Geneva Motor Show!

Weekend in Switzerland

This weekend we went to the Geneva Motor Show; which is the 2nd largest in Europe and is the oldest to date.

All I have to say is cars, cars, and more cars!
It may sound boring to some people and after a whole day of looking at cars...I'm not going to lie, they all looked the same after a while. But altogether it was super cool and a lot of fun to see.

We could fill this page with car pics but we'll spare you and just put some of our favorites from the show and ones that stood out to us.

Louise's Fave's:






























Brian's Fave's:

The cars ranged from top of the line to ones you see on a regular basis; it was neat to see a variety. It took place at the airport and was absolutely packed! So many cars, which was great and so many people..not as great, but a lot of fun!


The cars included: Mercedes, BMW, Bentley, Ferrari, Lexus, Rolls-Royce, Opel, Peugeot, SAAB, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Hummer, Porsche, ect.
Basically, you name it and it was there. Also if it was good enough, I guess. All the companies had a small section to show their best products and display them how they wanted. These two were my favorite way of presenting the cars to the viewer; even though I really didn't like the cars themselves at all...

And of course these two since they're literally off the wall...

Almost every car company were giving away bags to sell/promote their products. So most people were walking around with a huge handful (or 2) of their favorite car companies bag. HAHA It was so funny.......so I of course joined in! I tried to pick up ones because I liked the specific cars but it may have gotten a little random. Brian thought I was lame and thinks they're just going to go into the garbage...but I'll show him! haha

The types of cars varied to normal every day use, to fancy, to race cars. These ones just reminded me of Bat Mobile cars more than anything...they were sweet. I think when I get a car it has to have doors that open in a crazy way for sure now!


There were a lot more nice cars that we really liked as well but some of the pictures didn't turn out since the cars were so shiny and there were so many people in the way. But I think you get the idea!

London

Finally a country where people speak English as a first language!

This was the first time we would be in an English country in 10 months; it was great. Our flight left Friday night and we were to return Sunday night. Not that long for a city like London, but Brian is running out of vacation days so that was all the time we had.

Buckingham Palace

London is a wonderful city; really cool and so much to see for sure. Friday night was pretty much a write-off since we arrived so late unfortunately. We just settled into our hostel and looked at maps and etc. to plan the weekend. Saturday we got up early, had some hostel breakfast and headed out for the day. We saw the Buckingham Palace and the infamous guards who don't move, the parliament building and Big Ben. Big Ben is actually the bell inside the clock tower not the clock tower...just to clear that up. We wandered along the river bank checking out the Millennium bridge, Tower Bridge and London Bridge. We wandered into the Tate Modern Art Gallery; which was the first modern art gallery for us to see. It was kinda cool. I can't remember what we had for lunch, but it was OK.












After a glorious day of wandering around London, we headed back to our hostel to meet up with one of our friends, Alyssa Michalsky. By pure chance, she was in London on the same weekend with her University art class and we found out about this only 2 weeks beforehand! Unbelievable! Anyways, we met up with her and her friends to go out for supper (Italian) and hung out with them for the night at their hotel pub. It was so wicked to see one of our friends again! We still can't believe how that worked out.

On Sunday we ventured around the city again. Our friend Mike was going to some exhibition at the National Art Gallery so we wandered around the gallery, since it was free to get in. That was really cool. We don't like most art, but we both like impressionist stuff a lot. Art by Van Gogh, Monet, etc... It's pretty sweet. Brian's favorite painting was this one by Pissarro:

Millennium Bridge

After checking out the Gallery we went for an

English Breakfast which includes eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, baked beans, and tomato and is delicious. Washed it down with some tea and we were definitely feeling mighty English. From here we headed to Cambdon Town which has a huge market catering to hippies and alternative fashions. We got to see some crazy mohawks and just a lot of "unique" people. It was interesting. From here we headed to Speakers Corner at Hyde Park. Basically it is a place where people come, stand on a chair, and rant about anything and everything they want to. Most of the topics dealt with the U.S., Religion, and Racism. It was kinda cool for a bit, a really different experience for sure. From here we went back to the airport to fly home.

Clock Tower with Big Ben

Parliament Building


Our flight home was delayed by an hour or so and by the time we got to Zurich we had missed our last train back to Baden. Luckily there was a special train that night but didn't leave until 2:00 in the morning so it was a pretty late night.
Great time though. Loved London.

Tower Bridge

Snowboarding in Zermatt

Yet again another weekend dedicated to snowboarding...

but not just any old place...


Have you ever eaten a Toblerone chocolate bar?
Have you ever looked at the picture of the mountain on a Toblerone package?

Well, let me tell you!

That mountain is, of course, located in Switzerland.
It happens to be called the Matterhorn.


The Matterhorn is one of the world's most famous mountains! It is 4478 meters high; towering over the surrounding ones, almost standing on it's own. It lies between the towns Gornergratt and obviously Zermatt; located on the border between Switzerland and Italy. The name Matterhorn comes from the German word "matt" meaning valley or meadow and "horn" which means peak. How perfect.

Being in Zermatt gave us the best view of this glorious mountain; plus it is one of the most famous resorts in Switzerland to ski/snowboard at, because of the Matterhorn.


So we bought a 2 day snowboarding pass for the weekend and headed down there Friday night. It takes about 5 hours to get to from where we are so we definitely had to be there the night before. We actually even stayed in a hostel called The Matterhorn Hostel! Not that it was a good hostel at all unfortunately...possibly one of the worst we've stayed in all year...but oh well.

Friday night after the long train ride we found our hostel and got settled in. Then we took off and ventured around the town a bit. We went to a pub with our friends for a while then a few of us ducked out early to get a good nights sleep for the big weekend. It turned out that we got the worst sleep in the world that night though. Other than the many loud disturbances of random people coming in and out of our room at all hours of the night, we also witnessed the most peculiar and dreadful snores ever! This guy in our room had the strangest and loudest and most annoying, sleep disturbing snores I've ever heard in my life! He kept everyone awake basically all night. It was ridiculous. So that was our lovely night.





On Saturday morning we work up early (Bri and I were already awake obviously) to have our hostel breakfast and get a head start on the day at the hill. Brian decided to stick with me again this day, which was super nice of him. We had a really good morning too. I was really picking it up even more since last time and was improving already. My turns were going really well; same with boarding on my toe edge. I was even starting to carve down a bit too. And then it happened...

Somehow I managed to catch my heel edge, while turning from heel side to toe side, when I was going pretty fast and ended up having a bad fall. I guess I flipped a couple times and some where in there banged up my shoulder. In my defense there was a guy in my way and I tried to turn sooner than I was prepared to do so. But long story short...Since I couldn't move my shoulder at all someone stopped to help us and called the medics. I was taken down the hill on a stretcher and then by ambulance to the hospital. Apart from my shoulder hurting soooo bad and being unable to move it and my whole body while wrapped in the stretcher - it was quite a fun experience! Haha! As most of you know I have had my fair share of injuries and even ambulance rides so it wasn't too bad at all. Plus Brian stayed with me the whole time so that was nice.

The most disappointing thing about this was that we obviously had to call it quits for the weekend and go home early. It was upsetting and I am still sad about it but what can you do. We were having so much fun and I was doing even better snowboarding this weekend so of course something like this would happen! Oh well though. Next season I will be back at it in Canada. And Switzerland, well Europe really, is having one of the worst years for skiing because of the lack of snow everywhere! Plus how many people can say they learned how to snowboard in Alps of Switzerland!

I got x-rays at the hill in Zermatt and it is for sure not broken so it was nothing too serious. So either it was a small/hairline fracture (they don't show up on x-rays until at least a week later) or I injured the joint. Who knows because when I went for the follow up here they said it was too soon for more to show up still on the x-rays so I guess I will never know! My shoulder is doing a lot better now though just once and a while it bothers me and restrains me from doing certain things but I can live with that for now!

At least Brian is still snowboarding and having a lot of fun...maybe even more fun now because he doesn't have to wait for me anymore!

Belgium Jan. 26-29 - Brugge

BRUGGE

So from Brussels we took the train to a smaller town called Brugge. We spent a whole day here exploring the town, just wandering around.

On the train we met a nice couple from Brugge who told us what area to check out and where to go once we get off the train; so that was really nice!


There wasn't a lot of sightseeing to check out, which we were ok with. Honestly we just walked around all over looking at the amazing brick buildings, sampling Belgian chocolate and enjoying new scenery.


There was a city square like every other European city/town so we saw that for sure. The buildings were very cool there and it included a tall Clock Tower; which we climbed to get a sweet view of the city.


After that I bought some Belgium chocolate to bring home and then we caught a train back to Brussels for the night. In Brussels we found another pub to try another Belgian beer and that was that.




















This concludes the weekend in Belgium, we hope you enjoyed the posts! We will be sharing our weekend in London and more snowboarding trips soon.