There is not much blooming here in Geneva, but then that’s not the reason one visits Switzerland in April anyway, is it?
I will, in the absence of horticultural stimulation, satisfy myself with some observations from my visit.
Today is Sunday. The Swiss very sensibly take Sundays off. Stores and most restaurants are closed as friends and family stroll about and, presumably, relax. The tourists are forced to forego their shopping exhertions and focus, instead, on behaving like the Swiss, puttering in parks, playing giant games of chess, sitting in cafes sipping strong coffee or window shopping among the closed shops.
I dawdled over breakfast and the newspaper, feeling quite tired from my travels, work, lengthy sightseeing walks and, of course, the time change.
Although I grouse about the price of the hotel, it is quite nice. They put on a very comprehensive and stylish breakfast that is included in the cost. I have never had such wonderful yogurt, even in Amsterdam or Greece, where I raved about the yogurt. If you ever travel to Europe, please eat the plain yogurt. It is divine and absolutely nothing like you will get as plain yogurt in the States.
After attending to a few housekeeping chores (such as washing my socks in the sink), I headed out to catch the bus down to the old town.
There are few taxis here in Geneva. Those that are available are expensive and must be secured at one of the rare taxi stands around town. As a result, even the most well-heeled visitors at my hotel are advised on the location of the nearest bus stop and provided with bus/tram schedules and free passes to use for unlimited transportation during the length of their stay.
On leaving the hotel and chatting, yet again, with the doorman, I am reminded of how the Swiss have surprised me with their friendliness. Everywhere you go, people say hello and good-bye, so your day is a succession of “Bonjours,” “Au Revoirs” “Bon Weekends” and “Bon nuits.” On the bus, passengers always pile their purses, backpacks and shopping in their laps so that someone can take the seat next to them. And pedestrians with no intention of taking the bus will hold the bus door when they see someone running down the sidewalk to catch the bus.
Most people around town wear sensible shoes, although you don’t often see sneakers or other athletic shoes except, as in the rest of Europe, on the American tourists. The fashionable women often wear boots–ankle high to knee high–with short skirts or slim slacks. The women always wear their clothing close-fitting and it is rare to see anyone overweight.
When you do see someone heavy, it is nearly always an American. I hate to admit being ashamed of my fellow citizens, but when I see my fellow Americans ordering ice creams or pastries when they are already bursting from the seams of their bluejeans and toddling off in their Nikes, I do cringe. I have to wonder if circulating some comparative photos of Europeans and Americans might not shame us, as a country, into mending our ways. But then, the global flogging on other fronts hasn’t worked either, has it?
Here you see somewhat more colorful clothing that you generally see in Paris or even Greece, although I still wouldn’t call the clothing colorful. Most women and some men wear elaborately tied scarves with their coats and jackets and usually when they shed their outdoor clothes as well. These serve a practical as well as fashionable purpose, especially in April, since the weather is quite changeable and you never know when you’ll need an impromptu headcover to protect you from a rainshower or cold breeze.
This fashion is actually very typical of European cities and even among some people in large U.S. cities. Seeing the practicality of such a fashion I make a point of packing two or three of my favorite scarves when I travel. In fact, this is one of the luxury purchases I allow myself when I visit foreign cities–the memento of a scarf. I have an enormous black silk scarf I purchased years ago in London for a small fortune I couldn’t really afford, but that I’m glad I did, and that I still treasure today. I have a Hermes scarf of a circus scene–another small fortune–that I wear and am extremely careful to keep track of. And I have scarves from Amsterdam, Paris and Greece that I discover and wear again when looking for travel fashions that remind me of vacations I will probably never be able to take again. I haven’t yet found one here in Geneva yet, but the search will continue.
Yes, I have enjoyed the shopping. I confess, I went for a second visit to the food basement at Globus yesterday afternoon. The small produce section displayed exquisite salad greens–raddicchio, ramps, watercress. There were picture perfect artichokes arranged by size, so beautifully formed I could cry thinking of the splayed and stringly chokes they try to sell back at the Safeway in my small rural Maryland county. There were bunches of neatly tied bunches of oblong radishes. There must have been 40 varieties of olive oil and small bowls and bread for tasting.
Perhaps before I leave I will muster up the courage to take some photos of the windows of the numerous chocolate shops. There seems to be, for some reason, a fashion of shaping chocolates like small bugs and Geneva garbage cans. Yes, garbage cans. Perhaps the idea of the juxtaposition of otherwise icky things such as bugs and garbage with exquisite chocolate appeals to the Swiss sense of humor. When I find chocolates shaped like bumblebees, I will know I have found the place to make my gift purchases!
As I’m writing, I’m sitting in the stylish lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel where a group of four beautiful and fashionable thirty-something women have been laughing and chatting. A rakish 40-something fellow just joined them and engaged in a ritual of cheek kissing all around–kiss, kiss, kiss, three for each woman, alternating cheeks. He quickly snuck off to order a bottle of champagne that is now being poured in beautiful stem glasses.
I wish I were close enough to hear what they were talking about. I find that after all these years I still understand just enough French to have a vague sense of what people are saying and maneuver my way around, but not enough to carry on a proper conversation. I feel a bit left out.
There aren’t many street food vendors here–at least in chilly April. Really, it’s not necessary since there is a “tea room,” coffee shop or patisserie on every street block. Happily, Starbucks has not yet conquored Europe and has only a small presence in Geneva, albeit an apparently popular one. It is always crowded.
The street food vendors I have seen sell made-to-order crepes of Nutella, cheese or ham. There is also ice cream, which people seem to buy even in the coldest of weather. The most frequent item on the restaurant menus is perch filets, apparently from Lake Geneva. I ordered these tiny and tender filets in my first lunch here and was transported by them. I can understand their popularity.
I confess, I ordered cheese fondue during my dinner out with clients on Thursday night. It is featured on many Swiss menus. It was served bubbling in a handled crock and placed on a flame alongside the obligatory long forks. A simple basket of crusty bread was provided for dipping, although we had the option of also ordering some potatoes or meats. The bread was plenty and Mitul, one of my clients, indulged to the point where he felt horrid by the end of dinner. It was very good, if simple.
Mitul insisted that the fondue is now purely served for the sake of the tourists, but I’m not so sure. I noticed that the stores carry dozens and dozens of fondue sets in addition to fondue crocks. I find it hard to believe that the tourists alone are buying all this fondue paraphernalia!
Well, the attentive server here has kindly brought me a glass of wine, so I suppose I’ll close the laptop and indulge a bit.
Au revoir. Bon soir. Bon nuit.
Robin
I started my day at the Horloge Fleurie, the famous Flower Clock here in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Flower Clock is regularly replanted with 6,500 plants to cover the 16-square-foot surface. The configuration of the flowers and numbers regularly changes. You can see other Flower Clock configurations here. This season’s clock is planted with primroses and numbers scattered outside the typical circular bounds. Yes, the clock is accurate.
The Swiss planted the working floral clock in 1955 as yet another reminder that all visitors are required to purchase at least one watch prior to leaving Switzerland. Other reminders include the picture on your hotel room door key, all displays in all hotel lobbies, all banners on all light posts around town, names of famous watch brands atop all the tallest Geneva buildings, even clockwork innards springing out from all the animals on the local children’s carousel. Every other store sells luxurious bejeweled watches and all Geneva residents are required to wear at least one Swiss-made watch. If one cannot afford an expensive Swiss watch, there is always the Swatch watch, of which there are plenty.
Since winter is just now releasing its grip on the poor watch-making Swiss, I had to entertain myself with pursuits other than strictly horticultural ones. In other words, I went shopping.
In Geneva’s Old Town, the Vieille Ville, there are tightly packed galleries, cafes and boutiques that cater to highly specialized tastes. There is an antiques store that only sells scientific instruments. In one sparsely decorated gallery hung a couple dozen 8” to 12” animal sculptures made from raffia, twigs and other natural materials. Antique print and bookshops abound. Occasionally you’ll stumble across a more contemporary gallery, such as the one that sells some sort of robot prints. (I didn’t get it.)
I finally headed down to the main shopping district on the Right Bank, where I stumbled onto Globus, a multi-story department store. Good thing, too, since I needed a new umbrella. My Wal-Mart Totes umbrella busted on the first day of my visit, leaving me a bit soggy. But while I was there, I ambled down to the basement where the gourmet foodstuffs were displayed. Why do the big stores always put food in the basement? Have you noticed that?
Anyway, I found some very nice teas, including a beautiful hibiscus tea that will probably taste like dirt. I also found some tiny little mixed flower teas in beautiful mesh bags. If I didn’t know they were teas I would think I was supposed to plant them.Oh, and I picked up a couple of Swiss chocolate bars just in case there was a food emergency in my hotel room.
Since I had walked approximately 1,115 miles already today, I decided to sit down for a while on a boat cruise of the lake. It was a lovely 50-minute tour during which I understood not one word of the recorded narration. I didn’t care. The sun had finally come from behind the clouds, the air was warm and my feet were tired.
There is more rain ahead and the hotel concierge, Francoise, tells me I must make the most of the day tomorrow before the rains return in earnest on Monday. So I really must go and work on decoding the shower faucets now. After three days I am still using the trial and error method to regulate the water temperature. Apparently you need a Swiss engineering degree to operate Swiss plumbing. To complicate matters further, they seem to operate on the VTS (Variable Temperature System), which requires that the shower water temperature fluctuate +/- 10 degrees while you are standing under the stream.
My clients have all rushed back to the States for soccer games, baseball games and to frazzled mothers of infants. They, apparently, are at a different life-stage than I am. I can linger, but I’m all alone. My guys could not get off from work or school to play. And while I miss my guys, my little dogs and my garden, I’m not really suffering too badly. And there are always the chocolate bars I have for such emergencies.
Robin
Some things, I suppose, are universal—such as unfinished garden chores.
Even here in Geneva, Switzerland, where I am on business this week, this quaint pink house across from my hotel has had bags and bags of neatly stacked mulch sitting around the garden waiting to be spread since I arrived here on Wednesday. I’m so anxious to get back into my own garden to complete the long list of springtime chores I considered sneaking out at night to spread the mulch for them. Wouldn’t it be funny if they woke up one morning and found a garden fairy had done their work for them?
Sadly, I forgot my garden gloves. Still, I’ll be checking daily until I leave to see if the gardener has gotten his or her mulch spread. And I’ll be thinking about the second truckload of mulch I still need to purchase and get down in my own garden before long.
I consoled myself in my garden-less funk this afternoon with a leisurely stroll through the Jardin Botanique—the Geneva Botanical Garden. It is clearly early spring here in this part of Switzerland. The forsythia and daffodils are just starting the bloom. The greenhouses are stuffed with hothouse plants although I could hardly linger to examine them the humidity and plant funk smell were so overpowering. My camera lens clouded up and I had to rush back into the cool air before I passed out or my camera busted.
The gardens here also had a small assortment of animals—I suppose to make up for the fact that there is no big zoo here in Geneva. I was amused, however, to see some incredibly noisy Starlings. I’ll need to ask someone if they are the same invasive birds we have problems with in the US. It seemed odd to have them prominently displayed as some rare creature.
There is also a fantastical carousel with animals that seem to have clockwork innards. I’m guessing that’s a nod to the city’s watch and clock fame, but I did have to wonder if the children don’t find the animals somewhat frightening. What do you think?
All is not gardens and strolls while I am in Switzerland. I’m actually here in Geneva for work where I visited the World Health Organization (WHO) today to facilitate a meeting. On driving to the WHO’s massive office complex, we passed an apparent long-term protester who was set up for the day with an elaborate pictorial and slogan display vilifying the WHO for ignoring the plight of millions of children irradiated during the Chernobyl meltdown. I say he was an apparent long-term protester because his display was a bit tatty, he looked tired and bored—oh, and rather than trying to get the attention of the numerous passers-by with his important message he was leaning against a tree while reading the morning paper and drinking his coffee. I suppose even protesters must ease into their work day.
I take it that the WHO and the USA are not universally adored here in Geneva. Among the various themes on “USA s*%&s” (some slogans were quite colorful and inventive!) on the local bus stop shelter was “No WHO. No Bush. No way.” And an official at WHO referred to the US as the “most wealthy and arrogant” country in the world.
Prior to my trip people warned me of two things about Geneva—1) The people are cold and somewhat rude and 2) The prices are outrageous.
Well, from my short experience thus far, I will agree with the astronomical prices. The hotel where I am staying unabashedly publishes a US equivalent of $18 for a bowl of vegetable soup. A club sandwich will set you back $28 US. If you want grilled sole delivered to your room, expect to pay $65 US. And today, at a modest roadside patisserie frequented by the locals I paid $16 US for a half portion salad topped with some cheese and sitting atop a small piece of bread. Cocktails for me and two of my clients here in the hotel came to $68. And we only had one drink each!!! Thank goodness the client picked up the dinner tab. (HAH! I would have billed it back to him anyway.)
So, people were right about the prices here in Geneva. I won’t be shopping, that’s for sure. There are no Swiss watches in my near future.
Given the local sentiments toward the US, I was a little worried that with my less-than-fluent French and what I feared was my obvious American appearance, the reputidly cold Swiss wouldn’t be nice to me. But despite the fact that I’m from the USA, where Bush “s*%cks” and our country is “arrogant,” I have to say that I find the Swiss very charming, helpful and even friendly. It’s not just the hotel where they fawn all over you (as they should for what you’re paying). I stopped at a small local grocery store on the bus route to the hotel to buy some fruit and water. And although I didn’t understand that I had to bag and sticker my fruit, the cashier was very friendly and helpful when I explained “Je ne comprend pas.” Next door at the small wine shop, the young fellow didn’t speak a word of English when I explained the type of Swiss wine I was looking for, so he happily called his brother on the telephone to translate. But before his brother could relay the message a nice man in the store smiled and asked “It’s not easy, is it?” He inquired what I was looking for and helped me make a selection. Amazing, but true, it was a nice bottle of wine for the US equivalent of $8.
And although the Swiss aren’t given to excessive smiling (and in what country can you say they are?) they do not push or shove to get on the bus or ahead of you to get a table or in line. There is no honking in traffic here in Geneva. I have seen young motorcycle men snuff out their cigarettes on the sidewalk and carefully pick them up and put them in their pockets. People politely avail themselves of the helpfully placed plastic dog poo bags posted in dispensers on the city street corners when their dogs answer the call of nature.
I did have to laugh though when I called down to the hotel front desk to inquire if I was dialing my client’s room number correctly since the call didn’t seem to be going through. He tried the number and told me that the call wasn’t completed because the line was “engaged.”
“Oh, that’s the problem!” I said.
“No, that’s the reason!” he laughed.
So, I suppose it’s all in the matter of how you interpret things, eh?
Off to plan a weekend of activities now. I’ll be thinking of all of you toiling away in your spring gardens and somewhat wishing I were doing the same! Please don’t worry about me. I will console myself with some Swiss chocolate.
(I have added a new Geneva album to my photo albums if you want to see more of my trip. I’ll be posting more as I see the sights.)
Robin
