Geneva wasn't nearly as exciting as Rome, Venice, or Lucerne, but you can't ask for everything in one trip! We ran into a few snags, so I've decided that I have to go back at some point to really see Geneva.
We were able to stay there for about one day. After arriving in Geneva, we found our hostel (which was right by a Ferrari dealership!), walked around a bit, and grabbed lunch at a Pizza Kebab place (we decided to eat cheaply for lunch so we could splurge on dinner and have fondue). I'm really going to miss good kebabs when I get home, they're great here! Haider and Kevin ordered a pizza one, so the shop basically just used a pizza instead of a tortilla to wrap the kebab. Yum!
After lunch, we decided to get our train tickets to Paris (our flight back to London was cheapest from Paris), but ran into a few problems. We ended up having to buy expensive tickets through Lyon because all of the Paris ones were booked. But once everything was all sorted out, we headed out to do more sightseeing.
First on the list: the U.N. building. we took a bus there, but found that a group from Sri Lanka was holding a protest there ("Those cheeky Tamils!" Haider said while we waited on the bus).
We all decided not to get off the bus at that stop because they were holding up signs with Obama's face on them (as well as other leaders of G8 nations) and we knew it wouldn't be the safest thing to do. I was pretty sad that I didn't get to take a tour of the U.N. building (or even see it -- there were too many people), but that's one more reason to go back!
We were able to make it to CERN, though (CERN is a huge international experiment... a superconductor. It's basically trying to discover what electrons are made out of by running two of them into each other.
The visitor's center had a cool museum inside with hands on activities. I think they tried to explain what was going on, but I understood very little of it. It definitely wasn't made for children (which is probably the only way I would have understood all the displays).
Look, a smiley face! When I don't understand things, I make stuff up.
We spent a few hours poking around the museum. The engineers in our group (Vanessa and Haider) got a lot out of it, but the rest of us liked it too. =)
By the time we got back to the center of town it was dinner time, so we grudgingly ate at McDonald's (those train tickets were very expensive). But the fun thing about eating at foreign US fast food chains is that they have different fun menus! My favorite item on it -- "Le M," a fancy schmancy burger. I ordered a Big Mac though. You can't beat the classic.
Our evening was spent walking around (I found a Swiss Bank!). We stopped at a crepe shop and then decided to walk around the lake to see the Jet D'eau. It was turned off though, so we just admired the view.
Here I am by the lake with Geneva behind me. =)
So Geneva wasn't as exciting as the other places we went, but I still really enjoyed it. I got to put my French to good use, which was probably the best part. It was actually really rewarding to use French... I was able to get directions and correctly follow them (gasp!) and made friends with a French couple on a train (they thought I was Australian). I was pleased that I was able to carry on a pretty good conversation with them. =) I even read a few articles in French in their local newspaper... some were just light reading, but a few were about economics. I was a little surprised that I could grasp them, but mostly proud.
So that's it! The next morning we hopped a train to Lyon, continued on to Paris, and then grabbed a flight back to London!
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