When we arrived in Geneva we made sure we had a reservation for the train to Paris the following morning. Good thing we checked because it turned out that all three trains were full. But the lady that was helping us found another train for us to take. It would arrive a little later, but at least we would make it on schedule. Incredibly nice lady. Just immensely helpful! After that we headed to the hostel to get checked in. Got the low down, found our beds, dropped our stuff off, and headed out to explore Geneva.
We decided to ask reception where we should go for a traditional Swiss meal. They gave us two options, but we were only able to find one. It was a little pricey and no one was there, so we found somewhere else to eat. It was not very good. Payton and I had burgers, which were more like sloppy-joes, and Keith had this meat platter thing, but he said the steak seemed a little off. Meh. Got out of there quick and headed towards the lake.
We got to the waterfront and saw the trademark water jet. It was pretty cool. It shot pretty high. We started to head over towards it to get some photos, but right when we got to a good place it shut off. Ha ha! Sneaky Swiss. So, we sat around hoping it would come on again and enjoyed the harbor. Random side note: I do not think I have ever seen a true mountain lake that is fed by snow and seeing Lake Geneva for the first time stunned me. The water is actually CLEAR! You could see straight to the bottom of the lake from the breakwaters. It was awesome. After we waited for a while for the fountain and it did not come back, we headed towards the city center.
We could see a cool looking church from where we were sitting and headed towards it. Saw some cool sites along the way and got some good pictures. Walked the back streets of Geneva towards the waterfront again and explored a mall which was all closed down. Then walked back along the waterfront and saw the fountain was on again. Yay! You would have thought it was a 98% off sale at Macy's if you saw how fast we ran to get a picture of it. But we got our pictures. Continued along the harbor and found an art exhibit with editorial cartoons from around the world. Some of them were meh, but some were really powerful. All about the famine, wars, natural disasters, genocide, assassinations from around the world.
Once it got too dark to take any more photos and the mosquitos were draining us dry, we headed back to the hostel. Along the way we tried to find a place to have dessert, but Geneva is EXPENSIVE, so we decided not. Found a vending machine in the hostel and bought a mars bar (Keith), ragusa - a type of chocolate bar (Payton), and a snickers (me). Classy, we know. Then we headed up to our room to get ready for bed.
I forgot to mention before that when we first got in our room it smelled like wet dog and moldy feet. Our roomies had washed their clothes [in the sink] and left them to dry in the window. We were not sure why everything smelt so bad, but a little while after we got up to our room, we found out. Our roomies came back and we talked with them for a while. We found out that they were from a town outside Vienna and have been hiking, yes hiking, their way across Europe to Santiago, Spain. That is about a 3,000 kilometer trip. On foot. And they had been sleeping outside on nice nights. Not in campsites, but in fields and vineyards. Pretty intense. Geneva was about 1,200 kilometers into their journey and they had already been traveling for 40 days. They estimated the trip would take 4 months. That is sweet. Payton, Keith, and I decided that that will be our trip next year. After chatting with them we all got ready for bed and slept.
In the morning we got up bright and early, packed up, and headed down for breakfast. Corn flakes and bread. Yum yum. After breakfast we hopped on over to the train station. Caught our train to Paris and settled in.
After the first leg of the journey we got off and ran to our next train because our train got in late. I grabbed the door as the conductor blew his whistle and then he yelled at me to stop. Awesome. So, we missed our first train change and got to wait an extra two hours to catch the next one. Found a place to eat and played some cards to pass the time. Got on our next train and went to our next destination. At the next change we had another two hour layover, so we had plenty of time to catch the next train. Sat at a café and devoured the free wifi. Made our next change and headed towards Paris.
Paris will be the next and last installment of the traveling portion of this trip. Although Payton, Keith, and I are going to write a recap of what we learned while on the whole trip. Hopefully people will read it and have use for some of our insight if they ever travel through Europe. So, stay tuned, we are not done talking to you yet.
steinkraus.
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