7 Countries. 6 Days. 5 Capitals. 4 Wheels.

Rolf, my fellow expat friend from Chicago, and I decided to take advantage of our freizeit and hit the road. We drove through 7 countries, (Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Solvenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia,) in 6 days, (Monday, March 20 - Sunday, March 26) and visited 5 capital cities, (Ljubljana, Slovenia; Zagreb, Croatia; Budapest, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, Austria.) Plus, a nice little detour to Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Mozart. He was born 150 years ago and the town is alive with celebration.

What an wild adventure! Click on the video or the link below and discover the sites from this long strange trip.

Click here to watch video.

ATTENTION: This video is almost 24MB. It's a monster, so if you don't have high-speed internet, you may want to start the download, go have a snack and come back. :-)

Gstaad - The rich. The famous. The horny.

After Zermatt, our next ski stop was Gstaad. Gstaad is famous for attracting movie stars and other who's who. We really loved it there. As did the other expat couple, Valerie and Rolf, who joined us. Gstaad offers lower elevation skiing, so you get more trees to ski by! It's really beautiful there. What am I saying, it's in Switzerland, so of course it's beautiful. With that said, there's something special about the area. The movie stars? No. The über wealthy? No. The Horny Bar! Yes. That's it! A very satisfying place to stop and relax with a cold beer in your hand and the sun on your face. Perched on a lower peak with sweeping views of the Alps, it's a great place to rest your bones from all the world-class skiing. Welcome to the good life...

Snowed-in

We got pounded with snow over a weekend in early March. And what fun it was. We don't have the exact statistics, but it seemed to be almost 2 feet or more. And unlike Chicago, Zurich is just not prepared for this. Which was great, as it allowed kids (and some grown-ups, too :) ) to enjoy it for a while. What amused us most was how some people used the trams / funiculars as "lifts" to the higher parts of the city and the streets as "runs". Unfortunately, most of it was gone in time for the Monday commute! Oh well. Good memories just the same.