Geneva

I think Switzerland was what really convinced me that I wanted to try being an expat. A few years ago, I had to go to Lausanne and Geneva after a trip to (interestingly) Belgium. I was flying through Heathrow for some reason and bumped into a friend of mine from when I worked for a Norwegian company. He is a Swede, who married a Brit and of course, they live in Switzerland. They were in the UK visiting her family and I bumped into them on the jet bridge to the airplane. It was one of those small world moments that you could never expect. I had planned on flying to Geneva to spend the weekend and then have my meetings before heading onward to France. My friend would hear none of it and invited me to stay with them for the weekend. He would drive me to Lausanne Sunday night so I would be ready for my meeting.  I had a really wonderful time with them and seeing their lifestyle,  it made me want to expereince the same thing. I literally came home and said to SWMBO, "I could live in Switzerland, no I want to live in Switzerland". Well, we don't live in Switzerland, but that trip definitely played a significant role in our being in Belgium.

We decided on Monday at the spur of the moment, to use our three day weekend by taking a short trip to Geneva. It is an hour from Brussels and the cab from GVA to central Geneva is 15 minutes. So it is really feasible to do for a long weekend. The weatherman predicted fair to rainy weather but true to form, he was wrong and we had beautiful weather the entire time.

Geneva is an interesting place. It is a bit of a government town crossed with big business, with a bit of resort town mixed in. The one common denominator however is money. There is a lot of it as evidenced by the Ferrari / Lambo quotient, the jewelry and high-end watch stores for which the area is known and of course very pricey looking people. It is possible however, to visit on a reasonable budget. SWMBO searched out a very nice hotel a little further out than we would have ideally liked but still within a fairly easy walk to the center and old town. Mostly we wandered the city on foot. Stopped in the occaisonal museum and enjoyed some of the many cafes throughout the city. We did stop in a few watch shops on the first day but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and we did not come home with any new bling. Although the gentleman at IWC did try to close me on a $38,000 Portugese Perpetual Calendar. Maybe next time.

I did try two new beers while in Geneva from the same brewery. The Calvinus Blonde and the Calvinus Blanche. Both were excellent, bottle fermented artisinal beers. The Blond had a crisp hoppy character with a creamy mouthfeel, while the Blanche was an unfiltered wheat beer with a nice fruitiness. Both were refreshing after climbing the many hills of old Geneva and worth paying the extra couple of francs for if you happen to be visiting.