Our journey began quite early on Friday morning and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but were too excited to see Switzerland and more importantly the Swiss Alps. We arrived in Madrid and had a 4-hour layover. We shopped, ate some breakfast at McDonalds and then boarded the flight to Geneva. 2 hours later we arrived in Geneva Switzerland. We got our bags, and headed downstairs to the train station to catch the train to Zurich, which is a city in the Eastern part of Switzerland.
We caught the train, which was a double-decker train that was one of the cleanest I’d ever seen. Apparently Switzerland is the cleanest country in the world… I defiantly don’t doubt that. So we sat down in seats that we thought we okay and got comfortable. A few minutes later the drink man came by and proceeds to say “Oh my god” you are in first class and your ticket says second class. Luckily I had my ticket on the table in front of me and he saw it. Thank goodness he warned us to move to the 2nd class car. This was our first funny experience in Switzerland.
After, the 3 hour train ride with amazing views, we arrived in Zurich and it didn’t take us long to realize that the Zurich airport isn’t really in Zurich, instead it is about a 15 minute metro ride. So we finally arrived to the city (Kloten) where our 3 star hotel “the welcome in” is located. We checked in and unpacked a bit and headed out to find dinner since we had not eaten anything since McDonalds that morning. After walking around the dead city for 30 minutes we decided to eat at a pizza place. After dinner we took the metro in the city of Zurich and walked around for a little bit. Zurich is such a pretty city at night, especially with all of the Christmas lights. I think Switzerland is the most decorated country for Christmas and they definitely get the most into it. We walked around, bought tickets for our day of skiing the following day and headed to back to our hotel to sleep.
Saturday we woke up at 5:30 AM to make it to the slopes to ski in the Alps. We got on the train and headed towards the small city of Flumserberg, which was the closet ski resort to Zurich. And luckily they had gotten lots of snow within the past week and Saturday was the actual official opening day with 11/15 ski lifts open, so we lucked out. After switching 3 trains and a hour and a half later we were there and let me just say it was absolutely gorgeous… it was like a dream. We had no idea what to do next, but followed the crowd and headed up the gondala to the bottom of the ski resort. The gondala ride took 15 or so minutes and we went like straight up the mountain. When we got to the top we headed to the store to rent skis and gear since we were clearly not prepared. We got suited up and hit the slopes.
We had no idea where to go or exactly how to read the map that was in German, but luckily the trails were clearly marked. I had heard skiing in Switzerland can be quite scary since it is harder and stuff really isn’t labeled, but I didn’t find that to be true. We started off on the easier side and then hit some runs that were a little more difficult, but so fun. We were having so much fun that we only took a 30-minute break for a snack and some water. We skied for the rest of the day and sadly turned in all of our gear and headed to the bottom to catch the train. On the gondala ride down we saw the sun start to set over the alps and it was gorgeous, more like surreal. Sadly we got to the train station and just barely missed our train back to Zurich. Of course there was no heated place to sit and wait, but there was this area that was covered. And funny story… when we walked in there was this man who looked like he was sleeping and he woke up and started walking around and thought the window was the door. Clearly he was drunk, but it was still funny and then he got on the train and just left his snowboard. Glad he wasn’t on the slopes with us!
Yes, we rode the gondala down this... it was a little scary
When we got back, we headed to the Christmas market in the train station. It is this huge Christmas market and it is also where this huge Christmas tree stands with ornaments that are Swarvoski crystals. It was gorgeous and I do not want to even imagine how much the tree is worth with all of those ornaments. The Christmas market was cool and they had stuff from all over the world. We walked around there for a long time with everyone else in the world and then decided to get some dinner. After dinner we took the metro back to the hotel and went to bed since we had gotten up at the crack of dawn.
Sunday, we toured the city of Zurich. We walked around the cute little town and saw all the landmarks that Zurich has to offer. Zurich is a city that is divided by a river in the middle. First we saw this old church, but couldn’t go in because they were having services. We then found this park thing next to the lake with the prettiest views of the mountains. We took a few photos there and then watched all of the swans in the lake. I thought it was random that Switzerland has swans that were at least half my size…they were huge. After that we headed to what we thought was a Lindt chocolate factory, but what a huge let down it was when we realized it was just an advertisement. We ate some lunch in the train station and then headed to the “singing Christmas tree” which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It’s this huge tree, and yes it’s real, that has platforms and people sing in it. They have different groups come and we lucked out because they had a International Baptist choir that sang in Christmas carols in English. It was so cute because all of the families in Zurich were there and these little kids were all singing the songs in English. I hope I have bilingual kids one day… gosh Europe is so on top of their game. We watched them do their show twice and then headed to a suburb of Zurich where yet another Christmas market was. Like I said Switzerland does the Christmas holidays big, which I love, and there are Christmas markets everywhere. So we headed to yet another one in this little town called Bremgarden. It was so cute and sweet to see all of the families together. After exploring for a while we headed back to the train station for dinner and then headed back to the hotel to pack.
I told you these things were huge...
The singing Christmas tree
Monday we woke up and got on the train to go to Geneva early so we would have sufficient time there to see all of the touristy things. The 3 hour train ride wasn’t as eventful as the first, but sadly we couldn’t’ see any of the breathtaking views because it was super cloudy. We got to Geneva around lunchtime and headed to find the hostel to check-in and drop our bags off. Of course it was raining and of course we went in the wrong direction when we left the train station, but we finally found our The Geneva City Hostel. We checked in and our room was ready so we put all of our bags up. Soon after we headed to the United Nations and Red Cross Museum. Unfortunately we only had about 2 hours to do everything before they closed, so we only made it to the Red Cross Museum, which took the full 2 hours. The Red Cross was founded in Geneva after the WWI and is now in almost every country. It was a really cool museum, but it was more about the history of the Red Cross and how it helped war victims, other than what it does today. It was a lot sadder than I expected, but it is cool to see how far they have come. After the Red Cross Museum we attempted to go into the UN, but quickly found out it was too late and we needed to have our passports with us, so we decided to save that for the next day. So we decided to go walk around and shop. We walked around the city for a while and then went to Manor, which is the department store in Switzerland to buy chocolate. And was that a bad decision or what… I have never seen so much chocolate in my life and so many different flavors and bands. It was like heaved and even better, it was super cheap. So I made several purchases (still don’t really know how those are going to get back to the US with me, but I will figure that out Thursday). After that we walked around the Lake Geneva, which is HUGE and stumbled upon the lights festival that was going on so that was cool too. They had lights all over the place and in the trees. After that we made it to the flower clock and then headed to find dinner. We got Italian at a cute little restaurant next to our hostel and I had pasta for the first time in I don’t really know how long… it was delicious.
Sadly, our Switzerland trip was coming to an end. Tuesday we woke up early, packed and stored our luggage and headed to the United Nations. We got to the UN right at 10 when it opened and passed through security, which was legit. After showing our passports and getting a badge with our name on it, we headed on the tour in English! I love tours in English, since they are so rare these days. We had a nice tour guide, who was very informative and took us into many of the important parts of the UN. It was more like a history crash course about the UN. I learned that the delegates must speak in 1 of 6 languages including English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Arabic. And I also learned that Switzerland was one of the last countries to join the UN, which is kind of ironic since the United Nations is in Switzerland. I also learned that there are only 2 countries not a part of the UN: The Vatican and Pakistan. It was also cool to see all of the artwork and the materials that were given by each country to construct the UN. After our 3-hour tour we headed to the Old City in Geneva. We found the Reformation Wall and this gorgeous Calvinistic Church. Apparently Geneva was a big part of the Reformation, hence why they have the Reformation wall there. We went to the top of the church where you could see all of the views of the city and the Alps and it was gorgeous. Next we found the flower clock again which looked a lot prettier in the daylight. After that we headed back to the hostel and then to the train station and finally to the airport to get back to Valencia. Switzerland was definitely an amazing place and I hope to go back one day.
One of the big conference rooms in the UN
The Church
In front of Lake Geneva
We got back late Tuesday night and now I am catching up on work and studying for exams next week. Today is our last day of classes, tomorrow we take our last field trip and this weekend will be study time and next week exams and then packing and then back to the USA! I will be back on Friday and I have mixed emotions about it! What a great semester it has been!
-MO
1 comments:
Wow, you have some amazing memories this semester!
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