Travelling to Geneva

Yesterday, my parents and I finally took off from Wuerzburg and headed to Freiburg, first. What a cute city! First off, it’s very clean, all the houses are very neatly decorated and colorful. The weather was very nice – actually too nice. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature rose up to 34 C°. Ufff... way to high - unbelievably hot! You normally don’t get this kind of suffocating heat in Germany. And of course – our car’s air condition broke… I haven’t had such a torturess ride in a long long time. But we’ve made it anyhow ;-)

So enough of the whining, back to the city of Freiburg. As I said: what a beautiful city. Small alleys beautifully paved and little uniquely decorated stores alongside. It seems like many artists decided to open their own little stores here. You stroll along and stop at every shop window to find something new, something interesting, something you just usually don’t see. Here some unique jewelry, there some individually tailored dresses and a small antique shop over there. Of course, the goods are very expensive, too. But I rather prefer this kind of expensiveness than going down a street with Gucci and Prada everywhere.

I also loved the little canals, which you can find along most of the streets. Clear water constantly runs through the city and gives it a neat freshness. You can see many people just sitting there and cooling their feet in the water.

Walking around, exploring the little arcades with Turkish fruit and vegetable stores, we also found this very cute pastry shop, called "Gmeiner" (www.chocolatier.de).

my father getting his shoes cleaned by some Turkish guy...

According to their menu, they’ve been awarded as the best European chocolaterie and best coffee house in Germany. Their coffee is divine! If you have the opportunity to come to Freiburg, I recommend stopping by and having a cup of coffee and some cake – or chocolate.

In the evening we drove to Mulhouse, France and spent the night there. I don’t really have to say much about this city, ‘cause frankly speaking, it’s nothing special. It has a church, a nicely looking city hall and everything else isn’t worth to be mentioned. Just a normal modern city. Didn’t like it that much. But the dinner was ok.

Town square in Mulhouse...

city hall...

dinner: dug in black sause with cowberry and vegitables and cheese baguettes....

some funny statue.

After a very warm and muggy night, we woke up to thunderstorm and massive rain. The temperature also dropped to 17 °C. And it was time for my Swiss debut! Yes, it’s my first time in Switzerland ;-). We took the road over Basel and Biel to Neuchâtel. Uhhhhh…. Biel is so ugly… cement buildings everywhere – real 70s. But Neuchâtel was quite cute. Lying directly next to the Lac de Neuchâtel, which is huge, it really has a something of a mediterranean city.

Neuchâtel

Lac de Neuchâtel

After lunch, we drove on to Lausanne. This city lies on a very steep hill, which is covered by multi-storied slender buildings and has a church on top. It very much reminded me of Porto, Portugal. Not really pretty. And I don’t wanna know, how much of a workout daily life has to be there, if you have to climb up and down this hill all the time. I guess you have a constant feeling of standing diagonal, if you live in that city...

And around 5 p.m. we finally – FINALLY – reached our goal – GENEVA! Now I am sitting in my room with my roommate Heather from Wisconsin, all dressed up in my PJs. But that’s another story and soon to be told.

So, for today, good night everyone!