European Travels: Geneva and The Alps

After landing in Geneva we were back to "work" so we could use our business credit cards for meals and taxis and staying in a nice hotel.  This was a great relief because well Geneva, Switzerland is freaking expensive.

We were there for training so we didn't have a lot of time outside of the office but my understanding of the city was that we were staying and working near Old Town.  We would have pastries for breakfast at boutique hotel before going to the office for training.  We were there all day before going to dinners and drinks as a group in the evenings.

Old Town Geneva

I do remember trying a few new things while ordering our dinners.  I had for my first time steak tartare which I enjoyed but not as much as I enjoy my first taste of marrow.  Marrow looks disturbing being served with the giant leg bone on the platter but spreading that meaty goodness over a toasty piece of bread is amazing.

Lake Geneva Beneath the Shadows of the Alps

We also had some wonderful walks through the town after dinner trying to find the next establishment to visit.  I remember one of the walks it was snowing and the town felt so quiet and peaceful.

Peaceful Walk Through the Snow

The real fun started on Friday afternoon when we got done a little early.  We quickly planned on going skiing in the Alps being January and we were essentially in the Alps already.  We found a chalet/hostel in Morzine, France that had room for us and was only about 70 miles from Geneva.  There was a bus from the Geneva Airport that would take us there so we were set.  We scramble together some bags of warm clothes, I had my ski pants, clothes, hats, and goggles ready to go so I was ready for everyone else when we got on the bus to take us to the airport.  We were only about 3 minutes down the road when it hits me, I am going to be skiing in France, wow! And then the next thought hits me, 'crap, I didn't bring my passport.'

I jump off the bus tell my buddies to bring my bag with them when they got off and I'll be right behind them.  I sprint back to the hotel, skip the old slow elevator and take the stairs up the 3 flights to my room and grab my passport.  I have to wait a few minutes for the next bus to come but make it to the airport just a few minutes after my friends and they bought me a bus ticket to Morzine and it is about to leave so I grab some things from the convenience store to eat on the ride and we take off.


Little old Morzine, France


We make it to our hostel after a few wrong turns and slick roads and find that our rooms are delightfully small.  There are 3 tiny twin beds in each room with a bathroom that is no bigger with a closest in an attic.  There is nothing separating the shower from the toilet so when anyone showered everything was wet.  None of this matter because all we need to do there was wash up and sleep.  But first we were going to find ourselves some beers and join in on the aprés ski party that all the vacationers were already enjoying.

We had no clue where we were going but we followed the noise and found The Tibetan Cafe, which we dubbed Buddha Bar.  This place was the quintessential ski town bar.  It was warm, cozy, had beautiful Scandinavian barmaids, was filled with happy people with red faces from being outside all day, and loud pop music.  Oh and lots of alcohol.  There was a multitude of people from all over the world and we had an absolute blast meeting the crowd.

Buddha Bar

The night turned into morning and unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't get a great view of the mountains that we drove through the night before.  We hit the slopes early after first filling up on some pain chocolat, water, blue Powerades, and more water.  I decided that I was going to try snowboarding because most of our group was a beginner skier and I already had skiing down.  After the morning of a thousand falls I started to have the hang of it and could make it down without falling  ...  as much.  We had lunch on the hill at the cafeteria and a couple cokes and hot chocolates.  The afternoon included more snowboarding and the race between the advanced skier, Harry, and the intermediate snowboarded Daniel.  Harry appeared to crush Dan and I believe then was ordered to pay for all of Harry's beverages that evening.

Day 1: Snowboarding

That evening a few of us found ourselves at this amazing French restaurant where we enjoyed escargot, marrow, wine, meats, cheeses, breads, and whatever else we could imagine.  It seemed to never end but when it finally did we found our way over to the Buddha Bar where we continued deep into the evening with drinking, singing, and tales of the mountain.


The Alps


The next morning we woke to the beautiful sun shining through our tiny little window.  The mountains looked incredible which gave me energy to start my day even though I was dragging because of the late night.  I started my day just like I did the previous one with pain chocolat, water, and blue Powerade.  I was feeling on top of the world, plus I was going to rent skis today and take on some of the back mountains.

Sun Shining in the Alps

With the sun shining, I skied with Harry  most of the day, who I forgot to mention used to be a ski instructor and can ski better backwards than I can forwards.  We had a plan for the morning and by lunch time we had skied from France over the border and into Switzerland.  Feeling like we had really done some amazing we had beers over lunch while sitting at the base of a mountain to celebrate.  We made it back to Morzine and found Eric and skied with him the rest of the day before we had to take the bus back to Geneva

I've Skied Across the French/Swiss Border

Lunch at the Base of a Mountain

Riding the Lift with Eric and Harry

Snow Covered Trees

Travel Ideas: Europe

When I was 23 years old I was working at a job that had me living in London, England as well as a short training session in Geneva, Switzerland. I was only there for 8 months but I was able to do fair amount of traveling throughout Western Europe. I didn’t have many vacation days but I was able to stuff a lot of travel in on the weekends as I didn't have to pay for an apartment. (I was lucky enough for my employer to pay for my corporate apartment because the length of time wasn't enough to warrant a full lease.)

I will go into more details in future blogs on the cities I visited, what I saw, the things that I was most impressed by, the fun places, the not so fun places, and any stories that I remember. But to give a quick recap of the main cities I visited.

I went over to Europe a few days before I had to report to work with two guys that I knew were working for the same company. We spent a few days including New Years Eve in Amsterdam before heading to Geneva, Switzerland to start our two weeks of training. Our training group went skiing in the Swiss/French Alps. After Switzerland, I moved to London. From there I traveled to see a friend in Rome, went to Paris in the winter and the summer, Dublin, visited a friend in Barcelona, took the train Scotland, went with a friend to Oslo, back to Amsterdam for work, and I also had many day trips and activities around London.

I know two quotes that have really stuck with me and while I was traveling abroad they came in handy. They gave me some motivation when I was feeling lethargic (read: hungover. It's London, they like drinking.) and also some guidelines as I was visiting all these new places.

The first quote is about traveling; "Don't be a tourist, be a traveler."

I didn't want to be the stereotypical American Tourist. I wanted to get to know cultures, people, language, food, and places that a tourist might miss.

The other quote is accredited to Mark Twain and is, "Let us so endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." This leads me to try to do and see and experience all types of things before the undertaker comes to find me and hopefully when he does I'll have seen and done and experienced all that I have wanted.