[Sorry this didn't get posted earlier, it was mostly finished, but then I saved it as a draft and forgot to look back at it...]

I went to visit Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay (well okay, Dave and Megan, who aren't actually married, but they might as well be ) in Geneva yesterday. My adventure actually started off the night before. [Sidebar: There is a big festival in Zurich every year called Street Parade. Essentially (from what I'm told - I didn't actually go) its just a lot of people 'jumping around' listening to 'techno' and 'drinking and doing drugs' -- sounds a lot like most people's high school / university experience and not really how I wanted to spend an afternoon.] There was a big party on Friday night and all of the interns and praktikants and trainees in Switzerland (who are part of IAESTA) were invited. And many of them showed up. The male to female ratio was higher than usual, but still only about 6 males to each female. Gotta love the science fields. Anyways, everyone drank way to much and we were quickly shooed from one apartment to the next. I remained mostly sober for the evening, so I got to direct drunk people. It was a amusing in a drunk people sort of way.
 
What does this have to do with Geneva you ask? Well, I didn't actually make it home from said party until about 2:30 in the AM. And I had to get up around 7:00 in order to catch my train to Geneva. Needless to say, I was pretty tired. The train ride was uneventful, I read, listened to some music and even napped for a bit. I would have slept the whole way except I had to change trains and I never like to sleep when I have to change because murphy's law dictates that I will miss my stop. I arrived in Zurich around 11am and quickly met up with Dave and Megan. I struggled to remember what someone suggested I do in Geneva, but to no avail. So we pulled out the ol' guidebook and found that there is a major UN centre in Geneva. (Which was actually what I had been recommended). We struggled to find a way to purchase tickets for the bus because we didn't have enough change - but thanks to this handy invention called a 'cash card', you can transfer money from your bank account to your 'cash' card (which is the same card actually) and then use it at some of the bus ticket machines. (I would venture to guess that said 'cash' is actually stored on the smart card chip on the card, and so the machines just simply read the amount on there and then deduct as appropriate).

Once we had our day passes for the bus/trams, we got on a tram and went up towards the United Nations. Dave, Megan and I had some laughs and they told me about their terrible experiences in Paris. (It sucks that they didn't like it, Paris is a really nice city, but it's nothing like what you see in the movies and on tv...). We got to the UN area and there is a really nice park that we looked around. In this park there is a small museum (free) about pottery and ceramics. Sadly none of us were particularly interested, so we just peaked inside and then headed back out.

Arriving at the UN we had to go through a security screening (and I was a little worried they were going to take my corkscrew away -- I love that little gadget). Luckily they didn't. After the screening, we had to go and get a badge. Because I sort of speak French, Dave and Megan decided that I should go first. Unfortunately for them, the UN only issues 1 badge per group (therefore the badge I received was for myself, Dave and Megan). Secretly, I think Megan was a little miffed about it, but she's a big girl so she'll get over it. Once inside we paid and then were told to go and wait in another building and not to wander around on the grounds. We just had time to grab a coffee and skim through the UN bookstore before they called us for the tour.

The tour itself was largely uneventful. We were showed some of the conference rooms, heard about the different branches of the UN and some of the resolutions that have been passed in Geneva. Other than that, there wasn't much too it. But none the less, it was still fairly interesting.

After the tour, we were all hungry and decided to go and find some lunch. But on a Sunday, in Switzerland, good luck doing that. Especially in Geneva, because everything is closed between 2 and 5 pm for a little lunch break for the restuarants and cafes. Fortunately Kebab shops almost never close and I got to introduce them to Kebabs. During lunch we decided that our next little excursion should be to a grocery store for a bottle of wine and then to a park to drink said wine.

All in all the afternoon was a lot of fun. After the wine, we went back to their hotel so that Megan could change, and we just hang out and gave her a hard time about taking a long time. (I don't think she really appreciated that very much, but she's a good sport :=). The trip ended with dinner in a little italian restuarant followed by a quick dash to the train station. Only I missed my train because the schedule was all screwy, so I had to wait 20 minutes longer for the next one. Oh well :p

And that was my exciting adventure in Geneva!

I finished uploading the pictures from Grenoble trip yesterday, but I didn’t get around to writing about it until now. Last weekend I went to visit my aunt, uncle and cousin in Grenoble, France. Getting there was relatively easy, take a train to Geneva and then from there to take a train to Grenoble. The entire trip took about 5:30-6:00 hours and I traveled during the day on the IR (Interregional) trains in Switzerland and the TER in France. After all the travel, I arrived in Grenoble later than expected, 9:30 instead of 9:00pm (there was a problem at one of the stops along the way – someone got arrested and it was a major delay for everyone on the train).

When I did arrive, my uncle and cousin were there waiting for me . We went to my uncle’s flat and promptly had some dinner. I was tired so we just called it an early ‘nite. I did however get a wonderful email from a dear old friend Emmery, so that was a pretty good way to cap off the evening.

The next day we headed up the Téléphérique in Grenoble and then looked at the view of the entire region. Instead of taking the téléphérique back down, we walked and because there was lots of trees and bushes, it was shady, cool and relaxing. After we arrived back at my uncle’s flat, we had something to eat and then drove out to the closest lake (the name of which escapes me). We spent the afternoon relaxing in the shade, I did some reading and napping, and it was great. Then we headed over to a medieval festival in a nearby town which was pretty neat. It was entirely in French, but my French is apparently much better than my German because I didn’t have much trouble understanding. We capped things off with a drink and then dinner at a little restaurant on the lakeside.

Sunday was also fairly relaxed, in the morning my uncle and I went for a walk in Grenoble to find some fresh bread and other supplies for a picnic in the afternoon. My uncle bought lots of apricots (must be the season) as well as some fresh baguettes and some ham for a sandwich for me later on the train. He made delicious sandwiches and then we all got in the car and drove out to Chamrousse. We had a picnic and then my uncle and I took the gondola up to the top . Some great photos up there (most of which are posted on here already).

Unfortunately the trip was short, so after Chamrousse, we rushed back to Grenoble, my uncle made me a sandwich, and I prepared my things, and then it was off to the train station. The train ride back was uneventful, I finished reading Different Seasons, and my ipod managed to last me (despite it already showing a red line for the battery) for the entire trip (well almost, not the last 30 minutes), so that was pretty sweet.

Hopefully all has gone well with this post, I’ve done it entirely in Microsoft Word 2007 with the new Blog template. Let me know what you think!

For anyone who's heard of Mr. Robert Scoble, they might be surprised to learn that he is leaving Microsoft. For those that have no idea who Robert Scoble is, or what the Scobleizer, then its probably not a big deal to you.

In either case you can read about it here on his own blog: http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/06/10/correcting-the-record-about-microsoft/

Microsoft will miss you good sir...

I suspect this is going to be a long post. The trip was long (but great) and involved lots of sights and events. I'll try to use bold & italics to highlight the key points if you are looking for a quick summary of the trip. Also, Paul has been keeping a little google map on his blog of all the places he has visited - and I'm going to modify his idea slighty and so I present you with this, Click Here!

Getting to Paris was simple. Our train left Baden shortly after 11PM and arrived in Paris bright and early on Saturday morning. The train ride was mostly uneventful, just some excitement of the first couchette experience for my travelling companions. The two ladies we shared the couchette with were very nice, spoke English and didn't mind us talking for a bit before going to bed.

Upon arriving in Paris, we had a bit of an adventure. The map I had prepaired, although awesome in that it showed where everything was in relation to each other, was definately not fine enough to successfully be able to navigate anything. In fact, only the Major Major roads showed up on it because in order to get all the sites in, I had to zoom out pretty far. Oh well - should have brought my laptop, or bought that smart phone with an unlimited data plan...

I had read somewhere on the internet (wikitravel if I'm not mistaken) that investing in the small pocket "Paris par Abondissment" book was a good investment and I quickly found a news stand and purchased it for a relatively inexpensive 7Euros. Flipping it open, I was able to find what street we were on and approximately where we had to go. As I was doing this, a very nice French lady approached us and asked us if we needed help finding anything. She did this in near perfect English and was bang on with the directions. She didn't even ask for anything in return (something I've sort of come to expect in Europe).

We quickly found our hotel and went to check-in. But it was only 8:00am and we couldn't check in yet. The guy at the hotel let us leave our bags and after grabbing the necessities (read: valuables) we were off to the others hostel. The first trip from our hotel to theirs took a little longer than subsequent ones but nothing too extreme.

Same story at their hostel, we were just too early for the check-in. They ditched their bags and we headed off to the La Chapelle metro station where we purchased 3-day Paris-visite metro tickets. In retrospect, it would have been cheaper to get 2 single day student weekend tickets (at 3E's each) and then buy two normal day passes for Monday and Tuesday (at 5.40E each) rather than a single 3 day pass and a single one day pass (18.25 and 5.40 respectively), but oh well, live and learn I suppose.

Onto the metro we went - off to the catacombs! I should note that I was a little surprised at how simple yet amazingly awesome the Paris public transit system is. We never waited more than 4 minutes for a metro and we always ended up within 2 or 3 minutes walk from our destination. Well with one exception, when the metro stops running and you have to take a nocatel bus (night bus) through Pigalle with a crazy drug addict telling you to fuck off because you don't understand what he's asking you.

Finding the Catacombs proved to be one of the most difficult tasks yet. We got off the metro and there was a nice clear sign that pointed in the direction we were to go. So we turned down the road and started walking. Right past the catacombs in fact. Until we reached the cemetary. It didn't seem right but we walked a bit further anyways... No dice. So we walked back, and looked at the map at the trainstation. We followed the signs direction so why hadn't we found it?! Well because it isn't very well marked, and perhaps because it wasn't even 9:30am yet!

The Catacombs of Paris wasn't very high on my list of things to do, but everyone else was pretty excited for it and we figured we might as well start off with the dead people first - they've been waiting the longest. Not to be disrespectful of course, the catacombs is a series of underground caves underneath the city of Paris containing millions (apprently somewhere around 6 million) bones exhumed from various cemetaries around the city. Walking through the tunnels was kind of eerie because on the one hand, you are impressed by how neatly stacked everything is and just the sheer number of bones and skulls. On the other, you are walking down very dimly lit caverns lined with the remains of the dead. It was neat to see but aside from a few neat pictures there wasn't much to it. Also it was difficult to take pictures because you weren't supposed to use the flash (which I respected) and there is almost no light.

After wandering through the catacombs, we reached the end, climbed back up several stories of stairs and were blinded by some serious sunlight. The group made a quick plan and it was off to the next place: Musee D'Invalides. But not without stopping at a grocery store first. Many people picked up some food for day, various staples, bread, cheese, etc... I opted to not get anything as I'm not too concerned about saving money and I would rather get more of a feel for things than just eating bread and cheese (which in fact, is a French thing to do, but not to the extent the other Canadians did it).