Our last day in Montreux, the start of our time in Italy. The start this morning was somewhat lazier than others - we loaded the car and left for a bakery down the road, where I got a chocolate crossoint and a chocolate smiley face popsicle for the road. We sat outside the patisserie, admiring the swiss army knives in the shop next door.
After we ate, we stopped admiring them and each bought one.
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Have I mentioned yet how beautiful Montreux is?
Anyway, today we went down to Meyrin (a small town outside Geneva) to see the nuclear laboratory there. We’re nerds, we can’t pass up an opportunity to visit our Mecca.
That’s Jason and I next to a portion of a particle accelerator tube.
A lot of nerds across the world apparently wanted to visit, as well, so we had to reserve tickets 15 days in advance and show up on time, at 11 in the morning.
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Today's plan was originally to visit the castle down the shore, but Nina (Kayla's friend from last night) suggested we visit the chocolate factory. So we did. And we got the worst stomachache ever. It all started at five in the morning, when a thunderstorm rolled in over our flat from the mountains. There was no discernible delay between the lightning and the accompanying thunder, and the deafening crack backed up the idea that it was just above us.
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Our itinerary for this trip is essentially Britain, France, and Germany, with a week in each location. Between France and Germany we spend a week driving through Switzerland, Turin, Florence, Verona, and finally Munich by way of Innsbruck.
We leave Munich for America on the 26th. Today is the 13th, so marks halfway through the vacation.
It’s been fast, I can tell you that. But it’s also been long, in the sense that we do so much it’s hard to even remember what we did two or three days ago.
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Today is our last full day in Paris, tomorrow we leave early for Lyon and then to Montreux for a few days before heading across Italy to Munich.
We decided to go to the Notre Dame, because you can’t go wrong with the tried-and-true tourist attractions, and at Ellen’s insistence to the Musee de l’Orangerie, because it has Water Lillies, by Claude Monet.
The Notre Dame was big, and crowded. Tourists everywhere.
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We started off today with the Musée Rodin (pronounced Ro-dahn), which is dedicated to the artist Auguste Rodin. The Musée Rodin also has a Anselm Kiefer exhibit. Kiefer is a currently practicing artist, and many of the pieces are from the past few years. Many of the pieces were appropriately weird. He works a lot in mixed-media, with a combination of acrylic, wood, molten metal, and found plants (and in one piece, a pallet of dirt).
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After the last two days, we needed a day to regroup. That was today.
We did laundry, played cards, and then went out to dinner. The laundry machine was a combination washer and drier. As with all machines here in Europe, we had no idea how to operate it. I’ve had the perpetual fear that someone will think they turned off the oven, when in reality they haven’t and the apartment burns down.
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After yesterday’s walking up (and down) 668 steps, we thought what better way to spend today than walking through the Louvre? How big can it be, really?
Pretty big, it turns out.
So big that it has its own museum, about itself. A meta-museum, if you will.
Although to be fair, the meta-museum wasn’t so much about the Louvre as a museum but about the building it was in. Originally, it was a relatively small castle on the Sienne in the 1200s.
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Paris has a wonderful night life. You can go clubbing from before the sun goes down to after it rises. Those who know me might be asking, how do I know? I avoid clubs like the plague.
Turns out that across the street from us is a very classy unmarked club. At night the doors open and taxis flood in, full of people dressed in button-up shirts and miniskirts, who then do loud club activities until morning.
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Today we left London for Paris. Up early, check the beds, go to the station. Fortunately, the rain had dissipated the previous day. The chunnel station was a lot like an airport - security, passport control (on both borders), and then a waiting area near long moving walkways that take you to the boarding platform.
The train itself was a much smoother ride than the Underground, unsurprisingly. We got real seats, with seatback tables and room under our seats to store our baggage.
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