Ok, I’ve ignored blogging long enough, and now I don’t have
any excuse. My parents brought back my
own computer good as new. So here
goes: Rewind to the end of February,
2012 . Due to various national holidays
in southern Spain, we had a long weekend. After obsessing over where to go and biting
our fingernails at the ever-changing flight prices, my roommate Hayley and I
decided to go to Geneva, Switzerland. It
was completely random and wasn’t even on my radar, but we found a super cheap
flight out of Madrid so we jumped on it.
After we had everything booked, I went into my crazy travel zone that I
go to before all of our trips and start planning out every second of our time
there - from how to get to and from the airport to where we are going to eat. There
are few things more terrifying to me than showing up in a foreign country with
no clue where to go or how to get there.
So, I take the initiative to find out all of those things ahead of time.
The first leg of my journey was to get from school to the
bus station, then from the bus station to the train station to meet Hayley and
go to Madrid. I spent a good portion of
the train ride eavesdropping on a brother and sister, about 8 and 5 years old,
who were switching back and forth from English to Spanish with incredible ease while
they talked to each other. It was the
cutest thing! I later found out by
talking to the mom, that she was American and she met a Spanish guy and married
him. So now they have these adorable
bilingual children living in Spain. Awesome. Ok so after a typical deer in headlights
moment upon arriving in the train station.
We figured out how to take the metro (subway) to the airport. Before we knew it we were flying our way to
Geneva. I had found out ahead of time
that Geneva has free public transportation from the airport to the center of
the city, so we found a ticket station, hopped on the train and made our way to
the center. Luckily, our hostel was only
about a 10 minute walk from the main train station. We checked in around 11:30pm, and the guy
working the desk was really nice and helpful.
Since it was already really late, Hayley and I headed upstairs to our
room to plan out the next three days.
After some back and forth and a lot of changes we decided to explore Geneva
Saturday, take a day trip to Annecy, France on Sunday, and another day trip to
Chamonix, France on Monday. It sounds
silly to spend two days in France during a trip to Switzerland, but it turned
out to be a great choice. Geneva was a
cool city, but aside from a few cool sights, to me, it was just another big
European city (that doesn’t sound snobby at all, right?) One thing I like though, is that Geneva was
the first and only place I’ve seen snow/ice since I’ve been abroad. We were actually lucky and had nice weather
while we were there, but there were some leftovers from previous storms. Here’s some cool stuff I saw:
1. Me sitting on a railing that's covered in really think ice. Cold butt!
2. In front of the United Nations. We couldn't actually go inside because it was closed to the public for a convention.
3. Russian church
4. Me taking a super cool pic in front of the famous fountain called Jet d'Eau.
5. Awesome giant-sized chess park
6. Famous flower clock - it's a real functioning clock!
 |
| Keepin the pizza cold outside the window, haha |
Later that night, instead of going out to eat we decided to
head real quick to a convenience store and get a few things. We bought two frozen pizzas and brought them
back to the hostel. Much to our dismay,
we found the hostel kitchen to be locked for the night. Whoops.
So no freezer. Solution: stick the pizza out on our window sill to
keep it cold for the night. We woke up
the next morning thinking we could just pop the pizza in the oven and pack a
lunch for our day trip. Wrong again – no
oven. Solution: microwave the pizza
until it seems somewhat cooked and then finish it off in a frying pan. Believe it or not, it didn’t turn out so
bad.
During my many searches of things to do while you’re in
Geneva, I came across the small, Medieval town Annecy, France many times. I figured if that many people recommended it,
it must be worth seeing. So, Sunday morning we packed up our soggy
pizza and hopped on a bus to check it out.
Various websites dubbed Annecy “the Venice of the Alps.” So imagine our surprise when we got off the
bus and saw no water. Not one measly canal.
Not even a puddle. More than a
little skeptical, we began walking in the direction of what we thought could be
the right way. – we didn’t have a clue of course. But a short ten minute walk later, we found
ourselves in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Besides the facts that the small, medieval
town is etched by a small series of canals, it’s also right on a lake
surrounded by impressive mountains.
Don’t ask me which mountains though… I’m pretty sure they weren’t the
alps, but a smaller range nearby.
Honestly though, there is not much I can say in words that my pictures
won’t show…so here ya go:
Try this: google image search "Annecy, France" and see if my pictures look familiar...
.
Later that night, we returned to Geneva and for some reason
I started to feel really sick. We were
going to go out to eat, but as soon as I sat on the sofa in the hostel common
room, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
See what happens is, when we take this weekend trips, we try and pack as
much into the days as we can, as my Uncle Dan calls them, Ferris Bueller
days. This usually results in us
spending anywhere from 9-12 hours on foot without eating or drinking very
much. Mostly because we just forget
about it. So I think I was really
exhausted and on top of that caught some kind of flu bug. I was really worried about this because we
had our biggest day trip planned for the next day. We were going to the top of
the highest mountain in all of the Alps. Ok, so we weren’t climbing it, but
still. Big day. I tried to take a shower
and get a good night’s sleep thinking that would help. But I tossed and turned all night so that was
to no avail. We woke up early the next
morning to catch our bus, and I felt like death. However, I put on my happy face because there
was no way I was missing out on this once in a lifetime trip. I tried to get some rest on the bus, but our
cynical British tour guide talked the entire way. In between giving us actual information about
what we doing that day, he went off on tangents about how the whole world has
gone to shit and that no one really has a job because it could be taken from
you any day and blah blah blah universities are robbing students blah blah
blah…Seriously, man, it’s ok if you believe all that, but don’t bring my tour
down! Anyways we finally arrive at our
destination: Chamonix, France. Picture
Dumb and Dumber or that goofy Mary Kate and Ashley movie or pretty much any
movie that takes place (at least partially) in a ski resort town. Since I had never been skiing nor visited a
ski town, this was uncharted territory for me.
It almost didn’t seem real. We
got off the bus right at the base of the cable car that we were going to ride
to the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps. Now, I’m not particularly afraid of heights,
but I do get pretty awful motion sickness.
So we get on this cable car packed like sardines with skiers and other
tourists. It was pretty smooth on the
way up until we reached the couple dips that were in cables and the car swayed
back and forth. Now combine that with the fact that I was already fighting back
the urge to vomit all morning. Somehow,
though, I made it all the way up with the contents of my stomach (which really
wasn’t much at that point) intact. So
here are some fun facts about the cable car.
It takes you up to almost the summit, and then you take an elevator the
rest of the way. The elevator is cool
because it shows you the altitude as you ascend to the top. When you step out of the elevator you step
out onto a viewing deck that is just about as close to the peak as you could
possible get at a stagger 15, 782ft, or just over 10 ½ Sears Towers –oh I’m
sorry, Willis Towers. Anyways, despite
the cold and battling nausea and body aches, I wouldn’t have traded that view
for anything in the world. It took my
breath away. In every direction were
jagged, snow-capped mountains as far as the eye could see. From what we were told, you can see the
French, Swiss, and Italian Alps from the top of Mont Blanc. Now, I didn’t
actually know which ones I was seeing at any given moment, but it was still
really cool. Here are some pictures of
the view and then walking around the town once we got back down to earth:
As amazing as this trip was, my body was really relieved to
be back on the bus on the way back to Geneva.
So we got back to our hostel pretty late, and it felt so good to plop
down on the couch. I had no appetite despite
not actually eating anything that day, so we just hung out on the couch and
watch a movie in the common room.
Technically we were already checked out because our original plan was to
go to the airport really late at night to catch our 6:30am flight. However, we did not know that the train to
the airport stops running at 11pm. Whoops.
But, we lucked out because the guy at the hostel was really cool about
it and just let us stay on the couched until we caught the first train that
left at 5. To sum up our journey
home: train from train station to
airport, plane from Geneva to Madrid, 6 hour bus from Madrid to Sevilla, bus
from airport to bus station, walk home from bus station, sleep the rest of the
day and try and recover. Overall, it was
an absolutely amazing trip. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to enjoy it to the full
extent, but I’m glad we saw everything that we did.
