Happy Hippie Easter

Friday, April 6th
6:30 am, Quinn and I got on the train heading to Lyon where we would make the transfer to our train to Geneva. We got into Geneva at around 10:30, and the city was DEAD. Nobody was on the streets, none of the stores were open - it was like we had walked into a ghost town. We asked the man at the hotel what the deal was, and he explained that since it was Easter weekend, not much was going to be open - great. 
Fact: Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, so our most expensive weekend was going to be filled with wandering the streets looking for things to do. 


So. 


We meandered towards Old Town when we got our first glance of Lake Geneva and the Jet d'Eau that Geneva's famous for. 


Here are some fun facts about the Jet d'Eau:

1. 140 meters high
2. 500 litres (132 gallons) of water from Lake Geneva are jetted into the air per second
3. water leaves the nozzle at a speed of 200 km/h (124 mph)
4. at any given moment, there are about 7,000 litres (1,849 gallons) of water in the air

Walking along the water, we stopped at the English Gardens, took a picture with the Flower Clock before heading up into the hills of Old Town.

Meandering aimlessly through the streets of Old Town, Geneva, we stumbled upon St. Pierre's Cathedral. Luckily, right behind the historical St. Pierre's Church, there was a Crêpe Restaurant, so we stopped and had a nice, long lunch before heading into the church.

Fun Fact about St. Pierre's Church:

Back in the 1500's, when the Protestants took over the church, they whitewashed all the walls, removed all the murals and left nothing but the original architecture of the Cathedral and the Stained Glass windows. That's the state that it's currently in today. 

Q and I decided to take in as much of the cathedral as possible and head up to the Towers of the Cathedral where we saw one of the most beautiful views I've seen yet in Europe. Thousands of hundred-year-old building scattered the hills around Lake Geneva and continued right up until the foot of the mountains that enveloped the city. It was breathtaking.

After coming down, we meandered around Old Town - up and down winding cobblestone streets until we fell upon a park where dozens of middle-aged men (cigars in mouths, of course) were playing giant-sized chess. The silence around the chess boards made it obvious how seriously these men took their game.

Staircase in the streets of Old Town, Geneva 

Men getting serious about their Chess and Checkers

After watching for a little while, Q and I found a beautiful Cherry tree and planted ourselves under it for a well-deserved nap in the sun.

When I woke up, covered in Cherry tree blossoms, this is what I saw:

We went back to the lake for a bit and split some ice cream and took a trip out on the very narrow stone pathway to the Jet d'Eau where I saw (yet another) beautiful view of the city.

We headed back to Old Town for dinner: split Fondue, Vegetarian Lasagna and a bottle of Cab.

Then we decided, since everything was closed and we had made a pretty big dent in the list of things to see in Geneva, we would have a girls night at the movie theater – Titanic in 3D :)

Saturday, April 7th

Slept in before going to a Chocolatier for breakfast. Ordered some of the most FANTASTIC Hot Chocolate I've ever had, and we spent a nice relaxing 2 hours or so there (Eat, drink, sit...seeing a pattern yet?)

Then we took the bus up to the United Nations Building and – while trying to find our way in – stumbled upon a Glass and Ceramic Museum (Ariana Museum). We missed the last tour by 10 minutes (too much time in the museum haha), so we stopped and took a picture:

before walking around the Estate to the Botanical Gardens which were absolutely beautiful. They had small gardens dedicated to plants from specific regions of the world (Provence, Africa, South America, etc.), and they were all scattered among little streams and water falls. The entire place smelled AMAZING. They also had a little zoo filled with Peacocks, some sort of Mountain Goat, FLAMINGOS, and the largest variety of duck I've ever seen.

Botanical Gardens

Then we meandered a little more and headed back to Old Town for a couple of coffees to burn the couple of hours before meeting up with one of my friends from high school for more Fondue and wine!

Sunday, April 8

Easter morning! Q and I took a nice stroll along the un-explored side of the lake before going to an Easter Buffet - complete with Drip Coffee and real Champagne (Check “Drink Real Champagne” off the list of things to do before I die!) - where we stayed for 2.5 hours! We got really good at making the most of our expensive meals haha.

Lake Geneva

Breakfast Buffet

Then we took a boat ride across the lake and worked our way back before catching our train back to Aix!

Overall, a very fantastic and relaxing weekend! However, I would suggest to anyone planning on going there, that unless you're very good at doing nothing (or if you have means to go into the countryside), you really don't need more than one or two days to explore and get a good vibe of the place. Especially since everything is so expensive. Prime example that everything is super expensive in Switzerland:

Quinn and I went to McDonald's (because we decided we wanted to try it in every country we visit), and Quinn ordered a Cheeseburger meal with Medium fries, a Medium pop, and a small Magnum McFlurry. It was 16.10 CHF (a Swiss Franc is worth a little bit more than an American Dollar), so Quinn spent almost 20 dollars on a McDonald's meal. Talk about "Ouch".

Country Hopping

Alright. Time to fill y'all in on what I've been doing with my free time the past couple weekends. After I come home from my Winter Break vacation to the UK and Ireland, I had kind of caught the travel bug, and I decided to stop wasting time in Aix and explore as much as I could on my weekends where I wasn't traveling. So I decided to take advantage of the first weekend back in Provence and explore the beautiful town of Cassis with a couple of my friends.

CASSIS

Cassis is a little town right on the coast of the Mediterranean. It's probably the most beautiful place I've seen on my trip so far. The U-shaped port is surrounded by colorful buildings of red, yellow, blue, and orange, and at the base of every building is a restaurant packed with people eating all sorts of fresh seafood. 

As we were walking down the port to the Office of Tourism - where we were planning on asking for fun things to do - we came upon a little stand selling boat tours of the Calanques. The next tour was leaving in 5 minutes, so we thought "hell, why not" and hopped on the boat. Calanques are cliffs jutting out from the edge of the sea - you could think of them as Mediterranean fjords, and they're almost always on the list of things to see if you come to Provence, so we HAD to do it.

Here are a couple pictures of the boat tour:

Needless to say, it was absolutely breathtaking. It was one of the best days I've had this semester so far :)

When we got back on land, we noticed that there was a man selling sea urchins to all of the restaurants around the port and decided that while we were on our Cassis-high, we should treat ourselves to a feast of fresh seafood, so we ordered a bottle of Cassis Chardonney and my friend and I split a dish of Oysters, Muscles, Clams, Escargot, Crab, and Six Sea Urchins. It was one of the greatest food experiences of my entire life. It took us 2 hours to eat it all, and we probably burnt more calories figuring out how to get the meat out of the shells than we consumed actually eating it.

Check out the pictures! :)

Me taking a shot of an Oyster :)

Unfortunately, the day after, I ended up feeling the full effects of the fact that my body is not at all used to consuming that much raw seafood and suffered from some pretty brutal Food Poisoning. But, I'm gonna say that it was pretty worth it. I don't regret a single bite :)

MADRID

The following weekend, I was back out in Europe visiting a good friend of mine in Madrid! My tour of Spain's capitol happened in the span of about 6 hours – Megan literally brought me to something important, told me the name, took a picture of me in front of it and then moved on. It was my kind of tour :) Then, that night we went out on the town Spain style. In the big cities in Spain, the metro closes from about 1:30 am until 6:00 am, so when people go out, they stay out until the metro re-opens. So yes. I stayed out dancing until 6:00 am! Check and check :)

Here are a couple pictures of my first day in Madrid:

Since I was there for St. Patrick's Day, we HAD to have Green Eggs and Ham and Green Beer for breakfast!!!

Some important government building - I really shouldn't be trusted to remember important information

Madrid's Cathedral (not necessarily known for it's beauty)

Us in the park - me rockin' my Guinness shirt on St. Patrick's Day :)

 On our hardcore night out until 6 am!!!

Then on the next day, we decided to get outside of the city and go hiking – which I had NOT planned for, so (as you'll see in the pictures), my attire is not the most suitable for hiking straight up a mountain. But it was definitely worth the pain in my lungs for this view:

Terrifying.

 The view when we were midway up the mountain

Check out that incline...

And finally!

So happy I survived the climb 

My hostess :) 

LONDON

The weekend after that, I went to a completely different setting a flew North to visit my other friend in London. I know I've already been to the UK, but staying with a friend is a completely different experience, and one I thought would be well worth it :) And it was! She lives right by Hyde Park (when she tells people where she lives, people don't believe her because it's such a ritzy part of London). One huge thing I learned from being in London is how thankful I am for not being dependent on public transportation for my everyday life. The Tube (metro) in London costs roughly 2.5 pounds (which is over 3 dollars) PER TRIP. So in a day, you could spend around 15 dollars just using the tube. And it takes a lot more time than you would think because you have to go out of your way to get to the tube station and then go down, wait for the train (transfer if you need to transfer), get out, and then get back on track from the tube station. So I'm happy that I live in a place where you can walk everywhere. Because although it might take more energy, it's nice to be able to actually experience your city.

Ok rant's over. Now's time for pictures from my weekend in London!

 Lake in Hyde Park

Kensington Palace

Off to Hogwarts!!!

Tribute to Amy Winehouse in Camden (a "city" in London)

Buckingham Palace!

I found out that the Queen owns some of the geese in the ponds in London, and you can tell which ones because they have to wear collars around their necks.

AIX

Since the weather's gotten nicer, and the clock is winding down on my study abroad experience, I've been itching to take advantage of every hour of the day. A lot of my days are spent in Parc Jourdan. There's a beautiful park right on the outside of centreville that I've kind of made my home. A lot of picnics and a lot of laying out. It's heavenly :)

I've also been spending days off going to Marseille. There's a bus that goes straight from Aix to Marseille, and with my special card, it only costs me 2 euros to get there and back! I've been to the beach twice now – it's crazy to think that it only takes me an hour to get to the Mediterranean Sea, and I can just spend a couple hours there before coming HOME to Aix. Life.

Well, there's a brief summary of the past three weeks worth of travel!

À Bientôt!