Spring Break Destination 4 - Geneva, Switzerland
So we landed in Geneva without a problem to be greeted happily by John. A family friend of Casey's who was gracious enough to allow us to stay with him the two nights we were in town. John does quite well for himself and lives in a gorgeous house about 15 minutes outside of Geneva.
On the way to his house from the airport he showed us around Geneva. We passed the headquarters of almost every world organization and of course the United Nations building. Geneva is a magnificent city. It sits on the Swiss side of lake Geneva directly across from France. Switzerland is a very cool place in general because there is tremendous influence from French, German, and Italian culture being it is bordered by all those countries. We found that most of the people speak those three languages along with English.
So once at his house he introduced us to his wife who was very nice and accommodating to us and even offered us a lunch. He set us up in bedrooms for Casey and Ashley and the downstairs living room for me Kyle and Rob. He gave us a quick history of the house and showed us how to work the TV and even let us use his spare iPad at our leisure. The house was gorgeous inside and out and had an incredible view of France just across the expanse of Lake Geneva. We all settled in and his son Max came home and told us he would take us into Geneva tonight and show us a good time. Being we had a few hours we decided to take a dip in the house's beautiful indoor swimming pool and hot tub. We relaxed and swam for about 2 hours until it was time to get ready. John loaned us 400 Swiss Francs and said we could pay him back in Euros before we left. So off we went with Max into Geneva to his favorite bar. We stopped at Mcdonalds for dinner and had 11 Franc Big Macs. Now everything in Switzerland is really expensive. The Franc is relatively close to the dollar so our 11 Franc meal was about $13. So there's your comparison $13 for a standard Big Mac meal. We went to Max's favorite bar from there and something strange happened. The drinking age in Switzerland like most of Europe is 16 for beer 18 for Liquor, Max is 17, and said they don't really ID anywhere so 14 and 15 year olds are drinking too. But at this bar was all kids from Max's school. The 5 of us all 20 or 21 were the oldest people in the bar! It was a real trip to see high schoolers in a bar ordering drinks and hanging out. There wasn't much happening there since it was the Junior Snow Ball so Max took us on a walking tour through Geneva and showed us some his other hangouts while we asked him questions about Swiss life and he asked us about American life. We went back pretty early because we had decided since we were there to go on an excursion to the Alps the next morning.
So we woke up at 7 to get dressed and get on the 8:50 train to Gstaat. Gstaat is small town way up on the Alps tucked in between a bunch mountains. We paid 80 Francs for a panoramic train to shuttle us fro the 3 hour ride. The trip up was beautiful though. The train slowly spiraled around the lake and up high into the mountains. The sky was a beautiful blue and there wasn't a cloud to be seen. It got clearer and clearer the higher we went and the mountains became bluer and more snowy. Small towns popped up and passed by as we journeyed ever higher into the snowy wonderland. Finally we arrived in Gstaat and were taken aback by the wonder of this place. This small sheltered town tucked away high up in the mountains. Undisturbed nature in harmony with humanity. There was a small and delicious chocolate bakery up there two which we thoroughly enjoyed its contents. We walked around and had lunch for about 3 hours before catching the train back and having beautiful views as the sun set on Lake Geneva. We made it back to John's and he insisted on treating us to pizza. We all ate happily and relaxed in the pool again before getting ready for bed. Our spring break closing we all drifted happily to sleep dreading the 4:30am wake up to make it to the airport for our 7am flight. So as I waxed into dream land I looked back on all the fun we had the past two weeks and how this is a story I will tell over and over again for the rest of my life. Five countries in two weeks is an impressive feat for an experienced traveller but the 4 of us managed to half ass our way around Europe with minimal hiccups like pros.
We groggily stumbled out of the house and got to the airport and were greeted by a hefty line of people waiting to check bags at 6am. We cut our flight pretty close and decided to run to the terminal only to find the people barely beginning the boarding process but hey who minds a 5 minute sprint at 6:45 in the morning. We boarded the plane back to Berlin and kissed our spring break good bye. A week of adventure, fun, and memories coming to close as the plane nosed up and left the runway. Five of slept peacefully on the plane probably wondering what the rest of the time in Berlin would be like and reflecting on the fun we had with each other over the past two weeks.
We arrived back in Berlin with beautiful weather, sunshine, and new hope….
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