Richmond in Geneva

So I have just returned from a visit to nearby Geneva, Switzerland. It was a bit of a reunion as I met up with 4 friends who know Richmond, VA very well. One friend, Catherine, who’s blog is linked on the right side of this blog, actually lives in Geneva. She graciously allowed me to sleep on her couch (THANKS YO!). We met a few years ago at VCU before Catherine graduated. Cat, who’s blog is also linked here, rode the train up from Chambery, France (there’s no accent, deal with it). She is currently studying abroad there, but attends VCU with me (If you do not

remember, Cat is the one who came to Turkey

(Tammy and Tiffany) with me). Lastly, my friend Tammy, whom I worked with at Red Robin, flew in from Virginia, along with her sister, Tiffany. Their mom surprised them for a graduation present with a trip to Geneva, so I could not pass up the chance to see everybody while they were so close.

I boarded the train in Milano early Monday morning, and proceeded to sleep the entire four and a half hours. I did wake up at one point, however, and looked out the window to see giant mountains and quaint houses, and thus realized I was no longer in Italy. Passport check? Customs? No sir. Switzerland is one of them Schengen countries, ie borders do not really count. So even when I arrived in Geneva, there was no sort of passport control or customs.

(THE jet plus boat)

Catherine found me and we headed down to the lake and walked around for a while. We passed lots of important buildings which house various international organizations such as WTO, UNICEF, etc... We also walked by part of her school, which happens to be situated right on the lake. Yeh, on breaks from class, they go swimming... Jealous.

After wandering for a while, Tammy called me and we met up with her and her sister. We walked a little more, and then got dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I was quite excited for my burrito and the guacamole. Four months sans Mexican food is harsh, so paying the expensive price was totally worth it. Geneva is not exactly the cheapest city to live in, but the people who live there, are paid quite well to make up for the high cost of living.

After dinner, we headed to a local Pub where you can get a ‘column’ of beer. Debauchery ensued. Catherine and I headed back to her house (Me, Cat, and Catherine) and crashed for six hours, maybe less? Then, we had to go pick up Cat from the train station.

After finding Cat, we headed to Starbux for caffine fix. We proceeded to talk about VCU and various members of the VCU community for about three and a half hours. No seriously, we sat and talked in a Starbux in Geneva for three and a half hours. Months away from home does silly things to you sometimes.

We finally motivated ourselves enough to walk a little, and headed to the ‘old town.’ We ran into a small protest, but were able to walk around it. Our goal was lunch, involving chicken and potatos for cheap, so I was not about to let anything get in my way. And the chicken and potatos were like fireworks in my variety deprived mouth. Mexican food? Chicken and potatos? Things I have not had for months. Pasta gets old after a few months guys, just trust me on this one. No matter what you put on it, pasta just loses its appeal eventually. Unfortunately, we are students, studying abroad, in expensive countries. So we had pasta for dinner. And breakfast/lunch the next day...

After a delicious lunch, we headed over to Calvin’s church. It was closed :/ At least I can say I have seen it, sat on it’s steps, walked around it, etc.. We then proceeded to walk around various streets. We saw Catherine’s old living quarters: a

(Green prettiness of Geneva) Catholic boarding house. Saw a few beautiful parks as well. Everything in Geneva is green. And clean, or sterile as Frommer’s likes to say. We eventually met up with Tammy and Tiffany again, but at that point, Catherine, Cat and I were too tired to move. We decided to head back to Catherine’s house and just made some dinner and watched hours of CSI Miami (in English!). Horrible show, but like I said, being away from home for months does silly things to you. We also decided to Skype Jeff Wing, the scholarship advisor at the Honors College. He knows all three of us fairly well, so it is okay that we pretended to need some money to pay off the local police.

Sleep came rather quickly, and heavily. We got out of ‘bed’ around 12:30 the next day, ate some, or rather all of the left over pasta and then headed back down to the lake. We made a stop at an American store and oogled at all the American products. I bought a box of pop-tarts, reses pieces, a mini reses peanut butter cup, and a cherry 7-up. Again, fireworks in my mouth. It took a lot of self control not to buy various other items such as corn bread mix, betty crocker cake mix and frosting, peanut butter, chex mix, mac n cheese, blow pops, etc.. We ran into a guy from Louisiana there. Perhaps foreign service?

Tammy and Tiffany arrived shortly after, and we walked around the lake to the massive jet of water (supposedly the biggest in the world). Funny waste of power in the town that houses the UN and such.

Afterwards, I had to head back to the train station to catch my train. Said good-bye to Tammy and Tiffany (they were heading to the chicken and potato place) and went to grab some food in preparation for my four and a half hour train ride back to Milan. Got back half an hour late, and finally got home in time to say goodbye to another roommate. Tomorrow, after the roommate leaves around 6am, I will have the house to myself, at least until midnight or so when the other roommate returns from Paris. This last roommate, however, is leaving sometime this weekend. The house will be all mine after that! Kristin arrives the 25th, so I will not be alone long, but I can live with her.

(THE jet)