We're Back!

Sorry that we have been absent from writing for a while, our main excuse is that we have not had internet access since we moved out of our temporary housing the last week of September. Getting set up with things like phone, internet, and TV is a long process over here and it can be frustrating. Customer service isn’t like it is back in the States. We are now mostly settled into our flat and have also taken a trip to Switzerland while we’ve been away.

Last week on Tuesday Susan left for Geneva, Switzerland to attend training with her work. I was able to join her there on Thursday afternoon through the weekend. This was my first experience with the wonderful world of discount travel in Europe. I booked a ticket with EasyJet, one of the leading discount airlines. I don’t have any horror stories, but it definitely was a different experience than what I am used to. The tickets are cheap, but you have to pay for everything else . You have to pay to check bags (which you know in advance) so I sent some stuff with Susan so I could take our small suitcase and bring it on the plane. That didn’t work, they have employees stationed at check in to inspect every bag to make sure it fits “comfortably” in the sizing bin otherwise you have to check it. The wheels stick out on our small suitcase about an inch too far so I had to check it. Then boarding is a mad dash as everyone tries to get on first since there are not assigned seats. You can pay extra to get priority boarding and be with the first group on the plane. Once I finally got on the plane, everyone sits in the aisle seat hoping to deter anyone from entering their row so incase the plane isn’t full, they can have the whole row to themselves. Both of my flights were almost totally full, but I think that most people don’t want to sit by me because I’m so big because on both flights the seat next to me was left open. Doesn’t bother me at all though!

Geneva is a beautiful city set on the far western side of Switzerland. It was a stronghold for protestant reformation in the 16th century thanks to Jean Calvin and John Knox. The Red Cross was founded here in 1864 and it is currently home to the second largest United Nations office. Geneva is set on Lake Leman and bordered on three sides by France. Lake Leman (or Lake Geneva) is a huge mountain lake stretching 75 km east to west and about 15 km north to south, the northern half belonging to the Swiss while the southern half being French.

As I said before I joined Susan in Geneva on Thursday afternoon and arrived just a bit before she was done with her training for the day. Thursday evening we were able to enjoy a work sponsored dinner for all the US expatriates who were attending training. The new director out of the New Jersey office was there to meet a lot of the expats who were abroad as he will be involved in implementing a new expatriate program. It was a good evening of conversation with other expatriates. We were able to gain advice and hear stories from people who were all around Europe.

The next morning Susan had training again so I went out and walked from the hotel to the lake. Along the way I passed the United Nations which I set on a beautiful piece of land donated by the city of Geneva (more on that tomorrow). I ended up walking through a big park on my way to the lake with many monuments and historic buildings. The lake was beautiful in the morning. It was cloudy with a light drizzle but the sun was trying to break through the clouds just as I arrived at the lake. Swimming close to the shore in a little rocky cove was a swan and a couple ducks, as you can see from the picture it was like something out of a movie. I continued my walk along the lake and then cut back through the northern part of the city on my way to the hotel to meet Susan as she was to be done by noon.

Friday afternoon and evening we explored Geneva. It isn’t a very big city, only about 180,000 people so you can manage to walk a lot of the area in an afternoon, and at least see most of historic Geneva. We didn’t have the best weather most of the weekend and Friday was no different. It was cool with drizzle on and off. We set out with a couple of Susan’s co-workers who we spent most of the weekend with as they were staying in the same hotel as us. We didn’t really have a plan, we figured we would just start walking and try and stop at the tourist center. After visiting the center we decided on a couple things that we wanted to do. First we wanted to try and catch a “mini train” ride that is a tour of the city and we also wanted to try and find a good fondue restaurant for dinner since the Swiss are famous for cheese and chocolate. We did end up catching our “train” (it is actually motor powered vehicle on wheels that looks like and old train pulling a bunch of passenger cars) and getting an audio guided tour. It is always nice when you can see things and get a quick history lesson at the same time, it makes it more meaningful. Once that was done we somehow found our way to the shopping district… weird how that seems to happen. We didn’t stay too long but did get some real Swiss chocolate and truffles at a little candy store before we continued our city walk. The chocolate was wonderful except for one chocolate covered cherry that was very little cherry and a whole lot of brandy! Needless to say that wakes up your senses when you bite into it!

We decided to find our way back into the old part of Geneva where we had passed St. Peter’s Cathedral on our train tour so we could take pictures and go inside. Also there was a reformations museum right next to the cathedral that I was very interested in walking through, especially since I took a class in college all about the early protestant reformation. The cathedral was beautiful inside and out. Construction began in the 12th century and lasted 150 years! It was converted by Calvin and others to a protestant church in the 16th century removing many of the catholic elements. You are allowed to climb up the north tower to see what is supposed to be a breathtaking view of Geneva, unfortunately it was closed when we were there. Inside the Cathedral was a beautiful tomb from the 16th century (sorry, I don’t remember who the person was) as well as “Calvin’s Chair” which was amazingly preserved.

I then went next door and took a tour of the reformation museum while my entourage waited outside. Unfortunately for me, most of the details were written in French so I couldn’t read the importance of what some of the things were. There were many old Bible’s with written notes in the margins which I thought was amazing. There were many small books that looked like journals from some of the reformers. There was a beautiful stained glass window of the Ten Commandments from 1689. There was just so much history there; I was in Heaven even though I didn’t know exactly what everything was. Needless to say I enjoyed my walk through the Museum.

We got a recommendation to eat at a restaurant called Edelweiss, which is a traditional Swiss restaurant with live music and fondue! We were very happy that we went there. The food was excellent. We had cheese fondue with a mix of different Swiss cheeses followed by the best part… chocolate fondue! It was so good that we were spooning it out of the pots once all the fruit was gone! The other great part of the dinner was the live music. There were two guys playing and singing traditional Swiss music including yodeling! They played the accordion, spoons, cow bells, and the big long “ricola” horn which we still don’t know what it is called! At one point they walked around the restaurant serenading the tables and we got to have a whole polka played especially for us! After one of the gentleman played the ricola horn he opened it up for anyone to try and I gave it a shot. It wasn’t very hard… he told me to blow into it just like you would blow into a trumpet. I thought I did pretty well, but some of the other people that tried had a hard time, it was really funny.

That was most of our experience of Geneva; we were told that we could do most of the major things in a day so we planned a day trip to Montreaux and Lausanne for Saturday which you’ll hear about tomorrow!