Trip of a Lifetime!

Alright so it's been a week since I got back from Europe and I'm finally going to share some stories! First of all, it was the most amazing trip of my life. I have never been out of the country. The coolest vacation I've been on is Disneyland. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Disneyland. I talked my dad into taking our family to Disneyland instead of Hawaii one time...some of my family wasn't quite as excited as me. Anyways, I'm not talking about Disneyland, I'm talking about Europe. Basically, it was an entirely new experience for me and I feel so darn blessed to have such awesome parents who wanted to give me the experience of a lifetime. So I really don't know how long this post will be. I saw so many things but I've been having a hard time putting into words how I felt those two weeks. At this point it's honestly a little surreal. It's hard to think that I was actually in Europe. Well I guess I should get on with my actual trip.

We started off in Marseilles. It was totally not what I expected. It was so hustle bustle type living and all the people wore black. Only black. I felt like my red trail running shoes were unique. Our hotel room was hilarious. It was tiny and had bunk beds. But to make things better, the bunks were hot pink and orange so I felt like I was back in my own room...well not really but the colors matched. My favorite part about Marseilles was Chateau d'If. We almost didn't get to go out there, we luckily caught the last boat out. I took WAY too many pointless pictures at Chateau d'If, I was overly excited to start taking cool pictures. I for some reason felt the need to take a picture looking through every window in the prison...none of which were actually interesting when I got home. Oh well, just less pictures I had to pay to develop. This is one of the less lame pictures from the island.

Chateau d'If was of course not the only thing we did in Marseilles...but it was my fav. When we got off the island we had to hurry to catch our train to Arles. By the time we got there it was dark and we had to walk from the train station to our hotel and my dad didn't know exactly where to find it. Luckily a biker passed us and gave us directions. We walked through the old streets and found our hotel. This one was definitely a step up from the bunk beds. Instead of describing I'll just give a pic, please ignore our mess we just collapsed on the beds and threw everything. There was even a chandelier, so cute.

Oh and after we got checked in the lady led us through this cute little courtyard to the other building with the rooms. It was adorable.

We didn't do much in Arles except wander the streets, eat amazing pastries and baguettes, and shop. We went to a street market and it was so cool! It was huge. I couldn't believe how many tables and tables of interesting things there were. I was however grossed out by the section of fish. I was not a fan of seeing SO much of the fish. We also saw an old Roman amphitheater which was pretty cool.

Next stop on the trip was Avignon. It was a lot like Arles, so much that I can't remember which things we did in which city. The highlight of Avignon was the family we met on our first day when we went to church. They were from Tahiti and were so nice. The dad wanted to show us around on Monday and then they invited us over for dinner and Family Home Evening after. Before we met up with him on Monday we took a little drive through some other cities and saw some other sights. We went to l'Isle sur la Sorgue and Fontaine de Vaucluse and then we met up with the guy. He took us to a city called Gordes which was by far my favorite place we saw. It was this huge city built into a mountain all out of rock. It was definitely breathtaking. I had so much fun wandering around this city. I loved the staircases. The view from the city looking over the valley was also beautiful. Ah man I just loved this city.

Yeah...view from one of the staircases. Awesome.

This is the family that invited us over. They were so welcoming. I loved being in their home.

Wow it's already time for Switzerland. We of course were in a huge rush to catch our afternoon train from Avignon to Geneva. This turned out to be the worst experience for travel. We got a little ways out of Avignon and the train stopped. We sat on the track for like half an hour because apparently a motor on the train was broken. They kept giving us different messages. First we were going to go back to Avignon to fix the problem, then back to Marseilles to switch trains, then some other options came about that I don't remember (partly because it was all in French and I'm going off dad's translations). We ended up going back towards the train station, then we passed the station, then we sat some more, then we just went back the same direction without doing anything. Apparently the train fixed itself? We were supposed to have a connecting train in Lyon and we of course missed it and we arrived in Lyon at exactly the time another train was leaving for Geneva. We were all crowded at the back of our car ready to jump out, with all our luggage, to run across and jump on the other train before it left, again with all our luggage. And of course we hurried for nothing. The train sat there for another twenty minutes since they knew our train was coming. So we were finally on our way to Geneva and we made it, it was late but we still got there! Well, that was certainly a long story. We didn't really see any of Geneva until the next day. We wandered around the city and yeah it was ridiculously expensive. It was so cool to see so many designers and famous brands though. There were like five Rolex stores I swear. I had no idea they were so freaking expensive. We saw a watch that was $10,000. I was shocked.

We didn't stay long in Geneva, we left that same day to Neuchatel. It was a long but BEAUTIFUL drive. We drove along the river (or lake, I'm not really sure ha) opposite the Alps. Incredible. On the other side of us were vineyards. Miles and miles of vineyards. I am still in awe at how many vineyards we saw in both France and Switzerland. The ones in Switzerland were prettier I must say. So we arrived in Neuchatel and I hate to say I have another long story. We got to our hotel, once again late at night, and we couldn't find anyone. The hotel was deserted and there wasn't a front desk. My dad was yelling Bonsoir trying to get someone's attention. We wandered around the hotel and finally found a group having Bible study or something. The guy came out and showed us our room. By this time I was giggling. He took us up four flights of circular stairs (no elevator...keep in mind we had three loads of luggage) into a hallway that reeked of cigarette smoke. I literally could not breathe. Even our room smelled of smoke, just not quite as bad. The guy bent over to pull my comforter from the bottom of my bed and yeah saw way way way too much. At that point I burst into another fit of giggles. I tried to contain myself so as not to be rude but it was hopeless. The whole experience was too funny. This was most definitely not my favorite hotel we stayed in.

 
We had a fun day driving around the next day as well. We went to the cheese factory to fill my new obsession with Swiss cheese. I could not get enough of it. I got to drive our cute little rental car that day which I loved. Pretty sure I belong in one. We also went to some other hilltop cities but I don't remember any of their names. They all had the same gorgeous views and I loved it. Let's see and we went and saw the Switzerland temple which was so cool. It had like a forest behind it which I quite enjoyed. My dad being the social butterfly that he is struck up a conversation with the two groundskeepers and took their pictures.

Well, after a packed day we headed back to Geneva, hunted for a laundromat, found some food, and went back to our first hotel only to wake up at five something a.m. to catch our early train to PARIS! I liked this hotel so here is a picture of our room!

I think that's enough for one post. I wasn't planning to write that much about southern France so I guess Paris is just going to get its own post...later though when I can give it my full attention.