The Land of Chocolate!

We took our first trip to GENEVA, SWITZERLAND! We had to be at the airport very early on Friday morning, but arrived safely, without delay (not very common for me these days) in Geneva in the early afternoon. We took a train to the main area and immediately we were lost. We had already booked our hostel and had the address, but had no idea where we were. Oh and there was one little problem...we were in a new country where we didn't know the local language. We bought the first map we could find and started our adventure. We wanted to get our picture taken in front of the lake and asked two men walking by. Before they took our picture, they decided it would be nice to take one of themselves...total hotties! I was so surprised when we saw swans...it was freezing in Geneva! Nothing compared to Minnesota, but I was definitely not used to it. Rachel tried to touch the swans, until we realized they probably bite!

A few hours after wandering and seeing a few of the historic sites, we arrived at our hostel...my very first one!! I have a feeling this was a nicer one. Here are a few pictures...the view, our room, etc.
Most of our trip we spent just stumbling across things, we visited the United Nations, the huge water fountain (largest in the world), St. Peter's Cathedral, and Notre Dame. We got very tired during the day, so we hopped on a city bus and just rode it, looking at the city, and napping a little. Ha ha!
Things were VERY EXPENSIVE in Geneva. We later learned that this was because they do not have income taxes, they just place a lot higher taxes on their items, so locals and tourists pay. Our favorite place to visit was the department store, MANOR. There was a huge chocolate section with FREE SAMPLES! It was great, except we went back the next day and we could have sworn the worker said something about us being there yesterday...but we don't know French!
On Saturday, our day took a different turn. There was a HUGE riot in the main part of town...including tear gas and the sounds of bullets (but we think they were the rubber ones, to scare protesters). In the morning we visited St. Peter's Cathedral and while we were taking pictures outside of it, four officers came at us with very determined looks. They demanded to search our bags and see our identifications. It was very intimidating, but we think it had a lot to do with the protesters. It started to get a lot more out of hand and being foreigners, with not much knowledge of the riots or the local language we decided to take the train back to the airport. It was around 6 in the evening and our flight did not leave until 7 in the morning. We couldn't find anything better to do than to buy a few bottles of wine...only in Europe! Our original plan was always to sleep in the airport to save money and because our flight left so early. We had some goods times and a bunch of laughs spending the night in the airport! It was quite the experience in Geneva and I would definitely love to go back in the summer. There are so many gardens and the mountains surround it...it would be beautiful!