Trip to Switzerland

David's next conference was in Lugano, Switzerland. In total, David was gone for almost two weeks. That was just a little too long for me to be apart from the kids. Plus the second conference was much more important and much busier. David didn't really have time to be sightseeing. So after Amsterdam, we traveled to Milan, Italy, where I hopped on a flight back to Indiana and David took a train to Lugano. On our way to Italy, we spent a night in Zurich, Switzerland, and a day visiting the Alps in Lucerne.

Our view from our hotel room in Zurich

 From Zurich, we rented a BMW for the day to drive to Lucerne. David was excited to try out the German car, but unfortunately we never made it to the Autobahn to really put it to the test. Maybe our next European vacation...

The right side of this map shows the trip we took to the top of Pilatus Kulm (7000 ft). We took a gondola up two parts of the way. Then we took a cable car the last leg.

David, who is not a fan of dangling from high heights, was a little nervous to get in the gondola.

Lucerne below me in the gondola.

Our view of the city as we traveled higher.

You can see Lake Lucerne in the background. Beautiful views of the lake the whole way up!

At the second station, we got off the gondola, and enjoyed to view along with some food and drinks.Next we will be heading up that mountain behind David.

See the cable car on the way up?

The trip up the mountain was so peaceful - you could hear birds singing, the bells on the cows grazing on the mountain side ringing, and the occasional Alpine horn playing a song.

The view of the cable station from the side of the mountain. See the cable car almost at the top?

We hiked around the top for a couple of hours.

Many of the Alpine peaks around us were much higher than this mountain top.

I loved the Alpine horn!

Lake Lucerne down in the valley.

After Lucerne, we took a train the rest of the way to Milan. We spent one night in Milan before heading different directions. We did get to enjoy some Napolese pizza in Milan our one night there. David had a little time to explore the city but I did not. My flight left early in the morning for the long journey back home. I was so excited to see the kids! It seemed like they had a great time visiting their grandparents. They went swimming, went to the zoo and Children's Museum, ate ice cream, and splashed in the splash pad. So it was a good vacation for everyone! The night we got back to Columbus everyone slept in until after 8am, so I think we all were ready to be home in our own beds!!

Trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands

Through work, David had two hematology conferences to attend this June that were both in Europe. The conferences were just three days apart, and David had all his expenses paid for by the university. So we decided to make a vacation of his work trips and enjoy some time just the two of us! We are so lucky that his parents and my parents were able to watch the kids for us while we were in Europe. What an unbelievable vacation! The beginning of June was also our 9 year anniversary, so I thought of this as a little anniversary trip. It will be hard to top this for next year, our 10 year anniversary!

I started off the trip by driving 3 hours to Indianapolis to drop the kids off with his parents. Shortly after we arrived in Indy, I was dropped off at the airport to begin my 17 hour journey to Amsterdam, where David's first conference was. David flew out of Columbus, and we were lucky to be able to meet up in Detroit to take our overnight flight to Amsterdam together. We arrived on a Wednesday morning, jet-lagged and ready for a nap. But we managed to do a little sight seeing that day and enjoy some local flavors. David had a research presentation for the conference, but other than that, he just attended a few sessions that interested him the most. That meant lots of time to explore the city together.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city full of canals, bikes, and old houses. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous, and was impressed by how clean the city was and how nice the locals were. We visited several museums including the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Anne Frank House. The artwork and history were amazing, but my favorite by far was the Van Gogh Museum. If you have any interest in impressionist art, this is the museum for you! We also went on a "Lovers' Cruise" on the canal (pretty cheesy but fun), ate at two different pancake houses, explored the "Bloemenmarkt" (flower market) for some shopping, relaxed in the Vondelpark, and visited several Catholic Churches. We took all different modes of transportation (except the one Amsterdam is know for - bikes! Seemed a little to crazy for me!) including plane, train, bus, metro, tram, boat, and walking.

Look who tried to be a stowaway in my suitcase!

Houseboats on the canal.

Savory pancakes at our first pancake house. David thought I was weird for taking pictures of our food, so I had to stop after this first one.  We ate some pretty crazy things in Amsterdam including a pink paste called "American Beef" that we later found out was raw beef blended with spices and spread on a piece of bread with an egg on top!

Lovers' Cruise. This was a great way to see the city from a different vantage point, especially while it was raining.

View from our cruise window.

St. Nicholas Basilica - we went to mass here in Dutch on Sunday.

The church was beautifully decorated with layer upon layer of biblical illustrations on the walls and the ceiling.

In Vondelpark. I think all of Amsterdam was at the park that evening! Lots of people laying around enjoying a smoke and a picnic. Smoking was one part of Amsterdam that we did not take part in.

Bloemenmarkt - the flower market. We had arrived just after tulip season, which was probably a good thing because it can be quite crazy in Holland during the spring.

Beautiful!

Sidenote - we were in Amsterdam for Father's Day which meant that the kids were not with David on Father's Day. So Eliana had given me a book she had made for him to hold on to. I gave it to David that Sunday and he was quite surprised. It was a cute "All about my Dad" book written by "your happy child Eliana." She actually knew David quite well.  One of my favorite parts was the questions "What has your Dad taught you?" and Eliana's answer was "wrestle monster" which is a silly game David plays with the kids. It's a special type of horsing around for just David and the kids (which I am quite glad I am not allowed to play!). What a neat memory for Eliana (and all the kids) to have with her father. Also what a neat idea for Eliana to give the book to me so that they could celebrate Father's Day even an ocean apart!