Arrival in Geneva

Well, even with the planning it finally happened, 10 cities in and I totally lose track of what day it is and say goodbye to all my roommates only for the manager to come up just after 10am and ask me why am I still there as I should have cleared out by now.

Yes, it took a little over three weeks to happen but I finally completely lost track of how many days I had been or when my next train was due and it was only fortunate that the hostel manager came round and actually knocked on the door or else I very probably would have dossed through half the day and then realised far too late when I started packing up that I had already missed my connection.

Doubly luckily, or possibly well planned in advance to give myself a fighting chance should such a loss of memory occur, the train that I had booked did not leave until a few minutes after midday, so even with having to make a sudden and swift departure from the hostel there was still enough time for me to make the train as the station was only a few minutes walk.

I have a good feeling that my sense of direction must be improving as for the last day and a half I neither looked at my compass or the mini travel map to navigate the old city centre, but then again it is very small and almost impossible to go too far off because of the curve of the river bends and almost encompasses the city.

The station was half empty at that time of day, being a Sunday, and so I whipped out my laptop and quickly tried to dig out the directions of how to find the hostel from the train station once I reached Geneva, and was only a little surprised that the wifi in the station charged a few Franks per hour.

On the train there was no plug socket, despite it being modern double decker train, and by halfway through I was forced to resort to getting out my stero headphones and playing music from my mobile phone, as the group of Swiss girls all giggling and gaggling in French was so loud and high pitched that it went right through me, and eventhen only with the volume turned up to max was I able to drown them out completely.

I further impressed myself by managing to find the hostel not only first time and without constant looking at the map, but also ahead of a couple of other travellers who ended up arriving at the same hostel after they steamed off ahead from the train station and then taking a short cut down a side street, only it wasn't and ended up costing them more time to correct their mistake.

Sadly I was unable to check in to the hostel until after 3pm, as they were still cleaning the rooms, but the good thing was that they issued me a travel card for the local public transport and so I hose to nip into the centre of the old town and grab a bite to eat. I took a nice stroll down along Lake Geneva and it was only a pity that the weather was not sunnier or warmer as it would have been nice to go out on the lake, but perhaps it is already too late in the season for water sports.

In the town I chose to eat in an Italian and I wil name it to shame it, "Le Flores" or the flies as I dubbed it after having the worst meal I have ever experienced in my life. The place was totally infested with big round fat fruit flies and I couldnt concentrate or even stop to eat as they were everywhere. I managed to kill a handful and eat about half before even my best efforts were not enough to prevent them from landing in my food and once I had seen that it was time to go.

I would not be liying or exagerating in the slightest to say that there must have been at least twenty of the pesky things just around my one single table, and I am only further amased that noone else said anything ... perhaps they are used to eating flies in Geneva ?!? Even now, as I type this, I am shuddering at the thought of so many little horrors that I could neither blow all away or swat them.

After the worst meal experience ever, I did a little more tourist photo snapping and then grabbed a tram to the nearest thirteen screen cinema where they were showing a few films in English as well as in French and German.

I found my way there first time, I enjoyed the movies { apart from almost dying at the start of the second one ... read previous entry } and even managed to catch a tram and find my way back to the hostel with taking ashort cut rather than the long down and then up route that the main roads would have taken me. I am really feeling good about my sense of diretion and my map compass these days, I would really be lost without it.

Back in the hostel I checked in to find that so far the room has two other guys sharing it with me, one guy is an American that is a swimming teacher and gets free european travel as a perk of the job and the other is a Swiss guy that is on a walking Pilgrimage from Zurich to the coast of North Western Spain. He started his trip on the same day as me, and is spending three of four days in each city just like me, so we were chatting for quite a bit and he was suggesting that I ditch some of my clothes / send them home and instead just buy some ultra lightweight and odour eating clothes to free up some space and lightem the load.

Its a nice idea, but they don't look so hot, and I hope to be spending lots of days with friends along the way and I don't think that they will be very impressed if I tell them that I have magic clothes that means I dont need to wash themselves or myself despite doing all this travelling!

However I wish him all the best luck and good fortune on his journey and I hope that we can keep in touch as I am really keen to know how he gets on and what he feels at the end.