Travel and First Impressions

Well, we made it! I'm having trouble writing this message, because it's on an Italian keyboard I guess. The z and y are switched. When I hit the left shift key, I get a < and the apostrophe key is a à.

The trip was long and hard. It started off great on the British Airways flight. We saw a couple of movies, had some food, and sat in the row right behind first class! But it started going downhill in Zurich. I think we both underestimated how wierd it feels to not be able to read or hear any instructions. The train was a challenge. The lady at the ticket booth gave us tickets for the train to Lugano that was leaving about 5 minutes after we bought it. So we rushed down to the tracks and then started freaking out because we had 3 tons of luggage and it did not look like anyone was checking bags for people. So we went back up to ask if it was okay to drag our luggage on with us. The lady was a little rude to Malinda this time and said that we had about 2 minutes to check our luggage for $20, but we would not be able to get it until tomorrow. That was not going to work. So we missed our train, plus we had to lug our 3 tons of luggage and bump into and hold up a bunch of people we could not even apologize to because they all speak German and Italian.... So we have to spend the rest of the train ride feeling like "that guy" to everyone around us.

But... we made it. The ride over was really beautiful. We did not take any pictures because we have been up for about 24 hours straight now and we were falling asleep every 5 minutes. I think they mow any grass visible here, even on mountains. Everything is very well kept, green, and clean. The area reminded us both of what it's like when you are driving to the ski resorts in Colorado, only it's like the part before you go through that tunnel where everything on the other side is covered in snow. So lots of cool mountains, not too tall, covered with trees, and very steep.

Getting off the train in Lugano was nice. Its like 73 degrees and sunny. It looks like a really nice place. The taxi ride over was cool. The streets are awesome and we already saw some stores that we recognized for future shopping excursions. Then we arrived at our hotel... You're going to need pictures to get 50% of the feel of the depression inspired by our hotel. Our room is very small, much too small to live in for one month with all the clothes you own. It consists of a bathroom and a room with a bed that takes up 90% of all the floor space. It has a 10" TV that was made probably in 1983, and is all Italian or German. Oh yeah, and it has a chair that I feel gross looking at, much less sitting on. While I'm working during the day Malinda can... ... ... do nothing here. This brought forth a few tears, and they were well deserved on a rough, long day.

I forgot to mention above that there is no internet in our room. The only internet is in this room on the fifth floor where you have to buy a card for minutes and get a key from the guy at the front desk to open this... bathroom, I guess, that has a desk and computer in it (with a keyboard that is really hard to type on).

I predict that Malinda will be finding a nice coffee shop near the lake with wireless access where she can spend some time during the day with a book and our computer, so she can keep everyone updated and not go stir crazy in our "temporary accomodations"

It's about 7:30pm here and that makes it 12:30pm for all you guys and girls. We are going to grab something to eat and probably come back to our room and be not totally happy. This is tougher than expected, but we know it will get better once we've had some rest and time to adjust. We are looking forward to tomorrow, to 1) have a guide to show us around, 2) get out of our hotel, and 3) see what apartments are available.

We already miss everyone, but we're not going to harp on that too much...

Love you,
Ryan and Malinda