Paris

I was quite excited about going to Paris and again it was nice to be with my parents as they were still quite keen to spoil me and pay for a nice hotel room for me. I think it is such a lovely city and I can see why many people love it however I only had a few days there and so could only see a few things so I am keen to go back there again.

We arrived in the afternoon, and I decided to make the most of my time by visiting Notre Dame, which was near our hotel. Such a fantastic gothic building sad to think it was almost left to rot. That night my dad and I braved a night bike tour around Paris. It was nice and cold I could hardly feel my toes, but it was a lot of fun to be riding around on bikes a great way to see the city especially by night. It was great to do it with my dad too considering we are both bike enthusiasts and he’s a Francophile. The tour also included a river cruise with some red wine to warm us up.

The next day I spent the morning walking around the streets around with my mum and dad. My dad then retired and I devoted the rest of the day to my mother and to a mutual favoured activity of ours you guessed it more shopping. After initial whining from me and a rather hysterical outburst from my mother, we settled down for the task at hand.

After a good solid work out in Paris’s department stores I emerged with a nice warm wool coat for me to brave the UK winter, a pair of cute shoes, a dress and some nice fancy underwear (which is nice to have because after travelling the world for 7 months your underpants all turn a shade of grey and get a bit saggy)

That night we braved the wind and went up the top of the Eiffel Tower to get a spectacular view of Paris at night.

For my last day I went off by myself to visit Chappel St Germain, is a lovely chapel which spectacular stained glass windows, now I know there are lots of churches with stained glass windows but these really are spectacular. However I think the over hour que to get in somehow takes the shine off (French school holidays!).

My poor Dad will miss out on his birthday this year, as my parents fly back home on the day before his birthday and cross the date line on the way home. So his birthday was lost somewhere up in the air. So in consolation I took my parents out to lunch to celebrate. It was really lovely to see my parents again it was a little strange to be travelling with them and sometimes they did drive me a little batty but I really enjoyed my time with them. It was sad to say goodbye again. But my mum was much happier now knowing that I am not traipsing around 3rd world countries by myself, and that I am getting somewhat settled.

Geneva

Well I took the train from Nice to Geneva where I stayed with my parents for 4 days. My dad’s friend Thomas works for the ILO so he now lives in Geneva. On our first night there Thomas threw us a fantastic dinner party, with a to die for potato soup with fresh truffle mmmm.

Geneva is a nice clean efficient city and it is not that big (500,000) but it has such an international feel to it and you hear many different languages being spoken however the main language is French. We spent most of our first day just wandering around and spending some like walking around lake Geneva. In the late afternoon I caught up with my friend Tim from Costa Rica. He was in the same class as me at the Spanish school in San Jose. He now lives in Geneva where he is going to university. We got some beers and spent the afternoon by the lake and then dinner with my parents

The next day we went to visit the UN and also went to the Red Cross museum which was very interesting and also had some very moving displays.

Our last day we went up a nearby mountain on a cable car where we had some lovely views of Geneva and also Mt Blanc. In the afternoon we did a spot of shopping but for mum and I it was very much window-shopping as Geneva would be one of the most expensive cities I have been to. Also got to have another beer with Tim, which was nice before a good bye.