Clouds and sunrise from the plane

       Day 1 primarily consisted of flying so I'll skip on to day 2 when we landed in Barcelona after what was for me a sleepless night. After some searching we found our rental car (a white BMW) and in spite of its diminutive size were able to fit everything and everyone in it comfortably. We hit the road shortly after 9AM, planning to make it to Geneva that afternoon. Barcelona was trashier than I was expecting. For the most part, the buildings were ugly, dilapidated, 20th century constructions. There were, however, some cool looking old buildings sprinkled amongst them, and so long as one was driving through the city it didn't look as bad as from the air. Our route went alongside the Mediterranean from Barcelona to about a third of the way up through France, but there were large hills blocking our view.

       We wanted to stick our feet in it and since we didn't know if we'd have another opportunity we got off the main road and followed signs to a random beach on the French coast. After a very long drive we found a spot that looked promising, so we parked and walked toward the beach. There were signs trying to tell us something about this particular beach, but they were all in French so we more or less ignored them, although we had the vague impression that the area was connect to wildlife or nature preservation, whatever "naturalness" was supposed to mean. We got out of the car and walked up to the beach, only to be greeted a few moments later by the sight of a very tan very bare buttocks. You guessed it - nude beach. We left rather abruptly.

        Dad was very tired so we had to stop a number of times along the way. Consequently, we had to skip Geneva and head straight to our hotel in order to get there before the office closed. It was a resort up in the Alps, overlooking Lake Geneva.

It took a little while to get there and since we weren't seeing any signs for it and we were on little winding roads we weren't sure if we were going the right way, but eventually we found the place. The office had already closed, but they left a room key and map of the place for us in a safe next to their door, so it was alright. Dad was still exhausted so we didn't end up having any dinner that night except for what crackers we had left over from our stash for the plane ride and some water we had bought at a place off the road in Spain. All the food places had been so expensive that we never got anything, but it wasn't too bad. The place was really cute. We had our first experience with European bathtubs and windows there. The windows I like, they don't have screens and you just turn the handle and pull it right open, whereas here you have to do a lot of pinching and pushing and hoping there aren't spiders. The bathtubs however, weren't so likeable. They don't have shower curtains, just a piece of glass that doesn't even keep all the water in, and they have those moveable shower-heads that you hold in your hand or hang on the wall. 

Elissa modeling the bed we three girls shared that night. The sofabed didn't work so Dad slept on a mattress in the kitchen/living area

      I think we all got a pretty good sleep that night.