Geneva Gibber

Four Day Weekend

2006-08-03T15:53:00.000+02:00

Here’s what I did last weekend. It was a four day weekend because Tuesday was the Swiss Independence Day. It wasn’t particularly different from what I do on other weekends in Geneva, but here goes:

Friday Night – We made a big mistake… we rented the movie The Ringer. It’s one of the worst movies ever made, and not bad in a funny way, just really terrible. Never, ever rent The Ringer.

Saturday – It was a nice day, so we spent the afternoon by the lake. We then decided that eating pizza was a necessary part of the day, so we bought a bunch of frozen pizzas, and headed to Monica and Chandler’s place. After pizza and wine we returned to the lakefront to meet some of Chandler’s coworkers who were celebrating their last night in Geneva. Monica and I took a walk back to her apartment to use the bathroom after I was completely horrified by the glowing yellow, underground WC that was available by our lakeside perch. On the way back from the loo Monica and I munched on pistachio’s, and found ourselves entirely too amusing as we left a carefully placed trail of pistachio shells to aid us in our return to the apartment later that night. Sadly, when we later attempted to follow the trail of shells back, most of them had been crushed or kicked aside, and we promptly became lost and wandered aimlessly until we found ourselves in France (ok, that’s not true, but vaguely possible as Geneva is nearly surrounded by France. There are French people everywhere here. I’m sure they are all very happy to hear about this.) But back to my evening… we in fact did not get lost, and made our way to a party across town where our friend Jason was hanging out with coworkers. When we attempted to enter the private party, a man asked Chandler if he had been at the party all night. Chandler very confidently replied, “yes, of course,” and then turned to Monica and I, and said in a classic drunk whisper (A.K.A. a raspy voice that is not in any way quiet) “We’re in!” Luckily the doorman didn’t actually care enough to stop us from going in, so we wandered into a party full of drunken 30 somethings complimented by a DJ playing heinously bad music. The only entertaining part about the party was Chandler’s insistence that he be allowed to help the DJ with his music selection, and Jason’s willingness to buy people drinks, just so he had a reason to talk to the bar tender (who was rumored to be “hot.”)

Sunday: Not a lot happened – frisbee and badminton in the park with Chandler and Monica. Then we watched a couple episodes of Arrested Development – I think we have some new converts. They have come to the enlightened side, and will soon be among other glorious people who know and love the chicken dance, think Franklin is the best singer ever, except for maybe Michael and Maeby in a duet, and find Mrs. Featherbottom enchanting.

Monday: It was a long day of not doing much, except I did get my laundry done, which is quite an accomplishment in a building that houses 120 people and has two washing machines and one drier. In the evening I went to frisbee practice and had a beer with some teammates afterwards. One of the guys had just returned from a few months in the US, where he had lived with his girl friend in Ann Arbor (Michigan is everywhere). He also has played in Sandblast for the last three years, and he’s a fan of Waffle House at three in the morning. Needless to say we had lots to talk about.

Tuesday: Monica and I were supposed to go to Annecy, a small town in France known for its old architecture and beautiful lake. Sadly, when we woke up it was raining, so the trip was a no-go. Later that evening we met up to watch the festivities planned by the city to celebrate the Swiss Independence day. They included a ridiculous a cappella group in matching salmon colored shirts, singing bad American songs, with thick French accents. This was followed by a Led Zeppelin cover band that was sadly, worse than the a cappella group. Luckily, we were with good friends, so the musical accompaniment aside, it was a good evening.

Now I’m back at work for my last couple of days. Mostly I’m just stalling, watching youtube, writing my blog entries, and keeping up on the news. It’s a tough life, but someone has to keep this NGO running.

2006-08-03T10:56:00.000+02:00

Sleepy Kitten

I know I've been behind on my blogging - I promise to work on it today. Hopefully you'll enjoy this as much as I did (probably not, but it's worth sharing.)

Weekdays

2006-07-28T15:44:00.000+02:00

My blog is almost always focused on the weekends, so I thought I would share a little about my typical weekdays.

Frisbee with the Wizards - Mondays and Thursday nights– You may recall from my beginning entries that I was not entirely enchanted with my frisbee team here. However, now that I’ve practiced with them twice a week for the last nine weeks, I have made some great friends, and it’s going to be really hard to leave them behind. Maybe some day I will come back to Geneva to work, and will be a Wizard once again.

Pickup frisbee – Wednesday nights – This is a pickup game with local professional types, who know very little about frisbee. It’s a good way to network and meet people, but the quality of frisbee is pretty low. Mostly I play because its better than going running, and it is fun, so long as I don’t get on a team with guys who won’t throw to teammates lacking penises (something that is especially infuriating when the guys are crappy frisbee players). In these situations, I generally get very cranky and start bitching at people on my team for bad throws and lazy defense. For some reason this makes the testosterony men that much more likely to look me off, and then I get very angry and swear I won’t ever come back to the pickup game again. Then the game ends and we go swimming, and I’m happy again. Once again my ADD comes in handy, as even my anger doesn’t have a very long attention span.

Coaching softball – Tuesday nights – Geneva has one fast pitch softball team that practices on the fields where my frisbee team practices. During frisbee, I often watched the softball girls bat and pitch and would suffer so greatly from their form that I would lose focus on what I was doing. Finally, four weeks ago, I approached one of the coaches and offered to help the girls with their pitching (for anyone who has the slightest idea about softball pitching, the girls looked more like they were bowling than throwing a pitch.) The coach I talked to seemed enthusiastic, so I came to their practice the following Tuesday and helped out with the two pitchers. The following week, a coach who had been absent during my first practice arrived and proceeded to undermine everything that I said. Much like the pickup frisbee men, he was also clearly unimpressed by my lack of penis, and decided that there was no chance that I knew anything about any type of sport. Three of the four coaches were completely behind me and my advice, but one stupid penis proud man had to go and ruin everything. So now one of the girls is pitching under my advice, and another one of the girls is attempting to incorporate a giant leap forward into her pitch, which is not only unnecessary, but also very prone to throwing one off balance and creating a wild pitch. Not so surprisingly, the girl I’ve been working with has been much more successful in keeping her pitches straight. And I say – HA HA – to the stupid man.

So that’s pretty much my weeknights. I realize that this blog entry makes me sound like I hate men, but that's not true at all. I only hate stupid men. And even with stupid men around, four nights a week of sports has made my summer very fun.

I Love Cowbells

2006-07-26T16:11:00.000+02:00

And no I'm not talking about Blue Oyster Cult, Will Ferrell style cowbell. I mean Swiss cowbells that actually hang around cows' necks. I love the sound of the bells clinking when the cows come in from the pastures. Do you think I could get my classmates to wear cowbells at school?

Joey

2006-07-26T16:00:00.000+02:00

Last night I had dinner with Monica, Chandler, Joey, and a friend I will call Jason (ok, that’s his real name, but he didn’t do anything illegal, so I’m not worried about using his name.) During the evening a number of things were said that Monica suggested I put in my blog. I have to confess that I remember only one of them, but I enjoy the story, so I will post it.

This story is further proof that I aptly applied the Joey pseudonym. Apparently as a child Joey (Dukies, this is a classmate of ours, feel free to guess which) thought that eating stones would make his head harder. So he and his friend would sit around swallowing pebbles, and then head butt one another… Hmmm, now that I’ve written the story it just isn’t that funny when sober. Perhaps you should all be in the same state that we were last night when we found it funny. Go find three or four beers and a couple glasses of wine and then reread the story (it may also help to picture a little Joey Tribbiani eating stones and head butting his friends.) Now it’s funny, right?

WARNING - THIS IS AN ANGRY RANT

2006-07-25T11:41:00.000+02:00

Being in Europe, I have had the pleasure of reading primarily European coverage of the Israeli –“Hezbollah” conflict (i.e. – fight the Hezbollah by killing lots of Lebanese civilians and destroying all access routes to prevent any kind of humanitarian assistance). While reading a more balanced view of the matter hasn’t made me any less enraged about what Israel is doing, at least I’ve had the luxury of reading about the conflict from a less biased press. Today, however, out of curiosity, I decided to venture over to CNN.com to see what they were saying about the conflict. I am currently fuming at my desk, and may have to cancel my flight back to the US in protest of our crappy press and heinous president. (Don’t worry mom, I won’t actually do that – I miss free pop refills and air conditioning too much… sadly I am that shallow of a person).

But back to my rant - My favorite sentence in the article was

The combat has left more than 400 people dead on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Hmm, that’s an interesting way to obscure the facts. Somehow, I think that clarifying that 377 of those people (almost all civilians) were Lebanese is a rather important part of telling a nonbiased news story.

I also enjoyed the news footage they had of Israel’s plan to enter “Hezbollah’s terror capital.” Of course if it’s a terror capital, what choice does Israel have but to obliterate it?

I could go on and on about this, and I’m sure you’d all rather not here it. Feel free to post comments about how Israel has a right to protect it’s people, bla, bla, bla, but I’ll say now that I think that argument is a load of crap. Sure Israel has a right to protect its people, but they aren’t fighting the Hezbollah, their just using this as an excuse to bomb the hell out of the Lebanese people and to flex their US provided military muscles. I’ve even heard (firsthand) talk of war crimes from people at the UN (which really is a remarkably unbiased source, even if Fox News and the Ann Coulters of the world don’t think so.) In the end Israel is doing exactly what the US is doing in Iraq – making millions of enemies and exponentially diminishing the security of its citizens. It is remarkable how the US and Israel continue to be shocked that their practice of killing lots of people never results in a sustained peace.

Mountain Men

2006-07-24T15:23:00.000+02:00

Pre apology – I think I’ve started writing Gibber more like a journal, than a blog. Sorry if I put in too many details:

We went back to the chalet in the Alps this weekend! I love it there. Sadly, we all forgot our cameras, so no pictures from this trip (the pictures you see are from our first trip). Spending the full weekend there was much better than leaving Sunday morning, as I got to sleep off my hangover on Sunday morning, and I got a whole extra day of hiking.

We headed up to the chalet on Friday night, and watched the thermometer on the car drop steadily as we drove further into the mountains. Leaving behind 93-degree weather for high 70s is a glorious thing. I even wore my sweatshirt at night because the temperature fell so much – who knew wearing a sweatshirt could be so thrilling?

Saturday morning around 8:30, on cue, a stressed out Chandler woke us all up. For some unknown reason after Chandler drinks, he wakes up early the next morning anxiety ridden, and then shares his concerns with everyone near him (or accessible by phone). Luckily, I find his early morning fretting quite amusing, especially because after he has flipped out for a little while, he will usually let you go back to sleep.

Once we all eventually crawled out of bed, we begrudgingly headed to the grocery store to buy food for the weekend. Sitting on the porch enjoying the morning in the mountains seemed like a much more desirable way to pass the AM hours, but being in Switzerland, if we didn’t make it to the grocery store by five that evening we would be foodless for the remainder of the weekend. After the grocery store and tasty brunch of eggs and bacon we headed out for a hike. The hike never really happened though. The ski lift we were planning to take up the mountain had been shut down for the summer. We drove about looking for a functioning lift, but we never found one. Instead we cruised around for a long time until we dead-ended at a meadow. We walked around in the meadow for a while, and then sat and enjoyed the scenery and ate sandwiches. It wasn’t the afternoon we had planned, but you can’t really complain about a scenic drive, wildflower picking, good company, and lunch high up in the Swiss Alps.

After our frolicking in the meadow we stopped in Gstaad, a near by town known for it’s ridiculously wealthy inhabitants. The goal of our stopover was to find a tourist office to tell us which lifts were open, so we could hike on Sunday, but we also took a little time to do some window-shopping in the ridiculously expensive jewelry and watch shops. Monica and I were horrified to find that an overwhelming amount of the diamond jewelry was in heart shapes – why, why, would you do that to a diamond. To my readers, if, on the off chance I do eventually find a serious boy friend, and he happens to ask you if I might like any kind of jewelry involving a heart, please tell him absolutely not. Hearts are fine for some people, but I am not a heart kind of girl. Phew, glad I cleared that up with all of you.

After Gstaad we headed out for a boys vs. girls bowling outing. Sadly, the girls’ team lost, but we did both individually beat Joey, so at least we’ve got that going for us, which is nice. The girls also lost at pool (two games to one), for which I entirely blame myself. I have become an abysmal pool player; I was never great at pool, but I have definitely deteriorated to a player that can only be described as terrible. I’m going home for ten days this August, and the padres have a pool table - I’m going to have to put in some serious training time while I’m home.

Sunday morning we slept in a little later and left the house around eleven. We found a functioning chair lift and had an outstanding hike. It was a bit steep at times, but luckily we had mountain man Chandler leading the way with his walking stick. Apparently, no mountain man worth his salt would even consider a hike without a giant stick to aid his progress - I have a lot to learn about being a mountain man. Sadly, I have no pictures to share, but it was very beautiful. After the hike, we headed out to a lake in the mountain valley and grilled hamburgers and played badminton. It was very close to an ideal day, the only disappointing part being that it was Sunday and we had to leave the next morning. Monday came all too fast, and now I’m at work, roasting in my office, wishing I were back in the mountains. Maybe some day I’ll make millions in a public policy career, and I’ll buy a chalet there too… or more realistically, maybe I can get Chandler’s family to adopt me – they already have five kids, what’s one more.

Arachnophobia

2006-07-20T17:00:00.000+02:00

It’s very hot today. It’s actually been rather hot here for the last month or so, but today it seems to be taking a larger toll than normal on my work ethic (by work, I mean the work it takes to entertain myself for eight hours while trying to avoid doing real work). Rumor has it that it’s been very hot in Midwest and northeast lately too, but you all have air conditioning and Geneva definitely does not. The heat has made me so apathetic today that the internet is completely failing to entertain me. Every time I try and find something amusing to read or consider watching a video on youtube, the effort of having to watch my back to avoid getting busted seems too great an obstacle to overcome. So mostly, I just sit at my desk and wait for the brief glorious moment when the oscillating fans swings my way before it turns back to my breeze hoarding coworkers (by breeze hoarding, I mean that they refuse to let the fan blow only on me.)

So instead of searching the internet, I thought I would write a blog entry. Writing blog entries in Word is the best way I know to amuse myself without having to worry about getting caught slacking – whenever you’re typing in Word you always look like you’re working. So even though I don’t really have any stories to tell, I feel inclined to ramble a bit, to help pass the last hour of my day. Here goes…

My room is full of spiders. They don’t have screens in Geneva (which is especially irksome when combined with the lack of air conditioning that requires people who wish to avoid heat stroke to keep their windows open all day and night). When I first moved into my apartment swarms of small bugs would gather in the corners of my room at night and completely creep me out - so much so that I would spend a good twenty minutes before bed trying to crush them all – there are now a lot of bug guts on my ceiling. But then a spider or two moved in and did most of the bug killing for me, which I greatly appreciated. I considered naming the spiders and making them my pets, much like Petey in Costa Rica (readers of my Costa Rican blog will of course remember my dear, sweet Petey). However these spiders were bigger than Petey and more prone to moving around (I prefer spiders that stay in one place, so I always know where they are and don’t have scary thoughts of them crawling on me while I’m sleep); hence these spiders were not nearly as suitable to being pets as Petey. But even if they weren’t pets, I still accepted their presence and appreciated their job well done.

But now things have changed. There are about fifteen spiders in my room, and there just aren’t enough bugs from them all, so I’m pretty sure they’re going to start attacking me soon. In fact, one has already tried. Last night, I woke up to use the bathroom, and when I turned on my light, I saw the biggest spider of them all (think the giant, scary spider from Harry Potter), crawling down the wall right at my bed. He was clearly coming to attack me, so I had no choice, but to crush him with my kleenex box. I tried to explain to the other spiders the human-spider rules of coexistence, the first of course being that no spider may leave the ceiling at any time. Sadly, I do not speak their language (unlike with Petey), so I could not communicate with them, and I do anticipate more spider killings in the near future. But what can I do, you just can’t have spiders running wild in one’s room – there must be order.

Full of Gay and Lesbian People!

2006-07-19T17:27:00.000+02:00

As my weekdays are minimally interesting (enjoyable, but not story worthy) I will fast forward to my Saturday festivities. Saturday was the Geneva Lake Parade, and I met up with the usual suspects, Chandler, Monica, and Joey, plus some of their friends around 3:00…

Sorry, I feel the need to digress a bit, back into my weekdays, to tell a story about a very special person that I met during class. My weeklong seminar was on humanitarian assistance (ie – food and water distribution, refugee camps, protecting women and children from abuse, etc.), and the group of students was consequently a very liberal assemblage of people – except Ben, the tragically clueless Mormon. I’m not implying that Ben is clueless because he is Mormon; he is just completely and utterly clueless. For instance, suggestions of corruption and bribery in developing governments shocked him to the core; he really had no idea that such things went on. This is especially remarkable because Ben is studying international relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies, one of Europe’s finest IR schools. His naivety was bewildering, but back to the point of the story… this does all tie back to the aforementioned parade. Ben’s ignorance did not stop at failing to understand the nuances of the international world; he also did not seem to realize that the rest of our class wasn’t quite the Jesus loving, sin condemning crowd to which he was accustomed. This was most clearly revealed when I mentioned going to the Lake Parade that weekend, and he looked at me with horror in his eyes. I knew nothing about the parade, so I asked him what about it was so upsetting. His response was – “Well, ughhhh, gaaaaaah, it’s just that, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this but, the parade is full of GAY and LESBIAN people.” I think the daggers coming from my eyes were enough to give clueless Ben a bit of clue, and he shut up fairly quickly. Surprisingly, I’m not Ben’s biggest fan.

But back to the parade – After some cocktails at Monica and Chandler’s, the crew departed for the parade. I was pretty excited as Pride parades are always a good time. This one did not disappoint in terms of good times, but it wasn’t really a pride parade. It was a bunch of floats from different local clubs, with scantily clad people (some of whom, judging by their behavior, were not at all gay) dancing to techno music. Every float was basically the same, except the color of the clothing and the veracity of the float riders gyrating. Luckily, I was with company that I thoroughly enjoyed, so we danced to the music, took pictures with some of the parade participants, and had a grand time. Best part of the floats was definitely this guy - I think he thought I was checking him out, but I had to make that sacrafice to get the picture.

After the parade there was a “performance” by some local rap artists. I’m calling it a performance because there were people on stage with microphones, suggesting that they were in fact performing, but really the rappers had very little to do with the show. They pretty much just threw on some old rap albums, and then the men with mics sang along with the chorus. They actually played Hip Hop Hurray and Jump Around and when the chorus came on they would appear from the back corner of the stage and behave as if they were rappers putting on a show, throwing their arms around, trying to hype up the audience. It was really very sad. So we gave up on the show fairly early, and went back to Monica and Chandler’s apartment, where most of us quickly fell asleep. Good times.

Mmmm, Cheese

2006-07-18T14:23:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately, prior to my invite to the mountain chalet, I had agreed to a Sunday work trip, escorting the Algerians on their trip to Gruyere, Switzerland. The trip was going to include a tour of the cheese factory (including cheese samples!), a tour of the local castle, and a free lunch. When I made the commitment it seemed like a great idea; it was a trip I would have probably paid for one my own, and this way I could do it for free, and enjoy the company of the Algerians. Of course, the day after I committed to Gruyere I got the invite to Chandler's chalet, which was infinitely more enticing. Chandler told me at the concert on Friday night that his chalet was conveniently, just ten minutes from Gruyere, so they could just drop me off at the cheese factory on Sunday morning – how simple. Sadly, life can never be that simple. A week earlier two of the Algerians had fallen off of a train when the doors opened and the train continued to move (in the US they would now be millionaires, but people aren’t very litigious here.) Because of this incident, my boss was worried about other potential catastrophes, and refused to allow the Algerians to travel on the chartered bus without me. Hence, on Sunday morning, I woke up at 5:30 AM (three and half short hours after I had gone to bed), and got on a 6:00 AM train back to Geneva, so I could get on a bus to go back to where I had started. It took me three hours to complete a ten-minute trip.

But ridiculous travels aside, the trip was great. Spending time with the participants is always fun and the castle and the town of Gruyere were beautiful. The cheese factory was a little boring, but the cheese samples were stellar, making the factory visit completely worthwhile. I did admittedly get a little angry during the trip because everyone kept dispersing to take photos of everything. I had to try and rein in 29 stubborn adults who did not want to function on a Western time schedule – hence we were late everywhere we went. I finally started leveraging my control over lunch, threatening to leave them behind without telling them where we were going to eat. Food was a very effective tool to keep them all moving. Once at lunch, I had the pleasure of participating in one of my favorite kinds of conversations – what’s your culture like. Although I learned a lot about Algeria, I think the most important piece of information relayed was from me to one of the Algerians. He told me that he could never live in the US because our cheese was so bad. Now, judging by our current location in Gruyere, and the general quality of cheese in Switzerland, I wasn’t entirely shocked by this statement until it occurred to me that this man had never been to the US. How could he possibly know what kind of cheese we have available in the States? So I asked him how he knew about US cheese, and he said, “Well, I’ve had American cheese at McDonalds and it’s awful.” He was shocked when I explained that we had lots of other kinds of cheese in the US and that most of our food was quite different from what you get at McDonalds. Apparently Mickey Ds is giving us a bad culinary rap in developing countries.

After lunch and a little free time for the Algerians to spend far too much money on crappy Swiss souvenirs (they love that stuff, I don’t know why) we headed back home. I was exhausted, but spent the ride chatting with my favorite Algerian, Hassen (pictured in the 4^th of July entry). By the time I got home, I was in a bit of daze, but I diligently set my alarm clock for 8:00 PM, so I could get up to watch the World Cup finals. Sadly, after setting my alarm, I failed to turn it on, and I slept from 6:00 until 11:00 when I woke up to the stupid Italians honking their horns. I was disappointed that I had missed the game, but not so upset that I couldn’t go back to sleep – I slept until 6:45 the next morning; it was great.

I'm Back

2006-07-17T13:57:00.000+02:00

If you’re curious, no I did not fall off the face of the earth. I did however, spend the last week in class, hence my inability to write in my blog. I have lots of catching up to do, but I’ll start with two weekends ago.

On Friday night, a slew of people headed out to one of the best features of Geneva – free concerts in the park. Donavon Frankenreiter, of Jack Johnson’s label, was performing and I highly recommend checking him out. There was a little rain, but instead of dispersing the crowd, it sparked their enthusiasm, and the evening was full of good ol' hippie style dancing and fun. At one point, questing for a cigarette for Monica, we stumbled on a group of gypsies (or perhaps they were just dirty, grungy kids – but gypsies sounds better) sitting in a circle near the bathrooms. Why they chose to sit near the bathrooms was unclear, but they were very friendly, eager to speak what little English they could, and were thrilled to roll Monica a cigarette – I am officially a fan of gypsies/dirty teenagers.

After the concert, Joey and I slept at Monica and Chandler’s apartment – why you ask – so we could get an early start for Chandler’s chalet in the Swiss Alps! Yes that’s right, I’ve made friends with someone who has (well his parents have) a chalet in the Alps. We had grand plans to leave for the chalet at 7:00 AM, but didn’t actually get up and out of town until around 11:00 (shocking I know). At one point during the drive, Chandler claimed that the chalet was just a nice little house in the mountains, nothing too spectacular… but he was lying. The house was beautiful; everything in it - walls, floors, closets, cabinetry - was made of brand new pine. It smelled amazing. Everything about the house was elegant while at the same time homey and inviting - I loved it. Aside from the house itself, the fact that it was in the Alps added just a bit to the whole experience. The mountains are beautiful, there’s a stream that runs by, providing a constant soothing sound of water, and the air is so fresh and so clean, clean. The whole thing was so choice… if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

After a delicious lunch of bacon cheeseburgers (not sure when I last ate one of those) the boys and girls split up for different hikes. The girls opted for a nice little uphill jaunt to see the valley just on the other side of the mountain, while the boys decided that they would climb to the top of the mountain. Being boys, and consequently somewhat absurd, Joey and Chandler anticipated making it up the mountain in about an hour - that hour ended up being four. We (Monica and I) were quite happy that we had skipped the mountain climbing, and instead enjoyed some extra time for showering, naps, and a lively game of scrabble. After the boys finally resurfaced around nine we had a tasty dinner of steaks and fine wine courtesy of Chandler’s parents (they called and said we could have whatever we wanted, so we weren’t being terrible guests). All in all, it was a lovely day, and I wish I could have spent more time there. Sadly, I had to leave at 6:00 AM the next morning – reason for this to be explained in my next entry.

I'm Spiderman

2006-07-17T13:55:00.000+02:00

Here's a good way to waste time at work.

Swiss Cowboys

2006-07-07T13:59:00.000+02:00

This was my first 4^th of July that I’ve spent outside the US, and I was a little bummed about not being home barbequing and spending the day on the lake. Luckily, there were festivities in Geneva, so we still had a chance to celebrate. The Geneva American Club hosted a party complete with line dancing, hot air balloons, bumper cars, bands, and the one thing no 4^th party can be without, a fife and drum core. We made it to the party around 8:30, starving for dinner, and excited about the prospect of eating lots of American food; we ended up rather disappointed. There was one tent that served miserable looking hamburgers, with a line at least 40 or 50 people long. This line in the US would not have been entirely daunting, but in Europe a line of four people takes about fifteen minutes to get through, so waiting in the hamburger line was out of the question. The other three tents served kebobs, Thai food, and crepes, the evening of Americaness was not starting out very American. In fact, none of the people who worked at the tents spoke English, and I would guess that over half of the people in attendance, including the cowboy hat-wearing line dancers, were in fact Swiss. There was just as much French spoken at the party as there is on the streets of Geneva. I must say it’s rather disturbing to walk past a woman in a cowboy hat and boots, a ruffled skirt, and a tasseled jacket, and here French coming out of her mouth. It’s like you’re watching a dubbed Western film, except it’s real life.

Having settled on a kebob, and springing for the over priced Budweiser (you can’t drink European beer on the 4^th) we wandered over to the TV screens to do something entirely un-American… watch the German v. Italy World Cup semifinal. While standing by the TVs, I bumped into two of the Algerian participants from my work. They were quite excited about the festivities and were going to the bandstand to hear some more American music, which they apparently loved.

A half an hour later, fed up with crowding around a tiny TV screen to watch a match I really didn’t care about, I wandered over to the bandstand to see if I could find the entire Algerian group (six of them had come to the party). When I arrived, I found a highly amusing site – Algerian men dancing to Blue Suede Shoes. It’s not something you can really appreciate unless you’ve seen it in person, but just imagine a lot of flailing about, some air guitar, and an overall complete lack of rhythm. One of the men saw me in the crowd and invited me to come dance with them. How could I resist – it was going to be one of those rare situations where I looked like a great dancer because I was surrounded by awful dancers. We danced for at least an hour or two, during which time they insisted that I teach them how to dance like Americans. It is important to note that they meant, dancing like the other Americans around us, which was older couples dancing in a 60s rock fashion (there was no grinding involved). So we did some basic twirling and attempted that one move where you both put your left elbow over your head and slide your hands down the other persons arm, and grab hands at the end (did that make any sense). Anyhow, that move was less than successful, so a good portion of the dancing just meant me being twirled and being very, very dizzy. Needless to say, I laughed a lot.

After the dancing, there were fireworks, which were a bit erratic, but the grand finale was stellar, so that made up for the occasional three-minute pauses we had to wait through in the middle of the show. The end of the night was capped with another half hour of dancing, before my ride (Chandler has a car!) was ready to go. All in all, it was a wonderful 4^th of July, even if it was only vaguely American.

I Don't Mind if I Think I Join You

2006-07-06T12:10:00.000+02:00

A parental warning: Behavior of Beth and her friends during the previous weekend may not have been the most mature. However, be assured that the situation was always under control, and everyone was always very safe.

A warning to everyone else: This is a very long entry. It probably should have been in installments, but its too late for that now.

My weekend more or less began on Thursday night after a riveting lecture on the future of the IMF and the World Bank in Global Governance (yes that is what people do for fun around here.) After the talk there was a reception with cold food that was meant to be warm, and a dreadful two hours of answering these two questions: So, what’s your internship? & What do you plan to do after graduation? Of course the worst part about having to answer those questions is that you are obligated to then ask them back, and then listen to the response. So, when the gaggle of interns all agreed that they would continue the evening together by all going in mass (about twenty-five people) to a party at a hotel, I announced that I was very sorry to have to miss the rest of the evening, but had already made plans with another friend. (Actually, that would have been the polite thing to do – but in reality I just told a couple of my Duke friends that there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going along with the group and that I was going to have a beer with one of our other friends. This friend is a blessed soul who also hates traveling with large groups and doesn’t enjoy conversations with interns who like to talk about their 5 Year Plan.)

So I bolted from intern hell and met up with said friend (Joey) and his new S. African (but really quite British) friend Chandler. (I have decided to use pseudonyms for the explanation of this weekend, on the off chance that any of the people I write about opt to run for office some day. I decided to use Friends character names because I’m not feeling particularly creative, and this way you can picture the people while you read about the story.) Joey and Chandler had shockingly decided to miss the lecture on the IMF and the World Bank and opted instead to crash a party at Chandler’s work, which apparentlly had lots of free food and plenty of alcohol. When I met them, they were both a little tipsy and consequently far more fun than the people from the reception. We headed off with a plan to stop at the first bar we found, which in Geneva could take days of walking… luckily, it only took us about ten minutes. Three beers later, after lots of laughing (mind you I didn’t laugh once with the intern gaggle at the reception), we all headed our separate ways planning to meet again the next night to head to the Montreux Jazz Festival, in lovely Montreux, Switzerland. (Side note, the best part of Montreux, aside from the Jazz Festival, is the giant statue of Freddie Mercury, seen above, that graces the banks of Lake Geneva. Who knew the people of Switzerland love Freddie so much.)

Friday after work, Joey and I met up, and enjoyed an apple treat and then headed out to purchase alcohol from the grocery store to avoid having to pay for ridiculously priced beers once at the jazz festival. Then we met Chandler, his girlfriend Monica, and there two friends, Phoebe and Ross at the train station. (If you’re noting that I have left myself as Rachel, clearly the most desirable character, I would like to point out that each character was assigned there pseudonym based on some trait – Phoebe really is blond, Chandler and Monica are dating, Ross is a doctor (an MD, but close enough), and Joey really does say “how you doing?” to girls.) Once in Montreux, having become acquainted and a little inebriated, we made our way to the Reggae show that we had all paid far too much to see. On our way in we passed the “SHOTS” bar to which Ross quickly diverted us, as he apparently “loves shots.” A tequila shot and a bag check later we were in the concert. Strangely, although we were required to check our bags, we were allowed to bring in any outside drink or food, as long as it wasn’t in a glass container. A quick mix of our available liquids led to a lovely cocktail of peach iced tea mixed with whiskey in a diet coke bottle (I would say it made me feel like I was 16 again, except I didn’t drink when I was 16).

The concert was fun, but I can’t really confirm if the bands were good because my ability to identify quality music was a bit impaired. Each band had a guitar, a keyboard, drums, and some other instruments, plus a guy singing, and they all seemed to producing music in an upbeat, synchronized fashion – that was good enough for me. Aside from our peach iced tea/whisky cocktails, some lighted substances may also have been passed around (I debated whether to add this to the story, but decided that my highly occasional smoking of a mild sedative wouldn’t be too devastating to my parents… plus I have no intention whatsoever of seeking office in the good ol’ USofA.)

After the show we managed to find a food stand with Central American food and I got to eat something that resembled a quesadilla. It wasn’t as great as a post-bar burrito, but it was pretty good. After eating my food, I apparently took a little nap on my arm, but was mocked for the remainder of the weekend for having “fallen asleep in my tacos.” Oh how people exaggerate. The following day, the guys found much relief from their football misery (England lost to Portugal in a shoot out) thanks to a little nickname they made up for me. My “Indian” name was once Little Big Head, but I have now been rechristened She Who Wakes With Black Beans in Her Eyes. If you don’t find that name particularly funny, it’s ok, you had to be there, and it was only really funny if you are delirious with grief due to your team’s complete inability to capitalize on penalty shots.

But I skipped ahead in the weekend… back to eating on Friday night. During my brief nap Monica kept insisting that she had to have a crepe. Apparently her slurred speech led to crepe sounding more like crap, and a barrage of jokes about wanting a brown, messy crap ensued. I was asleep during these jokes, but I fear, had I been awake, I would have found them quite funny. After food we headed to the train station, which had a distinct shortage of benches, so we sprawled on the platform floor. On the train ride home, we were graced with the presence of many of the interns from the reception the night before. Joey apparently scared one of them away by repeatedly telling her how much he enjoyed the messy crap he had that night. Chandler then managed to rid us of another intern by asking about her 5 Year Plan. No, she didn’t leave because of how lame his question was, she was really excited to answer the question - she left because after he asked it, he would dose off and then around year three of her response, he would say… “wait, wait, can you go back to year one” or “excuse me, do you have a Five Year Plan.” After about four rounds of this, the girl finally realized that she would never be able to finish relaying her fabulous 5 Year Plan, and she left us too. Our loss I’m sure.

We finally arrived back home around 4:30 AM, at which point I was oddly awake and forward planning. I got ready for bed, then, concerned with my lunch plans for the following day, put a Diet Pepsi bottle in the fridge and pulled some chicken out of the freezer to defrost. If only I thought ahead that much on nights when I’m sober and go to bed at eleven.

Saturday was not nearly as entertaining as Friday, so I will list the events for the sake of brevity.

- Awoke to a pleasantly cold bottle of Diet Pepsi and chicken ready to be prepared. Ate tasty lunch and cleaned apartment.

- Watched Portugal v. Britain soccer match, and feared for my life when giant, scary, bug eyed Portuguese man kept roaring (yes roaring) in our faces whenever Portugal scored in the shoot out. It is possible, had Britain won, that none of us would have survived the crazy man’s bloodbath.

- Cursed the Portuguese for driving in circles around Geneva for hours honking their horns. How this doesn’t get old after about ten minutes is a mystery to me.

- Christened "She Who Wakes With Black Beans in Her Eyes" – boys giggle about name for remainder of day.

- Headed to Chandler and Monica’s flat for a dinner of tortellini and delicious wine – rumor has it that Chandler’s family has a vineyard or a winery or both, I’m not really sure, but whatever they have – we drank very tasty wine.

- Moved to family room with girls to teach them how to play Texas Holdem (their request), while the boys stayed in the kitchen and partook in more of the previously mentioned lighted sedative.

- Chandler entered family room and said “I Don’t Mind if I Think I Join You,” which amused me to no end. Had to leave the room to go write it down, so I could be sure to put it in my blog.

- Drank a very nice bottle of 1984 wine, only realizing after finishing the bottle that fine wine should probably be saved for occasions when people can appreciate it (ie – not at 3:00 in the morning after lots of warm beer and three other bottles of wine.)

- Retuned home and passed out, awaking with a commitment to never be that ridiculous again (by never, I mean not until next weekend when Chandler has more friends in town).

2006-07-05T11:34:00.000+02:00

Herding Cats

I'm working on my entry about last weekend, but in the mean time I thought I would share this commercial with everyone. I'm sure you've all missed seeing as much as I have.

Devastated

2006-07-04T13:59:00.000+02:00

Devastated is the only word I can use to describe how I feel today. Maybe I'm a little behind in my Michigan sports news being out of the country and all, but man did ESPN.com give me a one-two punch today. First the headline that Ben Wallace is going to the Bulls and then the official announcement that Stevie Y is retiring. Going from dumbfounded rage to reminiscent sorrow - it was quite a wave emotions. I, of course, went ahead and read everything I could about Stevie and his glorious career, watched clips of inspiring videos, told stories to my office mates about magical Stevie moments (they didn't seem to care, but I had to talk to someone about it), and remembered the good times we shared. I did not, however, read anything about Ben Wallace, as he is dead to me now. As of yesterday, he was probably my second favorite player in the NBA except for Tayshaun Prince. Now I have to admit - if he had a career ending injury I don't think I'd mind at all; it might even make me smile a little. Harsh words perhaps, but there's no forgiving what he did. If he had been traded, if he had no control over the situation, then I could have gone ahead and continued to support him, loved him for the goofy big man he that he is... but going to the Bulls as a free agent - it's unacceptable, treason really, and I'm through with him. And to all you Bulls fans that are reading this - just remember what happened to Grant Hill after he abandoned Detroit (under far more understandable circumstances) - the injury gods plagued him year after year. I bet Ben's ankles are getting weaker as we speak.

Sorry to those of you who don't care at all about basketball or hockey - I promise to write lots about my weekend soon. It was spent with a bunch of Brits, so it was of course an entire of weekend of amusing absurdity. That entry to come soon.

Oh, and happy 4th of July everyone!

Frizzle Friend Adventures

2006-06-27T15:49:00.000+02:00

I don’t particularly feel like writing today, but I have nothing else to do (or nothing else I want to do). Plus I’ve been a giant blogging slacker. I will do my best to be entertaining, even in my uninspired state, because I feel a sense of obligation to provide all of you with a procrastination option at work. (Oh, but for those days that I don’t write, which will probably be the rest of this week, I highly recommend wasting away your work day at Dave Eggers McSweeny’s. Just be careful not to laugh out loud, or people will suspect that you aren’t toiling away at a spreadsheet like you’re supposed to.)

But back to me and my oh so riveting life. Frisbee friend Kacey arrived on Thursday night and we headed out to frisbee practice, so I could run off all of the anger that had built up during the US/Ghana match. (By the way, the Ghanaian fans around us were without a doubt the most insulting, obnoxious fans I have ever watched a sports event with. Ghana is officially my least favorite team in the World Cup.) After practice we had a beer with a couple of guys from my team at the sports complex bar. I’ve had a beer at this bar five or six times now, and I still can’t get over my amusement and glee at the idea of a bar built right into the sports facilities. How smart is it to put athletic fields and bars together, embracing the fact that adult athletes are really just participating in sports, so afterwards they can have a reason to go to the bar on a weekday night. Think of all the money Chicago Parks and Recreation could make if they put in bars right by all the softball fields… someone should look into my plan, save the tax payers a pretty penny.

On Friday night, Kacey and I ventured out to my coworkers going away party, hosted by her two older brothers. The party was 80% Swedes, which meant it was 100% great. Scandinavians are good people. (I realize that my Danish friends reading this may be upset by my lumping them in with Swedes, but frankly I have yet to meet a Scandinavian I didn’t like, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, or Finnish.) There was lots of tasty wine and champagne at the party plus very social people who went out of their way to make Kacey and I feel welcome. Gunner, my friend’s older brother, even offered to show me the lively Geneva nightlife that I (and all of my friends) have been unable to find. He was a little tipsy when he made the offer, so I’m not sure if he’ll actually follow through on it, but it was a nice gesture nonetheless.

Saturday wasn’t particularly exciting. We slept in, went to the park, watched the Sweden/Germany game (I was rooting for Sweden after the Swedish hospitality from the night before, so they inevitably lost.) Then everyone took a nap and awoke to a thunderstorm, which we all agreed was a sign that we should skip the bars that night. We stayed in, splitting a couple bottles of wine and playing a rousing game of Gin Rummy. I, of course, proved my superior ability at collecting three of kinds and small straights, crushing the competition. The fools… they should have given up and conceded defeat the moment I told them my parents met at a bridge tournament. Cards are in my blood, and no contest demands the mind of a card shark like a game of Gin Rummy.

Sunday, Kacey and I had big plans to take a day trip to Annecy, France, as we had both heard that it was beautiful and only a short trip from Geneva. Turns out, the short trip was an hour and half long, and by the time we would have arrived we would have had two and half hours to see the city before the last train back. Somehow, it didn’t seem worth it. So we went to Lausanne, Switzerland instead, which is about 45 minutes away from Geneva and has trains running all day. In Lausanne, we visited two cathedrals, each of which brought me an overwhelming sense of relief and calm upon entrance. A spiritual epiphany?… perhaps. Or it could have been that I was sweating up a storm outside trudging up a big hill in the sun and humidity and old stone churches are cool and dark giving me a chance to dry off. Who knows which was the cause of my serenity, but either way, I thoroughly enjoyed our time in the churches. One of them even had lots of dead people all around the back, and a wooden door in the floor with a big metal ring to open it. Sadly, the door was locked, destroying all of my hopes for an Indiana Jones/Da Vinci Code-esque adventure. Just once, I want to go into an old church or a castle and find a crazy door that leads into some unaltered, abandoned nether regions of the building, delivering me to astounding discoveries and adventures. Is that really too much to ask for?

After the churches we wandered into some giant building filled with four different museums, where we unintentionally wandered into a geology exhibit without paying. Actually, it wasn’t that we unintentionally wandered in without paying, we had no intention of paying to look at shiny rocks (even though we both confessed during our viewing that we had collected rocks as children… Kacey had even been to a rock show to purchase rocks, which I think qualifies her as the bigger dork, since I just picked my rocks up off the ground). Anyhow, the unintentional part was that we didn’t realize we were stealing our viewing of the rocks because we didn’t know we were supposed to pay. When there’s no one sitting there telling you to pay and everything’s in French how can you tell.

After the rocks we went to down to the lake, bought some fruit at street market, and walked through the International Olympic Committee gardens. We were too cheap to pay to go in the Olympic museum, but we figured we could guess what was going to be in there – in the current Olympics section some pictures of people playing sports and lists of Olympic records, and in the historical section, some statues of naked guys wrestling. As much as I like the Olympics, I don’t need to spend $10 to see a list of athletic records, and frankly I think someone should pay me if I have to see naked guys wrestling.

Well, that was one of the longest entries I’ve written this summer. I guess I was mistaken at the beginning of this entry. Apparently my blogging spirit is alive and well, I just needed to get started and then I was on a roll. Sorry I rambled so much. Odds are that I won’t write again until next week because I have to go to class on Thursday and Friday, instead of coming to work. Boo class! I might be going to Swiss Nationals this weekend with the frisbee team, so that should be fun, and should provide lots of stories for me to share next week. Ciao chicos.

Weekend Wonderland

2006-06-21T17:28:00.000+02:00

Hurray for an exciting weekend in Geneva. The Fete de Musique was everything I could have hoped for. There were people everywhere, most of the acts were great, and there was food from all over the world. Friday night was probably the highlight of the weekend, as everything was new and novel. We had a couple of beers (maybe a couple plus one or two – enough to give me the impression that I was a good dancer.) Then we wandered around and listened to a little Samba, a rock band with a fiddle (always a good edition), and some African tribal type music performed by an old white guy. At first, although I enjoyed the white man’s African beats, I was skeptical of his actual talent and authenticity (because what do I know about African music). But there were a number of African people in the crowd listening who seemed to be enjoying his music, so that gave him all kinds of credibility. Eventually we left the African tent, so I could get away from an awkward conversation with a guy from Senegal who barely spoke English – loud drums and bad English are not a good combination. On our way to hunt up some crepes (not quite as good as pizza for a late night snack, but amazing none the less), we came across a drum band that was making its way through the park. Suddenly, my generally reserved dancing disappeared and I was hopping about with the crowd, clapping, stomping, swaying, and probably making a complete fool of myself. Luckily, everyone else around me was also flailing about, and we had a really good time, so no regrets about my absurdity. The night ended shortly there after with a Nutella filled crepe – I love Nutella.

Saturday was the first time in three weeks I had been able to sleep in, so I took full advantage of it and slept until 11:15. After savoring some much needed alone time I headed back out to the Fete and spent my afternoon listening to classical music. I met up with friends around 3:30 and we heard an amazing choir sing at the St. Pierre Cathedral, moved on to some reggae, and then hit the bar to watch the US play Italy. The game was wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time. The US red cards were crap and we outplayed Italy nearly the entire game. During the game, we met a Parisian named Benjamin, who was in town for work. He ended up tagging along with us for the rest of the night, and has promised to be our tour guide when we visit Paris.

Sunday, I spent nearly the entire day on my own, so there was lots of time for personal thought. Here’s a few of the things that went through my mind that day:

1. I fully support french horns. I was a skeptic for a while, but they’re pretty great.

2. I still can’t get behind the oboe – my older sister Leslie played the oboe when we were kids, and it turns out the dying duck sound that often came from her room was not the result of her novice status, but rather a shortcoming of the instrument itself.

3. Is that person in front of me a man or a woman?

4. Gospel music is not meant to be sung by white people – especially French white people – it’s horrid.

5. Jazz flute is only good when it’s done really well. Bad jazz flute is tragic.

6. One should never go see Broadway Hits performed by a local theater troupe, especially when the troupe is singing in a second or third language - I went to not one, but two Broadway Hits performances, and made it through three songs in the first one and four in the second. The highlight of the performances was when a Vietnamese woman sang the Phantom of the Opera classic “Sink of Me.” I know many of you thought the title of the song was “Think of Me,” but she was clearly singing “sink of me, sink of me fondly.”

7. Free opera is not great and it isn’t really opera; it’s just people on a tiny stage singing in really high-pitched voices.

8. Why is the man next to me fidgeting violently in his chair… a seizure? inspired by the music? too many drugs? he hates the oboe too?

9. Blues and jazz are infinitely better live.

10. There is never a better time to visit a free museum then during a passing rainstorm. Modern art is much more interesting when it keeps you dry. That is, until people bring screaming children in the museum, then it’s better to be wet.

After my day alone, I met up with some people from work to see a coworker rap in his trio La Resistance. At work he’s the nicest, quietest guy on the planet, but give him a mic and he’s flowing about his bitches and hoes. (Actually he could have been rapping about saving the world for all I know, but for the sake of his street cred, I’m gonna say it was 100% pure gansta rap.)

That’s all from Geneva for now. Next installation – the madness that will ensue when frisbee friend Kacey arrives from France because she has “no where else to stay at the moment.”

I Know Most of You Don't Care About Frisbee, But...

2006-06-20T09:47:00.000+02:00

You've got to see this video clip. I heard about it from a couple of guys at frisbee practice last night and it's ridiculous. At first it's not that exciting, just some guy jumping pretty high, but the end is great. Apparently the clip made Sportscenter's top 10 plays of the day.

Lots more to come on the Fete de Musique, but there's so much to say, and I haven't had time to write. Stupid work keeping me busy.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

2006-06-16T16:22:00.000+02:00

This weekend is the big Geneva music festival, Fete de la Musique Geneve. There will be over 20 stages around town with all kinds of music. According to the locals, the best plan of attack is to just walk around town until you hear something you like and then follow the music. Personally, I plan on taking full advantage of all of the free shows. Aside from your standard jazz, classical, rock, pop, blues, they also have free ballet and opera. I’ve never been to a ballet or an opera, so I’ll have to cash in on that experience. Someone at work pointed out that free ballet or opera probably means it won’t be very good, but I’m sure I won’t know the difference. Having received most of my exposure to ballet from Save the Last Dance, I can’t imagine I will be able to identify a bad ballet unless a woman gets dropped on her face or someone falls of stage. (I have to admit that I sort of hope that happens, so I can have a good story to tell on Monday. I’m a terrible person.)

There is also going to be a large amount of Fanfare music. What in the world is Fanfare? Almost every stage has Fanfare at some point, and I have no idea what that means. I’m picturing lots of bright colors and people jumping around wildly, perhaps with some kind of circus music playing. I’ll let you know on Monday if I’m right.

Pictures You Need to See

2006-06-13T12:00:00.000+02:00

Not much happened yesterday. I skipped frisbee practice to watch the US/Czech game... bad decision. Wow did we get our asses handed to us. But I haven't lost faith yet; we're going to beat the Italians.

Since there isn't much to tell, to liven up the blog for the day, I've decided to post pictures of my admirers. One of the pictures I stole from our work server, which probably isn't kosher, but it's just so funny that I thought everyone had to see it. Here's Fardeen posing on a ledge in front of the mountains. I just saw this picture for the first time today. I'm sure if I had seen it before the evening of tea, cookies, and creams, I would never have been able to resist his advances.

This second picture is of Jawaid and I in Geneva. Not nearly so amusing as Fardeen's picture, but I wanted to share pictures of both men.

Michigan - God's Land

2006-06-12T09:53:00.000+02:00

My sister Amy was in town this weekend on her way to Florence. We had a nice Saturday, touring Geneva and eating crepes. Then on Sunday we went to Chateau de Chillon, a castle that dates back to the tenth century. I expected to go and have a pleasant day, enjoy the scenery, maybe learn a little, but I could never have anticipated what we found in the castle's Great Hall. It was a revelation of astronomic proportions. I saw conclusive evidence that angels once lived in Michigan, hence the glory of the state. This photo is of a tapestry made in the 13th century... look at what the angel is doing. Clearly he's about to point out on his hand where he lives in Michigan. Suddenly all of those billboards in Grand Rapids reminding us that God is watching have a whole new meaning. And if you're wondering if there are still angels amoung us in Michigan, just take a moment and think... what group of people is always committed to protecting and serving our state and nation, dedicated to ensuring security and liberty for all, clearly blessed beings committed to the work of our Lord. There should be no doubt in your mind who I'm talking about. God Bless America and God Bless the Michigan Militia.

Michiganders are Taking Over the World

2006-06-09T13:23:00.000+02:00

I forgot to mention that yesterday at frisbee I met a guy from Grand Rapids, who went to high school at Forest Hills Northern (a school I used to play in tennis). Plus he went to Carlton with one of my classmates from Duke, Jeff Jensen. It's cliche, but man it's a small world. In traditional Michigander form, we spent much of the remainder of practice discussing the greatest place on earth - Michigan. We lamented the Pistons and Red Wings playoff runs and marveled at the Tigers starting record. We agreed that Euchre is the greatest card game on earth and planned to play sometime with the other two Michigan types from Duke - Jason and Nate. Euchre night will definitely become a Michigan lovefest. We'll have to be sure not to have any of the other kids from the Duke program around because apparently they find our affection for Michigan somewhat nauseating. The fools just don't understand the majesty of Michigan.

The Big Surprise

2006-06-09T11:43:00.000+02:00

Much to my disappointment (or maybe my relief) Jawaid’s surprise was not very exciting, and rather strange. His surprise was that he is in fact married and has a son… he had lied to me about it because he thought it would be funny to tell me the truth later. He revealed his surprise by giving me a set of pictures from our trip and putting a picture of his son at the end of the slideshow. He was so amused with himself when I saw the picture; he just giggled and giggled. The man really has a terrible sense of humor. So he has a wife and a kid, which is good for him, and not of much interest to me.

I went to frisbee practice last night and received the official Geneva greeting from a couple of the guys - the triple cheek kiss (TCK). Now that I get to greet people with the TCK I feel just like a local (or little bit like a local). A note on the triple cheek kiss – I fully support the one cheek kiss greeting or even the two cheek, but three switchbacks is just ridiculous. When a large group meets, it takes a good five minutes for everyone to greet each other. It’s absurd (and apparently I'm not the only person who thinks so).

Talampaya

2006-06-08T10:35:00.000+02:00

I’m back and ready to report on my weekend of Frisbee. I had a lot of fun on Saturday because I played well, and the team was consequently very nice to me. Then on Sunday, I had a bit of an off day, and the team wasn’t so nice. Not that they were mean, just not so friendly. I think that I have been spoiled by Chicago ultimate because most everyone I’ve played with there has been great. Now I expect all frisbee players to be super warm and inviting and welcoming and apparently its not necessarily that way. So perhaps I went in with too high of expectations, thinking everyone would treat me like I was their best friend within 10 minutes of meeting me. Luckily, there were a few of people who warmed up to me pretty quickly – especially the Canadian guy from Toronto, who didn’t seem quite as disgusted by my Americaness as the rest of the team. Also, surprisingly, the one French guy on the team was also very welcoming.

But to the tournament. We won all three of our pool games on Saturday, won two of three on Sunday, and sadly lost both games on Monday and ended up 8^th out of 32. Not a bad tournament, but it was not a great ending day.

Sunday night there was a great party. The theme was “Icarus’ Dream & Other Flying Elements.” I didn’t get dressed up, but some of the teams went all out. I actually ended up taking the bus to the party with a German team that were dressed as parachuters. They all had on white jumpsuits and little tarps tied to their backpacks. I looked so out of place with them – it’s probably the only time in my life that I will feel silly because I’m not wearing a white jumpsuit. I wish I had pictures to post of the cupids, and the flight attendants, and the hot air balloons, and the bees, and the penguins (yes I know penguins can’t fly, but it was a good effort). The costumes were all really great. And there was some tribal band, kind of Stomp-esque, that played at the beginning of the night, and they were really good. Plus once I got a couple of beers in me, I found that talking to my teammates was much easier. To add to my party fun, since I was on the hosting team, beer was only 1 franc or $.80. That’s a heck of a deal.

So that’s about it from the tournament. Since then, I’ve mostly been working a lot. We have a new group in at work – 34 people from 30 different countries. They should be interesting to have around.

Oh and something I forgot to mention earlier. Jawaid promised me a surprise on his last day here, which is today, so I have to confess that I’m very curious about what I’m going to get. I’m not as excited for the surprise as my roommate Eric, who thinks Jawaid is going to propose, but still rather anxious to find out what he’s got planned. I will fill ya’ll in tomorrow.

France Shmance

2006-06-01T11:39:00.000+02:00

We have a three day weekend this week, apparently Monday is the Pentecost, Hallelujah! The original plan was to go to a Nimes, France to partake in their Pentecost Festival, complete with bull fights, sangria, and tapas. (I know, it sounds like Spain, but apparently the Nimeians realized how much cooler the Spanish are than the French and decided to hijack a little bit of the superior Spanish culture). I was excited to go until something better and much cheaper came my way. Rather fortuitously, I couldn't leave the office at lunch yesterday to buy my train ticket. Later in the afternoon, the captain of Geneva's frisbee team, the Wizards, sent me an email inviting me to play with the team this weekend at the tournament they host. I don't have to pay the player's fee, and the schedule for the tournament looks great. I get three solid days of frisbee, lots of food and drinks at the three parties they host, and I'll have the chance to meet lots of crazy European hippies. How could I pass that up. So France some other weekend, frisbee this weekend. Only downside to all of this is that I haven't played in a month, so I'm insanely out of shape. Walking on Tuesday might be difficult.

If Only My Lungs Were Self-Cleaning Too

2006-05-31T11:18:00.000+02:00

I’ve pretty much caught the blog up to where I am now. Nothing terribly exciting has happened since my trip to Interlaken on Saturday. There was a tiny party in the lobby of my building last night where I met a bunch of chain smoking Europeans. Honestly, why does everyone here smoke? Last Friday for work, I attended a World Health Organization conference on the effects of secondhand smoke, so I inevitably spent the entire party thinking about all of the short and long-term effects the smoke was having on my body. One of the guys who was smoking asked me if I was from California and hated him for smoking. I said that I wasn’t from California, but that I did hate him (maintaining a smile to imply that I was kidding, even though, let’s be honest, at the moment he and his three friends were lighting up in a tiny confined space, I might have hated him a little bit).

There’s something I forgot to mention about my trip to Bern that I think everyone needs to know about – my trip to the bathroom. At the restaurant where we had lunch, the toilets had self-cleaning seats. After you flushed the toilet, a little sponge hand came out of the back and the seat spun around so that the sponge would clean the entire seat. Now, I’ve always been rather impressed by the spinning plastic covers on the toilets at O’Hare, but this was even more amazing. (More amazing because it seems less wasteful, but also because I’ve always been a little suspicious that the plastic on the O’Hare toilets isn’t really new with each spin, but rather that the contraption just spins around the same plastic ring all day.) I wasn’t able to find a link to the maker of the self-cleaning toilet seat, but some very odd person has a blog dedicated to toilets (Porcelain), and he/she (my guess would be a he) has a picture of a toilet that is similar, although not exactly the same as the one I used.

Admirer Numéro Deux

2006-05-30T17:59:00.000+02:00

Highlight of yesterday – Eric (my roommate) stumbled on an open network and we had an internet connection in our apartment for about two hours. I of course, took full advantage of the situation, and downloaded the season finale of Lost, after which three of us huddled around my tiny computer to partake in all of its glory. I love that show. If you’ve never watched it, you should get Netflix, order Season 1 and 2, and get all caught for next fall. It would be a very productive use of 34 hours of your life.

But I digress from my story:

Admirer number two is not nearly so interesting as admirer number 1 (Fardeen), as he is a perfect gentleman. He has cooked me dinner, which he was absurdly proud of because it was only his third time cooking rice, and his first time cooking meat. Sometime during dinner he mentioned that he had a Canadian friend who lived in Switzerland, and that he planned to visit her and her husband in the mountains. He then of course invited me along. As I couldn’t claim that I was busy for the next three weeks, I said yes maybe, if it worked out, and then dropped the subject hoping it would be forgotten. It wasn’t. Last Thursday morning he called and woke me up… (It was a holiday here – we were celebrating the Ascension. I’ve never heard of this holiday, but I was happy to celebrate it by sleeping a lot. Apparently Jesus didn’t actually ascend to heaven until 40 days after he was resurrected, so eating chocolate bunnies and searching for eggs is only the first step in commemorating his death. On the Ascension, according to what I witnessed from the Swiss, to continue the worship of our Savior one should go to the park by the lake and have a beer. Amen. )

But back to my story – Admirer Numero Deux (a.k.a Jawaid) called me Thursday morning to let me know that he had looked into train tickets for our trip to Interlaken on Saturday. Having just woken up, my defenses were down, and I couldn’t think of an excuse not to go. My one tactic to avoid the trip was to ask how much the train ticket would cost and then plead poverty. Unfortunately that didn’t work because Jawaid insisted that he pay for my ticket, as I was a poor student. I told him he didn’t need to pay for me, he said he would have it no other way, and then, because I really am a poor student, I agreed.

So, some might wonder why I was so unhappy to go on a trip to Interlaken, for free, with a man who is a perfect gentlemen. My only good reason – he never shuts-up. He can’t handle one moment of silence; he complains every time I stop talking. I knew that 15 hours of trying to entertain him with conversation was going to drive me mad. I did my best to lay down the law when we first got to the train, insisting that he give me some quiet time on the train to watch the passing scenery and have my own thoughts. He agreed, but then when quiet time came, he lasted for about two minutes, before he blurted out that my thinking to myself was too stressful for him because he was sure that I was thinking bad thoughts about him or the trip. I assured him that I was doing no such thing (a little bit of lie), and commenced looking out the window again. A couple of minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I saw that he was staring at me… can you say “creepy”. I don’t know if it was a cultural difference, but honestly who sits across from someone and just stares. My only solution was to go to sleep, or at least pretend to sleep, so I wouldn’t be able to see him.

The day went on without much excitement. We rode on a two cable cars, hiked around, ate some food, enjoyed the splendor. I realized quickly that I was in far better shape than him, so I walked quickly to make him out of breath, so he couldn’t talk. This was effective sometimes, although he managed to work in plenty of miserable Afghan jokes, mid gasp. .. “Did I (wheez wheez) tell you the one (gasp) about the father who…" Not to be culturally incentive, but the Afghans are not a funny people.

On a brighter note, Interlaken is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to go back with my friends, so I can enjoy it without the pressure of near constant contrived conversation.

Back on the train that night, I was completely exhausted from talking, and my introvert was going into overload. We had more issues with him staring, resulting in me sleeping, but by the end of the ride he begged me to stay awake because he was “so bored” when I slept. At this point I was quite grumpy, and feeling extra grumpy because I felt guilty that he had spent some much money on me that day (I would guess around $200), and I was being completely ungrateful. But, I couldn’t make myself enjoy his company, so I decided to direct conversation toward things that might make him uncomfortable, hoping that he would then end our talking. I dove right in with the need for separation of church and state and the unfairness of women having to cover their heads – none of it worked. He had heard it all before, and expected nothing less from a American women. I was feeling desperate, running out of ideas, when I thought of the perfect subject. Something I was passionate about, and would be willing to stand up for, no matter how offended he became – gay rights! Man did I hit the jackpot. He was horrified. He couldn’t believe that I thought that being gay should be legal, and not just legal but accepted and embraced. When I asked him why it shouldn’t be legal, he said that it hurt society because men were meant to be with women to make babies and continue the race, and not doing so is a sin.

Now, if this were an episode of Lost I would flash you back to Jawaid in college when we was in love with a girl from his class, who he couldn’t marry because of cultural differences. Then we would see them break up, her get married to another man, and Jawaid swear that he would never love again and never marry. (Jawaid told me about all of this on the train.)

Noting to Jawaid his claim that he would never marry or have kids, I asked how he was any less of a sinner than a gay man. You’ve never seen a more horrified and perplexed face in your life. Jawaid was completely traumatized. Clearly he had never had any contact with a gay person and thought of them as some kind of monster. At one point he told me with absolute certainty that there wasn’t a single lesbian in Afghanistan – it was funny and depressing all at the same time. I broke the last straw when I told him that he would most definitely have gay classmates when he began his graduate studies in Monterrey next fall. I told him that they would be in his classes, in his groups, and that he would find out that are perfectly normal, wonderful people. The only word I can use to describe his face – terror. I kept saying, you’re going to meet gay people in Monterrey and in the end he actually begged me to stop talking. Success!

So the lesson of today’s story is – if you want to make an Afghan quiet talk about meeting gay people.

A closing note: If any of you have any concerns about all of this admiring going to my head - not to worry. As far as I'm concerned, this whole experience has been yet another example of my superior ability to attract strange men.

The Supermodel has Tea

2006-05-29T11:51:00.000+02:00

It’s Monday morning and I’m back at work, which isn’t quite as good as sleeping, but far more pleasant than being stuck at school. For the first time in my life I don’t spend Sunday night dreading having to start a new workweek. It’s pretty great.

The following is the world’s longest blog entry – you may want to read it in shifts:

Back to my Bern story (5/19/2006). I met the Afghan group and my boss Oscar at the train station at 6:45 AM to leave for Bern, which is as many of you know is not my best time of day. However, I was determined to make a good impression, and I was pretty excited about going to Bern, so I was uncharacteristically chipper. I went out of my way to strike up conversations with some of the men, as I had been instructed to do by the director of our office. When I first started working, she informed me that one of my most important duties during the Afghan visit was to interact with the men, helping them to become more accustomed to interacting with women on a professional basis. By the time we arrived in Bern most the men seemed very comfortable around me, and some of them began asking me if I would be in a picture with them. I didn’t think much of the request, as I had seen them take pictures with the other staff. So I was in ten or eleven pictures when we first arrived in Bern (including one in which the man told me he wanted a picture with me while my hair was blowing in the wind - a little strange).

We spent the morning listening to members of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation discuss the Swiss relationship to Afghanistan. Then after lunch, my boss went back to Geneva and left me to escort the 23 men on a guided tour of Bern. At our first stop on the trip, one of the men asked to take a picture with me, and then another, and another, and so on, and I felt a little ridiculous, but I didn’t protest knowing that being an American made me a bit of novelty. Then as the trip progressed, at every site on the tour, a line of men would form to take a picture with me. It became more and more clear that my status as a CASIN employee or as an American was definitely not the reason why they wanted my picture. The number of pictures I was in became absurd – I would guess somewhere between 75 to 100. My face actually hurt from smiling so much. At first, the ordeal was flattering (as I am certainly not held in such high esteem by men in the US), but eventually it just got to be down right creepy. Don’t get me wrong, the men were never anything but gentlemen, and I never felt in any way harassed, but I did start to feel like there were always eyes trained on me, which I didn’t enjoy. Apparently, I would be terrible celebrity.

Once back in Geneva, my inability to be rude, left me agreeing to have tea with one of the men, Fardeen (he’s 26, so not a creepy old man situation). The tea was to take place in his hotel room, which seemed a little bit suspect, but his roommate would be there, and I didn’t think it would be a terribly big deal. After having some tea and chatting for a while I said that I needed to go home, but he said it would “please me very much if you would stay and have dinner with me.” At this point it was 9:00 at night, and I was pretty hungry, so not being one to pass up free food I agreed to stay. I quickly learned that one should make an exception to the free food rule, when the man offering to “cook” has had his mother and sisters cook every meal he has ever eaten at home. About ten minutes after getting up to prepare dinner, Fardeen returned with a plate of cookies and a bowl of cream, and set them before me. (I have no idea, why it took him ten minutes to “prepare” this meal.) I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with the cream, but my best guess was that I was supposed to dip the cookies into it. After I ate my first cookie, Fardeen apologized because he hadn’t been able to find a spoon for eating the cream. Thank god he couldn’t find a spoon – imagine if out of politeness I actually had to eat straight cream with a spoon. The thought of it still makes me a little nauseous.

So after my delicious dinner of a couple of cookies, I announced that it really was time for me to go home. Fardeen was visibly disappointed, but asked if he could escort me home. It was after ten at this point, so it seemed like a gentlemanly thing for him to offer. Once arriving at my apartment, he asked if he could see my room. Now I am not an idiot, and understood that all of the stall tactics at his room, and his desire to come upstairs meant that he wanted to do a little more than talk, but he hadn’t made any kind of move all night. My biggest concern at that point was that he would try and kiss me, which under other circumstances wouldn’t have been entirely tragic, but his being a trainee at my work made the situation impossible, not to mention my concern that if the other Afghan men found out, they would completely lose any hint of professional respect they may have for me. The last thing I wanted was to live up to the whorish western women stereotype I was sure most of them believed was true. If I had been a sensible person I would have told Fardeen I was tired and that he couldn’t come up to my apartment, but my inability to say no unless I’m refusing something blatantly unreasonable meant that I let him see the apartment. (For those of you who might be concerned for my safety, I have a male roommate, and I know the guys who live next door, plus Fardeen, although persistent was quite harmless). After I showed him my room, I told him that I was tired and that it was time to go. The following was our ending conversation:

Beth: Thanks for the tea and dinner.
Fardeen: I don’t want to leave; we should talk more.
Beth: But I’m really very tired, and we’ve talked for a very long time.
Fardeen: But it’s so nice to talk, we should keep talking.
Beth (turning on her blunt side): I really don’t think that talking is what you are hoping to do.
Fardeen (picture 26 year old guy who has never dated and knows almost nothing about girls, looking very disappointed and rather confused): Well, I thought that I would stay the night.
Beth: (picture 26 year old girl, suddenly realizing that 26 year old guy trying to kiss her should not have been her big concern, and it is time to make the relationship very clear): I’m sorry if you had the wrong impression when I accepted tea. I know what you must think of Americans, but I would never sleep with someone I just met. Also, you are training at my office, and sleeping with you could get me in a lot of trouble.
Fardeen: (Continue picturing utterly confused and disappointed man): Oh, ok. (long pause) But I thought, well, I thought I would stay the night.
Beth: (Repeats above explanation about why he can’t stay.)
Fardeen: (despondent): Ok, But may I see you again. Maybe we could take a walk.
Beth (still completely unable to turn down offers that are not explicitly unreasonable): Yes that would be fine.
Fardeen: Tomorrow? At six?
Beth: Ok, come meet me outside of my apartment.

Fardeen sulks away. Beth clothes her door. Lights fade. End scene.

Now for those of you who consider me pathetically naïve to think that Fardeen wouldn’t try and sleep with me, let me note a key point. The whole night, the closest he came to me was to sit on the very end of a couch while I sat on the other side – most of the night he sat across the room from me. He never once touched me, not my hand, not my arm, nothing. There wasn’t the slightest suggestion of physical interaction until he announced that he thought he would stay the night. As a female who has spent a substantial amount of time in bars, I am well rehearsed in male suggestions of sex, and Fardeen was displaying none of them. He was more like a super nervous guy on a first date who was wondering if he might get a kiss goodnight. Hence, my confusion - a mistake I won’t make again.

Sorry for the obscenely long post. If it was too long for you to remember everything here are the key take away points:

Afghan men like to take pictures with Beth.
Tea means sex to an Afghan man.
Cookies and cream are not a good dinner.

As I am sure I have bored you all to death, I will stop my story for now. More tomorrow though, as I tell you about admirer number two.

A Blog as Promised

2006-05-26T14:15:00.000+02:00

Greetings all. I had debated during my first two weeks here whether to actually set up a blog or just settle on using email. At first, a blog seemed unnecessary as nothing particularly exciting happened in my day-to-day life. I went to work, took a walk, read a book, had a couple of beers at the bar… that’s about it. However, life has since spiced up a bit, and it seems much easier to relay my stories via a blog rather than emails. So even though it’s two weeks into my trip, I will start from the beginning, and catch everyone on my Geneva happenings.

Oh, before I get started, a side note: I discovered something rather bewildering while trying to sort out a good name for this blog. According to the thesaurus section of dictionary.com, the word news is synonymous with poop. The list of synonyms for news begins with words like account, advice, announcement, and then when you get to the Ps there’s poop. Who knew? Am I only the only person who didn’t know that poop was slang for a news story? I briefly considered naming my blog GENEVA POOP, but decided against it.

So I will know fast-forward you through the first week of my time in Geneva. The most notable part of my first day was the fact that my bedroom reeked of B.O. (and it still smells a little despite my best efforts to deodorize). I spent most of the first weekend terrified that the smell was stuck to me, alla Jerry and Elaine, and I desperately tried to find Febreeze. Apparently Febreeze is a phenomenon that has yet to hit Europe.

Moving on from my olfactory dilemma, I arrived on Thursday and didn’t start work until Monday, so the first few days I wandered around the city with some other Dukies. We spent most of our time marveling at the cost of everything. Much to my dismay chicken breasts at the grocery store cost about $12/lb; for readers who know me well, you realize how devastating this discovery was – no chicken for three months, ahhhhh. In an effort to save some money, we took a trip on Saturday to France to grocery shop (getting to France is a twenty minutes bus ride), but admittedly the savings on groceries didn’t really balance out the hassle of the bus and having to use Euros.

On Monday I started work, and discovered that beginning with me at CASIN was a group of 23 Afghan men, who would be training on multilateral negotiations for the next four weeks. For the first couple of days there presence had no real impact on my workday, except the need to cover my arms when I went into the training room (arms being a very scandalous part of the body). However, on Friday, the group was scheduled to take a trip to Bern to meet with the Swiss Foreign Ministry, and I was invited to go along. Apparently, removing the men from the office setting made them much chattier, and I found myself with a slew of new friends. I’ll leave the entire story of Friday to another entry, but let’s just say my life has been much more interesting since my excursion to Bern.