Interlaken

Dateline: Arbon, Day 1 – Burn After Reading

Arbon, Switzerland
13 July 2009

L’Abri in the Morning

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18.0 mm || 1/25 || f/9.0 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70


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18.0 mm || 1/10 || f/9.0 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70


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18.0 mm || 1/13 || f/9.0 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70

Traveling to Arbon through Interlaken

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44.0 mm || 1/640 || f/9.0 || ISO200 || NIKON D70


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27.0 mm || 1/400 || f/9.0 || ISO200 || NIKON D70

Finally met up with Remo and Günther after a slight train mix up1. I’ve forgotten how funny Remo and Günther are. After a wonderful dinner, we watched Burn After Reading at the Open Air Kino mit UBS2 in English with German and French subtitles3. Final note of the day: Food is expensive in Switzerland. It was about $12 USD for a McDonald’s Meal.

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  1. all trains lead to Arbon…although not necessarily the same path ↩

  2. Outdoor Cinema ↩

  3. simultaneous subtitles will blow your mind ↩

The Three Amigos

After much convincing, the third partner in my trip is finally on board. Quinn’s actually been onboard for a while, he just finally purchased his ticket today…which means that he’s really on board now.

Charlie’s the the other partner on this trip. He’ll be joining me in Istanbul on 22 June, while Quinn won’t be joining us until around 10 July in Switzerland.

All three of us met tonight to get some logistics figure out. I think it was productive, at least as far as any meeting can be. Charlie’s going to be figuring out how to get us from Turkey to Greece, in addition to what where we’ll be going. Meanwhile, I’ll be figuring out where Charlie and I will be sleeping while in Istanbul and Cappadocia.

Italy is more or less figured out.

For Switzerland, I think the plan is to work our way from the southwest to the northeast, going through Interlaken, Lucerne, and St. Gallen.

Austria’s also mostly planed out.

With only four days left, I’ve finally started to pack. I have most of my stuff already, which just a few small things to pick up here and there. I’ll be releasing an updated itinerary and packing list in the next couple of days.

P.S. Quinn’s on the left, Charlie’s on the right.

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Updated Itinerary

Progess is being made! I’m calling this Itinerary v0.2. It appears that the only country that will need a visa is Russia. Thus, I’m going to going to start my travels there since it will have to be the most planned part of this trip. I talked with Jeff last night, as he had traveled to Russia several years ago, and got some good information on places to go. I’m hoping to have trip start and end dates locked down and reserved by the end of March, along with all the Russian parts locked down and reserved. 

I also talked with Quinn and Charlie, both of whom have indicated they would at least be interested in doing some traveling with me as well. I have calls in to Katelyn and Erin, both of whom have been and are currently in Turkey, respecitvely.

Below is a list of places that I think I would like to visit, in roughtly the order that I would visit them. I’ve also added notes (mostly to myself) about things I’d like to do there. I think this seems like a more managable list than previously. I’m also trying to setup a framework of things to do, however still allow the trip to progress organically.

  • Day 1: 
    Seattle, Washington 
    Dulles, Washington, DC
  • Airplane/10 hrs/UA964
  • Day 2: Moscow, Russia12
    • Red Square
    • The Kremlin
    • GUM
  • Airplane/1.25 hrs/$60 USD/Rossiya – Russian Airlines3
  • Day 6: St. Petersburg, Russia45
  • Bus/6 hrs/€30 ($40 USD)/EuroLines
  • Day 10: Tallin, Estonia6
  • France:
    • Paris, France (Paris Air Show – 15 to 21 June 2009)
    • Toulouse, France7
    • La Barre, France8
    • Vélizy, France9
    • Bidos, France 10
  • Italy:
    • Rome, Italy
    • Venice, Italy
    • Grottaglie, Italy11
    • Agnone, Italy12
  • Switzerland
    • Arbon, Switzerland
    • Interlaken, Switzerland13
  • Austria
  • Czech Republic
  • Poland
  • Ukraine
    • I’ve heard you can visit Chernobyl…could be cool.
  • Hungary
  • Turkey
  • Germany -> Seattle (UA8718)

Alternates:

  • Sweden14
  • Denmark->Seattle (UA9394)
  • Romania
  • Macedonia
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  1. http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/east/moscow.htm ↩

  2. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/moscow/sights ↩

  3. http://www.anywayanyday.ru/en/ ↩

  4. http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/east/petersbu.htm ↩

  5. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/st-petersburg/sights ↩

  6. http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/scan/tallinn.htm ↩

  7. 787 Production Stop: Groupe Latécoère ↩

  8. Birthplace of Jean-Luc Picard ↩

  9. 787 Production Stop: Messier-Dowty ↩

  10. 787 Production Stop: Messier-Dowty ↩

  11. 787 Production Stop: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/275606_italy28.html ↩

  12. We visited Agnone a couple of years, it’s where my maternal great-grandfather was born, and  I’ve wanted to return here to just spend a few days hanging out ↩

  13. I’ve heard this is a must ↩

  14. 787 Production Stop: Saab ↩