Seeing Geneva this weekend was a blast, even though it was so very froid. Perhaps I did a little too much there to fit into one post, so I'll talk about my five favorite things there.
1.) The United Nations. No, I didn't get to go inside, but the PACS major in me was nerding out at just seeing the outside of the building. I also saw the WTO building, but I didn't manage to walk all the way to the north of town to see the WHO building.
2.) Ice Skating. When we were searching for a monument, we came across an outdoor ice skating rink! Skate rental was cheap, so of course we had to try it out. I'm pretty clumsy on skates and there were lots of small children speeding around and making me nervous, but there's something to be said about ice skating with the snowy Alps in the background.
3.) Giant Chess. Alright, so this isn't necessarily specific to Geneva, but I've always wanted to play giant chess. When we were playing, a man actually sat down to watch us and I felt a little bad that neither of us were talented enough to put on a good show. Here's the ending board; I was black. Can you tell who won?
4.) Greenhouses. I've long been a sucker for pretty and unusual plants, so I couldn't resist exploring the huge park and botanical gardens around the UN when I saw them. In the garden were a few greenhouses which I particularly adored because they were practically like mini-jungles. Aside from their being very pretty, we spent a long time exploring them because the regulated humidity inside was a welcome respite from the cold!
5.) The Alps. So gorgeous. We actually crossed the French-Swiss border for this (we just walked across - it was eerie), and we found a tram that took us up the Salève, one of the smaller mountains in the Alps. It was a cloudy day, but that turned out for the best when we reached the top and realized we could see over the clouds to the other mountains. Even though we couldn't see Geneva, it was remarkably beautiful.
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