Cruisin' to England! London free days

What side of the street are we on?!

After The Netherlands, we took an overnight cruise ship to London! The boat rocked us to sleep as we ventured across the North Sea to our next location. In London, we were given a bus tour and two free days to experience it ourselves. We walked all around the city, which seemed more condensed than Paris. But it still tired us to walk everywhere we went while taking pictures of Big Ben or the London Eye. Westminster Abby along the river was also a major tourist attraction.

However, by this time most of us were exhausted of seeing the sites. It was all starting to blend in together with the other locations we had already seen. It was all brick and mortar to me and we just wanted to be able to relax a little. So, we got our fish and chips then went to see the Broadway production, Wicked. I will definitely have to give London another chance though. It was cold and rainy which discouraged us even more from walking the city. The farther we go along the program the more desensitized we are becoming to the artwork, the gold leaf, and the ancient structures. A change of scenery is definitely needed! India is next and it will take 11 total hours of travel to get there!

Pictures of our London adventures here

Pit stop in Brussels, a few days in Holland

On our way to The Hague, we made a stop in Brussels, Belgium, for a corporate visit to the European Union Parliament. It was amazing to see the actual EU Parliament and where all these current decisions are being made. We toured the forum room and were told that all the delegates were coming the next day to discuss the current situations. After that we ate lunch in town and, of course, enjoyed our chocolate and waffles. 







Then we continued on to The Hague where our European coach driver is from. We toured Amsterdam a little bit with its big old windmills and canals. The city is actually similar to Venice in that it is built next to all of these canals and waterways since a great portion of the land is reclaimed from the sea. You can even notice some buildings leaning different directions as their foundation is primarily in the water. We had a paper due at the end of the week here, so we didn’t get out very much, but we still got a bus and boat tour that week. We also took tours of the Diamond Exchange and DELFT, the blue hand painted china maker.

Next stop is a cruise ship overnight to London!

Pictures of Brussels and The Netherlands! 

Paris: City of Love

We left Switzerland to go to Paris, France, and I would have to say that this was my favorite place so far. The city is absolutely huge and you could easily spend a month there and still have things left to do. We had about a day and a half of free time to experience the whole city by ourselves. But first we took a corporate visit to the OECD where I was an “official delegate” for the day.

After that, we went straight to the palace of Versailles in our corporate dress up. The gates were coated in gold and the history behind it reflected in every room. Each ceiling was totally covered with mural scenes and chandeliers were hanging about. Statues and sculptures were throughout the hallways with gold overlays on all the crown molding. We went into Marie Antoinette’s bedroom and saw the famous painting of Louis XIV hanging on the wall. Despite the beauty of the palace, it was difficult to really take in the history and elegance of the rooms since we were tossed into the middle of about 500 Chinese tourists rushing from room to room with their video cameras or iPads that they were holding up into the air while taking pictures. It looked funny to see someone videoing the entire palace with a big iPad screen above their head, but this wasn’t uncommon for the rest of Paris as well. I was also mistaken a few times for working at the palace since I was in my corporate dress up; they were very surprised that I didn’t know where the bathrooms were or what the name of that painting was.

Our day off in Paris was just amazing. Against our own temptations to sleep in, we woke up early to start our self-guided tour at 8 am. First stop was the Sacre Coeur, a huge, white and gorgeous church overlooking the entire city. Personally, I would consider this to be even more beautiful than the Notre Dame. After that, we took the metro to the Louvre, the art museum that holds the Mona Lisa. The entire museum holds so much art that if one was to look at each piece for 2 minutes, it would take them 6 weeks total to see everything. We decided to just go see Mona and some other major pieces from the 4 floors and three different wings of the Louvre. The Mona Lisa was only about a foot tall, and again, a large group of Asian tourists swarming around it. My favorite part was seeing different pieces of art that I always saw in my history book in elementary school as well as the Code of Hammurabi.

After the Louvre, we stopped for lunch and continued on to Notre Dame, a large church in the middle of the city. It was gorgeous inside with its stained glass windows and a choir singing on the stage. The architecture was amazing with its intricate designs and portrayals on the outside. We wandered around the city from there, making our way to the Arc de Triomphe. But, we had to stop at the local Paris Lamborghini dealership first. The Arc was in the middle of a giant traffic circle where you would have to be mad to go around. Our bus driver took us around it 10 or 12 times on the coach the first night we were here. That was quite a scary experience! But he loved it.

For the end of the night, we finally made our way to the Eiffel Tower just in time for the sunset. We climbed 600 steps to just the second level which is probably only a third of the way up. After that we took an elevator to the very top! We could see the entire city on all sides from the top and it was a long way to the bottom. Everyone looked like ants walking around and waiting in line. We could see the EuroCup fan park packed with people and we could hear the cheers from Portugal and Spain fans during the end shootout. After the sun went down, the city lit up and the tour boats were flashing as people took pictures of the tower when they went by.

I will most likely come back to Paris someday. It was an amazing place to be, but couldn’t be experienced to its fullest in the 3 nights we were there.  

Pictures here!

Geneva, Switzerland and Mont Blanc

Things are starting to all blend together as I am trying to catch up on my blog. Buildings are starting to look the same and the gold paint is blending in with each new city we go to. Geneva, a very wealthy city, was no exception. We stayed at some sort of dormitory with one toilet and shower per floor of about 20 people. Not sure exactly how we figured out showers besides the threats and bartering about when we were going to wake up the next morning.

Fortunately, the views and scenery just keep getting better and better the deeper we get into the Alps. We took a few mountain excursions away from our awful hotel to get us out into the fresh air. We also made a stop at Nestle headquarters. Their corporate headquarters were right next to a lake town, which was full of sun the day we were there. Nestle was a very unique organization. The company is so large, you could eat three meals a day with snacks in between and not even know that everything you had was made by Nestle. They have an amazing corporate responsibility strategy as well. They actually invest money in their farms and 3^rd world suppliers to provide fresh water and better farming techniques. This allows the farmers to prosper and Nestle is supplied with more higher quality products.

One day while staying in Geneva we took a day out to Mont Blanc, which is close by in France. At the base of the mountain is a small tourist town called Chamonix and we took a cable car all the way to the top of the mountain. The first cable stop was only about 1500 meters up and the view was amazing, but the next stop was 3800 meters! We weren’t exactly on the tip of Mont Blanc but you could see it just to the side of the observation deck once we took an elevator to the tip. Words cannot describe the feel of the air and the look of the scenery. Pictures don’t do it justice either, but it’s the best I’ve got.

I also ran out of space on Google Picasa web albums so here they are on facebook!