Day Seventeen ~ Sunday, May 12

Another big day! Today was both a travel day and a hiking day. And on a Sunday, just as Hollis promised. (He told us all our big travel days were going to be on Sundays).
Travel was way more complicated than it needed to be. Literally we ended up taking about a half-dozen trains and busses to get over to Chamonix. The thing is, normally from the train station I guess you could go straight to Chamonix, but because of an avalanche over the rail, we couldn’t. So lots of public transportation it was.
When we made it to Chamonix, we made our way straight to the Hotel. It was about a 20 minute walk. We dropped our stuff off there, and had a couple hours to go into town.
A group of us went into what seemed like a 4 star restaurant. The meal took up most of our afternoon, but the food was incredibly good. I think we all really took in the fact that our trip actually brought us into France: the King of Food.
After lunch, we did get a bit of a chance to walk around. I got a poster. I got the most impressive photo I could find, (from that store), not really paying attention to what it was a photo of. Upon realizing it wasn’t a photo of our hike, I’m thinking about getting a different one as well. Last year I had the Sydney Opera House on my dorm wall, from my Australia trip. This time I want the Tour de Mont Blanc on my wall from my Europe trip.
Anyway, then it was time to head back to the Hotel. We were back around 4, a half-hour before we had to be back .We got our stuff ready for the hike.
The hike was pretty easy: a couple hours and flat for the most part except the end where we had an uphill trail.
The Gitet (pronounced Gee-tay) was amazing. Some rooms had awesome nooks and crannies, our had our own shower. The chef was amazing (France) and incredibly good humored. He joined with our group a bit for evening meeting he was pretty funny. And that was the day!

-Joseph Bruner