Tuesday, June 26, 2007

...it's GENEVA

ok, so the all caps is a bit much - after all it turned out to be 'only Geneva'. I wouldn't go back in a hurry (unless I wanted to buy that hard to get watch) but it wasn't a bad trip. Geneva is one of those European towns that became a city by finding a niche - banking, of course.

Geneva is right at the foot of Lake Geneva and right on the border of France so it is fairly 'bound' by how much expansion the city can do. Also, since Switzerland is crammed in between the Alps and several countries - they make the most of the land with agriculture (see first pic) so the city just feels crowded, even though it wasn't overly populated. The buildings just felt as if they were encroaching.

There just wasn't much charm and the people were in a hurry. On motorcycles and scooters galore, in numerous Ferraris and Lamborghinis they tore off into all directions. I walked around a bunch and this is the more charming photo I took, so don't look at the picassa folder for more.



I did have a quite tasty Fondue - thanks to Linda and Warren's recommendation and really enjoyed the supermarket - can you say Swiss Chocolate? I don't have anything against Geneva - it just wasn't a Saltzburg even though it looked like one on the map. It was a nice excursion and something fun to do but if you are heading to Switzerland - try Zurich instead, I hear its great. But I would return for this supermarket on it's own (and did I mention to buy a watch?).

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Sitting in Dublin, again

and wondering if I should blog something. I hate to blog when I don't have something more tangible to say but here's something anyhow.

I really like Europe - the people are much more friendly and things just seem to work better (then 'normal'). Now, I am not saying its better than home - different for sure and maybe more to my liking: great food, great architecture, lots of things to see and do (which so far is not that far off from home) but I gotta say I love the politics.

Not just because they aren't real fans of Geo Bushy but the fact that the average citizen here can tell me more about our foreign policy than I know, when things happened, what occurred next - which led to this thing over here. I was once schooled by a 10 year old who knew more about our political system than I imagined the average American would know. Shameful.

So here I sit, 2:30 in the am, jet lagged as all and I am trying to figure out where to spend the weekend, a quick trip, and have the following easy options:
Paris
Brussels
Geneva

There are more but not with the timing that suits me this trip... So, any suggestions?

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Am I a geek? Yes, yes I am...

Now for embarrassment of all time, here is my toon from WoW (World of Warcraft). If you don't know what that is, don't bother clicking on any of this and read the next post...