First Weekend in Geneva

Well, my arrival got off to a bumpy start last Thursday since I missed my flight to Chicago, but I ended up with a better route (Dallas-London-Geneva) and only arrived an hour and a half later than originally intended on Friday.

I met my roommate/landlord, Victoria, at my new apartment when the cab driver dropped me off around 1:30pm or so in the afternoon. She is incredibly nice and accommodating, and she loved the TX pecans from Austinuts that I brought her as a hostess gift. My new friend and fellows Hopkins student/VIEW scholar, Jill, also came over at the same time --- we both live in the same apartment complex on Avenue de Bude...I'm in building 18 and she is in building 19 across the street --- and after only minimal unpacking and a quick shower for me, we immediately set out to take care of important errands and obtain Swiss cell phones.

First on the agenda was getting lunch since neither of us had eaten. Since I am the only one who has been to Geneva before, we tried to go to a restaurant called Indochine where Melanie and I ate some really good pho last summer --- unfortunately, it was closed. So, attempt #2 was getting kebab at Ali Baba Kebab --- that was a success. I am pretty sure that I got the chicken plate last year, so I went with the lamb plate --- probably not worth the exorbitant cost, but still very yummy.

Then, it was on to the train station. Getting a Swiss cell phone wasn't too hard --- we just went to an Orange store and I got a 19CHF (CHF = Swiss francs) Nokia phone with 10CHF of minutes/texts preloaded. Any phone call that I receive is free (well, free for me --- not for you, I'm guessing), so if you are just dying to call me in Geneva --- the number is +41789046764. Note that I am 6 hours ahead of the east coast, 7 hours ahead of TX, and 9 hours ahead of California. A better option would be to schedule a good Skype time with me --- my Skype name is allison.portnoy86.

Anyway, after taking care of the cell phone issue, we went and got groceries at the Coop grocery store right near our apartments. And exciting news for me --- they have a gluten free section! Schar is an Italian company that's been making gluten free goods since the 1920s --- and the store had a whole area devoted to Schar --- so I have GF cereal, pasta, bread, and cookies at my disposal. We plan to try another grocery store called Migros that's a little farther away as well --- so maybe that will have even more options.

After those errands, Jill and I planned out our next two weekends of travel. We already have a Swiss rail pass that should take care of train tickets for both weekends. Next weekend, we plan to take an early, early morning train to Bern on Saturday for a day trip and then spend the night in Lucerne in order to spend the day there on Sunday before returning Sunday evening. The following weekend we plan to go to Interlaken (another city that I visited on my backpacking trip last year, but Jill has not been before): Saturday will be adventure sport day --- I plan to go paragliding and Jill wants to go skydiving, so we'll be doing those activities separately --- and Sunday will be hiking the Swiss Alps day.

Yesterday we slept in and then went out around lunchtime to explore Geneva. We decided to walk the entire day. After we passed the United Nations to go walk along Lake Geneva --- we saw the Jet d'Eau (a Geneva landmark and one of the largest fountains in the world) in the distance and took photos like this one:

 And up close:

Then we crossed the bridge over the lake into Old Town. It's a really nice area with shopping and restaurants. Then we walked through a park that Melanie and I found last year and I wanted to return to so that we could play a game of giant chess. Here's Jill before our game:

And after:

While neither of us have mad chess skills --- I did manage to win. There were several other games going on around us --- each one had about a dozen spectators. But no one watched us playing --- I wonder why... :-)

Jill headed back to her apartment after a little more exploring as I actually had dinner plans last night. My friend and celiac mentor, Blair, in DC introduced me via email to her college friend, Alice, who lives with her husband and four sons here in Geneva. Alice and her husband took me out to a wonderful dinner at the Riverside Cafe on the lake... I had a delicious dinner of tiny little perch caught directly in Lake Geneva --- each little fish is about a mouthful and so I received a couple dozen of them lined up in a circle around my plate. Alice wants to meet up for lunch at the WHO next week and keep in touch --- and I hope that keeping in touch involves watching Dr. Who with her family (her sons' favorite show; they are ages 16, 14, 12, and 9), possibly playing board games, and/or going to watch her sons' sporting events (at least one of them plays football, i.e. soccer).

This morning I set up a wireless router that I bought yesterday for Victoria. Her mind was blown by the idea and when I found a router for 50CHF, I just went ahead and got it since I figured she would reimburse me at that price (which she is going to now that it is set up and working). Having wireless internet now makes life at home a bit easier.

Jill and I had a more relaxing day today after walking all over creation yesterday. We practiced walking to the WHO so we are all prepared for our first day of work tomorrow --- it's an easy 15 minute walk from our apartments. Tomorrow I will walk through this front door:

And obtain my intern badge before going to meet my mentor in his office in building M (all the buildings are named by letters apparently but I haven't figured out if there is any rhyme or reason to which building is what letter...). Jill and I are actually sharing the same office --- M129 in case you're interested :-)

Outside the entrance to the WHO is this statue of a boy leading a man blinded by African River Blindness that is indicative of one of the greatest public health success stories --- because of a collaboration between Merck, the World Bank, WHO and other UN agencies, NGOs, and national and local health departments --- there has been an incredible reduction in onchocerciasis (river blindness) across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Supposedly there is also this same statue in DC --- does anyone know where that is? I feel silly that I don't know. Anyway, it is pretty inspiring and I am really looking forward to my first day tomorrow.

After checking out the WHO --- Jill and I went to the Bains de Paquis to lay out and read:

Now I am at home writing to you fine people. Wow, this was a long post, I guess. In the future, I will try to make them slightly more interesting but hopefully there was something interesting in what I just wrote --- I am getting too hungry for dinner now to read over and edit it! Another post coming soon about what day 1 at the WHO is like tomorrow!