Day 33: Geneva - Waterloo

(Written by Jeff:)

We finally made it home after a long day! Mary was up for nearly 22hrs and Jeff managed to stay up for 24 hours.

On the way back we had two flights. The first was a flight from Geneva to Amsterdam. We had a 1hr 40min transfer at Amsterdam before our flight to Toronto.

The flight from Geneva went well. We got to the airport really early, because we had to check out at 10:00am. However, before we were even ready to check out the cleaning staff at the hostel were all set to come in and start cleaning our room at 9:45, we were still in it! Jeff had to say in broken French that it was not 10am. Eventually, they reluctantly left us alone. We checked out a few minutes later.

We caught a bus to the train station. We must have looked really funny. Both of us had a pack on our front and back. Furthermore, both of us were carrying an additional bag in our arms. Once we were at the train station we caught one of the frequent trains to the airport. Here's Jeff next to our bags:

The check in area of the airport was tiny and it was easy to find our check-in area. Once we had our bags tied down for shipping we checked-in. After check-in we finished up the quark and headed through security.

On the other side of security, Mary submitted her tax refund papers for the cuckoo-clock. By now it was close noon, and we had another 2 hours to wait before our flight. To pass the time we did what any one would do: we fought (Mary note: I don't remember this...), made up, played a game, and ate some really old carrots.

When our gate was finally announced we got ready to board the plane, but waited until near the end of the process to get in line. Boarding was quick and easy. The plane was a small jet that had 4 seats to a row, with an aisle in between.

As previously stated, the flight went well. There was some turbulence as we gained in altitude, but it was not that bad. Once the plane had stabilized, we were given some Dutch cookies,cheese snack crackers, and some juice (we could have even had beer or wine). We were on our way to Amsterdam.

Based on Jeff's memory of the Netherlands, we also saw parts of Rotterdam. As we landed Jeff commented on how flat the land was. We had a smooth landing and then we headed towards our "terminal". It was actually a tarmac with planes parked in plane sized parking spots. We had to take a short bus ride into the main airport.

Once in the main airport we had a bit of walking to do. We had to go through customs, we even got a stamp in our passport! As we walked towards our next departure gate it seemed as though we were already through security. However, once we got to our gate we realized that we had to go through security. The security in this particular airport is composed of an x-ray machine and body scanner. Mary was not very excited to go through the scanner. Regardless, we did go through and had no problems. Jeff had a quick pat down of his shorts. He still does not know why, because the simplified image they showed of him did not have any indication of any items in his pockets. Mary also did not have any problems going through. However, they did ask to see one of the items in her bag. We don't think they know what a large mechanical clock looked like...

We boarded the plane and then had to wait an extra 30 minutes (maybe?) before the plane was ready to go. Boarding and loading cargo took a long time. We both agree that the security system is not efficient. When we were over Scotland, Jeff took this picture:

Once we were in the air almost everything became a blur for Jeff, he took advantage of the free drinks (just kidding here, he just does not want to bother remarking on details).

However, he does remember some things. He remembers being served a very good dinner, followed by an ice cream.

(Mary note: We had a hot meal with [green chicken curry or pasta] and salad and a bun, a snack of almonds, ice cream, and then a [date cake or pizza stick]. The food wasn't awesome, but better than most plane food! I would say we were fed pretty well!)

He also remembers watching a funny movie called "Hall" Pass(?). Mary can fill in the details. (Mary note: 2 married couples, females give the guys a week off marriage, so they try to go out and pick up other girls but can't, meanwhile the wives are tempted by other men, then they all realize that they don't need other people only each other. The best part of this is that it was clearly chick flicky, but Mary and Jeff independently decided to watch it, so now Mary doesn't feel so bad making Jeff watch other chick flicks :p)

The best part of the entire trip was seeing the southern tip of Greenland and parts of Scotland. Seeing Greenland was amazing. We may have missed it if it was not for our seating row companion. He had done the trip several times and was hoping for a clear day. Here is an image looking ~north to Greenland:

At this point we were roughly half way through our trip, Jeff and Mary both tried to sleep, but could not. A long three hours elapsed before we were touching down in Toronto. Unfortunately, there was a 20 minute delay getting of of the airplane. Jeff overhead something about "needing to take some cargo out first". When we finally got off, we headed towards a washroom and then to customs. However, prior to customs there were four boarder security people checking passports. We think they were making sure that people that needed to go through immigration went through immigration. This suspicion was confirmed when Jeff's passport was glanced at. The security person saw that it was a Canadian passport and then had a short look at the picture. (Mary note: The lady was talking to someone that was clearly confused, so Mary flashed her passport and began to pass the lady, and she got all upset and said "Mam please don't pass me". Then she actually looked and said "ok, go ahead". Weird.)

We arrived at customs and the entire process went well. The customs agents did not even ask Jeff what type of goods he brought back. We had several things in our favor: we had carefully kept track of our purchases, not brought any meat/cheese/seeds with us, and are Canadian citizens.

Next, we headed to our luggage area and waited. We waited, and then waited, and waited some more. All said, we waited ~2hrs for our luggage to arrive. During the wait Mary's parents were waiting outside. Fortunately, Jeff found out what was keeping the luggage and Mary was able to pass on the information to her parents (using her cell phone that she conveniently put in her purse rather than checked luggage). Apparently, a cargo door that had difficulty closing in Amsterdam would not open in Toronto. We left the airport once we had stopped for a washroom break. (They say "Last washroom before exit" a couple hundred meters before customs, and they mean it. There were none in the baggage area.)

The drive to Waterloo went well. Both Jeff and Mary were very tired and went to sleep as soon as they could.

The trip is over, and now Jeff and Mary need to give gifts to people, divide up 2kg of chocolate, and finish sorting through all the pictures. Mary hopes to submit several to hang in the halls of her new workplace.


(Mary note: It's nice to be home. There aren't mountains on the horizon, and the cows don't have bells, but it's nice to be somewhere where people speak English. It might take a few days to get used to everything again though. All the cars seem massive, and the transport trucks on the highway looked very out of place. The buildings are also very different looking, and the grocery stores are open past 6:30pm! Also a bit weird to not have to subtract 6 hours from the current time to find out what time it is for everyone else.)

Day 32: Geneva

Today we woke up at 8am and had a leisurely breakfast. We finished up and got ready to go out for our day’s activities by 9:30am.

The primary activity was visiting the natural history museum here in Geneva. We took bus #1 almost all the way to the end of the route. When we arrived the museum was open and there were many children around. Fortunately, the entire museum was composed of 4 floors. There was lots of room for everyone. We visited the following sections: volcanoes & geology, local fauna, and exotic fauna. We both decided to skip the section on Swiss geology; we had previously visited a museum with a similar exhibit.

Within the exotic fauna section we noticed some very amusing displays with North American species. For example, the common loon was group with many other species of the same genus. The interesting thing was that they were all posed standing like penguins and the background of the display looked as though the loons were in an Arctic environment.

One other aspect that we found amusing was the names they had for North American species. An example is the Grizzly Bear. Translated from French the Grizzly Bear was identified as the “Great Alaskan Bear”. (Mary note: Also, the robin from Canada was called the American Merle, which is probably true, just not the common name).

In the geology section we saw many rocks and fossils. One of the things we saw was a section of fossilized tree trunk. Here is an image:

From here we explored the local fauna. It was not amazing; they did have some strange animals that we had never seen before.

[Mary note: We also visited an exhibit about the evolution of humans, and saw a partial skeleton of Lucy (an early upright walker). They were playing the first 13-note phrase from the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (which was what the skeleton was named after), and Mary promptly got the song stuck in her head for the rest of the day. (Fun fact – this is called an ear wart).]

On our way out, we both examined live animal displays in the main entrance. There were two with snakes and another with a turtle. The enclosures did not look very comfortable. The turtle did not appear to have any water or gravel; we suspect they were in the process of cleaning it.

The most interesting element of these enclosures was the turtle. It had two heads! YES, TWO. Unfortunately, you will need to trust us, no pictures. Jeff did not think to take a picture of the turtle when it was facing him. Sorry.

After our museum visit we took an eight minute bus ride to a flea market. There was not much to see. Most people were packing up because it was very windy, had been raining, and no one was out to buy. We walked around and glanced at what people were selling. There was a lot of junk, some interesting furniture, old books, and games.

Our tour of the junk sale did not take very long, so we decided to do our lunch groceries and then head to another area to finish up gift shopping. Mary needed to buy two more items. After going to 4 different stores we finally found the store that was selling the gift she wanted to buy.

We headed back to the hostel, and ate a late lunch. Lunch was composed of carrots, apples, bread, and some quark. The quark was interesting. We are sure we even ate some strange, charm, up, down, top, and bottom quarks. (Mary note: haha, joke for the physicists out there).

We spent the rest of the afternoon starting to pack. Jeff packed his wine into the centre of the bag and stuffed it into four socks. Hopefully the bottle will not break.

We were all done by 6pm and ready for dinner. We ate pizza and a bagged salad. The pizza was very interesting. It was called “Bibap Baloooolia”. The toppings included tomato sauce, cream cheese, mozzarella, bacon, sesame seeds, oregano, and Canadian Maple syrup. Jeff told the shop owner that if he was in Geneva again (unlikely), that he would bring some good dark maple syrup. Overall the pizza was good. It could have had a slightly thicker crust in the centre. In addition, the maple syrup was not very prominent; you could only taste hints of it. Finally, here is the image of the dinner before eating:

And the aftermath of being devoured:

To end the evening we headed out again to finish off the majority of our francs. We each bought a bowl of very tasty ice cream. Mary decided to get chocolate and hazelnut flavours. Jeff decided to get coffee and stracciatella. Jeff did all of the ordering. He thinks that the server thought he was good looking. Just look at how much more ice cream he got: (Mary note: Good thing we're leaving tomorrow!)

Tomorrow we check into the airport and catch our plane for 2:10pm. The plane heads to Amsterdam. We then get another plane at 5:30pm to Toronto. We arrive in Toronto at 7:30pm. Jeff is very impressed with the speed of the plane. A two hour flight, WOW. (Mary note: haha, very funny. Too bad the entire trip is actually about 11 hours. Don’t expect a blog update tomorrow; we’ll be too exhausted once we get home).