Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Accueil à Genève

Just some quick pics from our first adventure in Geneva...

On our walk to the local town, Carouge. Beautiful, no? :)


Dinner with Nathalie and Giàn at Bocalino's (the menu was in Italian, so that was an improvement from the French for both of us). We will be renting their flat while they backpack through Madagascar fro the next two months.... sweet right? We had such a good time and laughed so hard. Nathalie speaks French and English, Giàn speaks Italian, Spanish and French... so between the four of us we had a tri-lingual party! :) We couldn't have been more lucky to meet more hospitable and friendly locals. Quelle chance!

We had a relatively uneventful trip out... the biggest highlights were the literally 7 small children sitting directly around us on the flight from DC to Geneva (what are the odds right? We didn't sleep a wink), and when Jordan passed out on the flight from SLC to DC. I was asleep and he grabbed my arm to wake me up. He was all pale and said "I'm going to pass out".... this has happened enough times now that I believed him! Anyway, I quickly got him some salty food (this happens sometimes because  of his low blood pressure and low sodium/electrolyte levels).... he passed in and out of consciousness, but I kind of force fed him when he woke up and he was good as new in no time. A really sweet, very concerned stewardess brought him all the food he wanted, so we got an entire meal and multiple drinks out of the deal (everyone else only got drinks-- no peanuts or anything!). So now we now... if you're not getting enough food on your cheap-o flight, feign fainting (or if you're Jordan, just do it for real). ;)

And... the reason there aren't any other exciting pictures is because we had plans to check out downtown Geneva etc.... but decided to take a "short nap" around 1pm, only to wake up around 5pm. Lol! Oh well. We slept sound last night too, so I think it was a combo of jet lag and residual exhaustion from this last week of craziness (finals, McG family in town, grading, packing, etc). Not that we didn't love every minute of it (okay, I take that back on the finals and grading, but not on the hanging with my McG clan)

We're off to Paris today, we'll keep you updated! :)

Monday, April 11, 2011

Rowling > Meyer


I don't think I even need to say anything else. Die-hard HP fan all the way.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

When I should be doing homework and projects...

I am actually spending copious amounts of time dreaming about and planning weekend trips for when we're in Europe (less than THREE WEEKS baby!). Here's a couple I've been spending some time on:

Paris, France (definitely happening, we'll be there during our first week in Europe!)




The Neuschwanstein Castle, in Bavaria, Germany. This castle was the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland!





 And Marseilles, France (southern coast of France). They have a deal on train tickets right now, and I am loving the idea of visiting this beautiful place:





I was really struggling to find affordable, but clean, housing in Paris and one of my buddies from high school turned me on to this AMAZING site: http://www.airbnb.com/. Now I am totally addicted. It is this great start up that allows people to rent out their own flats, studios, extra bedrooms etc. for affordable rates. So you get to meet locals, stay in a normal place that is clean and often much nicer than any hostel or hotel you could find for comparable prices (especially the place we're going to stay in Paris-- we would pay out the schnoz to stay there if it were a hotel, but the price is actually quite affordable. And it is located in a more local suburb of Paris, so although it's still central, we'll get to have a bit more authentic Parisian experience because of our stay there!). Anyway, I'll be able to tell you more in a month after we've actually experienced an "AirBnB" stay, but I am getting excited enough about it that I definitely can't bring myself to work on anything as mundane as homework....

Any recommendations of where to go? I'm all ears! :)