More Random Weekend Madness!

It’s been a busy spring and summer so far, travel-wise anyway. But being as Geneva is actually a pretty awesome place in the summer (as is Switzerland as a whole), we decided to spend the second half a bit more local in order to enjoy what’s in our backyard, if you will. This doesn’t mean we aren’t traveling, but rather it means we’re keeping our jaunts within the realm of short train rides and few (if any) overnight stays.

That being said, we’ve also had some good excuses to stay in town. Within the past month, we’ve had two couples we’re friends with get married! Marriages are always fun, and it was cool getting to attend some nice Swiss weddings – and while technically there were no Swiss people actually getting married, the ceremonies and receptions did occur in Switzerland, so it counts. Also, one of them even had alphorns, and yes, “alphorn” is the correct noun for what those giant Ricola-sounding things are called (an interesting aside – if you look up “alphorn” on Wikipedia, there is a story about how the first recorded instance of this aforementioned instrument was when a missionary tried to convert some Swiss mountain men over to Christianity, and the Swiss beat him to death while blowing their alphorns at him. I can’t make this stuff up!)




Outside of weddings, the other thing we’ve been trying to take more advantage of is hiking. We’ve been averaging a very poor two hikes per year up until recently, and it’s one of my goals to increase that number. Unfortunately, you’d be surprised at how hard it is to clear a weekend to go hiking, because without a car you need to have some modicum of advance planning, and then the weather is so fickle here that a third of the weekends it seems to rain anyway. Regardless, we were able to make it to a couple of villages and get our hike on, although it’s tended to be more of the vineyard / ridge hiking rather than the mountain / pasture variety. Still a couple of weekends left before autumn hits us too hard though.

Lastly, I’ve been making it a point to try and get into Lake Geneva as much as possible this summer. That has resulted in, maybe, six trips to the lake – again, the season for being able to actually get in the water is surprisingly short – but those six trips were great. Four of them were on my lunch break; they were what we refer to as a “continental lunch”, in honor of the many fine French citizens who believe a two-plus hour lunch break is perfectly acceptable. In my opinion, this is yet another reason to like the French. That said, I know all the ladies are waiting for me to post that picture of myself in a speedo that’s been causing all the buzz on the internet of late. Sorry, but that’s for Soph’s eyes only!