Geneva, Switzerland

Wed, August 1

I wake in Wycombe, PA at 3:30 am, thanks to a text message, and it’s not even for me.  That’s OK; my alarm is set for 4:00.  I need to get back to Reston, VA (four states south) for a 7:00 coffee date.  Do I dare say that it feels like I’ve been in Europe already?  Those Pennsylvania Dutch (I’m guessing) sure do know how to initiate a girl into the rural life.

I manage to beat all of the traffic through Philadelphia and Baltimore, but there’s some construction on the beltway at 6:30.  DAMN THAT BELTWAY!  I won’t miss it, for sure.  Will I make it?  I take side roads, thanks to my trusty Android telephone with Google maps and live traffic.  I’m addicted to it; how will I survive without over the next however many weeks?  It’s time to retrain my brain, I suppose.  I mean, my Grandmother told me “a million years ago” to always keep a dime between my knees for more than one reason.

I make it to Steven’s by 7:00.  He’s not quite awake yet, but he makes us each a cappuccino.  Steven’s given me a mission, should I choose to accept it.  Hunt down an image at Slot Zeist.  What’s that?  Well, that’s why I’m here.  OK, for the coffee and company too.  Steven is related to a man known by Zinzendorf.  I hear that he was kicked out of Germany for his Protestant religious beliefs and landed in the Netherlands, Zeist to be specific.  He seems to be responsible for starting a “brotherhood,” taking in “sisters and brothers,” having them work various crafts, and selling them all in one place.  Seemingly, he’s credited for providing the first “department store.”

After coffee, it’s time to visit Gail for a second and to drop off a Turkish Cappadocia book that Don lent me.  No silly, it’s in English and talks about a region in Turkey that basically has cave dwellings from 300 AD or so when the Christians needed to flee the Romans and Jews to practice their faith.

I make it to the gym to say goodbye, likely for the last time to my favorite staff and instructors.  I’m sad to go, but it’ll be good to set up roots in Los Angeles.  I mean there’s a gym on every corner out there, right?

I meet up with Matthew after dropping off some European travel books at the library that are due way before I plan to return.  We share lunch, an incredible cherry crumb pie from Mom’s Pies in Leesburg.  I’ve been meaning to try a pie there since I first saw it, about 8 years ago, but never got around to it.  Glad I finally made it, but I’m not sure that a quarter of a pie makes the best lunch.  At least I’ll sleep well on the plane. Next stop, Washington Dulles airport.  I check in, drop off my backpack, wait for my plane, get onboard, watch a movie while eating dinner, and fall asleep.

Thurs, August 2

I wake in Zurich, Switzerland.  I waited too long to get a direct ticket to Geneva, so I have a little layover.  No matter; it gives me a couple hours to adjust to a new time zone as I’m forced to walk in the middle of my night.  I land at my Geneva-bound gate and goof off on my laptop.  I start falling asleep just before my plane boards.  I crawl onto my plane and fall asleep before we take off.  I wake as we land to a little bottle of water and a Swiss chocolate on the empty seat next to me.  Those dang Swiss are so cute.

I follow the crowd to an empty room where an official-looking man looks at my passport, stamps it and tells me which page he stamped after searching for an empty square.  Maybe immigration people are supposed to stamp the in and out on the same page.  Leave it to the Swiss, the makers of fine time devices to make it easy for me to tell the official where to stamp me out, eh?  I pick up my backpack and walk through the green hallway.  This is customs, but Europe doesn’t seem to care much about this stuff.  I’ve never seen anyone get stopped in the green hall, but I’d guess that there’s hell to pay if you have something to declare and get caught.  Regardless, for all of my honest friends, I recommend to always go through the green hallway.  I’m not sure why, but the red hallway simply seems like it might not have positive results.  I mean, green means go, right?  After considering that it’s taken me less time to get from my International flight to the airport exit (and my bag came off last) than it takes to exit Dulles on a domestic flight with carry on, I wished I lived in Switzerland; only for the moment.

I get cash, Swiss Franks, not to be used in any other country.  They’re about one-to-one to the US Dollar yet at a slight disadvantage to the American, so no calculator necessary.  Lukas finds me dazed and confused.  He takes me back to the house where I meet Bella; Noriko’s at work.  Lukas offers to do laundry.  I just got here!  I mean, who carries dirty clothes with them to a friend’s house?  This girl…  L  I’d been on the road for a while before this trip.  I left most of my dirty clothes at my cousin’s place, but I brought my favorites, thinking I’d find time along the way.  He does my laundry; what a great guy!  I assure him that I need no entertaining.  In fact, I end up taking a 2 hour nap.

Waking refreshed, Noriko returns home.  We walk to the market for groceries.  Both Noriko and my travel guide tell me that Geneva is an incredibly expensive city.  I think we get a pretty good deal on food and wonder what all the hype is about.  Back home, Noriko cooks…  homemade meals - Yum!  We stay up late chatting.  I’d forgotten about the window “shades” in Europe.  Basically, each window has a roll-down metal cover that completely blocks the light, if lowered completely.  Noriko lives in the penthouse, on the 9^th floor, so there’s no street noise at all.  I know I’ll sleep like a baby.

Fri, August 3

I wake just in time to wish Noriko off to work.  We’re meeting for lunch later.  After a hour or so, I tag along with Lukas and Bella for their morning walk.  I’m in desperate need of exercise, because my clothes are tight, and the more I move, the faster I get over my jetlag.  Thankfully, Lukas is a coffee drinker, so I get plenty of it.  Sometimes I feel like an addict; I say I should stop, but I don’t.  Without it, I go through withdrawals and get headaches.  I’m so thankful that caffeine isn’t a controlled substance.

Noriko comes home about noon.  We wander out for food, and I discover that grocery store prices are hiked enormously when prepared.  The servers don’t impress me with service, and I can’t say the cooks do either.  I suppose the cost of food is proportional to the property/rent value.  Now, I’m pretty happy I don’t live in Switzerland.  I mean, living here might force me to learn to cook, or worse – get a job, and I can’t have that!

Noriko drops me off near Lake Geneva, just past the UN European Headquarters.  I make my way through park after park to the water.  I read the UN Visions of Hope posters and get a little teary-eyed reading the stories behind the images.  I work my way past the carnival to the Jet d’Eau, Geneva’s 455 foot high fountain.  I’d never heard of this thing before, but I guess it’s Geneva’s most obvious landmark.  They have so many claims to fame that this fountain seems like an afterthought.  Noriko tells me that the world’s most expensive hotel room ($65,000/night) is located here at the President Wilson hotel.  Sure, it’s got bullet proof windows, but I open them anyway.  I guess I’ll keep my money.  I work my way through some of the downtown area to pick up my train ticket to Paris and then through more parks to get home by my self-imposed 5:00 curfew.

It’s party-time at the Marine House this evening, and I’m ready to get my groove on.  OK, maybe not so much.  The slightly-more-mature fraternity seems to be a great group of boys and a girl, but they’re still kids, and I don’t find much in common with them.  I tend to the fire toward the end but miss out on smores.  Poo!

Sat, August 4

It’s time for a road trip!  Lake Geneva is a crescent shape, but its east-west orientation makes it look more like a frown that a moon.  While Geneva’s on the west end, Chillon is on the east and has a very nicely preserved 11^th century medieval castle.  We find our way through Montreux, a Riviera-style Casino town with Palm trees on rooftops and views of the Alps in all directions, to Chateau de Chillon and beyond.  Parking next to a public beach and pool, we’re in for a treat – public displays of horrific.  OK, it’s really no worse than seeing folks on any east coast US beach north of Miami, but I don’t expect this kind of large or loose in Europe.  Add to that the fact that there’s no sand, in my opinion, there’s no beach.  We walk along the water and soak up the sights.

It’s Saturday, and the grocery stores appear to close around 5:00.  Seemingly none are open on Sunday, so we make due with food at home.  Oh shucks, homemade Thai Curry.  Being around Noriko, I could get used to eating in Switzerland.  We manage to make it back before the storm, but once safely inside, the sky opens up.  Lightening everywhere, then isolated booms.  Suddenly the isolation turns to a regular symphony, and we realize that there are fireworks being set off at the lake to celebrate National Day.  Noriko’s rooftop patio provides perfectly unobstructed viewing, but Bella’s not interested.

Sun, August 5

It’s my last day, and it’s a lazy one.  Clouds everywhere, a little rain too.  Regardless, we manage to go to the Marine House again for a brunch.  Who knew a bunch of jar heads could rustle up some mean eggs benedict, bacon, apple French toast, blueberry coffee cake, coffee, and mimosas?  I may have been hunting down the wrong kind of guy my whole life.  Back home, we watch a movie, Whale Rider, and cry my eyes out.  Later in the afternoon, we find a momentary lapse in rain to take Bella to the dog park.  I hear Marie Antoinette gifted one of the trees as a seedling long ago.  True or not, I think it’s cool.  Lukas makes pizza for dinner, and I enjoy too many brownies after, with ice cream, I might add, and wonder why my clothes are so tight.  Tomorrow requires an alarm, so it’s early to bed for me.

Mon, August 6

I leave the sliding glass door open, so the cold air rushes in all night.  I’m bundled up under my duvet, nice and toasty and sleep like a baby.  As the sun rises, I wake; no alarm needed after all.  Up, ready, and packed in 45 minutes, I say my goodbyes and grab some brownies for the road.  I’m kind of happy that I’m still groggy, or my goodbye would have been a little tougher.  Please, I’ll see these people in a couple of months in the states.  Regardless, I’m always sad to say goodbye.

Noriko drops me off with plenty of time to make my train.  Finding my seat to Paris seems easy enough, thanks to the recon I’d done earlier.  Track 8 this time, instead of Track 7.  I could use some coffee, but I never did manage to find any Euros, and my Swiss Franks are soon-to-be useless, so I left them behind.  Crawling through the Swiss/French Alps (I think) was magnificent.  It was so green that it reminded me of being in Costa Rica.  Tall mountains and steep ravines, but the bridges… the bridges.  There’s nothing like that in Costa Rica.  I think I could spend a day here waiting for the light to hit a bridge perfectly for that one shot that makes it to the postcard stand.  Man, if only I could find that gig.  Oh wait, those people are talented, and I’m not patient.  I’ve fallen asleep, mesmerized by the mountainous beauty.

I wake in a flat portion of France, an hour from Paris.  I watch as fields turn to villages, then to towns, and finally a metropolis.  I’m thankful at how quietly the train moves and how smoothly it operates.