Switzerland 08/31

I spent a few hours at the museum today, but I was not allowed to take pictures. The museum in Geneva was very different than the Smithsonian or other museums in the US. There was a definite focus on Western Europe history, but their exhibits were much older than typical ones in the US. A few things that stuck out were all of the Roman & Egyptian Scultures. They had several intact Mummy casings which were pretty cool. They also had a room on Swiss Warfare History. This room was loaded with canons, guns, swords, and metal armor. They even had sets of armor that horses wore. I was not allowed to take pictures, so I took some pictures of my hotel today.
One note, nearly everyone in Geneva smokes. I have been trying to eat outside because the weather in gorgeous and most restaurants do not have AC. However, I have forgotten (since Florida's indoor clean air act) just have disgusting smoking can be for those around sometimes. It is nice that the weather has been so incredible. I am excited to see how well the Rays keep playing.

Switzerland 08/30

Today was a restful day in Geneva. I went to the Reformation Museum and Park this afternoon. I have lots of pictures from those sites. The Park was pretty cool, because it has over 100 different types of trees. The park also has a huge wall dedicated to the history of the reformation, and I tried to capture it in a number of photos. I also took a couple of hours to walk near Lake Geneva and listen to my CPA Prep materials.
One note, it is odd just how many people have dogs in the city, but they are always in control of them on the street or in the park. It is very different because the dogs go into stores and places with people or sometimes just sit patiently outside.

Switzerland 08/29

A night in France. Our trip to Annecy was smooth. It was funny to here the Swiss talk about the French. One such joke was, When God was creating the world, he created France and called it Heaven on earth. His assistant said, We are in Heaven, you cannot create another one on earth, so they created the French people. Obviously, that was not true, but it shows what the peoples sometimes think of another.
Annecy was a beautiful town, described to be similiar to Venice, Italy. Lake Annecy which is so clean that you can see to the bottom (although on our boat tour we did not see any fish), and starts a river that has many brnaches that flow through the old city. My understanding is parts of the old town section are over 500 years old, but the only dated stone I could find said construction of the building was completed in 1690. There were many castles around lake, but we could not get close enough for good pictures. All of the mountain ranges have paragliders and we were tempted to go try it out. The color of the old buildings' plasters on the outside was amazing and very different from anything that I have seen before.
We had some Glace (icecream) which was clearly the best that I had ever eaten. My dinner consisted of Fried Lake Perch and French Fries with a Chocolate Mouse desert. It was very good. Our waitress appeared to be very rude at the beginning per the French stereotype, but she ended up being very pleasant. Most people spoke english which was good for us.
The rental car ride over there was breathtaking, Ryan did a fine job of driving but it was often like the little car that could barely making it up each incline and coming home the lights in the car only went out about 20 feet when we were on a major French highway (A40). The scenery of the French countryside was amazing. The rest of the team from Lakeland are headed home today, while I am staying to help with the accounting close next week. I will probably do less travel for this second week, but the trip to France yesterday was definetly well worth it.

Switzerland 08/28

Interesting Day, and all of the pictures are of food. Lunch was at a "Sushi Train" Restuarant, but because I could not read the menu I could not get myself to eat the raw food. I had Terryaki Chicken, but had to use Chopsticks which was a challenge for me.

Dinner was a 4 hour affair with several people from the Geneva Office. We went to an Indian Cuisine Restaurant which was excellent. The first course was a Tortilla of sorts with spicy beans baked into the chip. The second course was a Lamb Patty and Fried Onions. The third course was Tangori Chicken with rice, pita bread, shrimp, and lamb. The shrimp and lamb respectively, were in types of gravy that was for the rice and bread. The desert was a cake and ice cream. It was an excellent meal and a good time.

I may not be able to post tomorrow, as a group of us are going to rent a car and head to Annecy, France for dinner and touring the city. Regardless, I should have some non-food pictures on the site again soon.

Switzerland 08/27

Wednesday. Chinese twice today. First, Chinese in a Food Court at department store for lunch. In the states you would expect to pay about $7, but in Switzerland it costs 30 francs. We went to Tse Yang for dinner, it was an excellent meal and we got to go visit another part of the city.

The day ended in Starbucks (we needed to order something simple in english [kind of]). Ryan had cheesecake which was kind of a joke after the bad Geneva Cheesecake he got on Sunday night. I miss Landon, Cara, and of course Iggy!

Switzerland 08/26

Crazy Day. Woke up late and ran to work. Went to lunch at a kind of a walk up stand by some city pools, but they served gourmet specials. Today was roast chicken with some cucumber and parsley side that was pretty tart. It was good, but Ryan and I accidentally headed towards the room with topless sunbathers. After quickly realizing our error, we found another location to eat at.

Dinner was steak, so I was happy. Not pictured below was the apple pie desert, which was a whole apple baked on top of a round crust covered with almonds and ice cream. An excellent dish for sure.

Switzerland 08/25

Today was Monday 08/25. I had to got to work today, but it was nice to see some familiar faces that I regularly work with but rarely see. We went on a dinner cruise in the evening, and the pictures start on the way to the boat and follow through the cruise. I was able reach out and touch the air over France and that was cool, and also ate some interesting cuisine. First, was Smoked Salmon and Lekes in some cream sauce; second, was Crawfish which was pretty much a small lobster; third, duck; and finally, a raspberry sorbet desert. Pictures are interspersed.

Rule for traveling Europe for the day: Neverever order Duck when visiting Europe. It will never be cooked enough and even if it was there is never enough to make a proper meal out of. If one wants to be happy, he should avoid ordering duck ever, but especially when traveling in Europe. On the flipside, I was very impressed with the crawfish.

The shot in the chocolate shop door didn't really apply to the day, but the chocolate goats were pretty cool.

Switzerland 08/24

Wow! What a day. It started at the hotel with breakfast, and was slammed after that. We went to the train station and caught a train to Lausanne and got to see Lake Geneva up close and visit the olympic museum. They had several special things going on as today was the day for the closing ceremonies in China.

We then caught a train to Montreux to see some mountains. There we were directed to take the Golden Pass train into the Swiss Alps. This was like an hour long version of Disney's Big Thunder Mountain with mile long drops on either side. At the summit of +2000 meters, we could see mountains in the distance from Rome and Instanbul. This was a breathtaking experience, and I now more fully understand the "I have been to the mountaintop" expression. To top the day off, we got to get close up to a reindeer. Lots of pictures from the day below!

I had to break them up into several slide shows. There are about 140 pics, so this photobucket link may help... http://s357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/lotsofgall/Switz0824/?albumview=slideshow

Switzerland 08/23

The 23rd was long a day as I did not sleep on Friday night in the plane. We got into Geneva aroun 3:30pm local time and decided to run to St. Pierre's Cathedral about a mile from our hotel before the towers closed. We were able to climb some 300 feet up the spiral staircase to get a great panamoric viewpoint of the city of Geneva, its amazing fountain, and the mountains in the background. More tomorrow... We know were are going to vist other parts of Switzerland, but have not decided where.