Hanging in Geneva.

Geneva, Switzerland

It's been a quiet few days here in Geneva of walking around the city and running some errands. On Monday and Tuesday, I went off during the day to look for some travel items that I didn't pick up in San Francisco. Specifically, I was looking for a sleeping bag and anything else that looked useful. After wandering all around town, I finally picked one up at a local department store on Monday evening. Trying to find specific travel gear in a foreign city is an exercise in patience. Not knowing which stores to look for, let alone where they are is a rather trying experience.

On Tuesday, I continued shopping around and ended up coming across two stores that are about as close as I could find to an REI/MEC, though about 1/5 the size. None the less, they had pretty much everything I wanted including those really nice silk travel sheets for using in hostels. (Apparently, many hostels do not allow the use of sleeping bags for fear of transmitting bugs from the bag into the sheets...)

Power Station Building along the Rhone River.

Yesterday, Wednesday, Brendan and I decided to take a day trip up to Lausanne, about a 45 minute train up along the lake. Brendan went for lunch with his summer boss, while I wandered around the old part of town, following a walking tour I picked up at the local tourist booth. I checked out the obvious town cathedral, the local church and some chateau that was not open to the public. Lausanne is built on a steep hill, so all the walking is along narrow cobblestone streets, mostly free of traffic. After a few hours of playing tourist, I hoped on the Metro (all 4 stops of it) and met Brendan down along the lake. The weather was again overcast with light rain, but we still managed to enjoy an outdoor game of checkers (using chess pieces... Maybe I'll finally learn how to play chess on this trip...)

Brendan contemplating his next move...

From Lausanne, we caught the 5:17pm (and yes, the Swiss trains really are on time to the minute) back to Geneva. We were both pretty tired last night, so we ended up staying in and watching a little TV. (Jay Leno is on out here without commercials for some reason. To no one's surprise, the show goes a lot faster once you cut out all the advertisements.)

Not quite sure what our plan is for this afternoon. Brendan is working to get his administrative stuff done for school, since tomorrow is the deadline for that. Originally I had planned on heading up to Solden Austria for the world cup ski races, but that might no longer happen now since Brandon is back in Vermont earlier then he had expected. My new plan is to possibly catch an overnight train to Vienna and spend a few days next week there. Apparently October 26 is the National Holiday for Austria, so that might be an interesting time to check out the country.

Kenny