Day 8 January 24, 2009

Date: January 2nd, 2009

The Plan: See Geneva, Drive to Paris

We woke up in the morning, and looked out of our window (that seems to be the ritual these days) and were greeted by snow.

View From our Room

Its not like we had an option so we got all bundled up and went outside.  The parking lot had lots of snow and carefully we got onto the freeway.  Our first stop was Jet d’Eau.  It is a large water fountain that is situated at the point where Lake Geneva empties into Rhone River.

Jet d'Eau

Jet d'Eau - Base

We drove around Lake Geneva, and fell in love with this city.

Driving in Geneva

Buildings in Geneva

Buildings In Geneva

Our next stop was United Nations, again we were on a tight schedule (had to drive to Paris) so we decided against touring United Nations (plus I had done that once before).

View close to United Nations

I don’t know if you can tell, but the black object is a motorcycle.  We parked on the street where United Nations HQ was located and we walked toward United Nation.  We passed Museum Ariana, which offers a huge collection of Ceramics.

Ariana Museum

Right across the museum we saw a Smart car parked.  Smart cars are all over Europe but we never got to see one close.  So we got closer to check out the car.

Smart Car

There was a statue of Gandhi on the way to United Nations.

Status of Gandhi, close to United Nations

Then we got to United Nations, it seemed rather quiet that we expected.  We could hardly see anyone other than the guard ( I don’t know who we were expecting to see, but we were expecting more people), and tourists.

United Nations

Right across the street from United Nations, there is a sculpture of Broken Chair.

Broken Chair

With all the snow around us, it was very cold.

Temperature in Geneva

After walking around United Nations HQ our next stop was Migros, to buy Swiss chocolates.  We walked around the store picked some chocolate and fruits.  When we came to the cashier, she told us something in German and we were so clueless we kept staring at her.  She then told us to follow her and she showed us chocolates similar to the ones we had gotten that were on sale.  So then we exchanged the chocolates with the ones she showed us.  Then she started ringing our items and when it came it fruits she said something else.  This time I realized she was telling that we need to put the UPC codes on the fruits.  So I walked to the fruit section and looked around on what I need to do.  I saw a guy getting some fruit, I showed him my fruit and looked clueless.  He then pointed me to a scale where I had to place the fruit and press the number that was next to the fruit, it printed the UPC code that could be scanned at the register.  Pretty effective as the cashier doesn’t have to remember that the code for banana is 4011 (I have worked at grocery stores), and there is no need to put those nasty sticker on fruits with the number.

After we got out of Migros, out next mission was lunch.  We went to a small place (recommended by wikitravel) and found parking on the streets.  We had to pay for parking and the machine did not have instructions in English.  So we asked couple of guys on how to operate the machine, they said they had no clue.  Then another girl was walking by and she came over and helped us by reading the instructions and translating them to English.  Through out the whole trip people were very nice to us.  Be it in helping us with paying toll in automated machines or parking or recommendations for places to eat.  We had 90 minutes on the parking meter so we had a nice lunch and then walked around Geneva a little while.

We still had 10 Swiss Franks to spend so we went to gas station pumped gas for 10 CHF and started our trip to Paris.

Driving to Paris

Driving to Paris

The drive to Geneva to Paris was little more than 5 hours.  As we got closer to Paris, we started hitting traffic.  By this time I was very tired, even though Sherry was the one who was doing all the driving I was the one who was tired.  He suggested that we go see Eiffel tower at night as it would be all lit up.  I reluctantly agreed as I just wanted to get to the hotel.  I was so glad that we decided to see Eiffel tower at night.  It was so pretty with all the lights.

Effile Tower at Night - I

Effile Tower at Night - II

Eiffel Tower at Night - III

It was cold that in the 3rd picture of the Eiffel tower it is our breath captured.  We did not do the ride that goes up to the Eiffel tower, we just enjoyed the tower from the ground.  Driving in Paris is as crazy as everyone says it is, there are so many roundabouts and each roundabout would have 6-8 exists.  With lot of gear shifting we finally got to our hotel which was 20 minutes outside Paris.  It was around 10.00 PM and all the eateries around that area had closed other than a pizza place.  So we got some Pizza, ate some fruit (and some Swiss Chocolate) and called it a night.

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