Geneva

Geneva sits on the shores of Lac Lemain, known somewhat erroneously to the outside world as Lake Geneva. Geneva sits at the point where the lake empties into the Rhone river. Not a big city; less than 200,000 people in the city proper, and only a little more than a half million in the surrounding area, but its footprint is larger because of the international institutions that call it home: The World Heath Organization, International Labor Organization, the International Red Cross and the European headquarters of the United Nations, just to name a few. I thought that the cafes of Cambridge sounded like the tower of Babel, but that's nothing compared to Geneva, where more than a third of the population is foreign-born.

This was by far the longest I've ever spent in a French-speaking country, so I enjoyed getting to use my meager language skills in navigating the town. It was thrilling that after a week I could suddenly recognize four words in ten instead of one (Listening is always harder for me than speaking. We will refrain from further psychoanalysis of the preceeding sentence).

What brought me to Geneva is my friend Nathalie, who recently took a job with the WHO working on reproductive health problems in the developing world. I came here straight from Nepal, and it was wonderful to be in the home of a friend instead of hotels and hostels. Nathalie is also the best cook I know, and at last I was not under the tyrrany of the wash-it-peel-it rule. This led to a week of wonderful dining on amazing fresh food. Geneva is Swiss, but culturally and linguistically French, so food of less than exceptional quality is simply not tolerated.

In fact, France is twenty minutes away, so one always takes the passport along, in case you end up on the wrong bus. One day we went to a farmer's market (where I bought the most expensive cheese in my life, and thought it a bargain once we got it home) in a suburb across the border, where in a cafe a man in a black and white shirt was serenading the passersby with an accordian, at the corner of Avenue du Stereotype and Rue de Cliche.

I stayed in Geneva with Nathalie for a week before we headed to Egypt for our magnificent week touring that country. More on that soon.

Geneva sits at the southwest corner of the lake, where the river begins. The waters of the lake come from the glacial runoff of the alps, and as such are magnificently clear and very cold. As such, water is so abundant in Geneva that the the public fountains in the parks bubble continuously with delicious water, distributed at heights for canines and humans alike. Water is also used spectacularly for decoration:

This is the REAL photo of me in front of Jet D'eau, the largest water fountain in the world. More than 140 meters tall, it shoots water at over 200 kph, high into the mountain-ringed Geneva sky, such that there is more than seven tons of water in the air at any given time.

But my favorite fact about the jet is that you can use it as a landmark when navigating some parts of town, in particular the old city. If you look carefully at the photo below, you can see the jet peaking up near the right edge of the green treeline in the foreground.


One afternoon we toured the grounds of the UN in Geneva, the former home of the doomed League of Nations. The complex is magnificent, but seems almost a bit tragic, as it was built to house the organization that failed to prevent the Second World War.


My favorite part of the UN complex was the small flock of peacocks that roam the grounds, a gift of the Thai government.
The Promenade des Bastions was particularly beautiful one morning as we walked through the park of the same name, which borders Geneva's small university and several of the old city's cultural landmarks.


After Egypt, I stayed with Nathalie a few more days before acquiring a Eurail pass and heading north to Amsterdam via Paris to meet my friend Sharon. It was awesome to see Sharon for the first time in almost five months, and we had a great time touring Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Hamburg together before heading back to Switzerland to spend a couple days together with Nathalie. While walking around the old city of Geneva, I persuaded Sharon to splurge on a little black hat I thought she looked fantastic in.


Next up: northern Europe.