à genève, en suisse

so friday afternoon, we all got out of our morning classes at noon and made our way somewhat rushedly to the train station. our train left at 12:45, so we all had to miss afternoon class, but we told our instructor and she didn't seem to mind much.

i find these flyers for train passes amusing. apparently the french embrace slight imperfections. like gap teeth.

our train connected in lyon, so we saw as much of the city you can see in about 30 minutes (basically just the plaza outside the train station):


the ride to geneva was pretty great--lots of french alps and swiss alps. we arrived in geneva, and the confusion began. it turned out that our train took us to the wrong station, and we were told that we missed a connection somewhere. but actually, we had to get on a shuttle train to the other station, which we ran to and jumped on right as it left. once we actually got into geneva, we exchanged some euros for swiss francs, which equal about one us dollar. our hotel was pretty far across town, so we tried to utilize the bus/tram system to make it there. unfortunately, most of the time the stops are not announced, and maps never really let you know where you need to go. so we ended up in the middle of the geneve airport, on the opposite side of town. after wandering for a couple hours, somebody in the group decided to ask for directions. so they chose this guy that we nicknamed stone cold steve austin. he was huge, bald, bearded and tatooed. and fairly helpful. except we couldn't really follow his directions, so it was another hour or two before we made it to the hotel.

the hotel was ridiculously nice. we had two rooms, and each room had a bed, couch and another pull-out bed. so nobody had to sleep on the floor. we decided to have a decent dinner, and went to a kind of ritzy looking pizza place called l'age d'or. two of the guys tried to order a pizza to split and the waitress looked at them like they were insane. 'un pour les deux? c'est trop petit!!!' the food was good, but not filling. and when the girls were sorting through their money, a couple euro coins were mixed in the pile with the swiss francs. the waitress ran over and yelled non non! and pushed the euros away. we did not like her very much.

the next morning, we got up super early and had a really great day walking around the city. here are some pictures of geneva:




the birthplace of rousseau

this is the biggest fountain ive ever seen. for an idea of scale, that is a little lighthouse on the left and those are the masts of ships on the right. william and i were the only ones with the nerve to walk down to the lighthouse thing at the end of the pier. we got wet, but it was worth it.

the city's flag

the headquarters of the united nations are located in geneva, so we walked over there to see if we could get a tour or something. unfortunately, the gates were closed and there were no guides or guards or anyone to either let us in or tell us to go away. but we still saw the un:



on the way back to the hotel around 2, we passed what looked like a carnival, so we stopped in to find food. it turned out to be some sort of fundraising event being held on the grounds of an elementary school. we had some decentish kebabs (everything, including kebabs, is overpriced in geneva. it's an unbelievably expensive city). a girl got up on stage and played a couple songs on her guitar about the stars. they were all basically the same song, but i thought it was great. my favorite was 'elle parle aux etoiles, chaque nuit elle les regarde.'

we walked around and looked at all the junk that moms were selling. emily bought a da vinci print, which she later realized was signed lionardo. fake? who knows. we were passing one of the little tables, and standing there drunk with his biker friends was none other than stone cold! he was wearing the same shorts, and we verified it was him by comparing him to the picture sean took of him the day before at the airport. one of the girls went up to him and was trying to ask if he remembered them. but instead, he thought she was asking for directions again. he looked at his friends, and they laughed (les touristes!!). then he took a deep breath and started trying to give them directions to the hotel. halfway through, they awkwardly thanked him and walked off. it was one of many awkward/amazing experiences in geneva. also, we saw an old man walking a cat in the forest.

for dinner, we had kebabs again, but these were legit kebabs in a little dive restaurant. afterward, we found a nice little portuguese bar and had some good, cheap portuguese beer. but then some drunk locals came in and wouldn't stop staring at the girls. it got pretty weird, so we left. we finally ended up in some british pub. aside from trying some chocolat suisse, most of what we did had very little to do with switzerland. we had italian pizza, turkish kebabs, and portuguese and british beer. all in all, it was a fun weekend. on the way to the train station to return to vichy, two inspectors got on the bus, which we had never been paying for (we couldn't figure out how). we were almost busted for riding without passes, but we managed to talk our way out of it. crisis averted.

now, three more days of class, then we go to the beaches of nice!!! i can't wait. i will close with a picture from geneva that absolutely must be submitted to engrish.com: