The First 24...

Well I was hoping that I didn´t need to make a new post until the middle of the week, but the last 24 hours deserve one.  The train to Copehagen and flight to Geneva went flawlessly.  Before we left I printed off directions to the Adventist school in Collonges, France. We arrived in Geneva and asked the information desk if the directions seemed right to him.  He said yes, but that we were crazy to do it with luggage.  But the paper said it was only a mile and a half from where we would get off the bus.  He couldn´t believe we wanted to climb such a hill with our backpacks.  So taking his advice we asked our options.  Option #1: public trasportation/ walk.  Option #2: take a taxi ~80 € (one way mind you). Option #3: book a shuttle with him for 40€ (each way).  Well my travel pal and I decided we could do option #1.  Then we told him we needed to be back at the airport for a 7 am flight.  He just laughed.  7am flight, that meant at the airport by 5-5:30.  We were informed that if we booked with him, we would have to be picked up at 3:45am. And, public transportation didn´t start running until 5:30am.  So again we had our 3 options plus a fourth.  We knew that school offered transportation.  However I had originally rejected it because it was the most expensive of the options at the time, but for one way it was 50€.  So we decided we would just book it when we got to the school that night. The information man was unimpressed with our decision and told us that if we wanted to change our mind to call him by 10pm to book a ride.

We headed out, ´´Take tram 13´´ so we did. ´´Get off here´´ so we did.  Then it said, ´´Take either bus 44 or 45 to the French border.  Well we had just missed the 44 so we got on the next 45.  A little while into the journey we looked at the map to see how many more stations until we should get off. It was then that we realized that 45 did not go towards the border, but more of a parallel-to-it route.  According to the map, if we got off at the end of the line we would be closer to where we needed to be than if we got off right away.  So we got off at the end.  We asked the bus driver for directions to the border, he of course didn´t speak English, but pointed down a dark road.  Then he turned around and headed off the way we came, leaving us in the middle of an intersection somewhere in the French countryside lit by one lonesome streetlight with self-esteem issues.  We had no option but to follow the man´s direction. As we were walking I pulled out the GPS to confirm our route.  We proceeded the next 2.5 miles across the border and up the hill. I have since discovered it was nearly a 1000ft elevation gain, with our luggage, at 9:45 at night.  Our 10pm deadline for guarenteed transportation was soon approaching.  I knew we weren´t going to be at the school by 10 pm, so we had make a decision. We didn´t call him back.  The rest of our trip I prayed that somehow we would be able to get back to the airport for our flight without having to pay 80€ for a taxi. I didn´t even know if taxi service was 24 hours or not in Switzerland. Our deadline came and went, and we arrived at the school around 10:10.  After figuring out our accomodations I asked him if it was still possible to get a ride to the airport in the morning.  It didn´t look hopeful, he called a couple of people to no avail.  ´´Tell you what,´´ he said, ´´I will take you to the airport in the morning. And you only need to pay me 10€.´´ I just about hugged the man. The next morning we got up and headed to the airport.  Apparently, unlike Seattle airport, Geneva is a busy mess at 5:30 in the morning.  We got our bags checked as the plane was supposed to be boarding, so more prayers were sent to the Big Guy upstairs about security. We practically walked through! And though we didn´t have a chance to eat a breakfast in the airport they offered free croissants on the plane.

Other than that....pretty uneventful ;)
I had a great time spending a few minutes with friends from Walla Walla like Rachel Logan, Sacha Kravig, Karli Will, and their friend Marjorie. 


We are now safely in our hostel in Madrid.  Now, must sleep.....hopefully the next 24 hours won´t require a blog post.