So, like I said, I had nothing planned for the break since I was busy trying to find a place. But, since I found one and had some days to spare, I joined Maggie and Megan on their last minute trip to Geneva with Jillian, a girl from Boston that they had met while visiting the South of France. Jillian was flying back home from Geneva, so she needed to go either way.
It was like I was forced to go since the girls changed their hostel reservation to add me into their group - it was funny how that worked out because they had asked me if I wanted to go and proceeded to changing the booking without confirming. They really twisted my arm!
But, not really. I figured I should take advantage of the opportunity and decided to go with them.
We left Sunday morning from Part Dieu in Lyon. The ride took about 2 hours but was very scenic and worth very minute. Being able to see the mountains full of green, yellow, and red spots was incredible. Even crossing into Switzerland from France was exciting!( But it reminded me of the border between the US and Mexico in TJ....only a lot cleaner and without beggars.)
After the short bus ride, we walked around for a while to find out where we were so that we could figure out what direction we needed to go to find the hostel. We went to a Starbucks and Jillian (the girl from Boston that Megan and Maggie met in Nice) bought us all coffee for going to Geneva with her. As we sat and enjoyed our coffee and free Wifi to figure out where we were, we all found it fascinating how within this Starbucks (which was 2 floors by the way), we heard English, French, German, and Italian being spoken. It made me wonder if there was a language that the Swiss used to speak. I never found out, but I knew that Switzerland was divided into 3 parts – the German, French, and Italian areas. Weird – but I guess that’s why the Italians have the expression “Sei Svizzero?” = literally, Are you Swiss? but used to call someone a weirdo.
We eventually found a map, but had to make our way through the maze of bicycles.
We were expecting to walk a long time, but we got to the hostel in less than 20 minutes from the train station. But, since we got there around noon, we had to wait until 1 o’clock since they were closed for that hour. We didn’t go too far since we still had our bags with us, but wished we would have gone elsewhere to eat. There was an Internet café/ restaurant right next door. The guy was a little rude and the food wasn’t that great. Granted, I split a crepe with Maggie, so I didn’t taste the other stuff, but it was super salty and it took forever for him to make.
Beside the food not being great, it also made us really confused since we had to figure out the exchange rate every time we wanted to buy something and ask if they accepted Euros. Fortunately, we were able to use Euros everywhere we went, but we would get change back in Swiss Francs (Yes, Switzerland is part of the European Union, but it does not use the Euro).
Once we checked into the hostel, we left our bags in a locker (since we couldn’t get out room until 4) and set out to explore Geneva. FYI: the hostel we stayed at was called
City Hostel Geneva – It’s very easy to find and close to the train station, very clean, gives you free transportation cards that are valid during your stay, and not very expensive, so if you ever go to Geneva you should check this place out for accommodation.
I didn’t have my guidebook with me, but by the end of the short 2-day trip, we were able to see just about everything.
The first thing we went to was the United Nations. It was so cool to be able to see the building were nations from all over the world come together to discuss global issues. It has always been a dream of mine to work for the UN. I don’t know if I will ever make it there, but I hope to at least be able to do something close to it.
Since it was a Sunday, it was closed, but it was cool just to see the building. Yet, it was also strange to see graffiti on the walls that didn’t really fit the Swiss stereotype of being neutral.
For example,
“The G8 is the symptom of an illness called capitalism.”
But, you got to give it to whoever did this because it’s pretty creative. And, possibly true.
From the UN, we headed to the Lac Léman to see the famous water thing, which is actually called the Jet d’Eau (Water Jet). It turns out that the Jet d’Eau is Europe’s highest fountain!
After hanging out around the lake, we continued to walk around the lake until we got to the Vieille Ville (Old City). We walked around the Cathédrale de St-Pierre and enjoyed the cobble stone streets.
Once we saw the church, we walked to the other side only to find this:
We all hopped on and had a great time feeling like kids again despite almost wanting to throw up because of how dizzy we were. And what did we do after this??? We ate. I’m glad we found this thing before eating because had we done it the other way around, I’m sure I would have emptied my stomach, which I did not want to do!
We sat down in a small, Italian restaurant right below the church. We had walked by it on the way up. The place was actually a lot bigger than we expected. We took our seats and began to read all the different combinations of pasta and sauces. I made my decision quick – I wanted the arrabbiata (spicy in Italian, but literally means angry lol)! I miss spicy food. Luckily, I can satisfy the cravings with some Tabasco that I brought with me or by getting a kebab with Harissa sauce. The pasta was a great choice. It was hot and spicy and the sauce even had bits of chilies still left in it. We finished our meal by getting 2 boules of gelato.
By the time we left, it was already dark so we walked back to the hostel to get our bags, go to our room, and hang out there for a while. The small rest was good because it gave us the energy to get ready and go out to celebrate Jillian’s last night in Europe.
We ended up at the Brass…something across from the train station after walking around trying to find a bar that wasn’t too packed or too shady – I think we accidently ventured into Geneva’s red light district because found ourselves walking by women, obviously prostitutes and very sketchy shops.
The Brass...was a pretty big place and a great choice since they brewed their own beers. We each had a sampler and decided to get pints of the Lion beer after being let down by the cherry beer we were all excited to taste. The cherry beer ended up tasting like cough syrup. :/ But, I think the worst thing that happened was when we got hungry and ordered some nachos. I don’t know about you, but when I think of nachos, I think of cheese, sour cream, beans, meat, etc.
Nachos in Switzerland are not like that at all – we ended up with a small plate of tortilla chips with ketchup. WTF?! We all savored the moment and laughed at our mishap, continued drinking, got a little drunk, and went back to the hostel to sleep.
Jillian left early the next morning to get to the airport and the rest of us stayed in the room until check out. We left the hostel and made out way to the train station to catch the next train or bus to Lyon. That ended up being quite a feat because we had no idea where to find the ticket office. After asking an attendant, we got the tickets and got the train to Lyon Part Dieu. It ended us taking a lot longer than 2 hours to get back because the train had to stop several times on the tracks. But, we made it back eventually.
