| Nous sommes a GeneveSo the 11 hour flight from SF to Paris wasn't too bad... I only slept for about an hour, though, right after takeoff. My efforts to sleep later on in the flight were twarted by antsy legs and the guy sitting in front of me having his seat reclined practically onto my face. I did get to watch Step Up (pretty good, for a cheesy dance movie  ), and get through most of The Year of Yes. I then had a 1.5 hr layover in Paris, and finished off with a short 1 hour jaunt to Geneva. All the people at the airports and airplanes seem to have gringo-radar, immediately speaking to me in English before I've even said a word. Part of me feels relieved not to have to attempt my broken French quite yet, the other part of me felt somewhat dissappointed that I didn't get to practice. Oh well, there'll be plenty of time for that. As I walked off the plane and onto the Geneva airport I had this sudden surge of emotion-- this will soon be home, I thought. Long gone are the short, 3-hour flights back home to Texas to see family. We will soon be getting well acwuainted with the Geneva and Paris airports. It's exciting, and scary, and overwhelming. Zach met me at the airport. It was really good to see him. I could see that the sky outside (it was 2:30pm local time) was clear and gorgeously blue-- apparently a rare occurrence for this time of year, but one certainly everyone is glad for. We took the train to our hotel room where I took a quick shower and changed, then we took a walk around the area. Lake Geneva's only a few minutes walk away, so we walked along the promenade there for a while (I took plenty of pictures). Our hotel room also has a gorgeous view of Mont Blanc. Zach's already drooling over the mountains-- the closest skiing, when the snow is good, is within 30mins to 1 hr away.  Geneva is adorable. It has the feel of this old city, with all these buildings that each have their completeloy unique style and feel. Even though it's a small city, b/c of the architecture and how close-knit everything is, walking the streets feels like you're walking in a large city, like San Francisco or Paris. Except it feels very safe. There were so many families with young kids walking about. Well, it is time for bed. I'm exhausted. It's 10am back home, but I think 7pm here? I don't even want to work out how long I've been awake. I was feeling pretty good and awake, but then Zach and I had dinner and I think the kanak attack's hitting me and it's time for bed. Tomorrow we meet with the relocation expert and take a tour of the different parts of the city, so we can decide within which area we'd like to live.Tuesday, January 16, 2007
| ...et les chaussures? Sont magnifiques!I had a hard time sleeping last night. After getting annoyed at the sometimes-spotty internet here in our room I finally took a shower and got to bed around 11pm... only to wake up at 2am, unable to get back to sleep. After laying in bed for an hour I got up and stretched my legs for several minutes (my muscles were feeling tight from all the walking), and I finally was able to fall back asleep sometime between 3:30 and 4am. We'd arranged to meet with one of Zach's coworkers at 9am, and when Zach woke me up around 8 I was incredibly groggy. I had a hard time waking up for a couple of hours. We had a quick breakfast here at the hotel (yay for coffee, and btw I may end up gaining 20lbs here from eating so much bread...) then met Kathy downstairs. She's a coworker of Zach's from California, who from now on will be sopending time in Switzerland every 2 months so we should be seeing a decent bit of her. We took the train down to Lausanne (about 30-40 mins away by train, it's on the other side of the Lake from here). We spent pretty much all day walking around there, looking at a couple cathedrals, ducking into a shop or 2, we had coffee and these fantastic salads at this little cafe where the waiter had an incredibly pleasant Brittish accent but was wearing a long (ankle-length) kilt. Lausanne is definitely a cute place. Oh, and besides gaining weight from all the bread, I may also go broke buying shoes here. Oh my lord the SHOES!! First of all, everyone here is wearing incredible boots-- they've really taken to the jeans-tucked-into-boots look. Many of the boots are knee-high. I saw some really fabulous boots in this one store, but even on sale (stores here only have sales 2 times a year, right now is the end of the winter sales so a lot of stuff is up to 1/2 off) many were still expensive. I did buy a pair of black leather slouchy boots with a chunky high heel. I'm gonna need to find a pair of skinny jeans now, so I can wear them with these boots (and some others I already have). But anyway... Lausanne is gorgeous-- we took a walk down by the water's edge and we had this amazing view of the Swiss Alps. Incredible. Zach was saying that one thing to do as the weather gets nicer in the spring is take the train to Lausanne, bring a lunch, and hike over to one of the other towns nearby (just a few miles away), enjoy the countryside, perhaps stop by on some wineries on the way, then once you reach the next town we could have a drink somewhere and then take the train back home. Seriously, I'm pinching myself, y'all. We took the train back to Geneva around 5pm. At the train station Zach bought a waffle from this waffle stand and oh my god it was the best waffle I've ever had. It was nothing like the waffles of the states-- it was thick, and chewy, and warm, and soooooo yummy. Zach said he had them all over the place when he was in Belgium on business last year. Fabulous. Amazing. Zach and I rested at the hotel for a bit before meeting up with Kathy and Eric (a new coworker of Zach's, from here) for dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant where I think Zach and I upset the waitress b/c we wanted to split a meal-- I wasn't terribly hungry, and in other places we've eaten the portions have been quite large. Well, this restaurant was one of those where the portions were smaller and they take the time to arrange everything neatly on your plate, but we figured that out too late... oh well. The food was good, and along with some bread and dessert we got plenty to eat. We got to practice a little bit of French with Eric (very little). We'll be seeing him again tomorrow, I'll be getting to meet Zach's other new coworkers when we go to his office and have lunch with them. And now, I should go to bed. Unfortunately I may not be able to share pictures till we get back... I tried to upload some yesterday but the internet connection's too slow and nothing was happening.  So just hold tight, I'll post them eventually I promise! Oh, and btw.... This is so strange, but we've heard more country music here than we normally do in california. No kidding. My first morning here we were eating breakfast here at the hotel and they were playing "I Can Love You Like That" by John Michael Montgomery. Then last night we were watching tv and along with some show or commercial or something they were playing Garth Brooks. Who woulda thunk it??
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
| Ou est tout le mond?We spent a lot of today just kinda wandering around different areas in/around Geneva. We went into Zach's new office where I got to meet his new coworkers, and we all went out to lunch together. I spent much of the time talking to one guy, Antonio, who's grown up here all his life, but whose parents are from Spain and he spent many summers there, so he's fluent in Spanish (and even has the Spanish accent). He said he doesn't get to talk in Spanish very much, so I think it was fun for both of us to get to talk in Spanish together for a bit. For dinner we went to this Italian restaurant that was friggin phenomenal. Zach said Italian food around here is pretty good in general-- which I guess makes sense, seeing as Switzerland shares a border with the country. But yeah, I had pork loins with roasted potatoes and they were both amazing (I think the US just doesn't quite know how to cook pork well-- the pork in Spain this summer was also really good). After dinner we met up with Jeff, a coworker from California who flew in for the night on his way from Paris out to Brussels (flies back out tomorrow afternoon), and Bob (another coworker of Zach's who moved here with his family just a few weeks ago) for a drink. However, as we found out tonight, it appears that Geneva isn't the liveliest city when it comes to nightlife... at least on a wednesday night. We walked around for a bit, even down to the area around the University where we figured there'd be some students out, but we found nothing. So we took the tram back towards our hotel and went back to the place where Zach saw the fight. Amusingly, it was packed. I guess when in doubt we should try the touristy areas of town. So they all had beers, I had this beer/lemonade/grenadine concoction which was ok. We hung out there for a while, Jeff and Bob are both pretty fun guys. |
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