Geneva

We are in Geneva now and reading and speaking French (ha). However, blogger hasn't gotten the message yet and still speaks to me in German. Whatever. I know where to point the clicker.

We are digesting an excellent dinner.

I chose a little hotel called, Hotel at Home. I'm thinking it was an old place renovated by two gay guys with some cash but not too much. They have done a good job and gotten Lonely Planet to recommend them, so here we are. They are 170CHF per night as opposed to 500CHF-780CHF down by the lake. Our view here is not quite the Jungfrau view, but more like my neighborhood in SoHo + a bit more European. The street is lively with cafes and restuarants and people look out of their windows for entertainment.

We had lunch shortly after we got our stuff in our room, and had a nice Chinese meal of duck and Chinese broccoli w garlic sauce. I took a look around the waterfront while Marcia rested.

When I got to the waterfront, I was glad we hadn't splurged for a room there. The whole waterfront is a carnival-not Brazil, but rides and cotton candy and hawking and children screaming. I'm sure it will go on a long time and then there will be fireworks.

On our street there is always a sort of carnival we think. We ate dinner at the Spanish restaurant and sat outside in spite of the rain and cigarette smoke. We had a paella full of lovely seafood-not the best we have ever had, but good. The wine was really fine. We tried to peel off the label so we can get it again. Some luck with this endeavor.

The carnival on our street is more like a parade of everything. Families. People and their dogs. A man on rollerskates (not blades-the kind from the roller rink) holding a baby with a pacifier and twirling around in front of the parking ticket machine so baby can punch the buttons. Possibly some whores. Several gay men couples. A drag woman swishing hips and walking with a woman-sister? friend? Anyway, the hip action was for the Spanish men sitting at the table behind us. We can hear the drama building below us now that we are in our room on the 2nd floor (3rd floor US). Polize siren was the most recent part of the drama, but it soon went away.

We are in a language soup. Officially-on signs and ads- it is French. Defacto it is whatever. Chinese, Arabic, Italian, English, Hindi, Farsi,European Spanish, and lots of African languages and patois.

It was hot today. We count it hot when the thermometer reads 30C. The rain will cool it off tomorrow. If it rains we will find a museum. If it suns we will take a boat ride up the lake-Leman is our lake now. 60% of it is Swiss and 40% French.

We passed through Friborg and Lausanne today. The train came out of a tunnel and there was the lake, and vineyards sloping down to the lake. Someday I'll get to those photos.

For now, tired and digesting seafood and rice.

KG