Lost at the UN...twice

It has only been three days, but I feel like I have enough funny stories to last a month.  I will try to touch on most of them briefly.

Sunday we had a free day, so Saturday evening a few of us decided to go to the grocery store.  We asked for directions at the front desk, and the nice man there gave us a map and highlighted the walking route to the store, and the warning that the store closed at 6.  It was 4:30.  It should have taken 15 minutes to walk there.  But the map was confusing, and soon we found ourselves on the wrong end of town.  After asking for directions from a man who spoke no English, we finally found it (5:15).  On our walk back (5:45), we saw our prof run by from the same wayward direction we had come from.  He asked if we had found the store.  In his hand was the same map as we had.  As he ran away, he shouted “this map is BULLSHIT!”

The next day we went to a mountain with a gondola.  We decided to hike up, and ride down.  The hike was definitely worse than Mt. Stormking (dad).  Long, 45% slope, climbing on hands and knees a few times on a trail only marked by spray painted arrows and the occasional smiley face from someone with a cruel sense of humor.  Half way up we found a cute mountain town.  We finally got to the top.  We decided a bottle of wine was in order.

On top of the mountain, the boys started tossing around a Frisbee.  There was a little French boy who sat down next to them and watched for a good hour.  Later, someone was climbing a tree and a branch broke off.  The little boy came by and started dragging it around.  Later he came back and started “shooting” the boys with his fingers.  When David fell over to play along, the boy tackled him.  Annika then grabbed the stick from earlier, threw it, and told the boy to go fetch.  This had no effect.

Despite the fact that it was 60 degrees outside that evening, we decided to go swimming in Lake Geneva.  This would have been easier if there was a place to change clothing at the beach.  We ended up making our own changing rooms by having people hold up towels.  It was about Lake Bryant cold (not too cold, once you get used to it).  The water was amazingly clear.

So the next day they decided to trust us with complete access passes to the UN European headquarters in Geneva.  They gave us a tour, we had lunch, then we had an hour to kill.  While almost everyone decided to go sit outside, David and I decided to explore the compound.  We found a lot of cool stuff, the best being an achieve library from the time of the League of Nations (the old LON building is part of the new UN complex).  Most of the time we were walking among dimplomats, going in and out of conference rooms, and walking past offices.  At one point we stumbled on several folders labeled "missiles" and a few others "NATO."  No one ever gave us a second look.  They are very trusting in Geneva!  There were several times that we found ourselves in different buildings than we thought, and ended up in stairwells that lead to nowhere.  But eventually we found our way back (with 5 minutes to spare).

That night we asked the front desk about a fondue place.  The nice lady made reservations for us at this little ma and pa place at the end of town.  It was a beautiful place, very out of the way, and the food was amazing.  But our waiter did not speak any English.  There was a busboy who did, who took our order (he was in a captain America shirt).  But our waiter took care of us the rest of the time.  It was very impressive.  We also had perfederolles and chocolate mousse for dessert.  It was quite expensive, but also very fun.

Next day, back at the UN for more info sessions, mostly related to humanitarian efforts.  After lunch we had a half an hour break.  Cassie and I went to the bookstore to mail a few things.  But since I was mailing chocolate, we had to go to the other end of the compound where there was a real post office.  Armed with a very bad map, we set off.  I was feeling cocky about my directional prowess after yesterday.  But we got lost in a totally new area.  We asked for directions, and ended up running around the outside of the buildings (around construction) and through the buildings (through construction).  We then got lost again (got stuck in the wrong building), and after asking for directions from two moare people, we finally found the post office.  Right about the time our next session was supposed to start.  We asked the post office how to get back.  This was the first person truly proficient in English.  She gave us directions back, and we were there in five minutes.  The session had not started yet.  I later traced the route we had taken on the map for David, who was stunned how much ground we had covered.

Those are some of the highlights.  The sessions were amazing too.  We learned about a bunch of different subsets of the UN.  If you are interested, you can ask me later.

Our isic cards (that are supposed to give us per diem) don’t work.  L

Tomorrow we are off to Greece!