Switzerland/France (cheese, wine, chocolate)

By the time I get around to updating this I usually forget all the interesting details. Switzerland was the tits. Went with a New Zealander named Steve. We stayed at his friend Monique's house. And by house I mean her host family/ nazi slave driver's place. They were in Paris for the week and she had some horror stories about the kids and mom. She had decided to leave while they were on their vacation and move in with her Dad in Wales. Anyway before they left she said a friend would be painting the house all week and NO ONE was supposed to stay in the house. Of course Monique failed to mention this until we arrived. Between dodging the painter we took tours at CERN (biggest particle accelerator on the planet), the UN, and drove to the tallest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc. Our tour guide was a physicist named Bill Murray. Bill was a guy who probably couldn't tie his own shoes but new how to smash electrons together to try and find antimatter. I could tell he was running numbers in his head the whole time. The perfect tour guide for the occasion. On the tour some annoying Asian guy who thought he knew everything (he knew nothing) asked how far the other detection site was. Mr. Murray calmly answered 27 over pi kilometers away. It didn't register to me that he meant the circle was 27 km in circumference so the diameter was 27/pi (obvious right?). I thought he was talking about some town. After the tour we had a fondue dinner. I've never eaten so much melted cheese in my life. I paid dearly for this the next day but the dinner was well worth it. We rented a car but missed the bus to the airport to pick it up so we hitchhiked. I didn't think the 3 of us had a chance, but 5 minutes later we were sitting in a French girls car. It was my favorite part of the trip. We got the car and drove to Chamonix/Mont Blanc. Deciding it was a good idea to sleep in the car, a Fiat Panda, we went out in Chamonix and had a blast. Everyone was down to party and the bars were real cool. All three of us were pretty drunk when we realized it was 20 degrees and the car was the size of a microwave. Next time I'll pony up the cash and get a hostel but oh well. Anything for the adventure. The drive back in the morning was gorgeous. We drove through mountains for hours and along the coast of Lake Geneva. We stopped at a couple bakeries and chocolate shops along the way. I've never had so much good wine, chocolate, and cheese in my life. After we returned the car we spent some time in Geneva and saw the sites. We went in this fur coat shop and I thought it was a good idea to put on a 26,000 dollar fur coat. The owner of the place was about to call the cops so we bounced. Every store we went in to, the workers just stared us down until we left. For good reason I guess since everything was ridiculously pricey. Anyway me and Steve took a midnight bus to the airport and slept there until our flight at 5 a.m. Taxis were about 40 euro so we decided to skip it. Paid off since I spent the extra cash at the Duty Free shop on cheap Absolut and Swiss Chocolate. All in all it's good to be back in the CPH. Apologies for the book of a post.