Well, we are within one month of our departure date, and it still seems like there is a lot left for us to do!
We have gone ahead and bought some of the train tickets for Germany, at least their web site works, takes U.S. credit cards, and allows up too purchase more than 30 days out. We really do this to save a little on the fares, some of the discounts are pretty good, but we are then locked into that departure time. That will help motivate us to go ahead and get up and get going on those mornings. We can always snooze a little on the train since the train rides are at least 2 hours long in most cases. Well, at least Stephanie will be able to sleep some, someone has to make sure we get off at the correct station!
My plan is to try and do the blog updates on the train trips, alt least type up the posts, and reduce the picture sizes so they will post correctly when we have access to an internet connection.
We still have to wait for the Swiss train tickets and for the Austrian train tickets, hopefully we will find some discounted fares. These train tickets can only be purchased online within a 30 day window. If the online purchase for these tickets becomes a hassle, we will just buy them in a station somewhere along the way.
I have been in contact with all of the hotels in Italy to get email confirmations directly form them to make sure the Booking.com reservations actually went through. It would be very disruptive to get somewhere, only to find out the reservation was not confirmed and we had no room. For the small amount of effort to send them an email, it buys a lot of peace of mind. Next week, I will get confirmations for the hotels in Austria and Germany. I want to be within a 30 day window of the dates of our stay, and we are only within that window of time for the portion of the trip in Italy at this time.
We purchased a refurbished Garmin GPS on Ebay last week, it comes loaded with maps for all of Europe and for the USA, and has a 1 year warranty from Garmin. From what I have read, “renting” a GPS with the rental car in Germany can be expensive, so we decided to get one ourselves. That way, we can go ahead and load up all of the addresses of the destinations we are going to visit before we leave. The GPS may also work for walking around some of the cities for other parts of the trip where we are not driving, but we are still trying to figure that feature out.
Today, we purchased a prepaid International SIM card for our Blackberry Storm. The rates are decent, but we still may experiment with purchasing a SIM card from a local cell provider in one or two of the countries we visit. With some research, I did see where the local country SIM cards appear to be cheaper for local calls within that country. However, it also looked like you really need one SIM card for each country you visit if you want to avoid roaming charges within the European Union. It also looked like the charges to call the US were about the same or even higher than the SIM card we purchased, which works throughout Europe for the same cost per call. This was a difficult task to figure out since most of the detailed information on the costs that one needs for making decisions is from web sites for cell phone companies in the specific countries, and of course, written in their language. Thank goodness for Google Translate, at least you get an idea of what the sites are trying to tell you.
We mainly hope to use this for “emergency” calls, or short updates that we can’t do with Skype through the internet. The SIM card we bought on Ebay was called the National Geographic International SIM Card from Cellular Abroad. It is actually affiliated with National Geographic in some fashion. The normal cost of the card if purchased directly from cellular Abroad is $49, but you get a $29 prepaid credit. On Ebay, the same company sells the same card for $29 with a $29 prepaid credit, so you can’t go wrong, and even the shipping is free. The card lasts for a year, and if you add credit to it, it will then last for another year after that date, so it can be used again. Fortunately, our Verizon Storm phones are GSM capable, and we have already had both of them “unlocked” through Verizon, so we should be set to use them with the new SIM card.
Next week, we will be preparing all of our insurance papers for scanning to take with us electronically. The only problem with September trips from Florida is Hurricane Season. And, it has happened to me before where I was in Europe for two storms in 2004. It was not a pleasant experience, but luckily, the storms weaken some before getting to our part of Florida. The worst part back then was the lack of information available on the storms, since Internet access was very limited in most of Europe compared to what it is now. The BBC Network does not give hurricanes top priority for some reason! Just part of living in Florida, and something we need to prepare for as best as we can.
We are trying to finalize a listing of sights that we want to consider visiting in each city we are staying in. Just so we have an idea of the available options. That is really the last significant part of the planning effort for the trip. We have a good idea for most parts of the trip, but still have some gaps.
Also, we need to start doing some preliminary packing, at least organizing some of the cooler climate clothing we will need to take. It will be significantly cooler as we venture to the higher elevations in Germany and Switzerland, so we need to take that into consideration, and utilize layering to avoid having bulky cold weather clothing to pack. We also hope to take some trams or cog railroad trains to a few of the higher peaks in Switzerland, so we know it will be cold up there.
Well, that wraps it up for now, stay posted as we get closer to the date of departure.