Genovia! Er, I mean, Geneva...

Last weekend, my friend Molly and I took a trip up to Geneva, Switzerland. We took a train from Lyon, which cost about 20 euros round-trip and lasted about 2 hours. Pas mal! We were there on Friday and Saturday, and stayed with my friend Mallory, a friend from high school who graciously opened her dorm to us! It was an adventure of a weekend, to say the least!

It was wonderful to see Mallory again (whom I don't think I've seen since Mercy graduation!), and as soon as we got on the tramway to go from the train station to her apartment, we were talking about how we always think of "Genovia," the made-up country from the Princess Diaries (to those who don't know, the country for which Mia finds out she is the princess). Obviously, this turned into us singing "Genovia, Genooooviiaaa, forever will your banner waaave!" on the tramway, and getting looked at like we were fools from just about every other passenger. So the trip was off to a good start! We stopped at her dorm and put our stuff down, went to a nearby grocery store, and ate lunch to recuperate from our early morning train ride. (We had pasta and carrots, for those of you wondering. Nothing too culturally different/exciting.) Then we were off to explore the city for the day!

The first sight we saw was the supposedly famous Jet d'eau - a man-made jet of water. Luckily it was a really nice, sunny day (although also very cold), and the jet was really pretty. And from a couple angles had beautiful rainbows in it!

 

We spent a fair amount of time here, taking pictures of each other and then awkwardly waiting to work up the courage to ask someone else to take our picture. Geneva is an extremely international city, and Switzerland has four official languages. So, while other people had asked us to take their picture in English, I felt too awkward to assume anyone's mother tongue. Eventually we found a guy with a fancy-pants camera, and when I started to talk to him, he spoke French to us. Good, a language I kind of know! So he kindly took a couple of not-so-great photos (not sure how that works when you seem to have some sort of photographic interest, but okay..), but we finally got a good one. (And I failed on taking Molly's fountain picture...
instead, it looks like she was hungry for bird. yum.)
Oh, and then hung out with some swans.

  

Swiss man's sweet photography skills

After the jet d'eau, we ventured into Old Town, which is self-explanatory - the old part of town of Geneva. Which was up a big hill and reminiscent of Vieux Lyon (just not quite as old, or so it seemed). There we wandered around and happened upon the city's art museum. The outside of the building was gorgeous, as was the art inside. 

I'm too lazy to put up any of the inside art pictures, but they're already on facebook... Plus, there are too many other pretty outside pictures! (Plus, look at the sun!!! I was too excited about this, because it's been so dreary in France lately.) As we exited the art museum, I noticed a cool, Russian-style gold-topped building, which Molly recognized as the Russian Chapel she had found when researching things to do in the city. We walked over and explored that, which was stunning. I even illegally snuck a picture inside that turned out well to show a glimpse of the interior!

view from the museum

intricate gold artwork inside

 

We then walked to St. Peter's Cathedral, which is just a little ways down the street. This one was enormous. The ant-sized creature in the right photo is me, for scale. 

After the cathedral, we got a snack and hung out at a cute park/lookout point over part of the city and the Alps. It was super peaceful and nice to relax for a little bit. More photos! Even though they don't really do justice to the view. (I promise I'll write a little bit after this...)

Okay, so up until this point, everything was going juuust peachy. We decided to head back to the dorm to eat dinner, because it was dark/cold/getting to be dinner time, so we walked down the hill to the main part of town. I had an idea as to where in the city we were, based on where we had gone, but I'm no Geneva expert, so had no clue as to how to get back to the tram that would take us to the dorm. We spotted a lovely group of police officers and decided to ask them the way. We had just gone over the word for 14 in french - quatorze - as numbers are the easiest things to get confused. As soon as I started asking the officer where the tram was, I immediately forgot our review session and asked him about the tramway quarante - NO! that's forty! But "quatorze" had officially escaped me. He told me that "la ligne 40, ca n'existe pas." I turned to Molly in a panic, who just said "fourteen," so the officer spoke to us in perfected franglais. During the course of this two-minute conversation, we managed to switch topics from from line 14 to line 15. So we got directions to the 15 line, unknowingly. We realized the mix-up when we got there, and tried to read the confusing metro system map, to no avail. So we started walking, and ended up asking a local shop owner for directions. He clarified where the 14 stop was, and as soon as we found it, we realized that we were only one stop from Mallory's dorm! Oh, happy day! So we joyfully walked back home, and exhaustedly ate dinner. So concluded our first day, and our first getting-lost adventure in Switzerland.

Sheer joy after finding the "Stand" tram stop.

Now, on to day 2. Day two in Switzerland was when I realized that I am slowly but surely adopting a French viewpoint on life. (The one that says France is better at everything.) We'll start with breakfast. If you could call it that... We went to a bakery down the street for food, where we got overpriced chocolate crepes. Now, I thought it was impossible to go wrong with a crepe, but boy, was I wrong. These crepes were not fully cooked, and just overall were not good. We did all we could to try to eat them, because we spent money on them, but it just wasn't happening. Here's some photo evidence of our misery. (Crepe on left, Molly's "I'm gonna kill someone" face on the right.)

 

After "breakfast," our two goals for the day were to see the UN and to go to the contemporary art museum. We took the tramway to the train station where we were supposed to connect to a different tram in order to find the UN. Not too surprisingly, the 15 tram line was not where we expected it might be. Out of frustration and fatigue, we went on a mission to find a Starbucks, which would supply caffeine as well as a taste of home. Luckily, we "only" had to take a lap or two around the train station before we found it. Obviously, it cost about a million dollars (Starbucks is even more expensive in Europe than it is at home), but we needed the break, so it was worth it. After resting for a bit, we worked up the energy and motivation to find the #15 tram and venture to the UN. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, so everything was closed. It was still awesome to see, though!

we took a picture of ourselves this time, instead of
awkwardly waiting to ask someone else to take it

After the UN, we went back to the center of the city, because it was getting near the time we had to catch our train back to Lyon. We still had a little bit of time left, though, so we went searching for the contemporary art museum. We had the mentality that if we couldn't find it, we would just get our stuff and go home, no big deal. But we did find it! Hallelujah! We were excited and SO proud of ourselves for navigating Geneva so well (for once). Then, as we were walking up to the building........ It was CLOSED. What. I have no words to describe this moment, other than utter disappointment. If a picture is worth a thousand words... this should get the job done:

giving up on Switzerland

Then it was really time to just give up on this city. We went back to Mallory's dorm to pick up our stuff, and headed back to the train station, where we ate greasy comfort food from one of the overpriced food stands. I had some extra Swiss Francs to get rid of, because Switzerland doesn't use the euro, and these would be worthless once I got back into the eurozone. Oh, and here's a picture of the money! At least it was really pretty. And super colorful. Are you sure this is real money, Switzerland??

We were SO happy to be back on the train to go home. Since I've been sounding like a negative nelly, Geneva wasn't completely awful. It was actually extremely beautiful. There was sun everywhere, and I loved the location of the city on a lake and in between the mountains. I was content with this having been my first trip outside of Lyon, and outside of France. While everything didn't go completely as expected, I still had a lot of fun. I also realized a lot about my experience in Europe so far. I am sooo grateful to be in France, and I appreciate all that this country/the city of Lyon has to offer after having gotten back. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder - that's a little bit too cliche/extreme, but it took getting out of Lyon for me to realize how much I love it here. The food is fantastic, everything is less expensive, and it's beyond great to be back in a familiar city. I'm so grateful now to have an understanding of the layout of the city and the public transportation system - not getting lost is a huge plus! So, all in all, I'm super happy that I took this trip. 

The picture that sums up our trip
and our journey back home

So, keep in mind that I'm having these thoughts while we're on the train (seen above). Overall, grateful for the experience, but happy to be going home. You'd think that the adventure was over at this point - but if you do, then think again! Mid-train ride, the train stops, and the overhead voice man tells us that there's an "aggravation" in Lyon (maybe because of traffic? or snow? we weren't sure) and that we would be stopping for awhile. So we ended up taking about an hour delay in some random city, as we were about 20 minutes from Lyon - so close, yet so far! This could have been worse, but it was just another annoyance when we wanted to be home. And the saga still continues! Eventually we made it back to Lyon. We stopped at the bathroom in the train station, and then Molly realized that she had left her phone on the train. Noooo! As soon as we went back to the platform, the train closed its doors and pulled away to its next destination. THEN the adventure was over. So, a terrible crepe, getting lost, some pretty sights, and a lost phone later, and we had finished our Swiss adventure. I can't explain how happy I've been to by in Lyon since then! 

It's been real, Geneva ~~ kind of. 

PS: Dad, I found this bar for you! I present you all: The Lord Jim Pub