Hey hey...
Switzerland was great!
*Just a little Geneva, Switzerland background info: it was an 1 1/2 flight from Madrid....everyone speaks French there (weird, right?) and some people speak German and Italian...most people understand a little English....their currency is the Swiss Franc which is awesome if you're used to using Euros (it's pretty much double its worth)...it's really clean, really safe, and really modern.
*Sarah, Ben and I flew into Geneva Thursday night...we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant next to our hotel and it was delicioussss (nothing like a traditional Thanksgiving meal)...it was pouring rain so we went back to the hotel and just watched CNN for like, 4 hours straight. It was the first time I've watched TV since August and it was glorious. We got up early on Friday and transferred to our hostel (we had to split up where we stayed because everything was booked). You can pretty much walk everywhere in Geneva....and by then it was just drizzling...so we walked along Lake Geneva, through this park with all these weird statues, up to the European Arm of the United Nations. It was cool to think that a lot of important decisions were possibly being made while we were standing outside the building...haha...we also saw the World Trade Organization. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant..a REALLLL mexican restaurant..with like, rice and beans...chips and salsa..it was awesome. I can't wait for Mazatlan. Moving on...after lunch we went to Cathedrale St. Pierre...its the church where John Calvin preached and where Calvinism was developed. It was nice to see a regular CHURCH, not a frou-frou cathedral....we climbed to the top of the steeple and the view of the city was great. After, we went on a little boat tour of the Geneva coast and then saw "The Flower Clock"...a working clock on the ground that is made up of flowers...it was cool. That night, we ate at another great Italian restaurant. Saturday morning we took a 30 minutes bus ride to a small village in France. The only main attraction there is a cable car that takes you to the top of Mont Blanc--part of the Swiss Alps. We went up about 1100 meters...it was amazing...it was so foggy and rainy that at one point in the cable car we were completely surrounded by white..it was crazy. We walked around and stuff on the top of the mountain and it was soooo foggy...like, intense...then we hiked 30 minutes through the WOOOODS to a tiiiiny restaurant....we were the only ones there and they definitely didn't speak anyyy English...it was frustrating/fun....we hiked back down to the cable car and went back to Geneva. There was a little Christmas market going on in the middle of the city so we went there and shopped a little bit...they had all the lights and decorations up...made me realllllly excited for Christmas and got me in the holiday spirit...There was an iceskating rink set up so we iceskated for a while..Sarah used to compete in iceskating and Ben used to play ice hockey....so I looked like the "special" friend trailing behind them...trying to keep up haha...That night, we went to an Irish pub type place and then just went back to the hostel. We had Starbucks this morning (wahoooooo..oh how i miss you..) and flew back to Madrid!
*Switzerland is known for its chocolate (it was ahhmazing)
-The better your travel partners, the better the trip...all of my favorite trips have been great because of the people I've traveled with...you know how you can only spend 24/7 with certain people? Sarah and Ben and I pretty much laughed the entire time and it was great...Sarah is from Colorado and has a boyfriend back home...so we can complain to eachother about how we miss our boyfriends and not feel annoying...haha...Ben is from Pennsylvania and is just a quality guy that reminds me of guys from home....they are both 2 of my closest friends here
*I've noticed that all of my favorite trips are to places that aren't really cities..but have either mountains or a body of water close by...hmmmm....


hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!