Bonjour Geneva!

So far I’ve had to learn German and Czech while on this trip. This weekend, French was added to the list. Melissa and I left yesterday morning for Geneva, Switzerland which is very close to the French border. Hence, everyone speaks French. Fortunately, Melissa speaks pretty good French so I haven’t had to exert myself too much. Having her as a travel buddy has definitely made it a lot easier to get around.

Anyway, backtracking for a second… Friday was our last day in Hannover. In the morning we were able to go into the clinics at TiHo, the vet school in Hannover. We split up into groups to go to the different clinics and I went to the small animal hospital. It was very interesting. We took a quick tour of the facilities which are crazy small. I thought our small animal clinic was cramped. After the tour, a bunch of us got to spend a few hours in the surgery department. We watched a neuter, liver biopsy, urethral/bladder stone removal (all on the same dog), and a salivary gland cyst removal. It was very neat.

In the afternoon we went to the Herrenhauser Gardens. They were designed by the same guy who did Versailles except they’re about twice as big. They were absolutely beautiful and it was a gorgeous day. I wish we had a place like this back home where I could just go and read and sit outside.

Friday night we went with all of our host students to the opera to see Carmen. It was kind of difficult because the opera is in French and there were only German supertitles. But I had read a summary before so I think I got the general idea. It was neat for me either way because I’m really familiar with the music from Carmen from all of my years in orchestra. So it was very cool to hear it performed as part of the actual opera.

Mis and I arrived in Geneva Saturday morning and have been taking in the sites. Unfortunately we’re here during the Pentacost which is Monday so we had to cram everything in to 1 ½ days. But we managed. Saturday we walked around in the old town and looked at all of the shops. We found this great international farmer’s market thing. I had the best raisins I’ve ever eaten and ended up buying about a pound of them. They’re some insanely good raisins though. We also climbed up the towers of St. Peter’s Cathedral which provides a beautiful view of the city and the lake.

Today we went outside the city to visit the UN. In front of the Palace of the United Nations there’s this great sculpture of a giant chair with one leg missing. It’s supposed to represent the damage and suffering caused by abandoned land mines. We took a guided tour of the UN buildings and got to see all of the giant conference rooms and everything. It was really neat.

After the UN we walked across the street to the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum. It was way cool. They use a ton of different mediums to talk about the history and mission of the Red Cross. They also had a temporary photography exhibition. It was a collection of a bunch of different photographers that focus on human suffering and the aftermath of crises. It was very moving. I think my favorite photographer did a series in which he collected family photos from a bunch of different people and then recreated the pictures with the people that were still alive, leaving the spaces for their deceased family empty. The two pictures were displayed side by side. It was very powerful.

One of the things I would have absolutely loved to do while here is to visit CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research). It's the world's largest particle physics lab and they do all sorts of cool things like particle acceleration and work with anti-matter. For those of you who've read Angels and Demons, it the place in the book. Unfortunately you have to book your tours 3-4 months in advance so I guess I'll have to come back.

Tomorrow is the Pentacost so everything is closed, so we’re just going to take it easy for the day and then head out to Basel. Yay more Switzerland (aka yay more Swiss chocolate‼!)