Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Getting internet has been tricky the last few days! My adaptor is not compatible with most or all of the plugs here so I have had to buy internet at the hostel in Geneva.

I spent most of Thursday exploring one of the famous outdoor markets in London - Camden Market. It was very busy but they had a lot of cool things to see so I enjoyed it. My favorite thing was looking at all the beautiful pashminas, particularly the expensive ones from Pakistan! That took most of the day since it was quite a walk there. After that the three of us grabbed lunch at a local restaurant called Bone Fish. We took our classic fish and chips (fries) to go and ate it in a really beautiful park - Regent Park. The weather was perfect and we all enjoyed having a relaxing meal outdoors! The lunch was really filling so we stayed in for dinner, opting instead to take a night time walk around London for some pictures and to see some more sights. The Thames was beautiful at night! I took a bunch of pictures and will put them up on facebook as soon as I have access to my own computer...That might not be until Tuesday but we'll see.

Friday I woke up bright and early to make my way to Gatwick for my flight to Switzerland. Despite my worrying and a little stressing taking the metro and bus to the airport was very straightforward. Hooraay! I had to wait around a bit for the flight but I was able to have a nice coffee at Cafe Nero, a coffee store chain in London. Delicious! At all those coffee shops they have an option to get your food or drink 'to stay,' something we don't always have in the states, but it is more expensive.

My flight to Geneva was short but rather bumpy, but I managed to get here in one piece with all my luggage (success!). From the airport I took a short train ride to the central station - Gare Cornavain. My hostel was only a short walk from the central station - something I appreciated! I got to the hostel in the late afternoon and after checking in, found that I would be staying with 5 other American girls that were traveling together. They were from Georgia and are in Europe this summer for an interior design program through their school, University of Georgia. After dropping off my things I went for a walk along Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) and through one of the gardens/park. It was soo beautiful!! Incredibly windy, but beautiful. The weather has been excellent, just perfectly warm and sunny.

The other girls invited me to go out to dinner with them and I accepted happily. They said that they had seen a fondue place that was pretty cheap and highly recommended by someone. I would have been fine with something simple but I decided to go so I could have a big meal with them. Of course when we got to the restaurant I immediately recognized that it was going to be a) not cheap and b) very French. The owner of the restaurant brought us the tiny menu, consisting of a few appitizer salads and fondue meals. After a lot of confusion and discussion, I managed to communicate what the ownder ( a nice old man) was trying to explain to us, specifically the girls from Georgia that didn't really know what was going on. They hadn't expected to pay 20 chf for their meals so they were trying to order just salads, but the owner kept telling me that we all had to get main meals, etc etc! When I finally made the decision for our table to get fondue, everything seemed to go a little better. Until we got our fondue and realized that it would be just bread and lots of cheese. Yikes! Cheese was their specialty, we were assured, but I think we had been expecting a little more for that price. The cheese, however, was nothing less than extraordinary! I thoroughly enjoyed my first fondue experience. After walking downtown a little bit (pretty!) we headed back and got ready for bed.

Today I headed to the train and bus station to buy my tickets to Lausanne and Annecy. I conducted all my transactions in French and felt so proud (but nervous mostly). I had gotten to the stations before they opened (at 8h00) so I took my time walking around town until they opened. I saw some more beautiful buildings and got to go into one of the main department stores. It is not only a department store like we would find in the states, but one that has a huge grocery and chocolate store in it. Mmm! I looked around for a bit, lusting at all the delicious looking patisseries.

It's almost 11am here so I am going to get going and hopefully go to some museums! I know one of them is free but the others may not be...we'll see how it goes. Pictures to come hopefully!