Trip to Geneva!

This morning we all woke up extra early and scrambled to catch a train to Geneva. Rush, rush, rushing! Chaos! Nobody ate a good breakfast! We couldn't all sit together on the train either. Malorie and Cecilia stayed on a lower car with the strollers, and I took the kids several cars away and up to the second level so they could play in the family car, as the train ride was over 2 hours long.

There was a little playground on the train!

Mazes! 

Underwater felt play scene. Mary helped me make these before we left out of scrap felt I already had. She made this one on her own. 

View of mountains from the train.

Playing on a boat in the family car.

Our first glimpse of the Jet d'Eau ("Water Jet") fountain after arriving in Geneva.

It was so interesting that after traveling only a couple of hours by train, and not crossing any international borders, we saw all the signs and writing go from being in German to being in French, and heard the voices around us change from being mostly German to mostly French.

Joey took a shadow selfie.

Chinese restaurant for lunch. Everyone was super hangry. Next time we should pack more food for the train!

I found this picture of Malorie on my phone. Not sure who took it! Selfie?

Closer to the fountain. It was hot. We walked a lot.

Playing nice. :)
(I did not photograph all the times today when they were not playing nice...)

Climbing a tree while waiting for our boat ride.

Filling up our water at one of the many public fountains we have seen. They run continuously!

We took a boat tour around Lake Geneva for about an hour which everyone liked (About 5 minutes before we reached port again Katie had had enough though, and kept saying, "I all done with boat!"). Beautiful views. Here are some pictures. 

Riding right past the fountain

Peep hole at front of boat, and also CRAZY HAIR!

I was surprised it was the French flag (and not the Swiss one) on the boat, but I learned that Geneva is in a little peninsula of Switzerland that is surrounded by France.

Joey found a 2 Franc coin on the train. So lucky!

After we got off the boat, we got a close view of some swans. There were so many swans all around the lake!

The kids rode a carousel down town. Katie was so excited! She kept stroking the pig, saying how much she loved it. She screamed and cried when the ride ended and I pulled her tiny hands off of the pig.

As a consolation, I let them play in the fountain. At first I was like, "Only put your hands in." But it ended up with Katie swimming naked in the fountain.

He got his hair wet and spiked it!

The kids had a long day on the train, and then walking in the sun, and everyone was low on food and low on sleep, so despite the happy looking pictures, there was much complaining to be endured today. We left Geneva and rode a train for another hour or so to Lausanne, where our hotel was, and where we'll spend the day tomorrow. We were all glad to reach our hotel room! And I think it would be good to travel at a slower pace - today there was far too much running to catch a train or a bus, and not enough time to linger and look at things. But after we finally had reached the hotel and we had rested for a bit, I took the kids out on my own and we walked around Lausanne (without a phone/GPS or a map! and didn't get lost!) and found a place to eat dinner.

Interesting artwork

Dragon gargoyles

Photo is a little blurry, but the menu was all in French. Fortunately our waiter spoke pretty good English so we managed all right. 

 Here's a couple of videos of Mary and Joey enjoying their burgers. By the time we were walking around, a lot of the places were closed for the day. Only a few restaurants were open. We chose this one because it had the most people at it, so we guessed the food was really good. We were right! The kids said these were the best burgers they had ever had!