Things I learned about in Zurich

Men's suits are still worn by almost every Swiss businessman and as my dear friend Kurt Wehrsten says "no one looks bad in a suit." Looking on the streets of Zurich that is so true.

Zurich is the cleanest city we visited, the streets sparkle.

The Swiss are very friendly and helpful but in a very formal fashion.

Rosti (Swiss hash browns) are the one new food that Ben has tried and actually loved.

Everything in Zurich is expensive but some of the Francesconi's favorite activities - biking and swimming are free! Yes, the city of Zurich provides free bikes to anyone who wants to borrow one. They also have bath houses set up along the two major rivers that feed into Lake Zurich complete diving boards. You can jump in and swim against the current (think water treadmill) for free!

The city in Europe with the most drinking fountains is Rome but Zurich is second. However, given how much bigger Rome is than Zurich, you can grab a quick drink at almost every other street corner.

Only one third of Zurich's population owns a car. That said the cars they drive are the most expensive --Porches, Bentleys, Alfa Romeos I swear it feels like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

They have the best pastries I have encountered so far especially anything made with almond or chocolate.

We found Marc Chagall's stain glass windows on the Fraumünster Church. The artwork, design and hidden imagery kept Madelyn, Charlie and Ben engaged for over 15 minutes. (They all had to use the water closet too which might be the reason why they stayed studying the stained glass for so long.)

In my new life motto YOLO and my ongoing commitment to free I got Gary and Madelyn to go for a 7 am swim in the River Limmat before getting breakfast pastries, coffee and a small bag of Swiss chocolates all before our 1 pm flight.

An awesome day ALWAYS ends with a nude swim and hot cocoa.

Today is the last day the Francesconi's have in Europe, so we decided to make the most of it. And what do the Francesconi's do in Switzerland for one day? Thats right, go on yet another bike tour. So we set off at 8:00 in the morning.  On our walk to the bike tour we had to buy coffee otherwise our mother would be angry the entire day. Oh and not just any European Starbucks coffee but Goldiebeth coffee. Not too big, not too small, not too sweet and defiantly not too strong. Finally after getting our mom her Goldiebeth coffee (which was too strong by the way) we found our tour guide Bruno and set off.

Bruno's information took some twists and turns, but mainly stayed on topic. In just under five hours we covered almost all of Zurich, including many bathing joints along the rivers, public drinking fountains (second most next to Rome), and an incinerator that burns trash shipped from Italy to create electricity for the town. The best part of the day was after lunch, when I swam in the Limmat River. It was amazing!  The river current pushed me along as I floated down river. I didn't have my bathing suit, so I just swam in my underwear which was double awesome. This wasn't a big deal to any of the people around us because Europeans seem to have no problem with public nudity! After swimming we went to our hotel where we drank hot chocolate to end the awesome last day in Europe.

Running to catch a long gone plane

     Today we had a very tough flight schedule our plane was scheduled to leave Dubrovnik at 7:25 am. Unfortunately the flight was delayed by 15 minutes upon arrival to Frankfurt. When we landed we had to sprint over to the Lufthansa gate which required going through security again and then we had to run over to our gate  where we found out that the time that was on our boarding passes was the time when the plane was gone. We had to go back to the airplane help counter where we waited for a long time for our ticket number to pop up on the electronic board. Once our number appeared my parents were freaking out whenever some one went up to the counter ahead of them because they thought someone was cutting in front of them. I had to explain to them that the board we were on currently was just to get you ready. When we were finally getting help from the service desk another woman tried to cut the line because she only spoke Spanish and no one could understand her. So my mom busted out the Spanish and helped a lady who didn't understand the sign and was very confused. We had to pay a little bit of money to get on the Munich flight, but we ended up okay making our next flight to Munich. And from Munich we flew to Zurich. We arrived at our hotel and walked across the river for an amazing dinner that I loved and it was a great day!