This ‘n that

A few days ago, Alyssa, who is one of the other teachers’ babysitters, was downtown doing some shopping. She felt something at her hip. She reached down and grabbed the arm of a little girl around four years old who had just about had her hand inside her pocket! Four freakin’ years old!

They have the strangest makes of cars here. The car we rented was a Delta Lancia. Another common model is a Golf. My all time favorite is a Panda.

The buses are all BMWs.

We came home the other day to find a huge tent erected in the parking lot. I was sure John Knox was going to be hosting a wedding or some other special occasion.

Well, they sure did. They hosted a celebration of the new road. All of the important people of Grand Saconnex gathered here to party hearty over some asphalt. Imagine that.

I really love this place.

We had dinner at Fifty-fifty twice this week, allowing John the opportunity to enjoy his favorite pizza two more times. Once with a bunch of the students.

And once with friends of Gary’s and Drew’s who happened to be in town.

John really loves that pizza!!

Simon ordered a pizza with goat cheese, but he decided he liked Gary’s dinner better. This is not unusual.

Drew ordered…..

I tried a penne with vodka sauce and a type of thinly sliced fried ham which was wonderful!

On Saturday, I spent the morning by myself in the “suburb” of Carouge. It’s an artsy community that sort of reminded me of Soho. I window shopped and had coffee and basically spent some alone time doing stuff the boys would have hated.
Check out how much a store charges for Maybelline mascara. 16.90 francs! That’s around $18 US dollars for something I paid $7 for. Yikes!

On the way back, I did peek into a store that almost all of my friends would love to have been in…

When I stopped for coffee there was this elderly woman sitting at a table across from me that I couldn’t help but watch.

She smoked 5 cigarettes in the 10 minutes that I was there. While she was at rest, her breath was labored. I wondered where she had been, who
she had been…

I think she will show up again in something else I do, whether it be on stage or on paper.

I also walked up the Horrible Hill twice on Saturday.

The cursed buses run strangely on the weekends. I had to take a picture to show you even though I don’t think the photo does justice to its horribleness.

We went to dinner last night and decided to have a …. few beers.

I assure you that beer tastes better by the yard.

And the week goes on

One day John and Drew wanted to go to the chess park. Although Simon enjoys it for a little while, he quickly becomes bored because he doesn’t play chess and the playground is built for younger kids. So we made a two part deal. We would play whiffle ball, AND he would get to chose the next days activity.

So with every kid at John Knox in tow, off we went…

The trip didn’t start off very well. When we got off of the bus, i thought we were supposed to turn left but Max was sure we were supposed to turn right. Drew was positive we went straight.

Uh oh.

After stumbling around a bit, we ran into a pair of the orange clad teenage “tourist aids” that wander around Geneva wearing T-shirts with “may I help you?” printed on them. Relieved, I asked if they could help us find the park. They had no idea what I was talking about. Luckily, I had a picture of the kids playing chess there on my phone.

“Ahhh”, one of them said, “You need to turn left at the corner ”
“No”, the other interrupted, “They need to turn right ”

Oh great.

We finally found ourselves at the back entrance of the park.

The boys played a lot of chess, I pitched a lot of whiffle balls (Simon would hit and then chase them) and we ended the afternoon with ice cream, of course.

Fortunately, finding the bus home was no problem!

Just so you know, I wasn’t ever worried about not finding the park. Geneva isn’t a big city and as long as you can find a bus stop, you can always get home. However, the experience with 7 kids, and some of them having no sense of adventure (or humor about the situation), was starting to get …. annoying.

Simon’s choice turned out to be a day at the fountains across from United Nations. Both he and John spent about 3 hours joyously running through cold water spurting out of the ground.

I even walked through a few geysers. Drew, on the other hand, was happy to lounge around reading a book.

It was interesting watching people of all nationalities do touristy things. I had to laugh at how many posed as if they were holding up the destroyed leg of the Broken Chair.

Then we decided ice cream was necessary, so we went on a quest and Simon finally spotted a “kid with a cone”. We back tracked where he had been and found some Movenpick…the Holy Grail of ice cream!

Yesterday we went to the Museum of Natural History. It was pretty cool. Standout exhibits were the entire floor on “Who’s Poo?”, and the live 2 headed turtle. The boys enjoyed it more than they thought they would, which was no surprise to me. Well, except Drew. He enjoyed it exactly as much as I expected he would…a lot!! Simon took a gazillion pictures with my phone. I thought this one was great.

Best dinner of the week has been the Paella made right here at John Knox. It was Absolutely Outstanding!

More pictures

Fashion in Vallorbe

Riding the bus

Fun in the chess park

The rainy streets of Bern

United Nations


The fountains across from The United Nations

The Broken Chair (39 ft high) a monument that symbolizes opposition to land mines and cluster bombs and serves as a reminder to the people at United Nations.

Thun, Bern and 2 Ferris Wheels in 2 days

I am going to TRY and write this for the third time. Without going into boring detail, things keep happening to delete it.

So without further ado…

Friday was Gary’s day off, so we piled into a rented car and set off for the Germanic town of Thun. The very first thing we did was go on the ginormous ferris wheel which gave us a magnificent view of the area.

Then we all enjoyed a huge Donor Sandwich for lunch at a Kabob Bar. This is Switzerland’s version of our Greek Gyro sandwich, but for some reason it tastes better. Simon wanted nothing to do with it because it had lettuce in it.

We did a few hours of window shopping. The coolest part of the town was how the stores were built double decker right into the side of a mountain.

Around 4:30 we decided to walk to one of Thun’s two castles.

It had started to rain. We had a little trouble finding it, but when we finally did, we headed up the steep and twisted walkway to the entrance. The boys scampered up like chipmunks, but Dolly and I had to stop and rest. We arrived at the castles entrance at 4:55 and found out the castle closed at 5:00! Arg.

The exit consisted of 155 steps down. No wonder we had to take a breather on the way up!

After that disappointment, we decided to go to Bern for dinner. Bern is a very modern city and sadly all of the stores were closed by the time we got there (Switzerland shuts down by 7:00 pm). As we walked around, Dolly and I agreed that we could have shopped there all day. It probably was a good thing we got there so late, right Mike?

When in the Germanic part of Switzerland, it would only do to have a Roesti for dinner, so we went to a restaurant that specialized in them. We were not disappointed! A Roesti is usually a casserole made of sausage or ham, cheese and a fried egg on top of hash brown type potatoes.

Then we found this amazing church (that was also closed) but the exterior facade depicted heaven and hell in a most interesting way.

We spent Saturday in downtown Geneva, having lunch at 50-50, where John had his 2nd salmon pizza.

I chose something called a nicoise salad ( anchovies, tuna, cheese, veggies). Drew had the same Pasta Bolognese that he has ordered every single time we have gone out!

Of course we had to take a ride on the ferris wheel that is now running. It’s not as high as the one in Thun, but the view is just as spectacular!

The afternoon was lazily spent at the chess park where John was tutored and totally topped twice by a crazy energetic Rasta man.

The rest of us, read or lounged or played at the playground as we saw fit.

Our friend from last year, Theo, arrived on Saturday. Originally from South Africa, he currently lives in Italy. This year he brought an entourage along, including his 13 year old daughter, Emmy, ( no, I’m not making that up). She’s an adorable sweet cupcake, just like my grand-dog, Emmy.

His wife is a diplomat and he is the head of an organization which uses discarded smart phones, powered by solar energy, as computers in classrooms in South Africa. The solar power device was invented by a group of the students in this cohort.

Good company.

Pictures from my iPhone

The rest of the early pictures are stranded in my camera. I still haven’t figured out how to post them.

John and some students playing a silly game with ever changing rules

Rocks in the caves of Vallorbe

The “projects” of Geneva. Scary looking ghettos. Huh? They surround a beautiful playground and well priced shops. Switzerland knows how to take care of its own.

John and Simon at a bus stop. Notice that John has his ever present PS Vita in his hands.

A few days worth of stuff…

The internet connection here sucks. I totally forgot about that from last year. It’s really frustrating to try to get anything done when you can’t count on being able to get online. Loading pictures is at the zkbottom of the internet priority scale, but I will do what I can.

The last few days have been pretty low key. After we started the passport ball rolling, we spent the afternoon hanging out at a riverside cafe by Jet d’ Eau. The boys were able to get their fountain fix and Dolly and I were able to relax in the shade with a book and a beverage. Exactly what was needed after the high anxiety of the past 12 hours.

Wednesday, was Field Trip day for the class and this year we went to The Caves of Vallorbe. John and I had been there last year, but it was a first for the students and it was fun watching them discover it. Also, this time we had a guide and finding out things like some of the rock formations were 14,000 years old was very cool. L

I took a crap load of pictures and was amazed to discover that my iPhone camera took better pictures than my camera-camera. Go figure! A picnic lunch at a beach, a quick stop at an amazingly beautiful look out pointe

and a short visit to the town of Nyon, rounded out our day.

Dinner was a typical John Knox BBQ. The chef, Jose, who speaks, Italian, Spanish and French but not a word of English, prepared a lavish spread of salads, sausages, chicken and thinly sliced steak. Everyone ate until they were busting at the seams.

Major damage was done to a keg of beer….then we got serious. Expensive cuban cigars were lit. Gary brought out a crazily priced bottle of rum he had purchased in Nyon….and we demolished it. Others brought out bottles of scotch and Pastis…and we emptied them. Jose brought out the last of the honeyed wine that his grandfather made before he died…and we finished it. The partying went on into the wee hours.

I love Geneva.

This morning, we relaxed.
Ha.

We enjoyed our quiet afternoon by Jet d’ Eau so much that after a delicious lunch of fried calamari (notice how Jose prepared fried food after a massive night of drinking) we decided to do it again. This time we took the 8 bus downtown so we could take a water taxi across the river.

It’s actually a ferry/bus that goes across the river and is covered in the cost of our bus pass. The 15 minute ride was great. I would have been happy to ride back and forth all afternoon, but the boys were anxious to run through the fountain again.

Well, it was hot and we had to walk further than we planned. Everyone was tired and thirsty. And Simon was hungry. It’s not good when Simon gets hungry. Drew was annoying, too. Actually he got more on Dolly’s nerves than mine, but I was not in the mood to hear more about zombie survivalism.

John asked me if he had once acted like them. Um. Really, John?

Tonight, we walked down the Horrible Hill to a local restaurant for a pleasant family dinner. Good food, good company, good conversation. On the way back, we ran into a doggie doppelgänger for our childhood pet, “Poochers”. He even had the same white fur triangle. When I saw him, I cried out, “omg, it’s Poochers” and he broke away from his owners, ran over to us and started kissing me and Gary. His people looked confused and said “Wow, we’ve been calling him Charles and he’s never run and done that to us”.

Hmmm…. If it weren’t for the 30 year and 6000 mile difference…. I might wonder…

Walking through dog crap wasn’t the worst part of my day

Yesterday, when I stepped into a squishy, stinky pile of dog poo, I thought it was going to be the worst part of my day.

But wait, there’s more…

Somewhere between 5-6 pm and probably while I was watching a mime painted in glittery silver ink, from head to toe, someone unzipped my crossover body purse (designed to protect me from pickpockets) and reached in and picked my pocket! Yes, they stole my wallet containing both mine and John’s passports, my drivers license, a credit card, my insurance card, my Swiss bus pass, about 500 Swiss francs and 150 Euros.

Phuck.

They unzipped my fricking Bagallini purse and took my wallet, without me realizIng it. They probably were working with the stupid mime.

When we filed the police report, the police officer showed us a pile of about 75 pickpocketing reports that he had already filed for that day alone. It’s an epidemic! The pickpocketers are coming from all over poverty stricken Europe to have a field day in Geneva.

Luckily, before I left home, I had emailed myself copies of our passports, so we were able to go to the US embassy in Geneva this morning to order new ones.

The embassy was interesting. It was on the second floor of an office building. When we got off of the elevator, we were met by 2 armed soldiers, standing at attention. They ordered us to leave our bags with them and then scanned our bodies before allowing us into the vault (thats what it reminded me of, it was behind a lead door with a combination lock) of an office that is actually the U.S. Embassy. The clerk told me that I actually had to go to Bern (about a 4 hour train ride) to get new passports. When she saw how distraught that bit of news made me (and because I was nice…honey always works!), she relented and took care of it for me. Although another crime was committed when they charged me $300 for the passports and $50 for the photos!

Inphuckin’credible.

I was able to cancel the credit card before any damage was done. I don’t have to worry about a drivers license until I get home. I replaced the bus pass today. Hopefully, I won’t need the insurance card. The cash hurts, but it is what it is. Spilled milk. A big ole’ puddle of it.

Yesterday morning I was all kumbayah and shit singing, “The answer my friend is blowing’ in the sunflowers” and today I’m all “Phuck this shit, they stole my wallet! “.

So my stepping in dog shit…ain’t no thing but a chicken wing.

Even a rainy day has its bright spots

The day dawned grey and drizzley, but we decided to try and hit the Botanical gardens in between raindrops. Chris, the 13 year old son of one of the students, joined us. We didn’t get to see much before it started to pour, but the kids did manage a ride on the worlds coolest double decker carousel. John chose a car on the top deck shaped like a lion. The best part of the trip was a peacock who walked right up to us, begging for food. It was so bizarre. The bird took a granola bar right out of my hand! A peacock!

Dinner was in Gary and Dolly’s room with friends. Lively conversation flowed as freely as the wine and Pastis (a licorice flavored alcohol). It was as perfect as if we were playing out a scene in a film…

Here is an amazing picture taken by Tim Saunders, one of the students, of the field right next to John Knox. I spend so much time just staring at the flowers and the mountains beyond. You cannot hear the cowbells from the farmers herd, smell the sweetness of the air or feel the soft breeze on your face, but perhaps the picture can give you a small glimpse of the beauty of this place.

This little piggie goes to market

I love market day in Geneva. We walk, about a mile, down beautiful tree-lined streets, passing gorgeous embassies, stately homes and charming churches, until we reach the steep hill affectionately nicknamed “The Horrible Hill of Horribleness” for it’s long and wicked incline. We catch a bus for the Ferney-Voltaire Market at the bottom of the hill. Going down is a snap, but when we return from the market, laden with packages, climbing that Horrible Hill is hell.

The outdoor market is filled with all sorts of delectable goodies…fresh fruits and veggies, meats and cheeses and bargains galore. This weeks trip yielded some amazing cherries, to die-for chocolate croissants, the sweetest yellow plums I’ve ever eaten and a fillet knife. Gary and Dolly got stuff to cook dinner at home tonight: handmade ravioli and pasta and lots of fresh vegetables. We stopped at the nearby Carrefour store for a few things and I stocked up on the eucalyptus gum I became addicted to last year.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have mens underwear, so even though I was tired from walking all morning, I had to go in the complete opposite direction (downtown) to get some. Now are you wondering why I needed to purchase mens underwear? Because my darling son only brought 1 extra pair with him. Oy. I probably walked 5-7 miles this morning. At least it made up for the chocolate croissant, huh?

The students have been arriving, one by one, since yesterday. It’s so great to see everyone. They start school tomorrow. I, on the other hand, can continue enjoying myself :). And believe me, I will!

Here are some pictures of the things we pass on our walk to the bus stop

Everything’s better in Switzerland

I slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted last night and woke up just in time to catch the very end of breakfast…strong Swiss coffee and a thick slice of fresh French bread slathered in raspberry preserves. Then a long hot shower and I was ready for the day. The boys didn’t get up until 11am, John slept until noon. Finally, everyone was fresh, fed and functioning, so we set out for the day.

First stop was the Rose Gardens where we wandered the paths, inhaling the sweet heady scent of the dozens of varieties of roses. The boys (including John) played in the playground, which they recalled as being one of their favorites. Gary said the play scape reminded him of a giant hamster cage toy. We walked back, window-shopping, stopping where ever it looked interesting. Favorite stop was the store selling (and giving free samples!) varieties of flavored vinegar, oil and alcohol. Did you know absinthe is 72 proof? I do now!

We were so close to Jet du Eau that we HAD to stop there. John adores the fountain! Simon ran under it for the first time ever and displayed his wet hair and clothes as proudly as any Purple Heart!

We stopped for dinner and the food was decent but the wine was magnificent! (Why do I talk so much about alcohol? No, don’t answer.)

The monster bee made its return while John and I played a late night game of Scrabble in the lobby. I swear the thing is as big as a small sparrow! John looked it up and it is a “European Bee”. Although it is a carnivore (gulp), supposedly, it’s not very aggressive. We’ll stay clear just in case.

Now John and I are hanging out in the lobby, eating spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar We both agree that it tastes better here. So much is.

Random observations: The Fete’s Ferris Wheel is almost up! Last year we rode it 4 times. I hope to break that record this year. I am still fascinated by the odd looking black ducks with the pure white beaks. I love watching John play with his cousins. There’s something about this place that allows him to just be a kid.

p.s. Pictures to follow as soon as I figure out how to get them from my camera to my iPad