Techno Lake Parade

For Katy's 2nd day here, we thought it best to bring her to one of the most popular events in Geneva, the Techno Lake Parade!  We didn't really know what to expect, since Geneva is usually a quieter mellow town, but when we rounded the corner onto Rue de Rhone and saw the Pont de Mont Blanc filled with people and trucks with floats and music blaring, we knew it was going to be a fun night. 

We followed the parade down the Pont du Mont-Blanc, and cut through the Jardin Anglais to see them round the corner down Quai Gustave Ador which paralells the lake.  We found a nice spot on the grass where we could watch all the action that came by. There were people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. We saw a big group of smurfs, and all sorts of skin that should not normally be shown to the public.  And all the floats were blasting different types of techno music.  And hundreds of people were following them and dancing.

After watching the scene and getting some delicious kebabs, we headed into the main area where there was a huge stage set up and all the floats were parked along the street playing their music and keeping the party going. 

We danced and walked all around seeing all the different types of floats and people dressed up. The party went into the night and we luckily had a friend's apartment to go to that overlooked the party. We got to take in the full amount of people that were there, and all the crazy lights and music. It was definitely one of the biggest parties we have seen here in Geneva. 

 

I Feel Ya Rolls!

Today is a sad day. It is Katy's last day here in Geneva. We have had an amazing 2 weeks, travelling, eating, drinking, enjoying life.  Its been great having her here and we're sad to see her go, but we will have such great memories.

As I've mentioned before, beating the jetlag when you come to Geneva is one of the tougher things to do, but Katy faced it head on and refused to take a nap when she arrived. I took her around Geneva, and down the promenade of the Rive Gauche to show her the beautiful views of Lac Leman.  We walked for a good couple of hours and enjoyed a glass of rosé at a somewhat touristy cafe along the water. But it was amazingly affordable and delicious. And around 5pm, Katy crashed. 

She took an hour nap and forced herself to get up and get moving.  We put on our best going out clothes and hit the town. We walked to Paquis and had dinner at Les Cinq Portes.  Travers and I had gone to this restaurant during our home-finding visit and have always wanted to go back.  It didn't fail us. The food was great and the atmosphere was fun.  After dinner, we walked to The Clubhouse for a drink and to check out the local ex-pat scene. It was pretty dead. But Travers picked up some valuable information that it was empty at The Clubhouse because everyone was at a bar right by the lake. So that's where we headed next.

We walked down the promenade and found the party. There is an open-air bar right on the lake that was serving 6CHF beers and people were spilling into the promenade and onto the grass having a great time.  We luckily got some seats right by the dock and were able to take in the scene and the views.  Unfortunately, at midnight, they kicked us out and we had to find somewhere new to go.  We walked down the promenade back towards home, and came across the Hotel Kimpinkski's Floor Two Bar. We could hear music from the street and could see people on the terrace. We knew we had to go up there and check it out.  We walked in and there was great music playing and people everywhere. It was one of the most lively bars we've seen here in Geneva.  We stood at the bar and waited to be served...And we waited...And waited...And waited.

About 20 mintues had passed, and not a single bartender came over to ask us what we wanted to drink.  I thought I had made eye contact with one of them, but he then proceeded to leave the bar (maybe it was his break time) and never returned.  So we decided we had had enough of this scene and probably didn't need to pay for what was surely going to be an over-priced drink. So we left. And went to the hotel's cellar to a club called Java Club. We could hear the house music from outside, and saw about 4-5 bouncers guarding the entryway. There was no cover charge (this should have been our first clue), and there was no line (this should have been our 2nd clue), so we figured we would go in and check it out!  At this point, it was about 1am and you would think at 1am people would be out having a great time, dancing etc...Well, they must have been doing it at some other club because this place was empty!!  There were maybe a handful of people hanging out and way too many bartenders standing around doing nothing.  This was not what we were looking for. We took one lap around the place and left.

On the streets again, we were really wanting to find somewhere fun to go. We headed back towards our home, and saw another club called Shakers that Travers has been wanting to check out for awhile. He had read about it before and heard that it was a great club to go to, so we figured it was about time we see for ourselves.  We walk up to the door, where a couple bouncers are standing, and ask to be let in. They say we have pay a 20 CHF cover charge per person.  We are tempted because it includes a drink and we wanted to find somewhere fun to hang out the rest of the night.  When we walked into the room to pay our cover fees, Travers peaked through the curtain to see into the club and immediately turned around and walked out. This was worse than the Java Club!  There was not a soul in the place, minus the bartender who looked practically asleep.  What was becoming of our night!  Luckily though, we knew of a place that would not fail us. Riverside.

Riverside has been our go-to place. It is just down the street from our house, and its right on the Rhone River (hence the name riverside).  We have been here more times than anywhere else, and it is always a fun place to go for a good glass of wine and a beer. There are comfy couches to sit on or water-side tables.  The service is always friendly and the prices are right on.  We knew this was the place to go and end our night and we were not let down.  We luckily got a spot on the couches and ordered our drinks And finished our night off with some good conversation and people watching.

After raiding our kitchen for a late night snack and water, we poured ourselves into bed around 2:30am.  I was extremely proud of Katy for lasting so long on her first day.  I feel ya rolls!

To be continued....

Our 2nd Visitor

Our 2nd Visitor, Katy, is coming tomorrow!!  We're really excited to see her, and to show off our apartment now that it has all our things.  The guest room is ready and the rest of the apartment is clean and put away. Now the only thing we need is for the weather to cooperate.

As luck would have it, it just started raining. Boo.

But over the past 2 and a half months we've been here, I've noticed that the rain doesn't ever last long. Hopefully it will get it out of its system today and tomorrow so by the time Katy is here, settled, and napped, we can go exploring.

We have a lot of ideas of what to do while she's here, like the jazz festival in Montreux, The Lake Parade of Geneva, hiking in Zermatt or Interlaken, Winery hike in Vevey. We will try to do fondue, and drinks by the lake, picnics in the park, and laying in the sun.

By the way, it has stopped raining now :-)
xoxo

Home Sweet Home

A week and a half after we received our ocean shipment, our apartment finally feels like home.  The day everything arrived was a little bit hectic as we had some movers there removing the rental furniture we had, and other movers moving all of our boxes and furniture in.  If you haven't seen it yet, check out our YouTube video of how the movers got our couch into the apartment. We had realized in the morning that our couch couldn't make the turn from the hallway into the apartment. So when the movers came back from their lunch break, the main guy started looking out the bedroom window. I gave him a curious look, and he said "I have an idea". Next thing I know, they are building a bridge from a walkway outside our bedroom window into the bedroom, over a gap about 3 stories high and 20 feet across! Definitely check out the video to see how they did it.

So after the movers unloaded everything and helped me take everything out of the boxes, it was up to me to put it all where it belonged.  It didn't take long to get the main things put away, but hanging photos and figuring out where to put all the little things took some time.

We also bought some new Ikea furniture for the kitchen and a new bathroom storage unit, so I turned into a handy woman and put all the new furniture together. I now have  a bruised palm from using the screw driver, and am an expert at following building instructions.  Check out some pictures of our new apartment, and we look forward to having visitors to show it off in person!

Here is a pic of our living room (left) and dining area (right). Notice all the nicely hung photos :-) To the left of the living room picture, there is a fireplace and a built in shelving area. I desperately needed one of these in SF as it gives a lot of good storage and is a great area to display all the nice things we got for our wedding!



We now have 1.5 bathrooms. Woohoo!  The one on the left is the half bath aka Travers' bathroom. I just bought a new bath rug and soap dispenser for it too. On the right is our main bathroom. The shower curtain came with the place, which was great cause it took me about a month to figure out where to buy shower curtains.  And you can see the over-the-toilet storage unit we just got that I put together last night. Love it!




Here are some pics of our kitchen. There's a lot of cupboard space, and they installed a dishwasher for us. Woohoo!! We have our new shelving unit and cart/island. The cart was the toughest thing to put together, but it's really cute and holds all of our cookbooks!  Now you might be asking yourself, where is the refrigerator? Well, we do have an underdercounter fridge. Its small, but it works for us and helps us keep down on food getting lost in the back of a larger fridge.  The only downside is the freezer is tiny...maybe one day we'll upgrade :-)

 We have lots of closet space which is great. There are about 6 double wide closets that we have quickly filled up. There are no closets in the bedrooms so we have all our clothes in these closets just outside both bedrooms. Notice all the nicely hung photos on the wall in the picture on the right.




Lastly, here are some pics of our master bedroom (left), and guest bedroom (right). I hung the curtains in the master myself. I think that's what killed my hand, trying to screw those curtain rods in.  We are very happy to have our bed and all of our nice bedding we got from wedding gift cards just a little before we moved.  This is definitely one part that makes it feel like home for us. Hopefully the guest room will be comfortable enough for anyone who comes to visit. The bed looks small, but its a full sized mattress so two people can fit cozily...maybe not my dad at 6'4", but most everyone :-)



So, this is our new home. Travers and I absolutely love it and really feel at home now. Hopefully when you all visit, you will feel at home too.  XOXO