Male'ana: Bicycle Diaries - Tour De France 2005 vacation

Here's my "dissertation" (as coined by the soon-to-be Dr. Buonerba). Hope it doesn't put you to sleep as quickly as some of my other work papers are bound to do!! Read from top down... tried to do it in chronological order with different days in different entries so it's not too long. I tend to be a little verbose when I write! *sheepish grin*

Day 0: Friday

Kale and I rush home from our respective workplaces... get a quick shower in, and pack up the last minute things. Mom kindly offers us a ride to the airport, and without much further ado (and a full 3 hours early) we arrive at the airport. We were unsuccessful in bargaining for better seats and were stuck waaay in the back of the bus (row 67 or something retarded like that). Mom has a minor panic attack when she can't find her wallet (turns out it was left in the car), and after we help her "find" it, we head off in through immigration.

After what feels like ages of waiting, we pile into the plane and promptly fall asleep for 7 hours (the best way to fly, if you ask me) and wake up in time to catch "Million Dollar Baby" prior to landing. Arrive in Frankfurt at 5am local time... marvel at the amazing "smoking areas", which are essentially just signs put up near tall ashtrays with no visible ventilation systems. Great.

Day 1: Saturday - Zurich

Arrive at Zurich International Airport at 7:40am. Locate the hotelbus (not the Joker Bus, which believe it or not, is really a name of another hotel shuttle!) and get to the Welcome Inn without any fuss at all. Room turns out to be pretty darn nice... Good start to the vacation, I say!

We get turned away at the breakfast restaurant (cos we apparently don't have "breakfast rooms") and venture out in search of breakfast. Get our first taste of ridiculous Swiss prices. Settle for a Napoleon Slice from the nearby backerie, deli ham and yoghurt. First time (with many more to follow) when Kale tries to ask for a spoon for his yogurt in a non-English speaking store (now we know it's la cuiller). Sweet. Take our food to the nearby square to savour our food (and newfound freedom) in the cool brisk air and bright sunshine. We marvel at the number of bikes on the roads, and the lack of people and cars. Nice.

The Backerie outside our hotel in Kloten

Having brekky in the square and enjoying the sunshine and cool air

Shortly after, while we're lying around watching telly in the hotel room, we hear the distinctive American accent floating up from the parking lot. And lo and behold.. the rest of the Buonerba entourage has arrived. Kale gets an exceptionally warm welcome from Dangerboy (read: Wes runs straight into his arms for a bear hug at first sight!). We all surmise it's cos of the uncanny resemblance between the 2 buonerba brothers... don't think Wes can really tell the difference quite yet. Bet he just figures he gets 2 for the price of 1.. yeah!

The whole herd wanders out for "lunch" at the same convenience store (hotdogs for the girls and more yogurt for Kale)... before we head out by train to downtown Zurich.

Zurich was really really pretty... my parents and I had visited when I was perhaps Carissa's age, but I don't remember anything about it.. this time around though, I soaked it all in and have pictures to help jolt the memories a couple of years from now. The river was beautiful, the buildings were quaint, and the weather was lovely. There was also a "teddy" Zurich theme with 4 foot high teddies placed all over town - good for distracting kiddies, I say!

Walked all the way down to Zurichsee, and then caught a riverboat thingamajig back to the train station where the girls (and their shirts) had ice cream before we headed back to the hotel.