I accidentally went to France

This past week, I took off for my first big, independently planned trip - GENEVA! Why Geneva you ask? Well, a lot of the interEuropean flights are not too expensive, thus facilitating fairly affordable travel. Therefore, with the itch to travel somewhere I would probably never go again, and a few hours spent scouring the internet for cheap flights, I decided that I would go to Switzerland. However, there was one catch, I needed to take a 6 hour bus to Madrid, and fly out of Madrid to be able to get a flight that was about 150 Euro cheaper.

So, I left a very rainy Sevilla at 1:00 am in the morning with my friend Mike on a 6 hr bus headed for Madrid. We arrived in Madrid at 7:00am, hopped on the Metro, and caught a flight at 10:00am to Geneva, which arrived at 12:00am. Although we didnt get any "solid" sleep during the travel, we awoke on the plane to the free snacks. No no no...this is not the typical peanuts or pretzels but gourmet 4 cheese pizza followed by Swiss chocolate for dessert. Hard life.

Once we landed and stepped off the plane, we suddenly realized that we looked up not a single word of French and that no one speaks Spanish and the occasional person speaks English. Thus, the most commonly used phrase was "Anglais? Espanol?" Anyway, we find a bus, point to the address of our hotel and get told by three different bus drivers different things. Finally, one of them who speaks English - SALVATION! - tells us that he can take us halfway and tell us where to go. Now, when we booked the hotel, the address said it was in Switzerland, but when we googled mapped it, it turned up in France......Along the bus route, we found out that our hotel was indeed in....France. After getting off at the last stop and pointing once again to the address, we get given directions in French, but dont understand, so we wander in the general direction of where the man pointed. Oddly enough, I was not stressed at all. This is a new revelation for many but my stress levels have decreased tremendously. My thoughts were "This is the most gorgeous place ever and what will stress do to help?".

Because it was Fall, I got to see the leaves changing, which I havent seen in years since San Antonio kinda skips over the whole leaves changing part of Fall. My breath was taken away.

And then we wandered some more....and found Geese and the ALPS!

After wandering for a couple of hours: "This way looks like there could be a hotel"....we found the hotel! Friday night we just explored the little city we were in - Ferney Voltaire. Saturday we found the tourism office, a cute streetfair, and grabbed the bus into Geneva. *Sidenote: A bus ticket one was on the bus is about 5 dollars...McDonalds meals are about 20 dollars...Not kidding.*

Geneva is very much a business oriented town. Therefore, we were able to do all the sightseeing stuff in one day and not feel rushed. We ate our sandwiches (mostly all our meals came from a grocery store - sooo much cheaper) along Lake Geneva and looked at the Jet d'Eau (shoots 400 feet into the air), the Alps (which surround basically the entire city...even though it was cloudy, we could still see the outline and the Alps themselves when there was a break in the clouds), the ducks and swans along the Lake, and the people walking around - just all around sat and soaked up the scene while enjoying life.

That day, our adventures included playing in a park, seeing the Art Museum, walking around, seeing the Cathedral and....EATING CHOCOLATE. While there are chocolate cafes everywhere that specialize in some of the most creative and delectable creations I have ever seen, we went to a supermarket-type store and bought some chocolate bars there to eat on the Lake - cheaper annnnd we could spend more time gazing at nature. So after spending an hour looking at the vast selection, we got our bars and headed out to the Lake once more. I'm not being dramatic - it was the best chocolate I have ever had. It seemed to melt away in my mouth. My bar had a praline, wafer and truffle filling.

Sunday, we went back into Geneva and killed time before our flight home and hung out with some very friendly yet slightly terrifying swans.

On the plane home, we were able to fly over the Alps and once again, my breath was taken away. Although Geneva isn't an ideal tourist place, I loved being there. Nature does something to calm me down inside and I loved every second of walking around and being in a new environment. I am so glad I got to go for a few days. However, it was a great feeling to get back to Sevilla where I can communicate and fall back into my little routine.