My train from Monterosso to Pisa was at 9:06, which is pretty late by my standards. This timing was pretty nice because I didn’t have to get up any earlier than my family and the station was really close. I got up around 7:45 to pack up all my stuff and shower. We headed out to breakfast a little before 8:30 and I brought my bag with me.
I could eat for ten minutes, but this was enough time to get a complete breakfast plus take a bunch of snacks for later. I said goodbye to my family and thanked them for having me (and more importantly paying for really nice meals). After a short walk to the train station, I said goodbye to Cinque Terre and got on my train to Pisa. I have to say that I’m always surprised by how nice the Italian trains are. With an outlet, big seat, and lots of leg room, I couldn’t complain.
I had an hour and half train ride, which I used to type up my blog post for the day before. Since I didn’t have wifi for my laptop, I usually type it up on word then upload it to WordPress with the pictures later.
One blog post later, I had arrived in Pisa. I had three hours and a half before my flight and had one goal: See the leaning tower of Pisa. I’ve heard people say that it’s only thing to do in Pisa, but I had a surprisingly nice time exploring the city for about two hours. It was super nice outside, so I opted to walk there from the bus station.
It was a mile walk and offered a lot of nice sights:
A Statue of Vittorio Emanuele II
A Little Market and Some Spices for Sale
Some River that didn’t look very clean.
As I was getting closer to the leaning tower, I was somewhat expecting to be disappointed. I don’t know why, but in my head I thought it would be smaller and less impressive. Soon the many men selling little tower of Pisa key chains and selfie-sticks were all over, so I knew I was close. These guys seem to be in every country near tourist attractions with usually the same arsenal of crappy goods.
The tower came into view and I have to admit I was pretty impressed. It was much larger than I anticipated and the lean was definitely there. I also was surprised to see people at the top of it, I thought that would’t be allowed due to structural integrity.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Tower… featuring a delicious pretzel I bought at the street market earlier
As expected there were tons of tourists trying take the picture where it looks like they’re holding up the tower. This was almost more enjoyable to watch than the actual tower. The engineer in me wanted to check out the foundation of the tower and try to make sense of things. I know they strengthened it at some point so it would not fall anymore.
After being satisfied with the leaning tower, I made my way back to the bus station. The airport was a forty minute walk from there, which I was in no mood to do. I paid a couple euros to take a train to the airport.
Going through the airport has become such a routine for me at this point. This is my 19th flight of 2018. In my head, all the airports of the world sort of seem to blend together as one, though this airport was very small and super crowded. After getting to my gate, I really struggled to find a place to sit.
After navigating around crowds, I found a place to sit for the hour before my flight. A while ago, I bought some crappy see-through toiletries bag because airport security always makes me put mine in a plastic bag. On this toiletries are four iconic structures from across the globe: the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After today, I had been to every one of the places on my bag. I feel like this counts as a travel achievement or something.
My bag plus pictures I took of all four places.
I rode the ferry past the Statue of Liberty every day last summer, but the only photo I had of it was from the top of the One World Trade Center. I also feel like I owe Big Ben another visit since it was covered in scaffolding.
Soon it was time to board. The flight was very short and a little over an hour. To my luck, I was in the exit row and had some extra leg room. I also had to listen to the safety spiel in French from the flight attendant.
Not having anything better to do, I slept through the entire flight. I think my body has a rule that it can only sleep on flights less than three hours long. I arrived in Geneva and quickly made it through customs. To any people with new passports excited to get tons of stamps, don’t be too excited. Most times they don’t even stamp your passport when going through. I have landed in different countries many times and have only had my passport stamped around five times. Long story short, I didn’t get a stamp in Geneva today.
I had about three hours again before my bus to Grenoble. I exchanged a few euros to Swiss Francs so I would have enough to buy a train ticket to get to the bus station was. To my luck, the bus station was right next to the Jet de’Eau. This is one of the main attractions of Geneva and one of the only things I wanted to see.
Some cool statue I saw while walking
The Jet D’Eau from a distance
With still a lot of time to kill and not being satisfied with my view of the jet, I opted to walk to the other side of the lake. It looks super far in this picture, but was only about a twenty minute walk.
I got to the other side and discovered there was a pier that went right up to the jet. Despite the warnings of a strong mist, I ventured onto the pier. I say this like it was a scary thing, but there were little kids doing it too.
Here’s a nicer picture I got of the Jet from the pier
Once I got within thirty feet of the jet, the mist was really strong and the pier was soaked. I am glad I had sunglasses on to block the water from my eyes.
The jet from close up
Once the spray go too much for me, I started my walk back to the bus station. I still had thirty minutes before the bus was supposed to come, so I sat in the grass in a park.
My view in the park featuring some dude’s belly
Soon it was close to 5:45 and I headed to the bus station which was right next door. This is where my very nice day took a turn for the worse.
First, my bus ended up being forty-five minutes late. I was growing very impatient of waiting in the parking a lot and sitting on the curb. I asked a lady at a desk about how long it would take, but she just told me to call Flixbus. Well that wasn’t an option because I do not have any cell service in Switzerland since it is not part of the EU. I just had to wait out.
Eventually the bus showed up and I headed very eager to board. The driver scanned my ticket and it gave an error. He told me to wait for the rest of the passengers to board and he would scan it again. A few minutes later, he tried again with no luck. My name wasn’t on the passenger list either. I showed him the pdf and booking confirmation I had and the date and time checked out. It still didn’t work, so he called Flixbus on the phone.
He made me read off the ticket number and some other details, but still no luck. I was getting pretty annoyed and then became very annoyed when he told me my ticket was cancelled. I was arguing with him because there is no way my ticket could have been cancelled without my knowledge. The bus was already forty-five minutes late and I needed to board it to get home. I also might add that the driver only spoke French. I didn’t know it was possible to give someone an attitude with my level of French, but apparently it is.
To my misfortune, the doors closed and the bus left with me. Understandably, I was incredibly pissed off. I had already been annoyed that I had to wait an extra forty-five minutes for the bus, and now I couldn’t even get on it. The worst part was that I checked my bank and I was charged for the ticket.
I now was stranded in Switzerland without an immediate way to get home. Even worse, I didn’t even have cell service, so I couldn’t even look online for other ways to get home. After a few minutes of feeling super pissed and defeated, I took a deep breath and knew I could figure this out. Being pissed wouldn’t help my situation at all.
A Selfie I took right after this. Even in my bad mood, I thought this could add to my blog
I checked the bus schedule on the wall of the bus station and there weren’t any more heading to Grenoble from here today. This was not good news, but I knew there were other bus stops and trains to Grenoble. I just needed to find wifi somewhere to figure this out. To my luck, after some wandering I found a random hotel’s wifi that I could get on.
There were two or three ways I could get to Grenoble to my luck. There was a train to Grenoble that left in about fifteen minutes. The other buses weren’t until later, so I decided to try and make this one. Instead of buying a ticket on my phone, I figured I should but it at the train station in case I missed the train. This ended up being a mistake.
Luckily the train station was about half a mile away, which I sprinted to get to. I quickly found a ticket machine, but realized it only sold tickets for trains within in Switzerland. Five minutes left on the clock. Maybe there would be a machine next to the track. I couldn’t even get to the track because I would have to go through customs agents. I ran back to the main area and found a ticket office. They had a waiting system and I wouldn’t be helped for about sixteen minutes according to the screen.
I asked a random worker if there were machines I could buy a ticket from, and she gave me directions to find one. Two minutes left. I sprinted there and found the machine. It was out of order.
One minute left. Even though I probably wouldn’t have made the train, I tried to find wifi frantically to buy the ticket on my phone. There was none. I even turned on my data and figured roaming charges would be worth it to make this train. Apparently I can’t even do that if I wanted to. Out of options, I gave up.
After taking a deep breath, I assessed my other options. I would probably have to take the later bus I saw earlier. Not sprinting this time, I walked the half mile back to the place I found wifi at earlier. There was another bus leaving from the airport, but it didn’t leave for two hours and was also $50. For comparison, I think my original bus cost $10. Having no other options, I bought a ticket using my free wifi and walked back to the train station once again.
I used the last of my swiss francs to buy a train ticket to the airport. I got there and struggled for a while to find where the buses left from. I eventually found it after asking the information desk in French.
Once I knew where the buses left from, I sought after a place to sit inside, optimally with an outlet and free wifi. To my luck, I found a tea stand that had a nice seating area with outlets. I bought a large English Breakfast tea and plugged in my phone and now dead portable battery.
An hour and a half later, my bus had arrived on time thankfully. This time I was actually able to board. To my luck, there was free wifi on the bus, and outlet, and I had two seats to myself. I turned on a podcast for the two hour drive back to Grenoble.
I arrived in Grenoble around 11 PM and took the tram to get home. To my luck, not only had the burned out light bulbs in my room been replaced, but I had a bowl of candy in my room. I devoured a twix bar and went to bed.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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