It was finally time to visit Niko! I had been looking forward to this weekend for months! I normally only see my brother a couple of times a year now that he lives in Switzerland and I knew we wouldn’t be home for Christmas which meant that WE wouldn’t be home when he went to visit. This made it all the more important and wonderful that we got to visit him on our trip.

Nick took the morning off of work in order to come pick us up from the airport and have breakfast with us. Keeping up the trend of our past week of breakfast meals – we had bread with a side of bread. J Rob and I were pretty beat so once Nick went to work, we crashed out for a few hours. Once work was finished – Nick picked us up and we headed to the lake for some stand up paddle boarding. We made a stop at the fountain – I think it’s the tallest fountain in the world. There is a very skinny walkway that lets you walk right by it and with the slightest bit of wind you will definitely get sprayed with water. They talked me into running by it and of course as soon as I took off, they stood still so I ran through by myself and almost knocked a girl down in the process. The water was pretty chilly so I was getting nervous about the paddle boards, just in case I fell in. We had an hour on the boards of which I spent half of it not standing. It was windy so if you weren’t facing right into the wind, the waves made you a little wobbly. Nick ended up being the only one to fall in due to a very sharp turn that caught a wave. He said the water wasn’t as cold as initially expected so of course Rob decided to jump in and then jump in a few more times once we returned our boards.

Our evening plans were to watch a movie on the lake and meet some friends of Nick’s. We stopped at a Shwarma restaurant and had the most delicious sandwiches – I have no idea what was actually even in them, Nick ordered them for us and we were happy with his choice. After grabbing a bite we headed to the lake for our movie. It was a Moroccan movie with French subtitles – needless to say, Rob and I were completely lost half the time. Thankfully Nick and some of the friends that were there with us clued us in every now and again. It seemed like a good movie from what we were able to take away from it?

We had dim sum for lunch on Saturday and met some more friends of NIko’s. We had really nice conversation with them and enjoyed their company along with the food that was fantastic. We spent our afternoon walking through a park near Nick’s place and did a little geocache right outside the park. After walking through that, we came upon a group of guys standing in a fountain with a few empty buckets… I assumed they were prepping for the ice bucket challenge (which I had not done yet) so I approached them and asked if I could join in. They agreed and left me some ice which Rob happily poured onto my head after I nominated my mom, dad, sister, brother and Rob’s mom. The only one that did it was Rob’s mom **thank you Stephanie for following through!** We followed that with more delicious food that even at a place that serves pizza petals. We went back and forth with Nick on exactly what a petal of pizza was but once we ate it we realized it was the most delicious thing we would eat all weekend. It’s like taking a really good slice of pizza without crust on the end and rolling it up from the skinny end to the fat end. Nom nom nom. We met a few more friends during this meal as well – it was great, each meal we had a different ethnicity of food and a new group of his friends to meet and get to know. We went out to a rooftop bar to end the night with a drink. Beautiful view overlooking the lake at night.

We had a super Sunday, which was wonderful. We laid around all day, hung out, watched stupid videos on youtube, etc. Finally we snuck out for a quick bite in a new part of town that we hadn’t been to before and had some little paninis, which we followed up with some amazing ice cream and fantastic burgers – definitely in my top 3 best ever. There was a little market nearby that we roamed through for a bit until we passed out on a park bench and then decided to head back to the apartment for a nap and then another nap. We decided to be even more lazy when we ordered delivery instead of going out for the evening. We had Indian food that was SO good and watched a movie until we took our last “nap” of the day, which lasted until the morning.

Monday was our last day so Rob and I packed up our things to prepare for the next day and then went to meet Nick for lunch at his office. It was really cool to see where he worked and meet coworkers of his. The lunch at his office was very tasty – they had a lot of different things to choose from and we were able to have a very leisurely lunch, which was really great. After Rob and I left, we stopped by the macaroon shop that Niko recommended and OMG. They. Were. Phenomenal. OMG. We finished our world cuisine tour with some fantastic Mexican food and a few margaritas. Great ending to a wonderful weekend.

All in all it was a perfect visit. It felt like being at home with Nick, great food, relaxation and just chilling with my bro. We didn’t fill our weekend with activity after activity because the only thing we really wanted to do while we were there is spend time with Nick and see a little bit of what his life is like in Geneva. The amazing food each day was just an added bonus. It was really cool to see where he works and the people he spends his free time with. I can see why he loves living there so much.