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I’ve fortunately/unfortunately never had to travel for business. After this past trip, I can understand why it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you can’t even attach a long weekend to it.

I took about 7000 photos taken out the car window, with various blurry hillsides and reflections off the window. That was more or less my experience with Switzerland as I whizzed by and directly into a conference room for the next 36 hours. I did the required backpacking in Europe stop in Interlaken for extreme sports (paragliding was awesome) but it was my first time back in about 8 years.

We passed through the Valle d’Aosta, a beautifully green part of Italy that you shouldn’t miss. Houses were nestled up through the hills and it was a stark contrast to the apartment buildings I’ve grown used to thinking of as “houses.”

Since we don’t have a car (yet), we haven’t been able to explore as much of the countryside as we would like to. I definitely plan on doing this drive again - it was very green and pleasant, and there were a dozen places I would have stopped.

When we did a change of drivers I took the opportunity to snap a few photos without glass between me and nature. On the way there we had pretty good weather which unfortunately turned to overcast and rain later in the day.

We were so high up in the mountains that all you could see was sky. On the way home, my stomach got a little nervous at all the twists and turns. It was nice to be so close to the mountains, having lived in a valley my whole life.

I got a few minutes before going back in the car and snuck down to the harbor in Vevey. There were tons of children getting off a ferry for a school trip. They tried to get close to the swans but they could tell they were dangerous.

One of our German colleagues revealed she was addicted to Starbucks. I’m not that hot on it, but I do prefer to drink it rather than espresso from a standalone coffee machine any day. So I guess I know the nearest Starbucks is only about 3 hours away!

This was the first thing I saw in the morning when I woke up. In just a little over an hour I would be back at work.

I loved this statue - how I wish I could have sat and looked out at the lake the whole day, and sent her to make witty technical comments instead.

Anyone else see more of Lake Geneva than I have? What should I see next time when I have more than 20 minutes of free time? I did make a stop at the grocery store to load up on Swiss chocolate for the office.