Chamonix, France

In truth it felt nice to be home for a little while, but after a week I was ready to go. I liked being home to have some normalcy and see my cat, but after traveling for so long it felt wrong to be in one place for a prolonged time. That is why when we packed up to go to France I was ready.

We were flying out of Logan airport, and since it was a ways away we decided to stay at my grandparent’s house for the night. In the morning we drove to the bus station and rode the bus for about an hour and a half to the airport.

My memory of the airport was a blur. We went through security and got on the plane then spent the next six hours flying to Geneva, Switzerland. When we got through customs in Geneva I was exhausted. Since Geneva is 6 hours later than us I had stayed up straight through the night for 26 hours.

We took a super shuttle to our apartment in Chamonix, France and were shown around. After that I took a nap.

It took a few days to get reoriented from the jet lag. On the first day I woke up at noon and couldn’t get to sleep until one in the morning. Luckily it got progressively better.

The first day we were in France we roamed around the city to get a feel of things. While we were exploring we got our tickets for skiing and found a lot of bakeries. The one right across the street from us was my favorite for several reasons. First I didn’t have to walk far since we could see it from our window. Also there were amazing lemon tarts that I got on a regular basis. Finally the woman who worked there spoke fluent English, so I could ask, “What is that?” and get an answer. As it turned out that wasn’t a good thing because I gained about five pounds, but still, I liked it. Another bakery we went to was called Café 49. We went there on our first day and got a little crunchy rum cake with macaroons on top.

That’s when I discovered that I love macaroons.

Once we recovered from jet lag we went skiing. Unfortunately it was late in the season, so the snow wasn’t great in the morning. Our first run was icy and slippery. Later in the day it softened up and was better.

By far my favorite part of Chamonix was parasailing. One day we decided that, since I had always wanted to go parasailing, we would go. We were in the perfect place, so we went to the closest company, and in ten minutes we were booked for the next day.

When I woke up I was buzzing with excitement about flying. For so long I have wanted to do a multitude of things including parasailing, hang gliding, bat suiting, and sky diving. Now I can say I have done at least one of them. We walked to the base of the gondola and met our guides, a husband and wife. Apparently the wife had won several parasailing competitions. We rode the gondola up and strapped into our parasails. I thought we would have to jump off a cliff, but instead we ran down a hill until the wind caught the sail and lifted us up. Since we were inexperienced our guides were strapped to our backs, so it was a little awkward to run, but we managed. Once we were in the air it turned out that our backpacks could turn into seats which made the ride a lot more comfortable. It was amazing to be so high up. I could see the entire Chamonix valley and the mountains

surrounding it. The thermals of the place would sometimes shoot us another 20 feet in the air. Whenever we found these jets we circled them so we got higher and higher. The ride lasted for about 25 minutes, and near the end I got to steer. When we touched down we had to run to break the speed and not fall.

That was the highlight of France followed closely by the food. Next we flew to Rome to see what Italy had to offer.