Bonjour de la Suisse: Travels with <em>The Gnome</em>

Not two weeks earlier I was helping my friend "Aer" buy her ticket to Geneva and now she was here! This was Aer's first trip to Europe and she was eager to see as much as possible. We had a packed itinerary for the week she was in town and we certainly didn't waste any time. By lunch on that first day, we were already headed up to the picturesque town of Gruyères.

We went to Gruyères (famous for its cheese) with a Geneva friend of mine who is also originally from California. The weather was fantastic as we zipped through the countryside. Once there, we headed straight for the castle that sits on the hilltop above the medieval town. But the real treat is the town itself. It was a perfect place for lunch and a great way to introduce Aer to traditional Swiss cuisine and drink. We all had "Cheese on Toast" of different varieties. This is basically a deep dish with a piece of French bread at the bottom covered with things like ham, eggs, and LOTS of Gruyeres cheese. To accompany such a heavy meal we all ordered Panaché, a drink of half lemonade and half beer. Aer was a little hesitant, but after just one she was hooked... it became her favorite drink of the week. :)

The next day we were off to see a bit of France and the Alps. Aer had seen the Alps from the plane and wanted to get a closer look. From Geneva the best place to go is the French town of Chamonix, which sits on the Italian boarder. We ascended by cable car to the Aiguille du Midi, a rocky outcrop that sits 12,605 feet above sea level. We had a great view of the Mont-Blanc (which you can see from our street in Geneva - on a clear day).

It was here that I was introduced to "The Gnome". It seems that Aer's husband is very attached to this little garden gnome that used to live inside the house (much to the chagrin of Aer). So one day the gnome decided to take a vacation and he began to tour the world. Aer's husband gets random pictures in the mail from the gnome from all the great places he's been visiting. So, here we were at the top of the French Alps and the gnome came out of Aer's bag and we started snapping pictures. We got a few strange looks and had to explain to a couple of bewildered tourists, but I really got a kick out of it!

We came down off the mountain just in time... the weather was taking a turn for the worst. We had the whole afternoon so we decided to head over to my favorite place to take out-of-towners... Annecy. This postcard-perfect lakefront town is the perfect setting for a relaxing stroll and leisurely dinner. And to make things even better we managed to outrun the bad weather and were able to enjoy this cute town basking in the sunshine.

We didn't realize how lucky we were with the weather until we were returning to Geneva where it began to pour and one of the most amazing thunder storms I had ever seen set in for the night. The thunder was so loud that it woke me up out of a dead sleep and gave little Scout quite a scare. The next morning we were on a train to Paris and the rain was still coming down in buckets. It was like nothing I had ever seen. I realized that morning that I didn't know what happens when lightning hits a train. Are we grounded to something? It was a little unnerving.

Thankfully we made it to Paris without getting electrocuted and we had also, once again, outrun the bad weather. It was another busy day as we tried to fit in all the usual tourist stops. We dashed to the Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe (with more pictures of the gnome), and the Champs-Elysees. The last time I had had a drink near the Champs-Elysees was on New Years 2006 with P & K, four drinks that night costs us 94 Euros! This time we each got a beer at McDonalds (hey, I had never had a beer from McDonalds before!) and it was quite a bit cheaper! :)

We were in Paris during the Fête de la Musique which was great because we were able to hear a little music before (and during) our typical 3 hour Parisian dinner. The best part about dinner for me was the atypical good service from the Parisian waiters. They were so sweet to us, even discouraging me from ordering the stew which turned out to be a big bowl of bones and fat (not good at all... I should have listened!)

We also got great service from our waiter at breakfast the next morning. "Welcome to Paris" he beamed. We had stopped for breakfast on our way to the Louvre (after a somewhat disappointing jaunt over to the Moulin Rouge). We only had four hours to wander Europe's oldest and greatest museum before we were to catch our train back to Geneva. Once again the weather had caught up with us and it was pouring again, but it didn't matter because we were undercover the rest of our time and soon we were back in sunny Geneva.

It was time for the Fête de la Musique in Geneva and despite all my raving about how good it had been the year before, everything we saw (and heard) was pretty dismal. There was a small group of us and despite the multitude of stages and venues we came across, nothing was really that good. Aer summed it up best when she said, "Like my mama always says, there ain't no such thing as a free music festival!"

After an afternoon wandering the town of Yvoire on the French side of Lake Geneva, we were back at the Fête for one more try. We had almost given up when we discovered a great French band called "Par la Lumière de la Lune" (or "By the Light of the Moon"), but unfortunately they had no CD to sell and no web site. At least we finally heard some decent music!

On Aer's last day we zipped down to Milan with G to give her a little taste of Italy. One again we were blessed with sunshine and warm weather. Besides getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, we had a fantastic day climbing to the roof of the Duomo and eating gelato. I always love a good gelato!

Although it was a hectic week we had a fantastic time, Aer is a great travel companion and we just had so much fun! I was truly amazed at Aer's ability to be totally unaffected by jet lag (or she just hid it really well) and her gift of monkey calls (you will have to ask her about that one!) ;) I was also amazed that despite the worst week of weather we have had in quite a while, we somehow managed to dodge the worst of it and find the sun wherever we went. I'm convinced now that Aer is a good weather magnet, because the evening after she left it rained for almost two solid weeks... Hurry back soon! :)