Europe (continued)
Last time I wrote about my trip to Europe I was just about to leave London. That was some crazy shazbot right there.
I got up pretty early on Sunday, 18th June, checked out and caught a taxi to Paddington railway station where I discovered that the Heathrow Express to the airport would not be running until roughly an hour later than I'd planned on - they were doing track work! So rather than arriving at the airport by 5:30am as I'd planned, I arrived there at roughly 6:15am. The flight was due to leave at 7:10am and check-in closed at 6:30am; there was, of course, a fairly long line. Luckily I managed to get my bag checked in just in time and make my flight.
The flight arrived in Zurich early, which was extremely helpful, touching down a bit after 9am local time. By 10am I'd made my way through customs and down to the railway station where I caught the train to Zurich Hauptbahnhof (the central station in Zurich). I had planned to leave my suitcase in a locker at the station but there weren't any free, so I jumped on a tram to my hotel, dumped it there, and jumped on another tram back to Zurich HB where I just made my train to Stuttgart.
It turned out that the seat I'd booked was in the same section as an Aussie couple who were in Europe on their honeymoon. It was nice having a bit of chat for a couple of hours with some people from back home. At Stuttgart I changed trains and continued on to Munich where I once again met up with my parents. Dad and I saw Mum onto her train back to Zurich, then we headed off to the stadium to see Australia lose to Brazil. One highlight of the train trip out there was the strippers wandering through the carriages giving out flyer's for "Sexy Club" near the Munich HB.
The stadium itself was absolutely huge, the weather perfect, and the crowd fantastic. We really should have scored at least one goal against Brazil, but just as with the Japan game the atmosphere was incredible. Getting back to the HB from the stadium was a bit of a nightmare - there was absolutely no room to move on the train. Checking the timetable, we realised we wouldn't have time to check out "Sexy Club" before our first train back to Zurich (much to our dismay). Due to how late it was, we had to catch a train to Innsbruck in Austria and then wait for an hour there before catching another train to Zurich. Total travel time was roughly 8 hours - we made it back to the hotel at about 7:30am, grabbed some breakfast, and then grabbed a few hours sleep before lunch.
TBC.
I got up pretty early on Sunday, 18th June, checked out and caught a taxi to Paddington railway station where I discovered that the Heathrow Express to the airport would not be running until roughly an hour later than I'd planned on - they were doing track work! So rather than arriving at the airport by 5:30am as I'd planned, I arrived there at roughly 6:15am. The flight was due to leave at 7:10am and check-in closed at 6:30am; there was, of course, a fairly long line. Luckily I managed to get my bag checked in just in time and make my flight.
The flight arrived in Zurich early, which was extremely helpful, touching down a bit after 9am local time. By 10am I'd made my way through customs and down to the railway station where I caught the train to Zurich Hauptbahnhof (the central station in Zurich). I had planned to leave my suitcase in a locker at the station but there weren't any free, so I jumped on a tram to my hotel, dumped it there, and jumped on another tram back to Zurich HB where I just made my train to Stuttgart.
It turned out that the seat I'd booked was in the same section as an Aussie couple who were in Europe on their honeymoon. It was nice having a bit of chat for a couple of hours with some people from back home. At Stuttgart I changed trains and continued on to Munich where I once again met up with my parents. Dad and I saw Mum onto her train back to Zurich, then we headed off to the stadium to see Australia lose to Brazil. One highlight of the train trip out there was the strippers wandering through the carriages giving out flyer's for "Sexy Club" near the Munich HB.
The stadium itself was absolutely huge, the weather perfect, and the crowd fantastic. We really should have scored at least one goal against Brazil, but just as with the Japan game the atmosphere was incredible. Getting back to the HB from the stadium was a bit of a nightmare - there was absolutely no room to move on the train. Checking the timetable, we realised we wouldn't have time to check out "Sexy Club" before our first train back to Zurich (much to our dismay). Due to how late it was, we had to catch a train to Innsbruck in Austria and then wait for an hour there before catching another train to Zurich. Total travel time was roughly 8 hours - we made it back to the hotel at about 7:30am, grabbed some breakfast, and then grabbed a few hours sleep before lunch.
TBC.