Nous Sommes Arrivés

We arrived on Thursday after an 8 hour flight from Chicago to Zurich and then a brief, low jaunt from Zurich to Geneva. We had a variety of problems in the Minneapolis Airport but absolutely none upon leaving. The flight to Zurich did involve a great deal of turbulence, but overall I was impressed with Swiss Air. The food was certainly better than any other flight I have ever been on. We have been exploring the city which means a great deal of walking since we are staying at a place about 2 miles from the center of the city. We have learned several things including that restaurants do not start serving dinner until 7 pm, that Swiss wine is cheap and good, and that no one seems to be much in a hurry, which has been a calm change of place. It is absolutely beautiful; both the urban spaces and building and the more rural fields. There is also a plethora of pigeons and in our Invader Zim theme, I inquired as to whether Matt had the head pigeons and then every time we heard them I would say "voulez-vous la tête des pigeons."

Friday we went into town and explored both banks of Lake Geneva. Window shopping is ridiculous -- there are tons of high end boutiques mixed in with regular stores (John Paul Gaultier is fairly near a Migros, for example). We saw the ILO (here, the Bureau Internationale du Travail) and the UN (Nations Unies). We ate at a cafe and had ice cream (best chocolate ice cream ever) and went to the grocery store. Yesterday, we went to the Jardin Botanique, walked to the train station, went to a pharmacie and did some reading. It is currently evening and we did a lot of walking earlier today but picked up some bread, wine, fruit, and cheese for dinner. Then I have to iron a suit and make sure that I will wake up in time to get to work tomorrow. Bon soir.

I start work tomorrow and Matt gets to search for an apartment.