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So Europe and the rest of the world (except the USA) had the day off Thursday due to the May holiday, and the University gave us Friday off too; so I decided that I would go to Switzerland for a long weekend. Málaga has direct flights to Geneva everyday so I hopped aboard the plane Thursday night and checked into my hotel. Geneva is situated on Lake Geneva (original, I know) and is bordered on both sides of the city by France and the Alps and Jura mountain ranges. My hotel was actually 10 meters over the border in France, so I caught the bus each morning in order to see the city.
Geneva has a few recognizable sites to see such as the United Nations building and the fountain called Jet d’Eau. Furthermore, Switzerland is known for 3 main things: chocolate, watches, and knives. Just about every other store you pass is a chocolate shop, a Swatch or Rolex building, or a souvenir knife shop. It is a lot of fun to explore those chocolate shops…delicious. However, the problem I ran into everyday was the French language. Most of the citizens of Geneva know 2 or 3 different languages and
Spanish and English are not either of them. Because Switzerland is between France, Germany, and Italy, those are the choices you have if you want to communicate. Friday I took a walking tour of the city and the lake. I had forgotten how refreshing it is to actually lay in the grass and see fresh water. There were a ton of sailboats going around the lake, and the tour boats were just starting up as I was walking around the lake. I found a few parks to relax in for a while and then took a trip to see the cathedral. The cathedral was not nearly as decorated as the cathedrals in Spain, but I felt like it was more of the traditional “medieval” style. Afterwards, I walked through the different shops in the city, and (of course) walked the jetty out to the fountain. Saturday, I had planned to do some skiing in the Alps if I could get some transportation to the mountains. Unfortunately, the busses have stopped transportation to the mountain because the season had ended. The ski resorts are still open, but (I think for reasons of demand) I could not get transportation. So Plan B!
I wanted to go for a hike on some of the mountains that were around the city so I just started walking in the direction of the mountains (Maria, I know how much you love that I just walk in a direction because I think that eventually I will reach my destination). Well, as it turns out, those mountains in the distance were a lot further away than I had imagined. However, despite my instincts about direction and distance, I found a park and a river right next to the mountain. There were even paragliders jumping off the mountain and soaring around above the park. It was really cool to see, and took up a large portion of my day, so I snapped a few pictures and headed back towards the city. That evening I prepared my luggage for my trip back to Málaga. I had an early flight out of Geneva, and the trip only takes a little more than 2 hours; so on Sunday I was right back on my beach blanket, sleeping off the jet lag. I hope you enjoy the pics!
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Mom
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Switzerland
The pictures are beautiful and once again, a very clean European city. I know how you felt when you said you loved the green grass and sound of running water. When I visited Germany, after being in Holland for 8 months, it reminded me so much of home. There were mountains and hills, valleys and streams and still a little snow in spots. The sun was shining every day and the sky was so blue with a few puffy white clouds. Holland is very flat...and where I lived, many man-made canals and grey skies with stormy looking coulds. It rained or drizzled most of the time I lived there. I had a lot of "bad hair days" because of the humidity.