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Published: April 17th 2006
So far in our travel experience the actual journeys themselves have been the most interesting. Today we left Barcelona for our first leg of the journey using our Eurrail passes. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until it was time to catch our connection train and I realized we still had two stops to go before we reached the actual station. Normally this wouldn't be so bad in a country that spoke English (or at least pretended to) but our connection was through a small little town that I couldn't even pronounce let alone get stuck in. Luckily when we got off the train we met a girl (who kind of reminded us of a gypsy/belly dancer/fire thrower) who spoke French and a little bit of English and helped us get to where we needed to go to change our tickets. When we finally made the ticket exchange we ran into these three Americans who had also missed their train and were looking for the connection platform. We were all equally confused, tired, cranky, and frustrated, which made this experience quite amusing (not to mention that one of the guys we were with was working as a comedian at the time).
Once we finally got to Geneva and found our hostel we went to one of the local pubs in the area. Geneva seems like such a small little quaint town but this pub was really huge and had these beer towers that you could order for your table (in lieu of a pitcher) and were almost as tall as the ceiling. The oddest thing was that the pub was more happening than ANY of the pubs we had been to in Oxford. For the first time since we've been going to pubs we could talk at our normal decibals and not be given dirty looks by the people sitting in the corner.
The next couple of days we spent touring the city again. We really loved the people in Geneva. When we left our hostel this morning, we passed by a guy on the street who just said "bonjour" as he passed. He was so cute and little we kind of wanted him to be our grandpa and it was funny how something so small could really make our morning. Walking around Geneva was a little more difficult than in Barcelona considering that by this time we had
acquired some pretty nasty looking and some pretty intense feeling blisters but we sucked up the pain, waited for our feet to turn numb, and hit the tourist spots. Although there were a few "must see" points in Geneva such as the big fountain, I felt like Geneva was really more of a city to walk around and just enjoy the atmosphere, the culture, and the view of the alps.
Thankfully we spent the entire first day in Geneva walking around and seeing everything we wanted in the city because the next day the weather was purely poopy. It was cold, windy, and rainy the entire day so we decided we'd give ourselves a break. We didn't leave the hostel at all (except to visit the local H&M). Instead we decided we'd treat ourselves and our blisters to some rest. We caught ourselves up on a lot of winter olympics, cycling, and Friends (in French).
That night, however, we decided to hit the town as one of the guys at the hostels gave us a flyer for "Ladies Night" at a local club. Let me tell you this club was Swank-y. Not only is cover usually ridiculously expensive
but the drinks inside are the same way and all of the tables are taken up by reservation only. This is a place neither Emily nor I would usually find ourselves in but by the pure luck of being ladies the entire night was free! Entrance and drinks all night were free for women so of couse, if you say free... Emily and I are there in a heartbeat. Surprisingly the club was really fun and we ended up having a great night.
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Steve
non-member comment
"One of the guys??"
I don't even merit name recognition?? Sheesh...I have "Jose and Melissa" and "Tanya and Emily" in MY journal...my paper journal...that no one but me will see to confirm or disconfirm...but STILL...it totally says "Tanya." Anyway, I'm glad you had fun in Geneva. I couldn't find a place to stay and left on the night train to Venice. It worked out fine, though, because I shared a couchette with this really cool guy named Sinhyo from Korea. C'est la vie, eh?