Problems in France

Since being over here I have fully realised why I have avoided coming here in the past.

As a touch typist I feel like a spastic having to only use one finger as they have totally rearranged the keyboard more than any other country that I have ever visited.

Why they feel that a ; is more frequently used than q . I hqve no idea, but you have to use a function key to get the . to appear.

The people really do have their own unique odour that is unmistakable as it is unwanted.

The entire country seems to close at lunchtime like they were in southern Spain, but in Spain there was a good reason, the heat, here they are just crazy.

Forget driving on the wrong side of the road they dont seen to like pedestrians at all, AND THIS KEYBOARD IN THIS INTERNET CAFE IS DOING MY NUT IN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the first time in my life I am really missing London, the place itself, where things make sence, shops and restaurants are open during the day, there is always something to do and somewhere to do it, the place isnt full of hills and mounains and people give good directions.

I have done a lot today that i want to talk about, but i cant use this keyboard any longer.

Entering France

Today I had to leave Geneva behind and cross over the border into France. I had already prepared my stuff last night and not wishing to spend any more money, as I am already over budget, I also grabbed an early night last night and so woke up this morning at about 7.30am.

I spend a good few minutes repacking and dumping as much extra weight as I could, as I have been carrying a lot of junk and stuff that could be sent back home, and as I was sending home a package of all the maps, tickets, brochures and receipts that I have been hording it was the prefect opportunity to lighten the load.

I arrived at the train station about 3 1/2 hours early, and as usual had no problems catching an early connection.

When I planned and prepared the journeys I did not want to give myself any pressure of having to be up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, as I could never be sure how close to the airport or train station I would be, but it has happened now on a few occasions that I have been ready to leave that much earlier that it seems a waste of time to kill at this end when it could be spent at the other end exploring a new city.

The bus journey was just over two hours long and in a way it is a shame that there are so many trees along the route as there was some lovely views that were too frequently obscured by trees to capture of camera, although I tried a few times of course they were just green blurs in the end.

Travelling up and across to France I could see far in the distance a wedge between two mountain ranges and it this cleft that we headed towards, getting all the more majestic as it rose up on both sides of the road.

For the briefest of moment I thought that we were going the long way round as again and again we ignored turning for Lyon, but then it all became clear as we turned onto a toll highway and suddenly the logic that we were taking the quick but expensive route struck me.

Arriving in Lyon I decided to obtain a set of 10 Lyon network tickets for EU $12, as I could not see any way of getting the Lyon Pass as I had been given freely in Geneva, and it was not until later at the tourist office that I spotted a place to obtain this travel card.

As I had been on the road now for 24 days I decided that, apart from my blog and text messages, it would be nice for the folks back home for me to check in by phone, however with typical timing my mother was out and so the best I could do was leave her an answer phone message. I had better luck with my sister and we had a nice natter for a few minutes before I remembered that it was costing me a small fortune and so I had to say goodbye for now.

I could not check into my hostel until 2pm and because of my early departure from Geneva I had arrived around midday, so I stopped off for a snack in a nearby restaurant and and even managed to get a free wifi connection while tucking into the tastiest Calamari I have ever tasted. I'm not a big lettuce eater and the vinaigrette they had flooded it with was never going to improve that, but still calamari and two cokes for only EU $17 is still reasonably good value.

The trek up to the hostel was the longest four minutes of my life, as the road to the hostel is all up hill, and when I say that I don't mean a slight or gentle little incline but the kind where I had to pause for "photo opportunity" breaks at least twice, or at least that's what I kept telling myself as I took them. Once I got there, I had a tiny wait and then I could check in, and sad to say that whatever the ratings that other people gave this place it was more than it deserved.

It may have a view overlooking the city, but the city from there isn't much to look at, its all up hill getting there, there are not enough plug sockets to go round, and the ones that are are too close to the bed for me to use my adapter and so for awhile I was actually sat on the landing just to get a bit of charge back into the battery. There rooms are basic, six men to a room instead of the four I had hoped for, no lockers for my rucksack and the mini lockers that you can use to hold your valuables needs a padlock ( which they don't provide for free ) and is only big enough for a few odds and ends, not a laptop and wallet, etc.

Although there is free wifi, you have to have the luck of the gods to connect to it, as I tried repeatedly all day to get a signal but couldn't and I wasn't the only one, and so all in all, it is again a situation here perhaps a few more Euros per night could have afforded me a much better place to rest up for the night.

Having said that, I took a long afternoon stroll around the city and the rest of the city wasn't in that much of a better shape. Zone 1 is a complete dump, with graffiti everywhere and despite it having the ballet and a base for the Scientologists to call home in the city, I would much prefer to reside in either zone 2 or 3.

Also in zone 1 was the pitifully few nightclubs and strip bars that the city offered, its night scene mainly consists of restaurants and the arts, and as I passed the biggest of the strip joints I mildly wondered how rich I would have to become before EU $300 for just a quick ten minute private lap dance would no longer seem just the biggest rip-off on the entire planet.

Historically it got a bit better, as I found some ancient Roman ruins suitably called "L'Amphitheatre trois Gaules" and so I took plenty of piccies of that from just about every angle that I could get. There was even a nice restaurant right next to it called the 3 Gauls, however the chef only cooks lunchtime and night times so early afternoon come evening was a no hoper for a snack.

What got me was that all the city buildings seem so very close together and tall, seven stories high just for a normal terraced building, and it meant that unless the sun is right over head the cobbled alleyway must be in almost perpetual shadow, which might explain why there was so much graffiti everywhere, and in some places the burn out shells of shops made me feel like I was in some kind of Bladerunner nightmare city scene.

Back at the hostel some guy must have had a bigger accident than a jelly bear as for about 5 minutes all I could hear was a weird pseudo scream / cry / yell and then a few minutes after a paramedic arrived, though they must have exited from another route as I never saw them or the screeching casualty leave.

I think that I will have to drag my pc down to the cafe again tomorrow, as this hostel is really doing my head in, and I am glad that I am not here for longer as I don't think I could cope, I really don't.

Lastly I just want to say that Lyon is much hillier than I expected and they have done little to try and level it out, I mean, just look at the state of that tube stop!

Anyway, here's plenty of photos to keep you amused and I hope you don't mind but I seem to have developed a fondness for photographing bridges, maybe its the budding architect in me.

Last day and night in Geneva

A wise old hobbit once said something like "It can be a dangerous thing, opening your front door. You take one step and then another and before you know it you don't know where you will end up!" - though my quoting is not perfect as I haven't reread that particular book from the best part of a decade.

That said however, one thing is for certain, if you don't step out from your house { or in my case my hostel } then you can be very sure of what will happen ... absolutely nothing. Unless a super freak accident occurs like the place catching fire one day is very much like any other and the chances of anything even half exciting happening are about as close to zero as makes no difference.

Now, possibly stolen from LaTourEx, I chose today to try out my next proper experimental, to wit the 'Mystery Journey Tour'. Part of the package, and the attraction to staying in a Geneva hostel is that they will furnish you with a free all day all zones bus, rail and tram ticket that will enable you to hop on and off any and every kind of public your heart desires and stay on it for as long as you remain in the city limits. Considering that each ticket would cost you about CF $19 per day, this is a very powerful incentive and I was determined to make the most of it.

However the thing still remained that the weather was grey and cloudy and I had no real idea of where I wanted to visit next in the city, so I thought that this was the best time to try the experimental travel method of the Mystery Tour. Armed with a map that I would only use in dire emergencies { and to finally get back again if it gets too late } I walked to the end of the road and then hopped on the first tram that came my way and off I went.

It was a good start, taking me away from the city centre and everything I had seen before, right up until it started heading due north and I remembered that if you go that way too far you actually cross over into France. Sure enough, after about only two pauses I had to hop off as I had not brought my passport with me and I didn't want to risk it once the only destination left on the screen and the tram stop posts were France!

So I got off, took a few photos, walked for a bit then crossed over the road and then waited for the first one back southward again. This time it was better as it took me right into the centre of town, and as it was seeming to stop and I had already been there a few times walking, I wasted no time before hopping on another. Over the roads and bridges we went till we got to somewhere near a large motorway and also something green on the map and not wanting to exit the city limits I jumped off and went exploring.

As it turned out, the green bits on the map was a sort of mini public zoo, mainly for birds and I got to take a few great photos of some swans, peacocks, some pigs and even a deer. I even managed to find a quaint old fashioned cafe with customers and everything. However I wasn't quite able to find the owner / barkeep and so after returning the can of Ice Tea back into the fridge { although I could very easily have just walked away with it and half the store as the guard dog was more interested in playing ball than in guarding anything } and left.

It also occurred to me that the Swiss must be very trusting, as I had been hoping on and off trams for a few days now and so far not a single inspector was on any of them, and I feel confident that I could probably have got away without having a ticket, though why I would want to run the risk of getting into trouble over such a silly amount of pocket change is why I never would!

Anyways, after I got back to civilisation I once again climbed onboard and found myself going north once more, only with a slightly different spin on things and ended up at the Botanical Gardens, which mum would have just loved. They had every kind of rockery and flowers from all over the world and what made it extra special was that they were kind enough to leave the labels in the ground, so you could identify what was what and check it all out later.

There were so many different and beautiful flowers to chose from that I could have no one favourite, though seeing a bonsai tree fully grown and not the miniature size versions { it is only the constant clipping and attention that keeps them small } was pretty funky if you ask me.

Right outside the Botanical Gardens was the headquarters of the United Nations. At last, I thought, I have got a chance to put my complains right to the source and so up I strolled and tried talking to the guard on the gate. Sadly however his English was not perfect and he confused my polite rant with the fact that I had missed the last guided tour of the day and suggested that I come back in the morning. Oh well, I guess it will have to be a well written letter that carried the day on that issue.

Mind you, the population of Switzerland is only 7 million and of that over 1.5 million are immigrants which is a huge percentage if you think about it, so it's no wonder they don't really care if the UK also has over 1 million as we have an overall population of over 60 million.

My time spend in Zurich, Bern and Geneva has made me realise fully that not all of Switzerland is cold, mountainous or snow topped. I guess if I had booked a trip right through the heart of the country I might have seen a snowy mountain cabin, which is my imaginary perfect place to have a honeymoon, but then again on my own it would have been a very isolated and boring place to stay so all in all I am happy with my lot.

After the UN I hopped on yet another and ended up going almost off the map again, this time with nothing really to show for it, so I looked at the map and headed back to town, where I took a final stroll back to the Hostel and for a bite to eat.