It’s been a long few days, without a blog post. I’ll tell you all about it in a photo gallery.
How I Spent My Days A Wanderin’ – Geneva Edition (please excuse any holes… although it is a Swiss edition!)
On the night bus to Geneva, I spent the last paper CZK at KFC. This is all the Czech money I have left.
It was therefore ncessary to make a withdrawl in Swiss Francs.
I’m in Geneva! Switzerland, not Illinois.
The Grand Theater. I was going to try and go see an opera here…
…but it’s apparently 3 hours and 40 minutes… and the cheapest seat I could find was 105 swiis francs. Seemed too steep for my nomadic lifestyle at present.
In Pizza We Crust! That’s a great pun!
Amidst the city of Geneva…
I killed some time at a Starbucks waiting to check into my AirBNB. Some scenes are universal. This could have been Geneva, Illinois.
This was at a kid playground. I don’t know if it’s Frankenstein’s Monster, A Warning on Stranger Danger, or just a fun thing to scar everyone, kids and adults alike.
Walking the bridge.
This is my AirBNB in Geneva. It’s much cleaner that Prague… but at four times the price it really should be.
Statutes of somebody or other.
There was something about an airstream Churro food truck that just said, “Photograph Me!”
Unbeknownst to me, to get to the Water Jet of Geneva I passed right by the expo… which wasn’t open that day as they were just getting set up (May 8, 2019).
Please excuse the mess; they are setting up the expo for our future bib pickup.
Getting closer…
Here’s the story of Le Jet d’Eau de Geneva
And closeups so you can follow along.
Here’s the story.
And a bit more…
We have been warned.
Seriously — those stats are crazy!
That’s a lot of pressure.
If you can’t stand the water, get off the pier!
Goose and Water Spout, a Nursery Rhyme Buddy Cop storybook pitch by Kevin Hanna
So I snapped this to know what I was wandering past.
This is St Paul’s (actually Saint Pierre’s in Franch). Churchy.
A view from halfway up the church walkway.
Looking down on the people.
A Wide and Mini look.
The backside of St Pierre’s.
With this creepy statue who is not a gargoyle but ASPIRES to be one one day.
The streets of Geneva with tourist directions.
Down there is the Reformation Wall. More on that in a moment.
To get to the wall, I passed by chess players in the park using HUGE pieces. Would that there had been a giant clock they had to American Ninja pounce on to tap out their timing play.
Busted.
The Reformation Wall with the four biggies.
William Farrel (not the dude in Elf), John Calvin (not the one with the stuffed tiger), Theodore Beza (not to be confused with Thedore Ruxpin), and John Knox (is there a Steven Seagal movie where he plays a John Knox? If not there should have been).
What a delightdul construction vehicle to leave parked right in the middle. Swell.
Why so serious? It’s the reformation, not a funeral!
Other protestants make cameos on the wall, but not in the prime locale.
Periphery guys.
Casa Nueva promises Fine Cigars and More… if you look in the N you’ll notice that “And More…” includes a protocol droid fluent in over 6 million forms of communication.
I love old book stores.
I never buy any but I’m just glad they still exist.
More church.
It wasn’t supposed to rain… and then boy did it.
Dinner at a local “cheap eat.” And a cheap burger in Geneva runs ya 20 swiss francs.
But it’s Gourmet!
Sushi Cow!
Mexi-Cow
The burger was… ok. Overcooked for my taste and the bun was a huge disappointment. A bun can make or break even the best burger; it really sinks a middling patty.
And of course later in the day it’s beautiful.
Geneva by night.
The light Le Jet d’Eau at night.
I loved this for sale sign on a bicycle. I just thought it… necessary to be photographed.
This is Notre Dame for Geneva. Looks a lot like it… though this one stil has a roof. I’m not trying to be funny — I just mean this one still has a roof.
My AirBNB is right next to a Municipal Cop station… where apparently the cops are all Blade Runners… er, I mean, Roller Bladers. Weird. But this could make a great reboot of Pacific Blue, the cops on bikes show that Mario Lopez joined halfway through its run.
The fountain plaza outside the UN Geneva Branch.
The Broken Chair was originally about land mines and casualties of war and post-war life. But it took on greater meaning thereafter and now is a Geneva icon.
The Broken Chair just outside the UN.
I saw somebody else posing like this and thought it was a nice sentiment, that we can help stablize a broken chair… but then I thought, wait, isn’t the point that the broken chair still stands even though it’s missing part of a leg? Isn’t that self-reliance even more powerful? Conflicted.
One of the checkpoints into the UN.
There are 193 nations in the UN with two observing members — The Vatican and Palestine.
As I circled around to the main UN entrance, I came across this building.
The Musée Ariana, home to 25,000 glass and ceramic items…
…and apparently coming soon a kickass wooden roller coaster!
Right across from the UN is the main headquarters and msueum for the Red Cross.
This is the view of the UN entrance from the Red Cross bluff.
I fully intended to visit the museum…
It all seemed tone deaf to me. I felt weird hanging on to “Tortured Souls” and taking funny instagram pics.
They encourage you to take a selfie in the courtyard and hashtag it. It’s a piece called “Tortured Souls.” And in this promo shot, folks are smiling and waving.
Say — did you know that Muslim countries complained about the overly christian cross symbol so the organziation uses a red crescent in some parts of the world.
So much so that I opted not to go into the musuem. It just all felt… wrong somehow. And for an organization that I legitimately feel does important work the world over, it was a bit disappointing.
This is one of the merch items they sell and it only reinforced my feeling on the statue.
My ticket to the UN
The Palace of Nations!
And me with my “backstage pass.”
One of the confrerence rooms in the UN. Lots of meetings here — committees and organizations. The United Arab Emirates paid to refurbish this one so the color scheme is desert sand, crystal seas, and apparently a mosaic in the ceiling evoking the UAE logo.
This is the Human Rights Committee building. We couldn’t get in to see the ceiling but apparently it was designed by Miguel Barcelo and shows differing color shcemes depending on were you sit, offering a visual reminder that points of view and perspectives can be different on the same thing.
This is all that remains of a flag flown over the UN’s Algerian compound attacked by terrorists in 2007.
A view of the park grounds. That globe in the mid-ground used to spin and illuminate but it’s been broken for ages. There’s great meaning in that. The UN annual budget is 2.7 billion euros, less than the Tokyo Fire Department and less than the money spent on a single day on weapons around the world. Perspectives.
One of the main buildings, the kind you see in movies.
Check out the translater ear piece — I know I’ve seen that in countless scenes set at the UN.
And I’m standing there.
On my way out, I snapped one last pic of the UN and Broken Chair.
Those do not look good at all. That’s some seriously burnt quiche.
Notre Dame in better weather.
More Notre Dame.
Yesterday was overcast and drizzily. Today it’s beautiful if blustery.
The Jet de l’eau!
A mid-day snack — that’s some good swiss chocolate in there.
The hero we deserve? A Swiss Chicken keeps a watchful vigil.
You do not want to mess with the Swiss Chicken.
Heading toward CERN
The Globe – a self guided segment of CERN’s tour.
Headed to the Reception Desk.
This is as close to the Large Hadron Collider I got — a scaled model in an exhibit hall.
Neat details though.
CERN is halfway through a 2-year shutdown to allow maintenance and upgrades so there was no active beam shooting around the place.
A trio of STEM college coeds were super fans walking around and certainly sounded like they knew what they were talking about science wise. First time in a while I felt like maybe there WAS hope for the future. I also appreciated one saying, “It looks like the Tony Stark’s ARC reactor!”
This is a cool museum presentation piece — you could pull out the filing cabinet drawers to reveal touch screen monitors that let you flip through the file folders and read up on the science.
I liked this video selector — looks like even at CERN there’s annoying windows pop-ups!
The actual champagne bottle popped when they found the Higgs Boson particle.
A great way to raise money — selling the used data tapes for their super computer backups.
CERN is where the World Wide Web was born in 1989… and for 20 swiss francs, you could celebrate it with a t-shirt.
The Globe.
A work of art reminding us all of the paperwork involved in research… big and little.
Important stats.
Inside the globe… an interactive science show.
Hanging out.
I came back to CERN in the hopes of squeezing into the guided tour… and wa lucky enough to go.
Stats on radiation
The tour itself was mainly just a bunch of walking into other rooms and watching videos. We did NOT get to descend 100 meters to see the actual Large Hadron Collider but what can you do?
An older model of part of the colider.
Atlas is the “new” collider project.
And we watched a gratuitous and poorly rendered 3-D movie about it.
Some background.
This though is the actual control room. There’s a skeleton crew because of the upgrades going on… and I swear that guy is just playing Galaga.
This is the older collider technology. So at least we got to see this.
I suspect the painted on gauges on the walls were originally functional and not just, ya know, paintings. Otherwise, I would question the results they relayed.
Signage.
Those are some serious wrenches.
Having bumped into Reda at the Start Line, I was invited to a European BBQ with her friends and work colleagues. Nice way to end my trip.
Leaving Geneva…
I had some leftover currency so at the airport just kept buying (overpriced) Swiss Chocolates because better to have spent it then to have some Swiss Francs lying around. This is all that remains of this trip’s currency. Pretty good.
