Quick turnaround on the posts this week, as even though some Quakers are off frolicking on Fall Break, others have no time (yet) for rest.
To be honest, I had been hoping to devote one of these in its entirety to a French cooking course that I took last week. Penn had signed each of us up for a five person session all the way back in September, and I had been waiting with excitement for last Wednesday to come so that I could finally fully appreciate French cuisine. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. Most of my time was spent shoved in a corner trying to create my own egg-less mayonnaise separate from the group, and the main course was boiled vegetables accompanied by boiled fish. No seasoning, spicing, flavor, nothing; not exactly what I had hoped for. Thus, I remain a lost soul wandering through the great unknown that is French cooking.
However, this is not a lost post, as yesterday I did have the opportunity to make a day trip across the border to Geneva. This renowned city of internationalism, diplomacy and neutrality is located a stone’s throw from Lyon, more specifically about an hour and forty five minutes by slow speed train. Many others in the group had already accomplished the feat, so four of us decided to hop on the first train in the morning, and arrived at about 9am ready to start the day. The map told us we were in Switzerland, but except for the inverted Red Cross flags everywhere, we had no reason to believe we had left France. Obviously French was the language of the city, and many little French specialties (from the bright yellow mail carriers to the neon green pharmacy logos) persisted in this city in the Alps. Also we were supposed to go through customs upon leaving the Euro Zone, but immigration officers were nowhere to be found, and the seamless border crossing made us even more convinced that we were still en France. The only problem for us was the Swiss Franc, as Switzerland is still refraining from joining the Euro party. Money would factor in later, but we quickly found that everyone at the train station was more than happy to accept our Euros, and returned us Francs in change. Remind me why France has not yet just cut to the chase and taken this city over?
The main attraction of Geneva is the United Nations building, and this international relations student quickly herded the group in that direction to start the morning. Upon arriving at the compound, faced with all the member states flags and 1920s structures, I could not stop myself from being both impressed by its grandeur, and confused as to its point. The United Nations is in New York, I continually reminded myself, so what was this building doing here, and why do 160 (out of 193) countries have permanent missions here? I tucked the question into the back of my head, and we scrambled inside to take advantage of the warmth.
The tour was decidedly stately yet uneventful, and by the end we had seen our fair share of large conference rooms featuring chairs, microphones, and country placards. Some countries had given elaborate gifts to the UN (including contemporary paintings of monkeys, a map canvassed onto an urn, and a mini gold plated castle), but I was unable to find one from the US, figuring that instead of trinkets we had decided to supply the funds for the majority of the organization. What I did learn is that some of the main bodies of the UN are actually located in Geneva, such as the Human Rights Council and the WHO, and that there are also mini-UNs in Vienna and Nairobi, thus making Geneva not a complete outlier. Yet I could not help but to think that after the failure of the League of Nations (well done US of A!), this grand building was brand new yet unoccupied, so why not give it a purpose? Still, I enjoyed the tour as an impressive testament to the best institution in international diplomacy.
As the rest of the day wore on, we realized that perhaps the first train of the day was not the best idea we had ever come up with. We spent a couple hours waterside not taking in the view but simply sleeping on the grass, and this was after test driving a few temperpedic recliners in a downtown shop for, oh, twenty five minutes. Our restaurant choices fully embraced the worldliness of the city, namely Indian food for lunch and Mexican for dinner. In between the hundreds of watch and Swiss army knife stores, we did find a couple Swiss chocolatiers featuring both munchies and hot chocolate that made the trip worth it. However, despite the Swiss Franc being a little bit less than one-to-one with the dollar (and thus much cheaper than the Euro), we found that everything was frightfully expensive. I kept looking at the prices and trying to rationalize them by noting how much more valuable the Euro was than the Franc, but then upon realization that a Franc was actually no different than a Dollar, I was perplexed (example: McDonald’s was featuring a Big Mac Meal for just over 11 Francs). For a day, this expensiveness was tolerable, but if you want to live in Geneva for an extended period of time, you better have a shady offshore business account evading taxes and at the ready for some serious spending.
We ended up failing to get into the second main attraction of the day, as the Church of St. Pierre where John Calvin had done his Reformation thing was closed for mass by the time we arrived (after a nap and hot chocolate). A bit disappointing, but the outside of the church and square were nice, and we were well saturated with history by that point of the day. Finally, around eight o’clock we boarded the last train for Lyon (still no customs), and we all fell back to sleep during the slow ride back.
We arrived back in Lyon, and found the city the same way we left it; dark, empty and cold. Yet, for some reason, we were all happy to be there.
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