Rest, the UN, Red Cross and Nuclear Physics!

Exploring Geneva by Night
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Our arrival in Geneva was one to remember - for both the right and the wrong reasons! It is a very special airport location - one minute you are flying low over some of the most picture-perfect alpine scenery, with villages and verdant mountain passes straight out of the Heidi novels, and the next you are suddenly landing. Geneva is not a massive city, and the airport itself, usually situated in industrial areas of any major city, seems surrounded by fields and forests - a very good start to our Swiss experience.

Visiting the European Headquarters of the United Nations
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Less poetic by far, but for me even more memorable, was getting my shoe lace stuck in the travellator (moving walkway) at the airport! One moment I was calmly strolling alongside Denise, moving to the end of the walkway to meet our friend Theresia, with whom we were staying in Geneva, and the next there was a noise like a cross between a buzz saw and a trash compactor, accompanied by a sharp yank on my left foot downwards and to the back. The bottom third of my shoe lace was swallowed and mangled in the machine, but after some rather heroic (Denise might have a less flattering adjective) balancing of my full pack I was able to recover and break the lace (which now looked remarkably like shredded confetti) and stumble onwards – not the most graceful entry into a new city but certainly one to remember!

Special VIP Treatment at the UN due to our insider connections!!
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Theresia was waiting for us – with roses if you can believe it – and a welcome that immediately placed Geneva high on the list of favourite cities so far. She works for the United Nations and has a super apartment in a very nice part of town which we would call home for the next week. ‘Pension Resi’, as it became known, gets full marks for facilities, comfort, warmth of ‘staff’ and of course – value for money! It was the first time since we left Franca in Madrid that we felt we could relax in a homey environment, do some much-needed laundry, and just chill out. Apart from the fact that Theresia’s hospitality helped rescue our near-dead budget, it was a really necessary break from dorms, hostels and other less personal accommodation. It is great to have great friends – especially when they live in such super places around the globe!

A quick visit to the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum was very interesting
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One of the best things about Switzerland, in our not-so-humble opinion, is the food – especially if you like cheese and wine as much as we do. After an excellent home-cooked pasta with an equally good wine (and a rather unique Swiss carbonated drink called Rivella, made from milk by-products), followed by fresh strawberries and choc chip yoghurt we tumbled into our very comfortable bed in the guest room and slept the sleep of the dead.

Despite good intentions Thursday was a day that passed very rapidly without us ever really leaving the apartment (except to do some laundry). After sleeping in, doing some internet research for the next leg of the trip, and much relaxing we realised that the day had passed. Theresia arrived back from work with her friend, Franziska, who also works for the UN. After drinks on the patio and a light dinner (grilled cheese and some fresh salad) we decided to head into the Old City to get our first look around (Denise had been to Geneva before but it was all new to me). The Old City is superb – situated on a hill above the rivers (Lake Geneva feeds two separate rivers – the Rhone and the Arve) it is an icon of old-world charm. The Cathedral is a rather strange mixture of styles (mainly Gothic and Romanesque) and the winding cobbled streets lead you from café to café. Theresia had warned us that the city is not normally buzzing at night, but it was such a warm evening that the people of Geneva proved her wrong…the atmosphere was great. We walked down out of the Old City, over the bridge (and the VERY fast flowing river beneath) and then along the promenade next to the river in the direction of the Jet d’Eau – a massive water spout shooting 7 tons of water 140 meters into the air at any given moment. Sadly as we approached the spout shut off (probably a function of how late it was), so we sat on a jetty and chatted for a while. The first drops of rain got us headed home after a great first night on the town.

Great seeing Armin again after many years!!
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Friday was a more intensive programme. Theresia had taken the day off work so we all left in time to get to the UN for the first tour of the day. Denise and I joined the tour whilst Theresia sped off to pick up Paul from the airport and another good friend of both Theresia and Denise from their university days – Armin – arriving at the train station (as you can tell, Theresia had put a ton of planning into the creation of an excellent itinerary for our Swiss experience!). The UN campus in Geneva is situated right on the shores of Lake Geneva, and located alongside the newly-completed Place des Nations – a very imposing square of fountains and world flags arranged around a massive metal chair with only 3 legs – a symbol of the work being done to help victims of land-mines around the globe.

A great visit to the birthplace of the World Wide Web - CERN
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The UN tour was interesting, but not quite as engaging as the one at the UN in New York (I found it less about the work of the UN and its agencies and more of a historical building tour) – I did try to stir things up a little by asking about the status of Taiwan (we had a group of very brash Chinese on the tour with us) and outstanding membership dues of nations like the US – all of which the tour guide handled with flair. After the UN we walked over the road to the International Red Cross\Red Crescent Museum and walked around the free exhibit of 88 photos of victims of historical conflicts – very powerful stuff and a strong indictment of international and national aggression. At around lunchtime we met up with Theresia, Paul and Armin to drive over to CERN.

Our very knowledgable CERN guide!
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CERN is the European centre for Nuclear Research (although nowadays they are studying much smaller particles of matter than those at the nuclear level). It was here that the American scientist Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, and here that the leading work has been done in revealing the building blocks of our physical universe. The tours of the facility are amazing – and free!! (although you do have to reserve a spot over the internet well in advance to get in) As our guide, the lead cryogenic engineer for the facility, was to explain, CERN’s scientists are like children who take a precision clock apart by smashing it against a wall and then try to puzzle out how it works by examining the broken pieces…except in their case the ‘clock’ is a particle like a proton and the ‘wall’ is a massive obstacle into which they slam the particle at speeds approaching the speed of light! Their latest project is the worlds largest particle accelerator (the Large Hadron Collider) which should be completed by early next year – with it they plan to recreate the instants immediately following the Big Bang…exciting stuff and explained in such easy terms that anyone can understand. We were even taken into the new accelerator itself – 200 meters below the earth! The most amazing thing is that, in these days of overwhelming security concerns – we were allowed to take as many pictures as we liked. CERN embodies the belief that when ALL nations are equally involved and engaged in a project then there is really no reason for aggression. It was a remarkable experience and one we would highly recommend if you are ever near Geneva.

100m down into the earth to see the particle accelerator
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Dinner that night was in the Old Town, where we met up with another of Theresia’s friends, Zeina. We were joined later in the night by Adolfo (a friend of Denise’s from her IBM internship days) and his girlfriend, Neyran, who would be travelling with us all the next two days as we headed into the mountains.