I miss Oliver

...and everyone else too, I suppose. But mostly Oliver. What do you think he's doing right now? Sleeping? Begging for food? Sitting in a box? He's so cute.

Apart from missing Oliver, I've been going to work as usual, and realized that this week I broke my (2-week) streak of having problems showing up on time on Mondays. The first Monday I forgot to set my alarm, and last Monday we had a workshop at the Hotel Epsom, but I was pretty sure it was at the Hotel Eden. The staff at the Hotel Eden disagreed with me, and finally I had to take their word that I was in the wrong place. At this point, I knew I would be a bit late, but it wouldn't be so bad. I recognized the name of the street where the right hotel was located as being somewhere in Paquis (my neighborhood), and hopped in the bus back there. I asked the driver if he knew where rue Richemont was. He told me to get off at Monthoux. So, at Monthoux I asked if he could tell me which direction I should walk to get there. "Monthoux," he said. Hmm...suspicious. No problem, I'll just ask one of these native Genevans where it is. Paquis is quite small, surely someone will know. Well, as it happens, there are no natives in Geneva. Twenty out of twenty people surveyed on the street have never heard of rue Richemont, even though the sample included deliverymen, staff of hotels in the same chain as the Epsom, and people standing less than half a block from rue Richemont. After circling the neighborhood for a good half-hour, I finally landed upon the Hotel Epsom, approximately a block and half from my apartment. Doh! Luckily my disruptive entrance into the workshop was followed by introductions wherein we were to give an embarassing fact about ourselves, so I was able to easily provide my excuse for being so late.

Strangely, two days after my harrowing search for the Epsom, I was walking to work when a man on a bike stopped and asked me if I knew where rue Richemont was. What?! This is not fair. Does he know how lucky he is to have happened upon the one person in all of Switzerland that knows where this street is?? I should have charged a hefty fee for divulging this privileged information.

In other news, I have found a few parties interested in taking over my room at the end of June. I feel too guilty to deceive anyone into living here without letting them know how it will be, so hopefully there will be at least one apartment-seeker desperate enough to take it. It probably also doesn't help that the front page of the Geneve Tribune last week had a giant picture of the entrance to our building next to the headline "Une prostituée est égorgée aux Pâquis" (full article, and another picture of the hallway in my building: http://www.tdg.ch/pages/home/tribune_de_geneve/l_actu/geneve_
et_region/detail_geneve/(contenu)/231955)