Famille Du Pentium

It’s about 11 PM on day two of our big summer vacation.  Yesterday was just a drive day, we went about 530 miles from Chicago to Springfield MO in about 11 or 12 hours with plenty of stopovers.  Now we’re watching the Olympics before we go to bed, ready to make the trek from here to Dallas in about seven hours of driving (ten with stopovers).

Today we went to Branson, which is about 45 minutes south of Springfield.  For those from Illinois, Branson is a lot like Wisconsin Dells.  There is a main strip, and a lot of family activities.  The main differences I noticed:

• More shows in Branson than in Dells.  But I’ve noticed that more shows are opening up every year in the Dells.  I think they (the owners in the Dells, like Tommy Bartlett’s family) are taking their cue from Branson
• More water parks in Dells than Branson.  There are one or two, but not nearly as many as in the Dells. 
• In a stunning development, Branson has better go carts and tracks than Dells.  The Dells used to be famous for this, but now the only way to ride a go cart in Dells is to buy in to a huge theme park that happens to have them.  Here, you can still go to *just* go cart tracks, and there are about five or six of them. 

Aside from that, we’re loving the food and swimming a lot.  Aaron has developed quite a taste for southern food, especially BBQ.  He is really going to love it in Texas.  Well, at least I hope that Dallas has good BBQ. 

Now it’s time for bed.  I’ll post more later, and maybe some pictures will come soon too.

Oh, speaking of which, I owe you readers some pictures from the Special Olympics (last June) and the Bears game we recently went to (late July).  As soon as we get back home :).  

As I said, we went to Stevens Point and Rome, Wisconsin for our 4th of July vacation.  We stayed at a hotel because as you may or may not remember, the chumps in the Town of Rome kicked us campers out two years ago.  Ironically, that decision was overturned by an appellate court this year.  But too late, we’ve already sold our camper. 

Anyway, the Anderson’s hung on to their property, so we stayed there during the day and went to our hotel in Steven Point in the evenings.  During the day, it was swimming on the beach and of course the kids collecting up as much dirt as possible.  

Pictures HERE. 

We’ll be in Wisconsin celebrating Independence Day.  Boating at Lake Camelot, fireworks at Wisconsin Rapids and of course swimming in the hotel pool!  We’ll take pictures of course, watch for them after we get back.

Besides our late summer trip to Texas, we have a weekend trip to Normal, Illinois.  Justin and Ethan have been invited to participate in the Special Olympics Summer Games at Illinois State University.  We’re going for a weekend in mid-June. 

Of course, what would any trip be without a Google Map?  And the hotel… and pictures, after we return.

We’re going to Dallas, Texas in mid-August for our family vacation.  I’ve just planned out the route and hotels, so as usual I will give my blog readers a look at our plans.

This is a Google Map of our outbound trip. It’s split into two days, Chicago to Springfield, MO and then Springfield to Dallas.  While staying over in Springfield, we’ll stay at the Holiday Inn & Suites.  It’s near Branson, so we’re staying over an extra day and might go check out some funky music.  Once we arrive in Dallas, we’ll stay at a Holiday Inn Express near my cousin’s house.

On the way home, we’ll take basically the same route home, but keep going through Springfield and stop over for our first night at a Holiday Inn in Lebanon, MO.   Then it’s the final leg back to Chicago. 

During my last visit to Zurich, I took a day excursion to Jungfraujoch, the highest point in the Swiss Alps, also called "Top of Europe".  From roughly 11,700 feet you can see … well, more Alps.  But it is a beautiful trip up the mountain by cogwheel train, with picturesque views of the Swiss countryside and mountains.  On the way, we stopped over in Lucerne and Interlaken.  The pictures are HERE; unfortunately I don’t have time right now to explain them all but it’s basically – pictures of Interlaken on the way up (that’s where you’ll find Hooters), and then pictures of the mountain itself. 

Enjoy! 

During my recent travels to Zurich, I took a walking tour and during the tour I saw this:

For those of you who can’t read it, the full-size picture is here. 

For those of you who can’t read German, it basically says that Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, lived in this apartment.

Interesting, huh?  So what does that have with Swiss Banking Law?

Well, see,when Lenin left exile in Switzerland at this apartment to go back to Russia and overthrow the Tzar, he took all his money out of his Swiss bank account… all except CHF8 (eight Swiss Francs).  

And there it remains, to this day, in his name, until a decendant of Lenin claims it. 

During my recent trip to Zurich, I went to the Zoo and visited Masoala, the simulated Madagascar Rainforest area.  This is an indoor area that has been cultivated and primed with everything except insect life from a Madagascar ecosystem.  Most of the animals came from other Zoos, so they are not truly wild – but still, very authentic.

The pictures are here.   Mostly you’ll see plant life and many attempts to capture Lemurs without a flash.  That first picture is actually of the largest clock face in Europe, and is not actually in the Zoo, it got mis-organized with my Zoo pics and it wasn’t worth moving it again.  The second picture is a street scene near Fraumunster, again not Zoo, so sue me.  The rest are pictures from the Zoo, I promise!  🙂

I spent a little over a week in Zurich on a business trip at the end of August.  Pictures are HERE, and this is what you’ll see:

•  Pictures on the street near my hotel.  I seem to be hung up on that Lindt Chocolates sign, as you’ll see.  My hotel was right next to the Polybahn station, a little train that goes up the hill from Central to Limmatquai.
• Pictures DSC00916 through DSC00919 are of some work friends and I at a restaurant on Bahnhoffstrasse (whose name I can never remember) having the famous drink of whiskey and beer.  If it showed up in the pictures, the glasses are on fire from the Whiskey, then they put out the fire with the beer, and then you drink it.
• Some pictures from the downtown area near my hotel, where you can eat and drink almost anything.  DSC00920 through DSC00925.
• Some pictures from touring Zurich on foot.  DSC00932 to DSC00942 are from my ride on the Polybahn, including a great view of my hotel (DSC00940).
• A great picture of Zurich from one of the higher points in the city, overlooking the river. (DSC00947)

There are more pictures than this, but these are the ones from Zurich proper.  Later, posts & pics about the Zurich Zoo and Jungfraujoch – "The Top of Europe"

I stayed at "Du Theatre" for a recent business trip.  This hotel is located centrally in Zurich, very convenient to the main train station and other "downtown Zurich" hotspots, including a LOT of shopping and restaurants right outside the hotel doors.  This is a good thing, and a bad thing because all those restaurants are also bars and they stay open late and make a lot of noise.  I had a room facing the pedestrian streets of downtown Zurich, and with the window open it was quite noisy.

Which brings us to our problem.  The Hotel does not have air conditioning.  This is fairly common in Europe as well as Switzerland, for hotels that don’t cater to Americans.  But when the temps get up to 85-90 degrees F in the summer, I can’t imagine that even hardened Europeans are comfortable.  So you open the window.  And then you hear the noise.  So you close the window, and hope for the best.

The breakfast floor has a small buffet Swiss-style breakfast of cereal, fresh sliced meats and cheeses, hard boiled eggs, and of course coffee.  If you like coffee, you will really like Zurich.  If you must drink decaf, good luck.  But if you can handle a cup of espresso that is equivalent to five American cups of coffee, you will do well here.  Everyone does business over coffee, and you can easily get a huge caf buz going by dinnertime.  

Which is why there are so many great bears in Switzerland.  To offset all that coffee :).

Anyway, back to the hotel.  Great service, OK breakfast, no lounge or restaurant (not that you need one, with all the bars and restaurants right outside the door) and no A/C.  Small rooms, but that’s OK for Biz travellers.  

The kicker? It’s about 25% cheaper than most Zurich American-style hotels.  For a business traveler, this is a great deal on a no-frills hotel that puts you in the heart of the city.  For a leisure traveler used to "European-style" hotels, it would also be good.  For an American family taking a European jaunt, I’d skip the "Du Theatre".