European Crash Triple Threat

Day -3: End of a California adventure

Friday morning I awoke at midnight, and found myself unable to fall asleep— The previous day I had modified my travel plans to arrive home seven hours earlier. (5 PM). However there is no such thing as a free lunch, and so this morning I found myself leaving my hotel at 3:30 AM.

Despite the sleeplessness, my flights were uneventful, and I arrived home on time. Blessed by the fact that my in laws were helping with Rowan, because I now had 72 hours to completely re-pack myself for a European excursion.

Day -1: Tennis Shoes

Packing has been going well. I found time to buy new tennis shoes, and go to a company party at a Rochester Red Wings game.

The weather is threatening to cancel the trip. There are spotty severe thunderstorms forecasted for tomorrow in Rochester and Washington DC.

Day 0: I forgot the shoes

The entire morning was spent packing. The entire afternoon was spent packing. So of course when Chris Johnson drives us to the airport I immediately realize I have forgotten my new shoes, and am instead wearing my old Crocs.

Luckily the weather seems to be cooperating, and the storms are thankfully avoiding us, and are not as severe as originally predicted. Sadly that does not stop our 8PM flight from being delayed nearly an hour. Leaving us with less than one hour to catch our connection in Washington DC.

It seems like everything conspired against us, our plane made it to the gate, but the bridge was not moved to the plane for several minutes. Not expecting to be waiting to exit, we had rudely woken Rowan. Lucky for us, with the hour of sleep he had, he managed to stay calm, and enjoyed watching everyone sweat as they stressed about making their connection.

Exiting the plane we had to wait on the tarmac for our stroller. While waiting I used the App to plan my route to the gate. It was an estimated 30 minute walk to the gate, but that involved several elevators and a tram system.

After getting our stroller we quickly run to catch our flight that is leaving in 20 minutes. We make the left hand turn towards the escalators, only to the find that the elevator is broken….. with no other way to get up the stairs. I grab Rowan and the stroller and rush them up the stairs. But now, I am in uncharted territory, according to the map, without the elevator I will be forced to take a series of 5 escalator trips before reaching the tram.

So imagine my surprise when a tram is waiting immediately to my left with a sign that says: “To Terminal D”. 10 minutes later we are at terminal D, and only a short run to our gate, where my parents. (Grandma, and Grandpa) are anxiously waiting.

We enter the end of the queue, thinking we will be the last ones to board. So imagine my surprised when after finding our seats we wait another 30 minutes for fellow passengers to connect.

Initially Marissa, Rowan, and I have the row to ourselves, but we know it can’t last, no matter how much we hope for it to. The last 5 passengers join, and a young man sits in out row.

After 10 minutes the Steward (Chris Pacconi) comes by, and asks the man if we would like a seat where he would have no neighbor. This man is my new hero. Rowan is asleep on my lap, and I could cry.

Day 1: Travel to Dijon

Rowan was a hero and slept the entire flight. Amazingly we had no problems going through customs and managed to get to the car that was going to drive us to Dijon.

The car dropped us off outside the Airbnb, without WiFi or cellular, it became very difficult to get into the apartment the first time. Once we did get in contact with the host we realized they didn’t speak any English, and our French isn’t good, especially when we are extremly tired. But we managed to muddle through.

Dad went to the local grocery store and pick up some food, which we ate, and fed to Rowan before finally jumping into bed.

Day 2: Dijon, work, play, and tragedy

I have been attempting to get as much work done as possible, so I can still have vacation for the rest of the year. The problem is finding time to do that while still seeing the city.

My morning was spent working, before leaving for a couple hours to see our friends. We walked to the city center and let Rowan play in the water features, before heading to a local cafe for lunch (which mostly consisted of Espresso). After lunch we stopped at the art museum where we looked at some medevil art.

“Did you see the Muppet lion?” - Marissa

Day 3: Pain d’spice

Marissa and our friends went to the Archeology museum.

Day 4: Let’s get some luck!

First we visited the Museum of Burgundian Life.

Marissa and I stopped by the Dijon owl to try and get some luck back into our trip.

Day 5: Climbing compeition

We rented a car early in the morning and started our drive into Switzerland.

We managed to get into Villars Sur Ollen by 1 pm. Just in time to celebrate Collin Duffy Topping the qualifying route. We watched the rest of the climbers and had a great time! In the end two Americans got into the finals.

It was around this time, that I got a message from our Airbnb host for the night. Saying that she was canceling our reservation. I waited several hours for Airbnb to get back to me, and help, but they never did. So Kim ended up getting us a cheaper hostile type hotel.

During the break between semi-finals and finals we went and had a good Swiss dinner (long). We wondered why the food was so expensive, and came to the realization that Villars is a resort town. To make up for the price we used their free wifi for a long time.

After eating we made our way to a nearby sports shop and rented equipment for a via ferrata. Even though our plan is to do a via Ferrata an hour in the wrong direction. We decided to get it then so we didn’t have to worry (this proved to be a brilliant move by Autumn!)

We made it back with plenty of time for the compeition, and managed to get right on the fence next to the athletes. We hung out for almost two hours before the start of finals.

On the other side of the athletes section was the Althete Entrace which had a security guard at it. I watched as many athletes were directed to the front row, while the athletes told the security guard that they should be in the middle or back rows. But she refused to back down.

I watched as these athletes jumped the fence to the middle section. Soon, athletes started jumping the fence I was leaning on to get in and avoid the issues. I made it my job to hold the fence steady as they jumped. I got several thank yous and fist bumps from different athletes. It was awesome.

The compeition was also amazing and ended with no tops on the men’s route, and one on the women’s. Two of the women did a really cool Hollywood move, which made the crowd go wild.

Several times during the compeition it had started to rain, but stopped quickly. We managaed to stay mostly dry. But at the end of the competition the rain wasn’t letting up so our jackets ended up pretty wet.

It was than a 40 minute drive to the hotel, it was up the mountain rather then back down into the city. We started the drive excited that we would be avoiding traffic. However we quickly ran into dense fog, blind switchbacks, and miles of 2-way roads with only a single lane, and a sheer drop.

Hotel-sleep-7 am exit.

“Couldn’t have pick a better spot to have a traffic jam” -Autumn while stuck in traffic over looking Montreux and the Swiss Alps.

The look Tim got when he ordered an Espresso and a gin and tonic. The waiter had to double check that he heard us correctly.

“You had a hair in your fries? What do want me to do about it. Next time tell me about it” - The waiter at the Resort ski resort

“We’ll be leaving around 10:30 from the climbing competition” - Autumn “They are going to DIE” - Marissa ** ** They did not die. ** ** They almost did

“If you open the window you can hear the cows tinkling” - Marissa Us: why is it so quiet we can hear them peeing?

“Kim deserves a Fat Bearded Commrad Club award for services rendered” - Doug, because Kim makes us steaks and is driving Doug and Marissa around to get Swiss Chocolate tomorrow.

Passing Rye France: “if Rye bread doesn’t come from Rye France, it’s just Sparkling Bread” - Tim and John

Day 5: What The Fuck (Marissa and Kim)

The air bnb didn’t let us in. There were people in the airbnb, running around. Saw a camel laying down under a tree Fictional youtuber: #Ausgang Freddie Mercury statue Went to a castle Half deer statue Copy right infringement wall at the mall. The first hotel room they gave us was trashed. Rösti-burger & Cider

Kim and Marissa also almost died on the switchbacks… but were definetly safer than the other car.

Marissas phone however did choose today to completly shit the bed. The camera stopped working, and the wifi wont turn on…. Without a SIM card it cant connect to the internet.

Day 6: Via Ferrata

We got stopped by border patrol on our way back into Switzerland. The guy in front of us didn’t have his passporr

“That was very pain d’spice” - Tim

“That was A+” - Autumn

“I’ve evolved… I’ve caught up to someone” - Autumns driving has improved a great deal

Day 6: What The fuck part 2 (Kim Marissa Doug)

Convertible through the Alps was the beat choice Marissa bought a cow bell for Bear from the only seller who took credit cards

A car race down the alps.

There was an accident on a switch-back. Someone was being Heli-vac’ed out.

Day 7: “Minor Two-Timings” last day

One of the last things we did together was go up the tower of Phillip the Good. That was a lot of fun because we could see the entire city and the surrounding area.

The start of the second chaos saga.

Day 11: Last morning in Dijon. Hello Vienna

12 hour train ride with a baby is hard.

made harder by the fact that our train was delayed almost 2 hours.

we ended up walking to the airbnb at midnight, and managed to almost get run over ONLY once.

Day 12: Vienna Zoo

We finally bought Marissa a SIM card (that works), so she can finally text people again.

We than spent the entire day at the zoo, it was amazing. We managed to sit front row for the Sea Lion show. It was impressive and scary, the large bull male was jumping 20 feet into the water and getting everyone wet.

Rowan visited his first petting zoo, they provided brushes for the children. Rowan really wanted to brush a goat, but none would stick around long enough for him, but he still had a great time.

We ended up at a resteraunt where a woman was singing American 70s music. The food was very tasty, but the bathroom was very strange.

Day 13: Graz here we come

Its a two hour train ride to Graz. We have a toddler and a sick man (Jamie) with us

Day 18: Vienna 2 Electric Boogaloo

“Don’t soil your only tiny napkin” - Nini, late night cocktails, one napkin for 3 people. :-/

“Why does your drink have a weird dolphin on it?”

Day 19: Drinking on the Danyu