GENEVA

Some days we are just happy we made it back to our hotel room.  Today was one of those days 🙂

We drove to Geneva today and checked into our hotel room just in time to jump back into the car and head to our excursion for the day.  We did a city tour of Geneva, Switzerland.

Geneva is quite an important international city!  

The first part of our tour was in a Mercedes Benz air-conditioned bus.  Can you believe that?  A Mercedes Benz bus?  It was nice!  For this part of our tour we were educated on some of the important International Organizations with headquarters here in Geneva.

First, there is the United Nations.  Interesting, but isn’t that in New York?  That’s where my brain went.  Well, apparently there are four headquarters for the UN.  There is one in NY, one in Geneva Switzerland, one in Vienna Austria and one in Nairobi Kenya.  News to me!

The United Nations motto is:  Peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet.

I like that!  I think they need to work a little harder on the healthy planet part.

Next, there is the World Health Organization.  The WHO is an agency within the United Nations responsible for international public health.  It is headquartered here in Geneva, Switzerland.  Our tour guide Gabriel was proud to remind us of all the instructions that came from the World Health Organization during the COVID pandemic.  

I think we all remember that!

Then there is the World Trade Organization.  Their headquarters is also in Geneva.  The WTO deals with the rules of trade between nations.  They are like the mediator for any trade issues between governments.  They negotiate trade agreements and settle trade disputes.  

BIG JOB!!

And the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is based in Geneva.  They promote laws to protect victims of war as well as people affected by armed violence.

And lastly, the World Bank.  When I say lastly, I just mean it’s the last one I am going to mention.  There are many more organizations, a total of 39, here in Geneva that could also be recognized.

The World Bank has two goals:  to improve the quality of life and increase prosperity for people everywhere, especially the world’s poorest.  So just how are they doing this?  They fund projects that can improve communities and they collect and analyze data needed to reach the poorest and most vulnerable. 

I think it’s quite impressive!   

The second part of our tour was by train.  And we’re not talking like a bullet train, we are talking an open air train like the kind kids ride.  It was great!  We were able to go down narrow streets and places other vehicles couldn’t go.  That’s when we saw the more traditional buildings, the charm!

The third part of our tour was by boat.  We took a boat out onto Lake Geneva, or as we learned on our tour “Lac Leman”.  Apparently, 3/4 of the lake borders France whereas only 1/4 borders Geneva so the French do not like that it is called Lake Geneva.  And although everyone refers to it as Lake Geneva, the official name is Lac Leman.  

Anyway, the lake is quite large.  It is 44 miles long and 228 square miles.  It is beautifully clear and has a gorgeous shoreline.

So now back to us being grateful just to be back in our hotel room 🙂  

After our tour, we made our way back to the parking garage.  We are getting pretty good about dropping pins on our GPS and finding our way around.  But today when we got back to our parking garage we could not for the life of us figure out how to get back in.  So with the help of yet another angel coming to our rescue (we have had so many) we learned that you can not get back into the parking garage before paying for the parking.  They have cash machines outside of the parking garage.  

OK easy enough, but what if you left your ticket in your car?  Well, we got lots of sympathy from people who had one time or another found themselves in the same predicament.  So Kevin waited for someone to come out of the parking garage and he snuck in, got to the car and brought the ticket back outside.  Then with the help of our angel, we put the ticket into the machine, paid the parking fee, received a receipt with a code on it.  We then had to go around the corner and punch the code into a code box which then magically opened the doors to an elevator next to it allowing us in to get our car.

How would we ever have figured that out on our own?!

That coupled with the crazy drive back made us very grateful to be back in our hotel room. 

When we got back to the hotel, Kevin decided to get a beer to take up to the room.  He has been enjoying blonde beers on this trip so when he got up to the bar, he asked the bartender if he could take a blonde up to his room LOL!!

We laughed pretty hard about that, but with the language barrier, I don’t think anyone else got it.

Se la vie!

And more importantly ……..

Paix, dignite et l’egalite sur une planete saine!