We listened to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour from a parking lot in the US. Now, we're headed to the VIP section in Switzerland for the trip of a lifetime.

• My sister loved seeing The Eras Tour so much, she wanted me and my mom to see it, too.
• We hoped to score day-of-concert tickets in the US but ended up dancing in the parking lot.

My older sister Melanie is the sun the rest of my family orbits around. In a way, she's my family's Taylor Swift.

On May 19, Melanie scored day-of, face-value-priced tickets for Swift's Eras Tour for her and her daughter and told us the show was a life-changing serotonin boost we must all experience. So my mom, Melanie, and I made a plan to try to catch one of Swift's nearby shows — we just needed tickets.

On May 21, the three of us headed to her show at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, hoping the secret to getting same-day seats was more perseverance than luck.

We had a blast at the concert even though we never made it past the gates

Those without tickets were banned from driving into the Gillette Stadium parking lots, so we paid $60 for private parking at a nearby house and walked to the lots on foot.

We walked miles around Gillette while Melanie monitored her Twitter and Reddit feeds, certain that tickets would be released before showtime, at showtime, or even after the show had begun. We refreshed Ticketmaster and StubHub until our phones died.

Along the way, we listened to Swift's performances and danced with with bedazzled teenagers and other hopefuls in the lot.

We laughed while holding our 70-ish-year-old mom up so she could glimpse the jumbo screen through a tennis-ball-sized hole in the scaffolded fence. "This is the best concert EVER," she shrieked, comparing the hysteria we saw at The Eras Tour to 1960s Beatlemania.

Later in the night, we watched ticket-holding mothers and their up-too-late kids exit the stadium and wished we had the gall to ask for their tickets. But despite never getting past the gates, we giggled at our desperation and humored Melanie by letting her recount (again) the wardrobe changes and storytelling in the show.

After that experience, I spent the rest of the summer watching Swift fever all over social media. Once again, it seemed, my big sister was right: We had to experience The Eras Tour in all its glory.

We splurged on VIP tickets in Europe — and we're making the trip into a whole celebration

I might've put the adventure behind me, but my big sis kept trying for tickets. Eventually, she texted me she had Eras Tour tickets in her cart for a July 2024 show in Zurich, Switzerland, for the three of us and our other sister.

We dished out $950 apiece for It's Been A Long Time Coming VIP tickets, which Melanie translated as excellent seats (13th row) with a "little swag box of basically nothing" (a commemorative set of prints, tote bag, pin, sticker, souvenir concert ticket, and lanyard).

As so, we Swifties, old and new, shall soon sojourn to Switzerland for a banner mother and daughters' trip — but it won't be cheap.

Currently, nonstop flights from Boston to Zurich are about $1,500 each, but we'll keep an eye out for cheaper options. We'll also likely redeem Bonvoy points for a stay at the Zurich Marriott. And of course, we'll need outfits. And lots and lots of friendship bracelets.

Traveling for the show and the concert itself are significant expenses, but we have lots of eras to celebrate – my sisters' 40th and 50th birthdays and my mom turning, well, 70-something.

We've justified the cost because our Taylor Swift said we must see the Taylor Swift — and Melanie's already justified it because of what the first show's did for her "serotonin levels."