Euro Tour: Part 1

 

Guess who's back? I landed in beautiful, sunny South Africa on Friday night after what felt like the longest flight ever! A lack of sleep and a lack of good movies/series to watch tend to have that effect on plane rides. The Euro tour was amazing and memorable and so much fun, and from what I've seen from the places we visited (Milan, Chamonix, Geneva, Paris, Barcelona and Dubai), I've taken note of a couple of things:

1. The Euro is one hella srong currency.
2. Europe has an abundance of two things - WiFi and Nutella.
3. Paris is so so soooooooooo overrated (the Parisians and Swiss are quite rude.)
4. I probably saw more seriously good-looking people in Milan and Barcelona in the few days I was there than I've seen in my whole life.
5. I luuuuuuuurve Milan, my goodness!

This Part 1 post is focused on our leaving of South Africa and the trip to Europe, and our stay in Milan, Chamonix, and Geneva. READ MORE for tons of pictures and details on what we did in the various places. I keep scrolling through them so as to relive the tour, I feel like it was forever ago already. Take me back!

 

TA-TA, SOUTH AFRICA

The actual leaving of the country was one colossal mess in the airport, so I think I'd just rather leave that part out. Besides that, my family and I had a bite to eat at Lattelicious as one last farewell, and then I was off. My airport outfit: T-shirt and track pants from Cotton On, sunglasses from Aldo, and good old Chuck Taylors.

Got my nails done for the trip - Gelish at Miss Salon in Morningside

MILAN, ITALY

In the world, there are gorgeous people, and then there are the Milanese. I mean, I have never. Everyone from the waiter at a small restaurant to the store clerk at Bershka and the businesswoman riding her bike in heels is just so ridiculously good-looking. It must be in the water or something, idk, but the people were definitely sights to see.

We spent most of our time at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the Duomo di Milano, and the surroundings of the two places for eating and shopping, then we visited the Castello Sforzesco. Of all the things I adored about Milan and I guess, Europe as a whole, the architecture was without a doubt my favourite aspect. There's a major difference between sitting through an art theory lesson and actually visiting the buildings you learn about, and being able to physically point out the various characterstics of certain art styles. It kind of makes you feel like a bad ass when you know the info your tour guide is telling you before she does.

Funnily and sort of ironically enough, I did absolutely no shopping in one of the fashion capitals of the world. I did eat ridiculous amounts of gelato, pizza and pasta though. Good food is always a pretty good substitute to shopping. I've often heard people saying that the weather can make or break a trip, which is true in most cases, but even with the rain literally flooding the streets, Milan was my favourite favourite place throughout the trip.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

This woman's Italian fabulousness is my goal. Her multitasking was unreal - holding handbag, wearing heels and on the phone all while riding a bike.
WHAT MORE??

The rain flooded the roads overnight, so we were stuck here for a couple of hours just outside our hotel - a group of Americans (above) were stuck too, so we joined forces and became friends

Castello Sforzesco

Random stranger I thought looked simple and beautiful and had killer legs!

The beautiful Duomo di Milano

Let's just reflect on the fact that this ceiling is a fresco painting!

CHAMONIX, FRANCE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

So, because hotels in Switzeraland are apparently quite expensive, we drove into Geneva during the day, and spent our nights in Chamonix which is actually in France, but lies on the border of France and Switzerland - about a 45 minute drive to Geneva. The weather in the case of Chamonix and Geneva, as well as the WiFi connection that reached only as far as the hotel lobby almost pretty much killed this part of the trip. It was freezing. I'm talking snow on the mountains and a steady 6ºC on the ground.

In Geneva, we visited CERN (some science place - please forgive my ignorance and disinterest, although this is, if I remember correctly, where they developed the World Wide Web as we know it - that's pretty cool) as well the Callier chocolate factory and some cheese factory I again had very little interest in. CERN meant everything to one of our school's science teachers who was on the tour with us. He even managed to get the tour guide to let us go back for round 2, to which the majority of us protested against by taking pictures and playing cards in the parking lot instead. The chocolate factory was pretty entertaining (all us fatties really cared about was the tasting), and the smell in the cheese factory made me sick, but the free WiFi made up for all that. The selfie lighting all through Geneva and Chamonix was great too.

This is one of the walls in the chocolate factory and literally the only photo I took before my battery died. Ugh...

How beautfiul is Dawn?

Something or other inside CERN

CERN Round 2 - our photoshoot in the parking lot (my friends are too cool for me)