Corruption in the Skies

At first I thought it was just Continental...but no...the disillusionment continues. I keep running into shady business practices that make me very unhappy with the airline industry.

The euro airlines:

Swiss air - what could be better? A good flight, food on a 1 hr plane trip and swiss chocolate besides! But no...you come back home and find out they slapped you with 3 charges of ridiculous unexplained fees. One for going, one for coming and one for being a passenger. How the heck does that make any sense? At first I was convinced I was the victim of fraudulent charges. I call Wells Fargo only to find out it's coming legitimately from the airline. *&%!

At this point I have also booked a flight with Air France. Same ridiculous charges, only this time they're even more expensive. I could have sworn someone was just watching my account, ready to pounce everytime I bought a flight. The funny thing is, at no point during the purchasing of tickets do they notify you of these surreptitious charges. Even when you go back and check your e-mail or the info about ticket bookings there is no asterisk with itty bitty print about charges for who-knows-what. Excuse me, but you can't just hide behind fine to nonexistent print and hope no one will see. It's unjust!

Then there's Continental. Ahh the bane of my existence. Were it not for you...I would not be biding my time on this continent. You book in advance for a reasonable price. And then when you want to change your return flight...it ends up costing you $3,000 to come home a week earlier. Okay fine...I'll just sit here and be prisoner to your conniving little games. *bitter pout*

That being said...it is an airplane that will carry me to my blessed home in California. So it is an airplane that I can thank for the happiest day of my summer. In the words of Diana Ross, I WILL SURVIVE!!!!

Use your imagination

The internet has become intolerably uncooperative at my dormitory. My computer has spent the last hour trying to upload two pictures to Picasa. So it is with my apologies that this will be yet another photo-less entry. I promise to post when I get the chance to. I don't have a ton of pictures, but I liked the ones I have.

I just returned from a true vacation. Relaxing and rejuvenating in (almost) every way. Destination? Barcelona. Cynthia and Kareem were both doing summers there, and it was awesome to go visit and see how they spend their time there. Kareem is already finished with his language program, so he gets to go to Paris and then home. *Irene is very jealous* Cynthia is also wrapping things up, so she can go tour Italy!

Anyway...my impression of Spain was ultimate relaxation. No one seems to take things too seriously. Shops open at 10am....or later if they feel like. With a gorgeous beach just a morning's jog away, Cynthia and I would get our exercise in the mornings before the heat really set in. Fruit abounded and so did shopping! Cynthia is a shopping machine...she walks into a store and walks out with at least 3 absolute steals. I've never seen anyone so efficient at buying so much stuff in my life. Eating was yummy and so wallet-friendly too. I never had a better glass of Sangria either. Since dinner time over there is close to 10pm, all the restaurants are open late. I like it when a city is alive at late hours...it's comforting.

In terms of tourism, we all ventured out of town to see Salvador Dali's self-made museum in Figueres, Costa Brava. Surreal art is definitely more interesting with friends. I saw a lot of fantasy-like architecture done by Gaudi in Barcelona. My absolute favorite was the Park Guell. (I promise pictures of this!) On an interesting medical note, Gaudi was commissioned to design the Hospital Saint Paul in Barcelona. His project was to design a hospital that didn't feel like a hospital for the patients...it is amazing! It's sort of church/castle like. It's beautiful and it's a functioning hospital! You see people in white coats walking out to get their lunches and stuff. I think I even saw a medical school building and I flipped to think people could get their schooling done in a place like this.

I have exactly three more weeks left in Europe. I can't waiiiiiiiiiiit to go home. I haven't really explored the rest of Switzerland, so I need to do that. AirFrance had reasonable tickets to London, so that's also on my itinerary. I think the English will be music to my ears~

Outie

Out to Milan for the weekend where we will have the ultimate UCSF reunion. The UCSF Genevoise will meet up with the UCSF Barcelonians and partayyy. :)

I have high hopes for the summer sales. But mmm....real italian pizza!

The Swiss Kiss

3 if your Swiss
(I think it's 2 for the French and Italians.)

This week I learned about the European custom of kissing when you greet each other. I have breakfast with girls from Spain, France and Italy in my dorm. We were talking about how even between European countries, customs of greeting can be so different. Sego, a lovely and outgoing French girl had to work with this German boy for a project. She greeted him with the cheek pecks to be polite and he totally froze up and thought she was weird. I think she was put off by his cultural insensitivity. Haha...so I decided to try it out and "europeanize" myself. It was a little awkward at first, but it's a fun.

It's kind of amazing to realize what an international environment I am in. Geneva definitely attracts an international community because of organizations like the UN, WHO, WTO, ITC, ILO and many others. My dormitory alone houses girls from 43 different countries! This week my WHO Ageing group held a 3-day meeting with people from Japan, Jamaica, Turkey, the UK, Singapore and more. My overwhelming impression is that we are not all that different no matter where we come from. Although it's nice to see a fellow American (and there are many of us). The only challenge is the language barrier you run into sometimes. It's definitely a great investment when countries teach their students foreign language. I am able to talk to so many people because they took the time to learn english. Makes me wish I was able to speak to others in their language.

bites of europe

I think one of my favorite things about being abroad is the different lifestyle and food you get to experience. A few things you could say about Europeans is that they seem to take their time with food and food seems to be made with few of what I like to call "fake" ingredients. (You know the ones with complex names like maltodextro-blah blah.) It tends to be yummy, but not always.

Paris:
The artful meticulousness of the corner patisserie was very impressive. I can see why everyone else seeks to emulate French dessert making.


Cheap eats: Ahh the baguette sandwich. So filling, fast and cheap. You see all the tourists walking around with one. I think we had one for lunch almost every day we were in Paris.


One thing I really like about European menus is that salmon is everywhere! It's smoked and put in baguettes, salads, pasta and served rare as pictured below in tartare. Yum!


Switzerland:
But as soon as I lose the comforts of mommy's wallet, I am back on the student budget. Several friends have termed this the "euro-diet." Basically food is expensive, so eat less. I was pretty serious about this diet for a good week or so. And then I discovered grocery shopping and the prices work out to be more or less comparable. Still...the cheapest thing in Swizterland is....water.


You can still pay the normal prices for bottled water, but tap water is drinkable. It essentially comes from the same source as evian since we're right there.

Geneva is super international. So I have been able to enjoy some neat ethnic foods. One of my favorite cheap eats comes from an Iranian grocery store. This english-speaking Iranian dude has a killer seafood salad pictured below. These were the first veggies I found in Geneva, so they were very near and dear to my heart. I have since found veggies and other delicious things at the local grocery store, farmers markets, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and, yes, at the WHO cafeteria. For any tea lovers out there, Moroccan restaurants serve this amazing mint tea that's sweet and refreshing.


Prague:
I really like soft serve ice-cream and this is one of the coolest flavor combos I've seen: strawberry and banana sorbet. It's served in a neat waffle cone and topped with raspberries. I promise the cup was much smaller than what you'd think...but I still probably had more ice cream than is good for you during my stay in Prague.


But ice cream is not particularly unique to the Czechs. The meal below, on the other hand, came from a restaurant that claimed to serve traditional Czech food. The duck with cranberry sauce was pretty good, but my veggie side (not pictured here) must have been marinated in salt. Even now I can remember wanting to choke or down a gallon of water.


Anticipating: I have plans to visit Italy and Spain in the near future and I am really looking forward to REAL italian food and REAL Spanish food. Goodbye to cheesey swizterland at least for a little bit.

Crazy Ninja Monkey Grandma (Le Weekend: Part II)

I met a girl from my dorm last night, and she mentioned that she was going with a group that hikes Mount Saleve every Sunday. It was perfect because I had been looking to do a day trip of hiking to see some of Switzerland's natural beauty and was eager to go in a group.

Every Sunday a group of the Genevoise hikes up Mount Saleve for a beautiful view of Geneva and the Jura mountains on one side and the Alps on the other. There's old people and young people, but everyone is surprisingly spry and we moved at a good pace. The trail takes longer than expected, and three hours later we are greeted at the top by cows with real bells! Though Mount Saleve is a steep climb, the top flattens out to fields of grass, hence the cows. There is a restaurant at the top as well, and this is when I realize some people just drive up here or take a gondola up. Lol. I rest for a while, but the dorm girl I came with wants to do some more exploring at the top. (She walked 40 minutes to a mini-town with an amazing blueberry tarte last week and was eager to find it again.) I wanted to get home and shower and be online, so I said I'd take the cable car down. It was a 20 minute walk to the cable car station and that is when I got it into my crazy mind that going down on foot would not take much longer than waiting for the cable car.

I set out down the mountain with abandon. Eager to reach flat ground. I thought the steep descent meant surely I would get back in no time flat! Then the fear set in. My poor running shoes weren't much for grip, and the terrain was anything but sturdy. I am inching my way down a pebbly slope when I see a grandma boldly scaling the mountain by making her own trail amongst the trees! Sensing my anxiety, she smiles at me and says this is not an easy hill. She gives me some hiking tips, most of which I don't understand, but I am comforted to know that she's going down this hill with me. I am so impressed at the courage and agility of this little swiss lady. She tells me it's because she's done it many times, but I'm still really humbled. At one point, it gets so steep I am climbing down the trail and Ninja Grandma sits on her bottom and somehow gets down the rocks like a pro. It still took me 2 hours to go down that hill. And I eventually split off from Grandma and got lost for a little bit. I definitely won't be doing any hiking on my own...

I have to say the view from the top of the mountain was a little underwhelming. You could see rows of Alps mountains, but they didn't come out nicely in any of my pictures.
tiny view from the top

Mount Saleve
The rocky areas are so steep there is no vegetation. But anywhere that is horizontal enough is densely populated with trees. Oh my gosh...what was I thinking?!?!

blissful ignorance
At this point I am all happy thinking I am almost home free. Little did I know I had 1.5 more hours to go!

at the top
That california cheese commercial kept running through my head. Good cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California. (or in this case, Swizterland)

Le Weekend: Part I

Saturday farmer's market
(Apparently you can bargain with the vendors, but I didn't know any better.)

In what promises to be my cheapest weekend in Europe, this weekend I occupied myself with happenings around and about Geneva.

On Thursday I watched the Harry Potter movie with a dorm friend (a Californian) and Ehrine and Alvin. It was pretty nice to see a Hollywood movie, and be transported out of francophone territory for a good 2.5 hours. But on to the weekend.

My mentor at the WHO invited me to her town, Ferney-Voltaire, to see the market and have lunch . Louise, my mentor, first showed me where the discount grocery stores were so that I could know the ins and outs of how the swiss get around the expensive prices of Geneva. Then we walked around the Saturday morning market they have which almost identical to a farmers market. With all the fresh, beautiful fruits and veggies I over did it and ended up carrying a really heavy bag all the way back home. (stupid watermelon.) These strawberries were JUST mouth-watering though. Totally worth it.

strawberries from Ferney <3
A WHO co-worker and Louise's partner joined us for lunch at a lovely outside terrace. I got a cream-sauce pasta which ended up being too heavy for the hot day. But they also served bruschetta that looked amazing.
Ferney-Voltaire is right next to Geneva, just across the French border and is the town in which Voltaire lived the last 20 years of his life. Apparently he built a real town our of the marshy village that was Ferney, and he did a lot of good things for the inhabitants, so they made him the patron of their town. He was a very rich and very idealistic man. His mansion is still there, so that was a cool "touristy" thing to go see.

Later that evening, I discovered Geneva has a nightlife! In a town whose grocery stores don't open on Sunday and close at 7pm on regular days, I had assumed nightlife consisted of sitting in your room watching tv. I was astounded. I ventured out with a dorm friend to get some dinner around 10pm. We were worried nothing would be open, but felt secure in knowing there was a 24 hour shop at the train station. To our surprise, all kinds of people were out and about. We made our way through the winding streets of Old Town to find french hip-hop music pumping out of bar/cafes nonstop til midnight! Hurray! Tons of people were sitting outside over drinks and dessert. My friend and I ducked into a charming little restaurant for a pair of salads. Mine was Indian style curry chicken salad. Yum.

How to Open a Swiss Bank Account

I know you're curious too! I came to Switzerland with the secret hope that I would be able to open a bank account here (just a meager one mind you) so that I could say that I owned a Swiss bank account. No such luck.

Making international ATM withdrawals blows. I get slapped with a $5 fee everytime, so naturally I thought to get around that with a local bank account. I walk into the United Bank of Switzerland (UBS) all smiles and ask to open an account. First you need an appointment, says the teller. Okay.
Then, "do you have a salaried job with the WHO?"
Me: "Umm...no. I'm an intern though."
Teller (in thick french accent): "So you don't make any salary?"
Me: "No, but what are the requirements for opening an account?"
Teller (curtly): "It's not possible. You have to have a minimum 2 month contract with the WHO or 50,000 swiss francs."
Me: "Oh, I see. Merci beaucoup. Bonne journée."

So...you can either
a. get a job with some heavy-weight international organization
b. get a lot of money.

On the UBS website it has a link about the "fight against money laundering." Whatever, that's what they're paying you for, you swissies!

Czeching out Prague

zee babushka dolls are so cute, no?
In Prague you have gorgeous buildings in all styles. From gothic and renaissance to rococco and art nouveau. But my favorite is this lovely little building called "the dancing house." Doesn't it just make you want to move?





















Prague...also called Praha. It's an interesting mix of beautiful buildings, incredible history, music and bold development since the fall of communism.

So on Friday, Alvin, Ehrine and I arrive from Geneva. It's been a long and rainy week at work, so we are stoked to be on vacay. Too bad our first experience is mostly our most monstrous. Ehrine and I booked a hostel the night before to be good little students and save some money. It had good reviews on hostelworld and even was mentioned in Rick Steve's Europe book. I don't know why. I got there and the "receptionist" (I will name him bouncer because he looked and acted like a czech thug) was all MEAN. It took 45 minutes to get our room ready when he said 20, and then he demanded I pay in cash. We all go and withdraw money and then find a room without the private bathroom that we had expected. I go back the the bouncer and try to explain, in my most diplomatic tone possible, that there must have been some mistake. Here's where he throws the smack down and tells me "there's nothing to understand" and basically tells me to get out of his face. Makes me cry and go back to my room with my tail between my legs as we settle in to the fact that the hostel is full of young-looking boys who seem to be here to smoke and get drunk in the lounge outside. Yikes. I'm still not beaten badly enough to go demand a cancellation on my Sunday night stay. Bouncer once again gets that "i want to pummel you" look on his face and verbally abuses me, but eventually decides I'm not worth the annoyance and gives me a night's refund. Woo hoo! And I take my money and go to a hotel with a sweet old lady at the reception desk. (That's an important life lesson learned.)

But that's where the horror ends. Seeing prague is pretty neat. We do a lot of the city sights on Friday and Saturday. We're in luck because we happen to choose the weekend of the 650'th anniversary of the Charles Bridge. There are some celebrations that we get to see...including a live "joust" (people hacking away at each other a la Brave Heart). I'm struck by how every where you go, there are tickets being sold for classical music concerts. Musicians also give us a taste by playing a big in public to perhaps promote their concerts later on. I'm enchanted by the idea of music floating through the streets as you walk by.

Surprisingly...there are tons of Korean tourists in Prague. My theory is that it's all because this popular Korean drama loosely translated as, "It happened in Prague." Prague also seems to be a top destination for UK boy parties.

Two more things: language and food. It's crazy that more people speak English in Prague than in France and Switzerland. I guess it's because they have to in order to be international. Definitely made it easy for me to get around! Secondly, food. My best guess is the Czech Republic culture is pretty similar to Russia's. The traditional food tends towards meat, something called goulash and potatoes. But why oh why does it have to be so salty????? I ordered a plate of steamed veggies and I pretty much choked on them because of the salt. It made me so sad to think of the heaps and heaps of sodium someone had ruined those veggies with. I tried not to think of my kidneys as I actually choked down most of them. (probably not a good idea.) Anyway...I did get to enjoy something more universal: ice cream! I had at least one per day. My favorite was this strawberry banana soft-serve sorbet served in a waffle cone cup with raspberries!

Oh one more thing: fashion. Alvin and I both agreed that the fashion in the czechy republicky needs to do some catching up. I can only describe it as girls digging around in wet seal clothes from the 90's. We also saw Malibu Barbie walk by in human form. I still managed to find a MANGO and Zara there although they were mixed in with some questionable stores. I wonder where the locals are shopping.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Today is a special day for me. It is the day Ingee was born, 15 years ago. I usually spend the day visiting her with family and remembering her through her art and pictures. But today I felt like there was no one to share it with. It's regrets like these that make me miss home. I've been homesick these past few days, but also in general for most of my summer. I see the PGA tour on TV, and I wish I could play golf. I can't find fat-free milk and I wish I could go to Whole Foods. Let's not even get into friends and family. It seems like leaving always makes me cherish what I have.

It's some kind of sickness...that you (or rather I) don't know what you have until you leave it. I hope that returning to my comforts will not make me forget how much I have missed them! I want to get back from Europe sooner just so I can enjoy the comforts of home for longer~

I also returned from a 4 day vacation to Prague today. What with all the gray weather, I was so eager to be away from Geneva. But by the end of the vacation, I was eager to be back in Switzerland. Funny. So the Prague trip turned out to be a gift that makes me appreciate having a home base in Geneva.

Above is a picture of me in front of St. Vitus Cathedral - or something. (You can tell I was really into all those churches.) More to come on the Prague trip...

p.s. Taking my homesickness all in stride, my fabulous friend Susan has inspired me to also appreciate the time I have here and the special opportunities to grow and make memories. Bring it on.

Quickie

I'm off for Prague today. Took a few days off work, but hey...I'm an unpaid intern. I hope it's good!

Bonus: What I learned yesterday.
S.V.P. is everywhere on french signs to short hand "sil vous plait" or please. As in close the door behind you s.v.p. Which finally helped me put together r.s.v.p. (the meaning of which has eluded me for my entire life.) R.S.V.P. - Respond, sil vous plait. Genius no? It takes me to come all the way to France and French-swizterland to figure it out. lovely.

The Big Picture

The view from my office in the WHO. It's quite distracting.

Today I went to a WHO induction class that gave new staff and interns an overview of the organization, how it was formed and how it works. The short of it is the WHO is a politically neutral (not always a noble thing) entity of member nations that seeks to attain "the highest degree of health for all persons."

As you can guess, the WHO provides the most aid to the countries with the poorest health. These are generally the poorest countries. Director General, Margaret Chan, has identified the two populations by which the WHO will benchmark its progress: women and the people of Africa. I asked, how is this being 'neutral' if you are going to focus your efforts on specific peoples. But the presenters gave me an answer to the effect of "you should ask the Margaret Chan when you meet her." haha. Women in developing countries and the people of Africa are no doubt in need of aid, but I just wanted to know if that meant we were possibly short changing say children in Iraq or people in other poverty-stricken areas.

Also of note, the WHO charges membership fees from each of its member nations to fund its operations. The poor countries don't really pay and mostly receive aid. Nations pay based on population and affluence, so the U.S. is at the top of the list funding nearly 25% of the WHO's operational costs. In addition, there are funds from non-governmental sources such as the Gates foundation. You can bet the US is once again leading the pack.

I'm kind of proud of the U.S. for being a leader in pursuing high ideals. I was also pleased to find that, at least in the realm of health, politics did not seem to play a big factor. Strategic Objectives put forth by the WHO Executive Board generally don't get put to a vote because everyone can more or less agree on these basic health issues. Doesn't that have a nice utopian ring to it? Of course we know that politics really does cripple healthcare. Take the US healthcare system confounder. I haven't seen the Sicko documentary, but it's been getting good reviews. Can anyone report back to me about it? Or better yet...save it, so you can watch it with me when I get back!

Quel temps fait-il?

Ah high school french. I remember making so many inane "skits" with those same old phrases. How are you? What's the weather today? What would you like to do today?

Well today high school french came back to me (but only a little). When the weather is good you say, "Il fait beau." When it's bad you say, "Il fait mauvais." But today...Il pleut!! The weather forecast for the whole week is rain. And lots of it.

It started after I got to work, and it just rained and rained for the rest of today. Which is a real shame because I heard there was a running club at the WHO, and they run up some trails in the hills. It would have been so nice to get out in the green. But alas, twas not to be so. And here comes my big

EXPOSE of the W.H.O!!!
I'm determined to exercise at least once this week. They are the world HEALTH organization. And yet how do they take care of their own health? Well I can tell you first off, there's not a big push for exercise. To escape the rain I tried to find the "fitness center" today, and no one has really used it. Now I know why; it is hidden in an obscure corner of the basement floor and is probably the size of your bedroom. It has a stair machine that I can only describe as decrepit and a bicycle machine whose power does not come on. One of the weight benches collapsed as I tried to lean on it. Shambles I tell you...disgraceful shambles.

In all fairness to the W.H.O., Geneva is an expensive place where gym membership usually costs 300 swiss francs a month! WHO does have a newer fitness center that you can use if you pay their personal trainer, but not me. I'm a cheap intern. WHO does seem to promote healthy eating habits too. The WHO lunchtime restaurant has a healthy salad bar...I'll give it that.

So God, in His mercy, showed me grace and lifted the clouds as I was heading home. There was a break in the rain just long enough for me to get in a quick run before it started up again. The run really lifted my spirits and helped me enjoy the city a little bit more.

On a more relevant topic:
Today I met my boss, Louise Plouffe. Well she's more like my project mentor. She is in charge of the Emergency Preparedness for Seniors project has been my contact while I was in SF. She comes off as a really sweet older woman. Louise took me to lunch at the WHO cafe and we just talked a while about older people, her work in Geneva and how she came here from Canada. In Geneva and the WHO, people are always coming and going, so I think you get to know each other quickly and you're also prepared to say goodbye at the drop of a hat. Anyway...she's chill. I like her.

Most of my 'productive' work hours are actually spent looking up things to do over the weekend and shopping online. What else? Hehe. Apparently there was a big Dior fashion show at Versailles the other night. Wish I could have been there. =)

WHO: my super rookie first day

Wouldn’t you know it rains today. Also…wouldn’t you know I get lost in the bus system. But it’s all good. I make it to the WHO on time. I was somewhat anxious to be there and make a good impression. I mean there has to be some reason for all the hullabaloo. The WHO is located up a beautiful green hill past the fountains of the U.N. Everyone walking into the building is immaculately dressed and security was pretty tight.

I find myself reassured by the orderly spaciousness of the building. So far I don’t have too many responsibilities, and I’m just supposed to get acquainted with the materials of my project: Emergency Preparedness for Seniors. Reading background information helps me realize once again just how overlooked the elderly are in society in general but particularly in the face of natural disaster. Did you know 70% of the deaths in Hurricane Katrina were in the over 60 age group? The view outside my office window is beautifully lush and green with the Swiss mountains in clear view. (Irene sighs in content.)

Things get even better…I am reunited with Ehrine and Alvin today! Oh the joys of fellow UCSF’ers. Ehrine and Alvin came in from an all weekend long trip to Venice, and I'm so happy to see them I want to cry. We also get to hang out with Chris, Jen’s hubby.

Anyway…the pictures on this blogspot take far too long to upload. I will have to refer you to my picasa. Which is also trying to take on the daunting task of displaying many pictures. Perhaps I should be selective.

The big update (SF-Paris-Geneva)

A massive update of my chronicling my--Humble Beginnings in Geneva

The short of it: After a whirlwind move out of SF, a beautiful reunion with mom and the boys, I rush off to Geneva.

Friday: June 22, 2007
Finale in SF
Irene takes her final exam and finishes the first year of medical school at UCSF. It’s been a whirlwind year, and I always enjoyed it. Although I must say the rushedness of the last week made me quite unhappy.

I don’t want to dwell on the problems of the final days, but I do want to learn lessons from these trials. Perhaps a list will suffice, just to serve as a reminder to myself.

• Studying for the final – Irene is majorly behind
• Wrapping up plans to clean the apartment
• Final class activities: snacks & bagels
• Insecurities about friends
• Preparations for going to Europe – essentially none!
• Vascillating over whether to get an ISIC student card and Eurail pass. – In retrospect I’m glad I didn’t yet fall for these tourist traps!
• Moving! Definitely was not ready to do it…and it took me way longer than expected. Thank God I had help from my uncle, eastbay kids, elainers and debbie’s boxes.
• Dad does not come along for the trip. This was a huge disappointment, but at least I had a ride to the airport. I intend to go on a vacation with him using his flight credit!

I also fit in a final day of settlers with the Sonrise/Cupertino crew. Fun as always. I am gonna miss this group.

Sunday: June 24, 2007
The flight
Daddy drops me off at SFO at 5:30 am and I’m off for a 6-hour layover in Newark, NJ. It actually is not unpleasant. I am greeted by Au Bon Pain, the café chain of the east coast that the family enjoyed on our east coast trip more than 5 years ago. The bread is still delicious there. :) Healthy food makes me happy. I have both lunch and dinner there. I spend the interim shopping the Westfield shopping in the airport and reading Rick Steve’s Europe book in a Borders. America is good.

The continental flight sucks. Food is subpar and tiny, movies are old and suck, and the flight attendants are none too nice. There is an interesting Jewish family sitting in front of me. The dad appears young, but he’s got 4 kids! He apparently teaches part of a religion course taught at UC Berkeley, and I apparently look very familiar to him. Haha…too bad I never took his class. I think it would have been really interesting. He’s a rabbi in Oakland who trained at a rabbinic school on the east. He seems to be raising very intelligent, well-behaved children. (They played an animal naming game for some of the flight, and I joined in.)

All the stress of the past week must have caught up to me. I slept for most of the flight. Amazing! And quite a mercy as well.

Monday: June 25, 2007
Arrival in Paris
I arrive at CDG at 10 am. I navigate past customs and take the train into the main city without too much trouble. Then the panic sets in. I realize the Gare du Nord is not a great stop for getting to the hotel with mom, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get a ticket from the machines. A middle-aged, balding man offers to help me, but I am suspicious and uneasy of pickpockets since I have all my luggage. Why would a man be just waiting around at a train station? It turns out he was waiting for his wife. Lol. Then another kind man sees my distress with the ticketing machine and just gives me his ticket and sends me on my way. I marvel at the kindness of the French!

I make it okay on the metro (which is very similar to Seoul’s subway). Another nice woman points me to the escalators to save me from lugging my bags upstairs. As I break onto the street, I am astounded to find the hotel is smack in front of the metro stop! Wow…does mom know how to pick ‘em or what? I enter into the hotel and a gentleman with a French accent greets me. Step aside man, my MOM is here. We are reunited, and my heart bursts with joy!!!

I find the room, put down my bags, rough up the boys and we head out for lunch. We buy baguette sandwiches (a staple of the Paris visit) and head to the War Museum and Napolean’s Tomb. Talk about hitting the ground running.

The War Museum is not my favorite, but really seems to intrigue Noah and Norman. Just goes to show how much I am not a boy.

Seine river tour









Versailles really put into context the luxurious grandeur of Louis XIV’s reign. You see it in movies, you read about it back in high school, but finally I saw it!
La Tour Eiffel – freezing on a windy night to ride an elevator up and then ride it back down. But what can one do when it is the quintessential thing to do in Paris?
Louvre – we lost Norman! Mona Lisa and all the other paintings were pretty awesome. I’m impressed at how much my mom knows about art. Really…I need to respect that woman for how intelligent she is. She knows way more than me…and she knows all eras too. She knew everything from the Renaissance works at the Louvre to the modern works at the Pompidou center.
Jardin des Tuileries
Orsay Museum
L’arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees

Picasso – saw some cool sculptures I never knew he did. More kids learning art here as well.


Pompidou – by this time I’m pooped and all “art museum-ed” out. Mom is a trooper and diligently chronicling the paintings she’s seen.

Upon arriving in France, I had to learn to let go and relax. After being so tense for an extended period of time, it was quite nice to unwind. It was also really comforting to be with family. Although I will say my brothers pestered my mom and me to no end. Mom and I got to do some of the best shopping in my life, but we had to fight to do it. It was definitely cut short and sour because those two adolescent humbugs.

Impressions of France: it truly is an art center. With its wealth of art (many stolen from other nations and peoples) the life of the city seems infused with an artsyness. At every museum there were groups of school children learning about the art from detailed instruction or involved activities. (Unlike the free for all that most American field trips tend to be.) The way people dress, eat, shop, live is all aesthetically pleasing. Mom and I reflect on how much this city reminds us of Ingee. Even at such a young age, she was an artist. I would have loved to have seen this city with her. Mom fancied that we would have sent Ingee for schooling here because the rich art education would have been perfect for her.

Friday: June 29, 2007
Au revoir to the family
I am sad to see them leave. Suddenly I am on my own, and I realize that I have not made a single plan as to what to do now. Do I stay in Paris with my things? The thought of lugging around my bags and finding and expensive hotel makes me shudder. I decide to make a break for Geneva and take the weekend easy.
Silly me. I have nowhere to stay once I get to Geneva! But I am counting on the English speaking population to get me there. I am also promising myself time to go shopping once my things are put away in Geneva. (This was wrong! There is no Comptoir des Cotonniers in Swizterland. Mon dieu!)

Anyway, first things first. I plan to buy a train ticket to Geneva and spend extra time if possible shopping in Paris. Boy was I wrong. I get to the gare station, and there is a long line for tickets. After debating between a railpass and just a one-way, I secure my ticket to Geneva since railpasses are not sold at the station. I then try to find the correct track to wait at when I find that I am at the wrong station! Trains bound for Geneva leave from Gare de Lyon not Gare de l’Est. Good thing I have the time to get there!

I make it to the station and get on the train with, what else, a Korean tourist group. One of the young girls is so sweet as to help me with my luggage. I am stressed from the lack of travel plans and decide to worry about housing in Geneva when I get there.

I sleep on almost the entire 4 hour trip, and am slightly taken aback by my arrival in Geneva. It’s all very green and all very rural. I guess I really have left Paris. In fact, if Paris reminded me of Seoul, Geneva reminds me of Incheon or some other suburb of Korea. I don’t find it particularly clean and it’s not very eye-catching. I get the sinking feeling that the shopping will not be as good…nor will the food.

That aside, it’s still all in French! What happened to the internationalism of it all?!?! I bungle around the gare station figuring out what I need to do. After letting a telephone machine eat 5 swiss franks (about $4.50), I am out of money for a pay phone. Thankfully the man in the cell phone store lets me use the house phone to call my foyer. The sister at the foyer was not expecting me until Monday, but by some miracle my room is open. I immediately head over there, and am pleased to find that it is an easy bus ride. Unfortunately the maps don’t label all the streets, and my map does not show me the foyer street. This will be a problem for the rest of the weekend.

The foyer is ghetto and in a ghetto neighborhood, but I am too desperate for housing to know or care. It is run by a group of nuns, a few of whom speak English. Sister Eliza calls me “my dear” in soothing tones, and I am reassured that all will be okay. Once again I’m reminded of Korea because I’m back in a ghetto dorm. But it’s all good baby…cuz I get internet! Being connected to the world is the most comforting feeling. I put out some feelers to walk around the neighborhood, but I’m kind of creeped out by the approaching evening. I buy some Evian water (we are very near the source) and head home for a dinner of nutrition bars I bought at Cupertino Whole Foods. (These have been instrumental on my trip so far.) I wrap up the night on the web…basking in my connectedness with the world.

Saturday: June 30, 2007
Strike out on my own
Things on the to do list today:
Get money from a bank
Go to tourism office – for a better map
Go grocery shopping
Tour Geneva – see the flower clock and water jet fountain thingy
Go running



Things done:
Everything except going running

The Geneva tourism thing was thoroughly underwhelming. Though now that I’m looking at pictures, the lake seems beautifully pristine. The watches in all the stores are indeed nice and expensive, but it’s all about presentation my dears. When it’s line after line of unceremonious window displays, the watches don’t seem special at all. If you’re really Phillippe Patek or Baume and Mercier, show me!!! It just seemed like a bunch of tourist trap shops mixed in with totally drab stores of shoes etc. Oh…and the drug stores? For some reason there is no such thing as inexpensive lotion in Europe.

Who knew I could spend such a long time in the grocery store? I must have spent 20 minutes looking for soap and another 20 looking for nonfat yogurt or cottage cheese. It was an unsuccessful quest. Freaking-a…I do not understand how the Europeans can only eat full-fat everything, pastries for breakfast, blah blah. I am seriously desperate for some good old Californian produce. The food is rich and flavorful here to be sure, even the produce. There was a farmers market-type stand in the middle of the shopping district today. The fruit was really expensive, but I bought a basket of raspberries for around $4. They were the sweetest most delicious raspberries I’ve ever had!!! But I am going out of my mind with guilt at what the saturated fat products will do to my arteries. I think I spent at least 1 hour online today looking up where I can get health foods in Geneva. So far my strategy is to stock of up fruits at the grocery and drink it with soymilk. I found nonfat milk, but I know my lactose intolerance will have none of that. My purchase of full fat yogurt this morning was really tasty though.

A break in the clouds

I wake up 5 minutes before the church service is supposed to start. Astonished and upset at the 11 hours I slept, I quickly get dressed and check the google map I carefully marked with the church’s coordinates. I set out in a Sunday dress excited to meet fellow American Christians. Perhaps this was the wrong heart, and, as fate would have it, I could not for the life of me find the church. The street was not on the city maps that I had taken with me. I searched until I was nearly 1 hour late for service.

At this point I gave up and headed to item #2 of my itinerary: Zara. I had discerned that there was a store here in Geneva, and was determined to get some decent shopping done. The bus took me back to the shopping area I explored yesterday, but on Sunday the entire town seemed to have closed. Frustrated, I decided the Migros grocery store near the Gare Cornavin had to be open. I could at least get lunch at this point. To my chagrin, this was also closed on Sundays. My feet are hurting now, and I’m realizing I’ll have to secure sustenance for the remainder of the day since the grocery shops are closed. Curses. After gingerly walking around in my aching feet, I walk into a mom/pop grocery store run by an Iranian man. He is really nice and speak English! He hooks me up with a delish looking seafood salad and we talk Korea, Silicon Valley and English. I promise to come back again. I’m excited because the salad has colorful veggies and looks like the healthiness I crave! I then decide to save the salad for dinner and get a vermicelli salad I saw advertised at a Japanese/Thai restaurant. Go figure, it’s run by Chinese and there’s no Japanese food even though all the decorations are Japanese. Despite the nasty service, I graciously let go of my ambition for vermicelli salad and take a gamble on the basil chicken. When I get home to eat it, I’m not disappointed! The chicken is lean, dressing is vinegar-y (not fatty), and there is lettuce. Wahoo. I fill up and let myself digest for a bit. It’s already 4pm by this time, and I’m set to go running.

Strangely, it’s been overcast all day, but I figure more sun protection for me! My course is set for a Park out near the lake and I take off. Halfway there, I come upon the Museum of Natural History. Its still open and admission is free, so I decide to stay for a bit. This is cool, I tell myself. I begin to get acquainted with the regional fauna as I walk by displays of stuffed birds in various poses. I’m not in there 5 minutes before all the dead animals and eery dark lighting scare the heeby jeebies outta me and I run right back out.

I continue on my run for maybe 5 more minutes when it begins to rain. I chastise myself for leaving my bus pass at home. The rain is light, and I’m almost at the park, so I keep going. It begins to rain in full, and since I’m getting wet anyway, I get to the park. I come upon a park that is beautiful and ordered. It’s surprising that many people are still out and about in the park, but I guess they were caught in the rain as well. After the park, I’m back at the jet fountain where lots of people are milling about, and the restaurants are still full.

After a nice shower and some dinner, I am back at my computer. Earlier today, I stumbled across the blog of a WHO intern from the states. Exactly what I was looking for! Ironically she is also Korean-American. I am encouraged by her entries because she seems to be having the time of her life both on outdoorsy excursions and with meeting people. I am a bit jealous that her housing situation is definitely not as ghetto as mine. She is staying with a host family apparently in a green part of Switzerland. I’m thinking living on the French border would have been just the same distance, and less expensive! But once again, I need to go with the flow and let go of things that have already been done.