The International Motor Show in Geneva

Last Saturday, Darren and I took the train down to Geneva, Switzerland to see the International Motor Show.  We had read about this world-renowned auto show when we were reading guidebooks about Switzerland some time ago.  Darren really likes cars, and I'm always up for an outing, so we decided we were going to attend.  We originally had planned to make a weekend trip out of it, but since Darren is teaching a class at church every Sunday for a while, we decided to try and fit everything into a day trip.  

We had an interesting start to the day when we got up at 6am, before the sun was up, and right when Darren turned on the light, the power went out.  Luckily, we had received some flashlights for Christmas from my family, so we just used those for some light.  So family, you now know that we did put your presents to good use!  The power came back on as we were leaving, so we didn't worry much about it.  We jumped on the 7:30 am train and were able to find an area without many people.  We had some stops in between Zürich and Geneva (Genf in German), so the train did fill up eventually.

A lovely Swiss train car

The 3-hour train ride to Geneva goes through some pretty countryside and at one point, runs beside the beautiful Lake Geneva.  I had been really excited for the view during the train ride, however, since it was still pretty early in the morning, there was some thick fog, so the picture below shows all I could see of Lake Geneva.  Oh well, can't ever control the weather as much as I would like.

The foggy view of Lake Geneva from the train, seems like it could be really pretty

We finally arrived at the auto show to see that not only was it gigantic, but it was already very crowded! The show had all the major brands that are sold in Europe, including the very high-end ones.

A view of how large and how crowded the car show was

We spent the next several hours visiting all of our favorite car manufacturers.  There were definitely some brands that I had never heard of that are not sold in the US, but that Darren was a little more familiar with.  We looked at a lot of cars, but I'll just show you some highlights of our favorite cars.  I can't give many details on the cars because I am not a car enthusiast.  Darren really should be writing this part of the post, but he has been working 11-hour days since we got back from Spain, so he doesn't have much time for the blogging.

The Chevy Volt!  We both like this one.

This is a Lotus, a blue one...?

This is a cool racing Porsche... a gray and orange one...?

The car below is a Porsche Panamera.  The base model is $86,000 in the US but, converting from Swiss Francs, $127,000 if you buy it in Switzerland.  Cars are very expensive in Europe and even more expensive in Switzerland.  Even if the car is made in Europe (like a BMW), they are still cheaper to buy in the US, even though they have been imported.  Weird, huh?  Just be glad we are on the winning side of that equation.  Anyway, I saw this Panamera just driving by our neighborhood the other day (oh the ridiculously rich Swiss), and I decided that I love it.  When we win the lottery, I'm buying this car.

My new favorite car, thanks to the Swiss, the Porsche Panamera

A Bugatti Veyron?

Darren in front of the Bugatti

A Lamborghini

The other half of the convention center!  So huge!

Now back to some more realistic cars to buy.  Below is my FAVORITE car.  Yes, I'm being serious, I love the Ford Fiesta.  I think it is super cute.  I am in love with hatchbacks and not just because I live in Europe now.  The Fiesta is really cheap and gets fantastic gas mileage.  Those are the only things that matter to me: cuteness, price, and gas mileage.  We got inside this sporty version of the Ford Fiesta at the show to see the interior.  Unfortunately, Darren does not like the interior.  I agree that the gauges and buttons look pretty lame, but I am willing to live with it just so I can have a cute hatchback.

My Ford Fiesta

Testing out a smart car, they are tiny!

Some Maseratis 

The last high-end brand we saw was Ferrari.  This isn't the best picture of the cars, but I wanted to highlight something else in this picture.  You can see in the earlier pictures that with the regular brands, you can get in the cars and play around with them, but all of the high-end brands would not let you in to touch the cars.  There were, however, some people who were let in to test out the cars.  We figured that these people either knew someone, were famous, or were very rich and were actually looking to buy one of the cars.  So the people in the picture below are those rich people who were looking to buy a Ferrari.  I have decided that the richer you are, the pointier your shoes have to be.

Ferraris and rich people

We took about four hours to get through the whole show.  We thought it had a nice variety of cars, but they could have used more signs in English.  Mostly everything was written in German or French, even though a lot of people visiting might not know either of those languages.  Since we had a few more hours of daylight left after we were finished with the auto show, we went over to downtown Geneva to see what it was like.  I don't have much background on these sites, so just enjoy the captions and pictures.

A Mausoleum

The Jet d'Eau, Europe's tallest fountain and Geneva's emblem

The historic part of Geneva

Part of the Protestant St. Pierre Cathedral

The inside of the St. Pierre Cathedral, where John Calvin preached

The Alabama Room at the Hotel de Ville, where the Geneva Convention was signed

Four leaders of the Reformation, though strangely lacking Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli

After our whirlwind tour of Geneva, we got a quick dinner and took the train back home.  Darren thought Geneva was just okay, but I thought it was nice, though I do prefer the German part of Switzerland.  We weren't able to see the Red Cross Museum or the UN Center because they are not in the downtown area.  It was a long day, but it is always nice not to have to pack to stay overnight and to be able to come home to your own bed.