Hi everyone!
We arrived in Switzerland early Saturday morning to heavy downpours, freezing temperatures, and strong winds. In the airport we had to exchange our euros for francs. Thankfully our flight was not delayed and after taking a taxi to our hotel and checking in we took the local bus into the main town of Geneva. Our hotel was located on the boarder of France and Switzerland. (We literally looked out our hotel window to the checkpoint between both countries!) The buss passed by one of the sights we had planned to see so we quickly jumped off to snap a picture of The United Nations and the Broken Chair before getting back on the bus and out of the rain. The Broken Chair is a chair built in 1997 with a broken leg to represent the campaign against land mines and is ten meters high. After that we made is as far as the Office of Tourism where we found out where the rest of the sights we wanted to see were located. We then decided it was too cold and rainy to walk around anymore (our umbrellas were both inside out and we very wet!) so we took the bus back to our hotel. We were exhausted from getting up early and a busy week so we ended up taking a several hour long nap before dinner!
We got up early Sunday morning and were happy to see that even though it was still windy and extremely cold, it had stopped raining! We once again took the bus into town and were able to see all of the sights we had planned. We started off with Notre Dame and then crossed the river connecting Lake Geneva with the Rhine River into the Old Town of Geneva. There we saw the famous Flower Clock, the Statue of Geneva and Helvetia which represents the union of Geneva with Switzerland, Saint Peter’s Cathedral, the Grand Theater of Geneva, Tour de I’lle, Jardin Anglais, Place de Neuve, and the Parc des Bastions. We also stopped for lunch in a small café, ice cream and of course some shopping! We were very disappointed that we did not get to see the Jet d’Eau, the water fountain that Geneva is famous for. Due to the bad weather it had to be turned off. After walking around all day we noticed that Geneva is very famous for several things including: coucou clocks, Swiss watches, cows, Swiss army knives, chocolate and of course the Alps! Everyone on our flight and in the airport was already dressed in their ski clothes and ready to hit the slopes since many buses left directly from the airport. We also had day light savings time here Saturday night and we were careful to change the times on our phones so we did not have a repeat of last weekend!
One extremely weird event we encountered was when we were approached by a group of many older Asian men. We were asked to pose with each of them individually for many pictures in front of several different sights. They took turns standing in between us while the rest of them snapped away on their cameras. They spoke little English and we are still not sure who they thought we were or why they wanted their pictures taken with us! Don’t worry, Em fired back and started taking pictures of them once we said no more pictures! Very bizarre! Next weekend we are headed to England and are very excited! England has been on the news here a lot because of the G20 summit. There have been protests all week which are expected to increase towards the end of the week, just in time for us to arrive! President Obama is even flying in on Wednesday. Despite the bad weather we still had a great time in Switzerland, but were very upset that we missed Granny’s birthday! Happy 86th birthday Granny, we love you and miss you and wish we could have been there for your party! We also saw that Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl are filming a movie in Nice and Antibes this week so we are hoping to find out exactly were they are filming and try to see them if we can! Hope everyone is doing well at home! Only a few more weeks until we come home, we are so excited to see all of you! Love and miss you lots!
Love, Jen and Em
***The first picture is of the sunrise over the alps on our way back to Antibes. The second picture is of Jen under the Broken Chair. The third picture is of Em in front of the sign for the United Nations. The fourth picture is of Em in front of Notre Dame. The fifth picture is of Em in front of Lake Geneva and the sixth picture is of Jen in front of the Rhine River. The seventh picture is of us in front of the flower clock. The eight picture is of Em in front of St. Pierre's Cathedral and the ninth picture is of Jen at Place de Neuve. The final picture is of the old town of Geneva.
We arrived in Switzerland early Saturday morning to heavy downpours, freezing temperatures, and strong winds. In the airport we had to exchange our euros for francs. Thankfully our flight was not delayed and after taking a taxi to our hotel and checking in we took the local bus into the main town of Geneva. Our hotel was located on the boarder of France and Switzerland. (We literally looked out our hotel window to the checkpoint between both countries!) The buss passed by one of the sights we had planned to see so we quickly jumped off to snap a picture of The United Nations and the Broken Chair before getting back on the bus and out of the rain. The Broken Chair is a chair built in 1997 with a broken leg to represent the campaign against land mines and is ten meters high. After that we made is as far as the Office of Tourism where we found out where the rest of the sights we wanted to see were located. We then decided it was too cold and rainy to walk around anymore (our umbrellas were both inside out and we very wet!) so we took the bus back to our hotel. We were exhausted from getting up early and a busy week so we ended up taking a several hour long nap before dinner!
We got up early Sunday morning and were happy to see that even though it was still windy and extremely cold, it had stopped raining! We once again took the bus into town and were able to see all of the sights we had planned. We started off with Notre Dame and then crossed the river connecting Lake Geneva with the Rhine River into the Old Town of Geneva. There we saw the famous Flower Clock, the Statue of Geneva and Helvetia which represents the union of Geneva with Switzerland, Saint Peter’s Cathedral, the Grand Theater of Geneva, Tour de I’lle, Jardin Anglais, Place de Neuve, and the Parc des Bastions. We also stopped for lunch in a small café, ice cream and of course some shopping! We were very disappointed that we did not get to see the Jet d’Eau, the water fountain that Geneva is famous for. Due to the bad weather it had to be turned off. After walking around all day we noticed that Geneva is very famous for several things including: coucou clocks, Swiss watches, cows, Swiss army knives, chocolate and of course the Alps! Everyone on our flight and in the airport was already dressed in their ski clothes and ready to hit the slopes since many buses left directly from the airport. We also had day light savings time here Saturday night and we were careful to change the times on our phones so we did not have a repeat of last weekend!
One extremely weird event we encountered was when we were approached by a group of many older Asian men. We were asked to pose with each of them individually for many pictures in front of several different sights. They took turns standing in between us while the rest of them snapped away on their cameras. They spoke little English and we are still not sure who they thought we were or why they wanted their pictures taken with us! Don’t worry, Em fired back and started taking pictures of them once we said no more pictures! Very bizarre! Next weekend we are headed to England and are very excited! England has been on the news here a lot because of the G20 summit. There have been protests all week which are expected to increase towards the end of the week, just in time for us to arrive! President Obama is even flying in on Wednesday. Despite the bad weather we still had a great time in Switzerland, but were very upset that we missed Granny’s birthday! Happy 86th birthday Granny, we love you and miss you and wish we could have been there for your party! We also saw that Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl are filming a movie in Nice and Antibes this week so we are hoping to find out exactly were they are filming and try to see them if we can! Hope everyone is doing well at home! Only a few more weeks until we come home, we are so excited to see all of you! Love and miss you lots!
Love, Jen and Em
***The first picture is of the sunrise over the alps on our way back to Antibes. The second picture is of Jen under the Broken Chair. The third picture is of Em in front of the sign for the United Nations. The fourth picture is of Em in front of Notre Dame. The fifth picture is of Em in front of Lake Geneva and the sixth picture is of Jen in front of the Rhine River. The seventh picture is of us in front of the flower clock. The eight picture is of Em in front of St. Pierre's Cathedral and the ninth picture is of Jen at Place de Neuve. The final picture is of the old town of Geneva.
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