Geneva! November 30, 2011

I really tried to think of  some cool pun on Geneva, but my mind is blank…..

Chris and I were thrilled when some close pals of ours from North Carolina, Ryan and Rosanne, moved to Geneva Switzerland.  These are people we really like, from our town,  now living on our side of the ocean!  Yay!  We decided to give them a month or so to settle in before descending on them this past weekend.  We had a wonderful visit.

We arrived Friday night and went to their wonderful apartment and stayed up really late gossiping and sharing ex pat stories (expats LOVE to talk about visas).   The apartment is super huge: 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms!  And the view: it is spectacular.  The next morning we saw (from the 2 balconies) the lake, the city and the Alps.

Saturday we started out with a nice walk down by the lake.  Geneva is really pretty, nestled in the mountains with the lovely clear lake in front of it. The buildings look french in style and there is a nice park and walk along the water. The Jet d’ Eau was not running, perhaps due to the relatively cold temperatures, but it was nice nonetheless.  After our stroll we made our way via tram down to the city’s old town area, which is so nice: cobblestone streets and stone stairwells.  We bought some chocolates and postcards and enjoyed the late afternoon sun.  In Geneva they speak a number of languages but primarily french.  I only heard one person at a shop speak English to us, so I was grateful to have Rosanne and Ryan who are pretty good at French to be our translators.

An aside for any bird people: as soon as we walked out of the house I heard a “ki-ki-ki” and looked up to see a Peregrine Falcon being hassled by two crows!  The birds at the lake were quite nice too:  common mergansers,  yellow wagtail, and Red-crested pochard.

Around 5 we made our way to a brewery and sampled the local beer, served in a 5 liter tower.  Don’t worry, there were 5 of us to drink it! We were joined by Rosanne’s cousin Jennifer who was visiting from South Carolina.  The beer was great, and we ate it with the local swiss style pizza which I cannot remember the name of but was also quite nice.

Later that night we went out for dinner to a restaurant that specialized in fondue and raclette.   Fondue most folks are familiar with.  The one we got had mushrooms in it and was excellent.  I was really curious to try raclette: it is a specific kind of cow’s milk cheese that is cooked on a griddle and served to you in a big, melted, gooey puddle that you then smear on potatoes, bread, and cured meat.  We had a lovely cheese overload dinner, followed by a birthday surprise for me:  molten chocolate cake served with a sparkler and a song (and disco music, but maybe that is the French version of Happy Birthday)!  It was a lovely evening, and we would have stayed up later if not for our leaden bellies!

We woke up on Sunday to an amazingly clear, sunny day, so we scratched our plan to go to the natural history museum in favor of a drive to the mountains.  I am so glad we went!  We drove up and up to the top of a local peak (height was 1114 meters) and hiked around on a bald there.  There were folks paragliding, which I’d never seen, and we got amazing views of Mont Blanc, Geneva and the lake.  It was a great afternoon.  By the time we got back to Geneva it was nearly time for our flight.

The flight is a quick 1 hour 20 minutes, so I hope to go back again!  Geneva is a really pretty city and I look forward to more exploring.  Maybe next time we will make it to the Natural History Museum!

 

 

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