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| Jet d'eau |
Caught the bus at 7 am to Geneva. Arrived
in Geneva tired and grumpy. The bus dropped us off on the other side of the
city, much further away from the hotel than we expected, so we couldn’t get our
bus passes or put our stuff in the lockers there. We paid $3 euros for a tram
ticket that we only took for 3 blocks before we saw an open air market and got off
to buy breakfast. We ended up going to McDonalds instead to use the bathroom
and I was able to mix my barley grass juice and blueberry powder. Katrina had
an epic fall in the McDonalds. I didn’t witness it, but heard she went straight
down, wish I had seen it.
In the market I bought a pretzel, and
olives with Provence spices, vervene tea, chèvre, a red pepper, and braided
bread. We’ll use the food for breakfast and lunch. Then we walked to the Swiss
army knife store because Kayla wanted to get one. We waited outside because
none of the rest of us wanted to buy one. Then we thought we lost Katrina. She
went to put makeup on and then didn’t come back for a really long time. We were
worried, but turns out she had just stopped in several stores on her way back
and forgot about the time.
From there, we decided to go straight to
the hostel so we could at least put our stuff in lockers, even if we were too
early to check in. Lake Geneva bordered the road on our right and a bridge filled
with cars ran parallel to our path. As we walked I noticed we were passing very
high end stores, like Gucci, Prada, even a Jimmy Choo shoe store. I will admit
I’m not immune to nice things, meaning I’m tempted all the time by expensive
purchases, but stores like that make me uncomfortable. I think it’s because I
feel like I could buy a house for what a single pair of shoes costs, so it’s
not even in the realm of dreams, but it’s also so grossly expensive to me, it’s
not even attractive. There were stores like this all over Geneva, which is I
think one reason why I didn’t love the city. Aside from luxury stores like
those, everything else was also overpriced. I didn’t like being in such a
pricey area.
After we had rounded the tip of the lake
and made our way to the left bank we had to start making our way between the
buildings, away from the lake. A few streets in we made a left and walked
straight for a long ways before we got to the hostel. Along this backstreet, we
noticed a sex shop, and then another across the street. This was mid-day
though, so we kept walking. Nothing to be afraid of here. As we walked, I
noticed a woman on my right wearing a really tight short dress. I wondered, “is
she a prostitute?” She was just standing there leaning against the building
smoking a cigarette.
Nothing to worry about. We kept walking.
Two more blocks down, another woman, in a skin tight short black dress, with
the most enormous breasts practically hanging out of her dress was leaning
against a building, smoking a cigarette. 1 + 1 = hookers. They had to be. She
didn’t acknowledge us girls walking by, so I thought, alright, we’re still ok.
Nothing to worry about. One more block
down I looked to my left and down an alley in a store front window I saw a sign
“Bienvenu feu rouge district”. Oops, I guess I booked a hostel in the red light
district. Should have done my research, was prostitution even legal in
Switzerland? Anyways, we walked a little faster, turned the corner where the
hostel was, and everything looked nice again. The inside of the hostel was
really nice too. Nothing to worry about.
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| United Nations |
The reception desk was closed for lunch,
so we decided to eat our lunch in the waiting area. I ate the red pepper like
an apple, it was so delicious and fresh. Kayla let us borrow her Swiss army
knife to cut our cheese, it was really good.
We were still an hour early when the guy
came back to open the reception desk, but we were lucky they had two rooms
cleaned already so we were able to check in early. The rooms were basic, a bunk
bed, lockers, a desk, and a sink. Community bathroom in the hallway, but it was
very clean. One thing I do love about France, even though most bathrooms are
missing toilet seats, and are disgusting, every stall has actual walls and door
that locks. I hate US stalls where the locks are always misaligned, and
everybody can see through the cracks in the panels. Anyways, these bathrooms
were very nice, very clean, even had vanities separate from the sinks with hair
blow dryers.
Our stuff locked away in our rooms we
decided to explore the city some more. The first thing we all wanted to see was
the Red Cross Museum, and the United Nations.
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| L'horloge fleurie or Flower Clock |
Hunter and I built a Lego set he got a few
Christmases ago of the United Nations, so I really wanted to take a picture of
the real thing. We got there, and there was this huge red chair, huge as in,
the size of the giant in James and the Beanstalk, but the chair only had 3
legs. I think it’s supposed to be symbolic of something but I’m not sure. So I
took my pictures and was thinking it looked nothing like the Lego set which was
all white clear glass colored. Then Katrina said, “I bet it was the United
Nations in NYC.” What? There’s more than one UN? I had no idea. There you have
it, it wasn’t the same building we made out of Legos. It was cool to see all
the flags at the front, but it was not open so we didn’t get to take the tour
inside.
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| Streets of old town Geneva |
The most interesting thing about the Red
Cross Museum was the lady who checked us in. It was free with our hostel
passes. There were two couples ahead of us in line. To the first couple, the
receptionist spoke German, fluently, beautiful German. Then when she checked in
the next couple, she spoke French. I couldn’t even tell if she was German or
French she spoke both equally well. Then when she checked us in, she spoke
English in a British accent. So that solved the mystery, she was British, but
she was so fluent, I couldn’t believe it.
The rest of the museum was a huge
let-down. Maybe it’s because we were all so tired, but instead of being
interesting, all the exhibits were depressing. A lot of them were video
recordings of people who had been affected by war crimes or dictators. I don’t
mean to sound unsympathetic, but it was not what I was expecting. We ended up
only spending 30 minutes there before we decided if we didn’t like it by then,
it just wasn’t worth the time that day.
We had our free transportation passes from
the hostel and found out there was a little train that goes around the city
giving tours. We rode the tram back to the tip of the lake and waited to take
the little train. I must say, it was a big disappointment. The train only drove
from the tip of the lake, over to the right bank, only covered maybe 1/8th
of the bank and then came back. There really wasn’t a lot of interesting
information on the train either. I’m just glad we didn’t actually pay for that
tour. |
| View of the backside of the city from the park |
On the way we stopped and got a fast bite
to eat. I got a croque mesiure which is basically a grilled cheese ham
sandwich. This one was awful. $6.50 for white bread, smashed panini style, with
a piece of fake cheese, you know the kind that come sliced and individually
wrapped, with one slice of ham lunchmeat, buttered with mayonnaise, and a glob
of butter on the inside center. It was so gross, but I was really hungry.
Fortunately not everyone ate at this nasty place, and the restaurant we stopped
at later sold fresh juice. I got fresh squeezed apples, oranges, ginger, and
something else. It was really good.
Next on the must see list was the
Cathedral of Saint Pierre. We used the google map on my phone to navigate
there, which I have been loving. The GPS on my phone and this little blue dot
on the map which tells me which way I’m facing has been an amazing life saver
for getting around. The best thing is that it all works offline as well. On the
way to the Cathedral we found old town Geneva.
Finally a place in the city I loved.
Narrow cobblestone streets everywhere with fountains and cute little shops. It
was 7 pm so everything was closed, but it was so refreshing to get away from
the touristy hustle bustle by the lake, and get into this hilly little
neighborhood that had so much charm. We walked all over that section and ended
up at a park overlooking the back side of the city. It was beautiful. I didn’t
want to leave that area, but we had to go home at some point. |
| Cathedral of Saint Pierre |
Also, the metro system in Geneva, super
difficult to navigate. Their maps are kind of useless, you can’t tell which
lines are bus and which are trams, and there are no landmarks on the maps, so
it’s super difficult to find the stop you want. We ended up avoiding all the
busses and taking the same tram into the city and back to our hostel and
walking to everything else in between. It’s not a huge down-town area, so I guess
that was fine, but I feel like we could have explored a lot more if it had been
easier to navigate.
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