Sunshine! Pigs! Football! Music! Whales!

This weekend I felt as though I had been transported to an entirely different city. As it turns out, summer Geneva is a million times better than regular Geneva (which is also not bad). Friday night I went to a BBQ by the lake, and it was warm for the first time since I've been here. It was gorgeous.

Saturday, a couple of friends and I spent most of our day at the Bains de Paquis, which is basically a concrete pier that you have to pay 2 francs to lie on. It was fabulous!! All sorts of people that you didn't know existed come out of their houses when the sun appears and transform Geneva into a really interesting place. On my way across the lake to watch the football match Saturday night, I was walking across the bridge when I heard oinking. I turned to my left, and there indeed was an adorable little pig wearing blue yarn around his neck, trotting across Pont Mont-Blanc. He followed his owner, a man pushing a baby carriage full of straw, and I learned that the pig's name is Pancetta (only later did I found out what this means...it doesn't bode well for Pancetta). I was a bit disappointed that I didn't have my camera on me at the time, because how often does one see a pig in Geneva? As it turns out, fairly often. As I crossed the same bridge Sunday morning, I half-expected to see Pancetta, but he was nowhere to be seen. Until I passed through the English Gardens, and there he was chowing down! I expect we'll see each other frequently and become friends. After the football match (where my streak of always rooting for the loser continued, sorry Holland), we passed by the Parc des Bastions where the annual fête de la musique was going on. There were more people in the park than I knew lived in the city, all dancing and listening to the different kinds of music on the stages all over the park.

Sunday, however, was the highlight of the weekend. Ever since we spotted them on Saturday from the shore, we knew we must have the whales (pictures to appear soon). The whale boat is a circular motorboat for 2, controlled by a joystick. Also, it looks like a whale. Its basically the coolest thing ever. Saturday afternoon, me and my friends Leah, Philip and Nick (aka Maverick) fulfilled our daylong dream of driving whales around the lake. Even Philip, still recovering from the Dutch loss the previous evening, admitted that it is just not possible to be sad in a whale. We had a great time, until the whale-owner chased us down in his (non-whale) motorboat to yell at us for going outside of whale territory. He was also pretty angry that we had engaged in a brief bout of bumper whales, even though the boats look like they are made precisely for this function.

The lowlight of the weekend was probably also Sunday, Genève Plage. It sounds alot better than it is. In fact, it wouldn't have been so bad (it does have diving boards into the lake, a 50 meter pool, and a big waterslide) if it weren't overrun with families and if more than one lane were devoted to lap swimming. At least one member of the group, Nick, loved Genève Plage, which is not very surprising given his earlier admission that he has not only been to, but thoroughly enjoyed, EuroDisney. His spirits were brought down quickly enough at the football game later that evening where he stupidly allowed me to cheer for Italy, thus causing their demise. (Nick is actually Maltese, but since his country doesn't have enough people to field a football team, he sides with Italy.) I now have my hopes pinned on a secret comeback by the Austrians, who, while already having been eliminated in the 1st round, will have the element of surprise on their side when they show up for the finals.

Pauvre moi

I suppose if I'm going to be home sick all day, the least I can do is update the blog. This morning I woke up with a terrible fever and the inability to eat anything without suffering severe consequences. Mme VF immediately wondered, of course, how would this affect her. She quickly reminded me that this lame excuse did not get me out of cleaning my room and making the bed for the woman coming to see the place this afternoon. Yes, I knew this. As I left for the doctor's office, she demanded that I make sure to ask if what I had was contagious. As I assumed, the doctor thought this was a pretty silly question ("we're not talking about cholera here") and told me to be sure to wash my hands after using the toilet and not to share utensils with people. Upon returning, I related this to Mme VF who seems to think that the fever itself is the contagious thing. She told me how there had been two previous instances of people with fevers in my room (perhaps its contaminated?) and that the lady who had one made sure to keep at least 2 yards away from everyone else at all times, while the student who had a fever did not exercise such caution. She caught whatever the student had and is now a firm believer in the 2 yard rule. She even jumped back a little when I came in the apartment. Brilliant! If only I'd known it was this easy to keep her away. I think I'll hang on to the fever for the rest of my time here.

The doctor did mention that a blood test shows I have some degree of a bacterial infection, but that they don't like to prescribe antibiotics to young people. What? Is this some silly European tradition? Give me drugs, I say!!

In other news, last weekend I went camping in Sion, Switzerland. It was fabulous! For just about the first time since I've arrived, there was a whole day without rain, and it could almost be described as sunny. The campsite (which was really closer to a resort--the "tents" had refrigerators and cots in them) was right by a lake, so we swam and hiked up to the vineyards and the old castle in the middle of the town. Quite lovely.

Anyways, I think I shall get back to my full day of sleep now...

Must. Write. Blog.

Apologies for the lapse in blogging..it has been a busy week here. I'm exhausted! Lets see...what has happened....

Well, all of Europe descended on Geneva on Saturday for the start of Euro2008 (Euro 2008! Wooooo!). By about 3pm the streets were crowded with drunk football fans. In Plainpalais (a neighborhood in Geneva) there is a big screen set up outside to watch the games. Having seen this earlier, I thought it sounded like great fun to watch football games outside on the big screen. I was picturing a nice outdoor picnic-like experience where we could bring blankets and stretch out and relax....what was I thinking?? I forgot that soccer is like a religion here. A violent, riot-provoking religion. We stopped by the "Fan Zone", as its called, for about 30 seconds and then moved on to a loud smoky bar which was much more comfortable. I got conned into betting on Turkey and was liable for a round of drinks when Portugal won. I'm pretty sure that directly after the game, if one were to visit Portugal one would have found the country entirely empty, as every Portuguese person simultaneously got in their car, positioned the Portuguese flag strategically in the window, and staked out a place in the middle of a Geneva street from which to honk the horn continuously for 16 hours. As we sat outside the bar trying to carry on a conversation over the noise, I couldn't help but hope that the same scene was taking place in Paquis as the landlady tried to sleep. I could just picture her marching around the neighborhood posting typed notices about proper post-match etiquette.

Saturday, before the football matches, I met a German girl who lived in Norway for a while and so we went for a coffee and attempted to speak only Norwegian. We were relatively successful I think. After she finishes a French exam she has in a couple weeks we plan to meet regularly and (hopefully) recruit a real Norwegian or two to correct us.

Sunday I went on the usual Sunday cycling trip, this one to Lausanne, which was considerably farther than the usual destination. We went over 80km there and then took the train back. This took far longer than anticipated as the group included 20 people, and the amount of stopping/waiting seems to increase with the size of the group. But it was worth it--the ride, especially the last bit along the lake, was gorgeous!

At work I have been learning more than I ever wanted to know about aflatoxins (I'll let you google it) and have been gradually improving my running abilities. Although apparently not as much as I thought... last Monday when I came back from my run the security guard commented on how short a time I'd been gone. Now I make sure to spend an extra 10 to 15 minutes stretching before coming back. I also tried out the indoor pool near work, which is pretty good. I found what appeared to be the best deal in Switzerland at Migros (of course): four boxes of petits beurres (cookies) for only 5 francs!! Unfortunately, having four boxes of petits beurres in my desk raises my daily cookie consumption to 1 box/day. Yesterday I it took all of my willpower to avoid the ongoing cookie sale and buy rice cakes instead. I don't know how much longer I can hold out though.

Last week I also discovered that my WTO badge gets me into the main UN building, so I had lunch in the Palais de Nations with a woman that I know from an Arabic class in SF who works at UNHCR. Its like a museum in there--I need to go back and take the tour sometime.

The research paper I helped work on at ITC last semester is now posted on the GTAP website at: https://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/resources/download/3983.pdf. My colleague Michael is at the GTAP conference in Helsinki this week presenting it. My debut on the economics scene!! I'm so excited!

Things I have learned this week:
-In French, walkie-talkie is talkie-walkie
-We are all going to die from carcinogenic aflatoxins in our peanut butter. Unless we're European, in which case we will die from aflatoxins in something else, like corn. If anyone manages to avoid the list of food containing aflatoxins, they will most likely be taken down by WMDs previously hidden by Saddam Hussein containing, you guessed it, aflatoxins.
-Damien must be using toilet paper to remove his make-up, because I certainly haven't done so (although I admit I have occasionally used it to blow my nose. Shame on me.)
-Getting a Maîtrise makes a lot more sense than getting a Maîtresse. For me anyways.
-I like watching football.
-Swimming with plastic paddles on your hands is dangerous and against the rules. Doing handstands on the high dive and having your friends push you off is ok.
-Swiss Indian food is my kind of Indian food (no spiciness!)
-If you offer to take someone to dinner as a thank you and plan to spend less than 120 bucks, don't let them pick the restaurant. Also, don't live in Switzerland.

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)

New bike!

This has been a pretty productive weekend--I successfully did a load of laundry, swam in the lake, rediscovered my dislike of clubbing, got a used bike, biked around the countryside, and, most importantly, found a fabulous new apartment!

I have decided to stay put in my current apartment until the end of June, when I will move into a really nice studio in Eaux-Vives until I leave. Hopefully the next month here will be ok. Now that I know not to put anything in the dryer (Did you know that there is no such thing as a dryer that can dry a towel? It just doesn't exist!), things should go much more smoothly.

Saturday morning I woke up early to go to the used bike sale in a square near my apartment. I was able to get this lovely bike for only 100CHF (believe me, this is incredibly cheap). Take that Switzerland! I bought something reasonably priced in you!

After buying the bike, I developed an intense craving for mexican food, and was surprised to find out (via googlemaps) that Geneva does indeed have a Mexican restaurant. Nacho and I tried to go at 2pm, but I had forgotten that in Geneva, restaurants are only open when you're not hungry. So, after settling for non-Mexican food, I took my new bike for a spin around town. I passed by the Geneve-plage and remembered that the big Olympic sized pool there was to open that day. So I rode home, grabbed my bathing suit, and took a boat back across the lake to discover that the pool was still under renovation that was meant to have been completed. But---the lake portion of the plage was open for swimming, despite being 15 degrees and under overcast skies. But, since I had made the effort to come, I felt I must swim, so in I went, bikini and all. The lifeguards thought I was crazy. It was pretty cold, but I got used to it.

Saturday evening, my wise bike shopping was completely canceled out by a night out on the town. I was convinced to go out to a club with my Nigerian friends and several of their friends who seem to know all about this clubbing scene. Part of said scene consists of people hovering around the entrance of the club hoping to get in so that they can be seen there. The bouncers wave some in and turn others away depending on who you know and how cool you look (sunglasses = cool). Apparently someone we were with knew people there, but our group of 11 was too large to allowed in under any circumstances. So, we moved to the appropriately named B-club. I think I much prefer the waiting outside part of clubbing to the being in the club part. It was basically a smoke filled den full of 18 year old dancing and really loud music. (Am I old? It sounds like I might be old.) Anyways, I left before finding out how much the large bottle of vodka ordered by the table cost. My guess--800CHF. I'm not exaggerating. I'll ask my friend next time I see him.

This morning after a very difficult internal debate about getting out of bed, I managed to make it to the Sunday cycling group. In my half-awake state, I accidentally ordered a tartine of what is apparently the Swiss equivalent of vegemite. EW. The ride was really nice, along the Arve and then through the countryside and vineyards. Beautiful!

After the ride, I went to see the new studio in Eaux-Vives, which is on the other side of the lake and a really nice part of town. The studio is great--really big, great location, and best of all, my landlady doesn't live there. Now I just need to find my replacement for here, but it should be easier since I have a few weeks.

Now the weekend has once again come to an end, and I am realizing that I didn't get to sleep as much as I would have liked. Perhaps next weekend...

On a besoin de Jerry Orbach!

This evening I got to meet the Swiss police, who are not nearly as entertaining as the Swiss firefighters (see video). My landlady called me at work to tell me that the police were there and needed to interview me. I'm pretty sure she thought I was to blame for whatever had happened. I am a pretty suspicious character after all..
As it turns out, it was pretty serious. Apparently a 28 year old woman in the apartment above us was murdered on Tuesday night, or at least thats what Mme Von F says. She seems to know lots of details (now thats suspicious) but she told me and Damien we would have to read about it in the paper tomorrow, presumably so she can enjoy another 12 hours of feeling special for being in the know.
So, for any doubts I am having about giving up the awesome location I have here, I think this is a pretty good sign that I should get out. Assuming all goes according to plan, I'm leaving Saturday, despite Mme's attempts to make it as difficult as possible for me to find a replacement (i.e. requiring some 10 different forms, letters and certifications from the next potential resident, and who knows, perhaps staging a violent crime to scare people away....no, I'm pretty sure if she were to kill a 28 year old female in this building we can all be pretty sure who that would be.) I'm moving into a nice apartment across town (in Plainpalais, for any of you who know Geneva) with the guy who organizes the Sunday bike trips. The apartment is pretty great, although considerably farther from work and the lake. Also, in June the European soccer championships are taking place at the stadium in Plainpalais, so that should be pretty cool.
In other news, I got to go to my first ag negotiation meeting today. It wasn't like a ministerial or anything (hopefully one of those will happen while I'm here....but, you know), but officials from about 30 or 40 countries negotiating the text of the ag modalities. It was pretty exciting for about 15 minutes, and then I really had to try hard to stay awake for the next 3 hours. I'm not sure I was entirely successful. Still cool though.

Absolutely NOT fabulous

Well, it turns out I was wrong that putting up with all these rules for three months would be possible. Its just not. This weekend, I found out what I had really gotten myself into. My landlady (who looks remarkably like Patsy from AbFab, minus the vodka and cigarette--which is sad, since I rather like Patsy) has shown her true colors. My friend Nico from Corsica visited this weekend, and while I was 90% sure he would not be allowed to stay here (he wasn't) I was rather surprised to find out that he was also not allowed in our apartment at all after 6pm. This is because he is a man to whom I am not engaged, and allowing him in after this arbitrary hour would apparently sully the "impeccable house" that Mme Von F has "always kept". I have, of course, considered just proposing marriage to anyone who stops by to see me, but this gets rather complicated, and although she is not the sharpest tool in the shed, I think the woman might catch on.

The friend visitation annoyances were exacerbated by her accusation that I had lent my keys to Nico (I had not), an "offense tres grave", and by her repeated suggestions that I practice turning the key properly in the lock before going out Saturday night, as I had done a poor job upon returning home Friday night at turning it without waking her.

Today was the last straw, as I dutifully woke up two hours before the Sunday bike ride to do my laundry in the appropriate window of time (no more than 1ce a week, and never after 4pm). As instructed, I read the manual beforehand, and seemed to have everything under control, however, even after waiting for the wash cycle to end, setting it to dry, and texting my roommate to ask him to restart the dry cycle when it ended, as it is rather inefficient, I still arrived home to a dryer full of wet clothes. I restarted it again, was admonished by the Madame for causing the lint-trap to fill with lint, and went out to dinner with a friend. I came home to a type-written note laid on my bed entitled "Quelques conseils pour Lauren". Eloquently written, making heavy use of boldface in some instances and yellow highlighting to drive home the most important points, the one-page note details a history of my efforts to clean my clothes today, and lets me know all the things I did wrong. It reminded me that I was "vivement recommande de lire attentivement le manuel d'utilisation de la MIELE qui est un modele de machine d'excellent qualite", and insinuated that I had lied when I claimed that I had read it. I had indeed read enough to figure out where to put detergent, how to set the dials, etc., but this was not enough. Apparently, had there been a test on the manual, I may not have passed. My gravest offense, it seems, was putting socks in the dryer. As any reasonable Swiss person knows, drying socks requires some sort of special bag that only the Swiss know about.

And so, I have spent a great deal of time this weekend looking for a new place, and looking for a replacement for here. The latter turns out to be much easier to find, even with an honest representation of the living situation here, as people really are desperate for housing. Tomorrow I am waking up extra early 1) to avoid the post-highlighted-note awkwardness that I assume ensues after such a non-confrontation, and 2) to go in and scour the internal WTO listserve that advertises apartments.

In other news, I saw lots of cool stuff this weekend, biked to Nyon, met lots of great people, swam in the lake during my lunch hour, but you don't get to hear about any of that, because this woman has used up all of my blogging energy.