It’s time to take another trip.
At the end of 2004, friends of ours, a Liechtensteiner and a Swiss, moved back to Zürich from Mountain View. Roman was a colleague of mine. Technically, he still is, since he now works for Google in Switzerland and I’m officially also still an employee, albeit on sabbatical. (Incidentally, Google has agreed to extend my sabbatical by a further three months, so I will now remain an employee until at least the beginning of February 2006.)
Anyway, before Carine and Roman left for Switzerland, we discussed our plans to return to Amsterdam in the summer of 2005 and vowed to visit them before the end of that year. With the end of 2005 fast approaching, it was high time to make good on our pledge, so we went up to Centraal Station today and booked our seats on the night-train for the end of this month. We’ll stay with Carine and Roman for six days.
This should be a lot of fun. I’ve never been to Switzerland before, so that will be another country to add to my list. For Eloïse, it will be her sixth country within seven months of life, which seems pretty good for someone who can’t even speak or control her own bladder yet. If only she were old enough to realise how well-travelled she is! Actually, I shouldn’t even really count Belgium, as she has only passed through it on the train on the way to/from France and for a few minutes when we went to the Drielandenpunt with Geoff. Even Germany’s a stretch, as we were only in Aachen for a few hours.
We decided to travel first class, which is something we never do on planes, but it’s a lot of fun on trains. Our compartment will have its own toilet and shower, as well as two spacious beds. You get a glass of wine when you board the train and are served breakfast in your compartment in the morning. We’re spoiling ourselves, but what’s life without a little luxury?
.ch, here we come!