "booked" - two at a mountain hostel in Switzerland and one with Nadine's family - a friend that my parents had as a foreign exchange student for a year (I'm very curious to see where she lives in Switzerland and how Eureka must have been, well, hell compared to the glorious Swiss Alps where she grew up). I'll certainly blog about that when I get back. Lodging for the rest of the night we decided - "We'll just figure it out" (famous last words).

The "plan" for the trip is as follows: Fly into Zurch on Monday morning - catch a train (this is where the rail pass comes in) to Venice, Italy (about a 8 hour train ride through the Alps). Meet my buddies Ben & Seth in Venice (they're currently in Budapest). Stay one day in Venice and catch a ferry across the Adriatic to Pula, Croatia.

Pula has the most preserved Roman Coliseum anywhere. I'd like to see that. From there - the journey begins. We will likely rent a car to go Plitvice (pictured) - which from what I understand is a can't-miss. Croatia's most treasured National Park is an oasis of lakes and waterfalls. From there, we'll likely camp, find a house to stay in (Croatians are known for converting a portion of their homes into private rooms to rent to travelers) or sleep on the side of the road somewhere. From Plitvice, we'll likely travel to Dubrovnik (pictured)- Croatia's most beautiful and cultural city - with old stone city walls that jet out of the Adriatic. From Dubrovnik, we'll likely head north to Split to drop the car off and catch a ferry back to Italy.

We plan to spend a day in Florence before heading up to Switzerland to beat the heat. We've really left Switzerland wide open. I'm hoping to go see the Matterhorn one day. We'll spend a couple days in Interlaken and the mountain hostel (pictured) in Gimmelwald (www.gimmelwald.com). From there, we'll likely head to Lucern to visit Nadine and her family. After we leave there, we'll have 3 or 4 days until we fly home out of Frankfurt, Germany. We'll either spend more time in Switzerland, head to Austria, or head to Germany for the final couple of days.

I'm looking forward to the adventure, the food, the beverages, the people, the experiences, the pictures...I could go on and on. Hopefully, I'll return. And hopefully, I'll return with some great pictures and some great stories...and hopefully, this rail pass will show up.