Hey everyone! This is going to be really short, because a) internet is very expensive in Geneva, b) the keyboard layout is once again different (seems like every European country makes up its own keyboard), and c) I have to catch my flight to Amsterdam in a few hours and I still haven't packed =)
So, we spent the last few days on the shore of Lake Geneva (in French it's called Lac Léman, I don't get why there's such a discrepancy). To all of those who care, this is the lake that inspired the song "Smoke on the Water". Anyways, I'm proud to say that I spent more money on museums and guided visits than I did on food! The Swiss really seem to be all about world peace and universal friendship. Geneva harbors the second largest United nation complex and the Red Cross headquarters, the nearby city of Lausanne that we also visited happens to be the Olympic capital of the world, and I'm not even talking about the Geneva convention (by the way, we took pictures in front of the room where it was signed). It is also the cleanest large city I've ever seen, with a beautifully developed public transport network that is completely free for all tourists. Basically, it's a country of hard-working hippies. That is not to say that it is absolutely perfect, of course - I would appreciate food being not as expensive, for example (the only really really cheap thing is chocolate. Swiss chocolate.)
This is terrible, I wish i had more time to write about all of the super-interesting stuff that happened, but time is running short, I guess I'll update this when i get to Nice and upload all the pictures. Or, rather, not all, but at least a selection of the over 200 I took so far. What else is crucially important? Oh yes, we went to CERN, the huge European nuclear research center! They have a cool museum where you can stand inside a replica of the Large Hadron Collider tunnel and look at the ORIGINAL paper by a CERN engineer that first presented the idea of the World Wide Web. On the top of the paper, you can see the guy's boss' famous resolution: "Vague, but intriguing". This was less than 30 years ago.
We also visited the enormous Patek Philippe museum (that's a famous watchmaking company) and saw the most complicated mechanical watch in the world which adjusts automatically for not only leap years, but also the few skipped seconds that accumulate despite leap years... This thing took 5 years to design and build, too bad it's not really needed anymore - with electronic watches, you can just write a short algorithm that will do this... And, finally, we stopped by the houses of the mortal enemies Rousseau and Voltaire, the fathers of Western democracy and modern theatre.
OK, well the computer's warning me that time is almost up and I'm about to get kicked off... =( I'll write again when there's a chance! Miss you all!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Was there fire in the sky over the lake? :P
Switzerland does sound perfect...even that flaw you found that chocolate is the cheapest food. Umm...that's not a flaw! LOL. That reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Homer ends up in the perfect world and then asks Marge for a donut and she says, "What's a donut?" He screams in horror and leaves the perfect world. Then donuts fall out of the sky and Marge says, "Oh, it's raining again." :)
I can't believe you got to visit CERN!!! That is beyond awesome!!!!!!!
And then you dropped by Voltaire's for tea. Of course. I do that every Sunday you know.
I cannot wait to read and then listen the whole story about your adventures =)
Wow... Sounds like you're having a great time over there! I want to hear all of the cool facts you've learned over there when you come back, as well as all of the stories:) I can't believe you got to go to CERN! Cody will be jealous! I'm glad that the world hasn't yet been swallowed up by a black hole, btw:) Come back to the US!!!
Lucky!!!!! I want Swiss chocolate too!!!
Post a Comment