Expat Explorer...Switzerland!

The next stop on on bus trip was Switzerland! We stopped at lunch time in Geneva for a quick bite to eat, after some searching of course...gotta find the best bang for your buck...er I mean euro no swiss francs! Thankfully Switzerland was the only country that we had to get different currency, having the euro really is helpful when traveling to different countries in a short period of time. During our lunch break we could find a ATM and get some money out so a bunch of us got different amounts out. Normally ATM's give you a variety of 20's this one gave me 2 bills 1 one hundred bill and a fifty bill. When my friend Babu took out 350 swiss franks for him and his wife it only gave him 3 bills! He said that he was holding a lot of money in his hands but really didn't feel like it with 3 bills that looked like monopoly money.

We didn't have much time to site see around Geneva as it was mainly our lunch break, but after we had some delicious pizza we walked around the shopping area and got some pictures with the Jet d'Eau. Which is one of the crowning symbols of Geneva, a fountain of water pumped 140m into the air. The spectacular plume was once an occasional pressure release for hydro-power generation on the Rhône River, but people liked it so much that in 1891 the city created a permanent pumped fountain. Thank you wiki travels for that tidbit of information, our tour guide gave us a quick synopsis of the city when we first got there but couldn't remember it all so wiki travels helped me out. On a side note there, if you are ever going anywhere type in the place with wiki travel beside it into google and the website like wikipedia but just for traveling comes up. It gives a quick history of the place and then has the major sites to see and do. It also gives you information where to eat and has a break down of cheap, moderate and expensive and the same thing for where to stay. So check it out before you travel somewhere as it has been a good help for me and my travels...I threw away my travel book and just use wiki travels!

Geneva

Jet d'Eau

Lunch on the steps!

Tourists pictures..Emily!

Dad

And Mom!

After some more time driving in the afternoon we arrived in Lauterbrunnen. Which is a small unspoilt village nestled between the towering walls of a sheer-sided valley. Our accommodations that night and the next was in a beautiful old wooden building (no smoking...don't want to set it on fire!) Just looking around at the surrounding areas by our hotel was beautiful. There was a waterfall near by (that I didn't get a chance to walk to...next time!) and beautiful snow covered mountains! It was just beautiful all around in Lauterbrunnen!

Bus & Hotel

View 1

View 2!

The next day we had the whole day to explore the area. There was a train that you could take that brought you up to the "top of Europe", called Jungfraujoch. You could explore different areas up there and apparently do some snow sports as well.  I thought this sounded good and thought "when would I have a chance to do this again? Might as well do it while I can!". My parents thought differently and decided to take quite a few cable cars up and look at a different area which looked almost better than my experience (and cheaper too!).  It was really beautiful at the top and loved seeing the mountains covered in snow even though it was getting close to summer it was still there. The whole place I felt was very commercialized for tourists and almost everything was inside (because being outside is too cold...haha come to Canada to experience cold!). Having it all inside and connected by tunnels and stairs just didn't seem like the way to experience the snow and mountains. When I came back and talked with my parents about their day, it seemed like what they did would have been more worthwhile and their pictures looked beautiful.

The highest railway

The plateau

So beautiful!

Back inside

Hanging with the crows at the top of the sphinx

On our "glacier walk"

After 45 min of hiking we ended up here...overly expensive food and disgusting washrooms. But beautiful views!

Walking back was more fun!

Through the tunnel

Ice palace round 2

Ice palace

Jungfrau..Top of Europe!

It was cool to go to the top don't get my wrong. But if I were to do it again I would go with my parents and see the different waterfalls etc that they saw. Switzerland is a beautiful country and would love to explore it more! Our next stop on our bus trip Italy....leaning tower of Pisa!

For more pictures click here ----> Switzerland Pictures

Expat Explorer...France

So after our Holland adventure Mom, Dad and I jumped on a packed bus with about 45 others and traveled around Europe for 12 days! We were to see 7 different countries: France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Belgium & Austria (although I would not count that last one) so it was a very busy trip.

We took the ferry (instead of the tunnel) from Dover across to Calais, France. From there we headed straight to Paris!

Dover!

We started off with a walking tour of Montmontre and got to see a beautiful church called Sacre Coeur from there we walked down towards the 'sex district' and saw where the Moulin Rouge was. It is outrageously expensive to actually go and see a show so no we did not see anything.

Sacre Coeur

Moulin Rouge

The next day we had another walking tour from our guide in the morning and we got to see lots of different things including the old opera house (where phantom of the opera originated from), place de la concorde, arc de carrousel, the Louvre, the ponts des arts, pont neuf, and Notre Dame! It was really cool to see all the different sites in Paris but then we had the afternoon to explore it ourselves (and of course see the Eiffel Tower). So we headed off with what seemed like half our bus (10 people including ourselves) and had an entertaining lunch, walked up the Champs Elysees (which seemed to take our whole afternoon...note to self maps may deceive your walking distances!), saw the Arc de Triomphe, and finally of course the Eiffel Tower! The que to take the lift up was outrageous and none of us wanted to wait in the line so half our group decided to take the stairs to the 2nd level (cheaper and faster!) and the other half wandered around the area. It was some beautiful sites once we were up but we weren't quite up to the top. We got in the que to take the lift up to the top only to realize that you would have to pay again to go to the top and that the wait would be about an hour as well....we decided to vito the idea of going to the top and just had fun taking pictures of the view and the tower. It was a very packed day full of walking and site seeing but it was really nice to see as much as possible of Paris!

Old Opera House

Place de la Concorde

Arc de Carrousel

The Louvre!

Pont Des Arts

Eiffel Tower!

Eiffel Tower @ Night!

After Paris we headed to Chateau Versailles and fell in love with the beautiful gardens there! We could not go inside the palace as it was closed on the day that we were there, but we could see all of the massive gardens that surrounded the palace. The gardens were fully manicured and looked perfect..the pictures do not do the gardens justice! 

Me

Mom & Dad

Gardens

Mom & Dad

After we visited the gardens of Versailles we headed to Burgandy region in France to explore a local winery. There was a ton of traffic that day and we ended up being quite late to our wine tasting, but it was sooo nice to get off the bus finally and to enjoy some yummy wine as well! It was really good and I think almost everyone bought a bottle of wine to enjoy with our dinner that night! 

Winery

Trying some wine

Yum wine!

Dad

Me!

Mom!

I will be updating my blog from time to time about the rest of this trip so keep checking to see more about it!

Click here to see more pictures from France---> Pictures (sorry they are out of order)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holland!

So my parents flew in on Friday April 8 and the next day we were to fly to Eindhoven. In the morning we thought we had lots of time before having to catch our bus so we went for a walk. On our way back I realized that I booked the wrong time for our bus and we quickly had to book a new one which caused us to be late to actually catching the bus to the airport. This resulted in us rushing to the tube station and running from tube to tube and finally me running to the spot for the bus (note to self leave earlier!) But thankfully we JUST caught the bus before it was ready to leave. Or maybe not so thankful, normally taking the easy bus to the airport seems really long but the drivers driver really crazy and fast. But this driver was really slow and seemed to be taking a different route than I was used to going to the airport. We stopped a few times at stop lights and he restarted the bus every time, I didn't think anything of it until he phoned someone up saying that the bus was losing power. I was then starting to panic in my head that we wouldn't get to the airport in time and that we would miss our flight. Thankfully there was another Canadian on the bus and talked to her for the rest of the way and that took the ease off of the time restrain.

Mom and Dad on the Easybus

We got to the airport just 20 min after we were supposed to and got through security pretty fast and were near the front of the line to get on our flight.   It is important to be one of the first ones on the flight with Ryanair (or easyjet) as there are no assigned seats. There is priority boarding where you get to choose your seats first but then its just a free for all after that. After taking a few Ryanair flights I know quite a bit of the tricks. If you sit at the front of the plane rather than the back you will get off faster as the stairs fold out of the airplane whereas the back they have to bring the stairs to the airplane. You want to do this as this means you will be at the front of the line for passport control and will be one of the first ones out of the airport!

On a Ryanair flight!

When we arrived to Eindhoven we rented a car and drove to the north of Holland to visit some family. I was excited to finally be in Holland and I loved seeing all the windmills on our drive! My Dad's cousin Peter invited us over to stay the first few days of our trip so we headed to Nordhorn, Groningen. It was Peter's birthday on Sunday so he had a lot of family over for lunch so in a short period of time I had been acquainted with a lot of the Matter family that lives in Holland. I had met some of them when they went to Canada to visit but I was very young when a lot of them had come over. It was challenging at times to understand what some of them were saying as I don't know dutch and many of their English isn't so strong so sometimes it was looking to Mom and Dad to translate. But on the whole it was really nice to meet some more family, all of them were really nice and welcoming!

We saw lots of different sites while we were visited the family as well. Peter arranged for us to do a windmill tour and it was really interesting seeing the inside of it. We also went to a seal rescue aquarium where students work there to help save seals that are hurt and dieing in the ocean. Peter also brought us to a friends farm where she showed us all her cows.

We also had a bit of time to visit a World War II memorial, it was camp Westerbork. The tour of the concentration camp was purely in Dutch so my Dad had to translate everything into English for me to understand anything. It was a lot of trickery involved in this camp as it used to be used as a refugee camp but the Nazi's took it over and people were sent to different concentration camps (like Auschwitz) from Westerbork. Very sad as many people were trying to seek help at this camp but could not receive it.

Westerbork

This is a map of Holland and shows the deaths in the WWII

Another thing we got to do before we had to head back to London was that we visited Klaas-Young, he was one of the only relatives from Holland that I could remember meeting in Canada as he visited on his honeymoon so I was bit older then. Unfortunately he was at work, but he got us approved to come into the base (he works on the tanks in the army). He showed us his office and around the shop, showing us all sorts of different tanks and military vehicles. He then turns and says to me "you want to drive a tank?" hahah I think he meant do you want a drive in a tank but none the less it was a really cool opportunity. So my parents and I took our turn riding in an army tank at full speed! My Dad heard that the tank could do an emergency stop where it was going full speed it would stop within two lengths of itself and asked if he could experience that. It was really funny seeing it stop so abruptly. If you want to see it check out the video at the end of my blog!

Overall it was a really good trip to Holland, jamed pack full of meeting family so I would definitely love to go back and spend longer there and see some more of Holland as well! Again I will be trying to update my blog on the other adventures that my parents and I got up to!

 

Emergency stop of a tank

To see more pictures from our trip to Holland click here ----> Pictures