The Eye of Patrick

Welcome back

After we finished with Venice, we hopped on a boat taxi and went to the airport. The flight from Venice to Geneva was one of the nicest short-haul flights I have been on in a while. The plane was a small bombardier prop plane and had only one flight attendant. The snacks they brought for the flight were little bit size sandwiches and Evian water, and they were a delight to eat.

Geneva is an interesting city to visit as it is such an international city. On one of the tours we went on, we learnt that about 40% of the population of Geneva is made up of foreigners. This is the result of all the Non-Government Organizations that reside in Geneva (The red cross, United Nations and so on) so as a result the variety of food was amazing. During our stay there we had food from Switzerland, Brazil, Lebanon, China, America, France, and Mexican. It reminded me of Canada where you can get a wide variety of food all within a 5 minute walk. The people of Switzerland are very multilingual, as there are 4 official languages, French, German, Italy, Romaich and everyone seems to speak English as well. This made me wonder why Canadian bilingual polices have failed so miserably.

I think Geneva is a city I would truly want to live in because it seems so involved in world affairs with all the NGOs and such. Also when we went to lunch we overheard a conversation of two young women who were working in international investment banking and it sounded like such a fun job. They were talking about deals they had worked on and that is the kind of job I want to have.

While in Geneva we wanted to check out the skiing as we heard the hills are amazing in Europe. But sadly due to global warming the hills were not filled with snow. But we thought we could make a trip to France and check out the hills for ourselves. So we rented a car and got on the autobahn called White Mountain or something, where we were able to go 200 Km legally. This was a wonderful feeling and I wish next time I am able to drive.

Though when we got to France we realized it was true and there was no snow, but that was ok as I was still able to mail off some postcards to say I was in France.

Also Geneva was a sad place for the fact that I had to say good bye to my family. My father and one brother would return to Brazil and the other one was returning to England. But I was not going home yet, next on my trip was Berlin, Germany and I did not know what to expect to experience in Germany. So look forward to my next post from my time in Germany.