July 2007 Blog Posts (67)

We learned while visiting Media PA that a year ago, it was recognized as the “First Fair Trade Town in the USA.” Of course, we had to make some purchases at the “Ten Thousand Villages” store. The gifts were received, and became even more important when my niece and grand-niece learned that others would be…

Tuesday, August 27th this was our first Untours trip to Switzerland. The four of us, Helen, Al and Fred and Jean left Boston, our luggage would be sent directly to the rail station in Meiringen. We didn't have to worry about our luggage. We flew overnight to Zurich Airport. In the morning we were met by the Swiss Team and the other Untourists at the Railway Center. We had our Swiss passes validated and we were on our way to Luzern; then we would train to Meiringen. We didn't know what…

In the fall of 2003, my husband, Earl, my friend, Margaret and I went to Spain with Untours. We stayed in the big (4 bedroom/2 bath) house adjacent to Maria’s house in an olive grove outside of the town of Fuente Tójar.…

• Pete Haggart jumped in feet first to start blogging (Yay Pete! despite some technical goblins at first...check out his trip log from Spain.) Of course, Vance was blogging before we knew what a blog was and he is continuing to give us his inimitable…

I just returned on Friday night from a wonderful trip; the Explorama interaction with the schools is very much in the Untours tradition, I think.

PERU (THE AMAZON)…

Well it turns out that the doctor's diagnosis was the correct one. I didn't have a brain tumor. On the fifth day of my forced bed rest, I found out something about recovering from Labyrinthitis. It is not a gradual recovery, but a step-by-step improvement interrupted by several days of no change. One day I was depressed with no recovery in sight. The next day I suddenly felt better. From then on I would suddenly get a little better after a few days of no change. I was first able to move from…

Saturday, September 2nd today we took it easy as yesterday was a long day trip to Lausanne. Used our Swiss Com card to call family and friends; they are always delighted to hear from us in Switzerland. After Mass this evening we are invited to Lydia and Ernst's home for a delicious Swiss dinner.

We had given Lydia 4 cloth placemats and she placed them on the table before we ate dinner. We enjoyed Lydia's Swiss dish, melting cheese and pouring…

Frank and I just returned last night from our first Paris Untour. It was awesome! Frank celebrated his birthday while we were there and we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary also. Two in one week! We went to the Moulin Rouge for one of the evening shows as our special anniversary celebration and it was so worth it. Such history in that place!

I am still jet lagged at this point but wanted to start on the Untours Cafe.

Will write more later.

Au Revoir, Marlene

The month of October was spent making final preparations for our trip to Switzerland. Since the delirium of winning the Grand Prize, our enthusiasum had dampened. We weren't looking forward to a grueling tour bus marathon of 12 cities in 7 days. The only thing that appealed to us about the trip was flying business first class. So as our departure date of November 12th approached, our mood was more a sense of dread than anticipation. Our flight was scheduled to depart Newark International…

Wednesday, August 30th Eiseniedein was our destination today; with train connections it took 3 hours. We walked up a slight incline to reach the Abbey and Monastery.

The town was very picturesque, with many shops, bakeries and restaurants. We checked out the local ice cream shops, inside the varities were very, very tempting. Of course we stopped and enjoyed ourselves, eating Swiss ice cream.

On the…

We had planned a 6 day trip to the hometown of Norman Rockwell, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in September followed by a few days with Eleanor's cousin, Richard, in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. It was a little stressful preparing for the Switzerland trip. I'm used to a year's worth of preparation on any big vacation. But we decided to go ahead with the Massachusetts/Quebec trip anyway. We thought that it would be good to get away and relax. In Quebec, we would be staying at the lakeside…

Of course Eleanor made a point of getting an autograph and photo of Chris Edwards, WMTR Morning Show Host.

At 2:56pm, they had the drawing for the Grand Prize. It was an absolute total shock when they announced the name....Eleanor Kover. How lucky can you get!

The Grand Prize was a 9 day trip for two to…