Europe Diary - Post #10 by Patrick

Besides all the history, writing, and photography practice that I’m getting, homeschooling on the road also includes math. Here are some problems I solved yesterday while driving from Switzerland to Italy.

1)      We took the St. Gotthard tunnel into Italy. It is the third longest car tunnel in the world at 16.4 kilometers which I converted to 10.2 miles. It took us several hours to get through it because of metered traffic.

2)      The entire estimated driving distance of our Europe trip is over 4,000 miles which equals to about 6,437.37 kilometers.

3)      The time difference: 6:00PM in Italy is 9:00AM in Arizona.

4)      The temperature in Manarola right now is 18° Celsius which equals 64.4° Fahrenheit. Yeah, pretty cold.

5)       We bought 250 grams of parmagiano reggiano cheese for €3,50 at the Stuttgart Markthalle in Germany. It costs $10.50 for a pound at Costco. 250 grams is equal to 0.55 Lbs and €3,50 equals $4.61 if purchased in Stuttgart. Whereas, 0.55 Lbs of parmagiano costs $5.78 at Costco. So I have found one thing in Europe that is cheaper than in the U.S. and it is cheese. Plus it tastes better here.

6)      Eleven Swiss Francs (CHF 11)  = 12 dollars ($12): the price it costs to take the elevator to the top of Trummelbach Falls, but we spent all our CHF buying groceries at the Coop in Lauterbrunnen (like a European Walmart) so instead, they charged us €10 per person to go up to see the unique corkscrew falls. Which was a better deal? CHF 11.00 = $12.00 or €10,00 = $13.18. It pays to have the correct currency in your pocket.