Back to Geneva

We went to Geneva for site visits, and within moments of arriving into the train station I felt like I was home. Everything felt familiar and warm. (For those of you who might not know, I lived in Geneva for a year while in undergrad. However, I never was there during the summer.)

We stayed in Webster Geneva's new dorms in Versoix, which were just lovely, particularly compared to the form we stay in in Paris, which are old and have encrusted dirt in the corners and cracks. Versoix's a sleepy little town, and it was nice to stay there. Thanks to them for helping us with wonderful accommodations.

Our site visits began on Thursday. We started with a briefing on international humanitarian law at the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed by a guided tour of the museum. The museum is really impressive, with a history of humanitarian law and all of the things the RC does (which, by the way, is a really wide variety of efforts), but do the museum on your own—the guided tour didn't add much.

After lunch in the cafeteria, we walked down the hill toward the Palais des Nations to our briefing at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. It was informative, but we had at least one student fell asleep. Ah well.

With a few hours between visits, I took a few students on a walking tour of the lake and the Old Town. Geneva was stunningly beautiful while we were there, with gorgeous blue skies and hot sun. It was amazing to walk along the lake and toward the Old Town, past the old places Kara and I used to eat and around the Cathedral and the Parc des Bastions.

We met a person who works on child violence at World Vision for a talk over dinner at the Hotel Les Armures, known for the best fondue in Geneva. And it was, in fact, the best fondue I've ever had. Try the mushroom fondue. You won't regret it. Bill Clinton didn't, and neither did I.

At the end of the evening, we headed to the giant Fan Zone set up in Plainpalais. Switzerland and Austria hosted the Eurocup this year, and so Geneva hosted a FanZone, with two gigantic screens for the Spain/Russia game. It was wild to be there with that many people, almost all supporting Spain. It was awesome.

The next day we had a morning meeting at the World Health Organization, a flamenkuche at Les Brasseurs, and an afternoon meeting at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Afterward, we walked along Lac Leman through the Parc Mon Repos back toward the train station. With time to kill before meeting my old friend from my Webster days, we took the Mouettes (the public transportation boats) across the lake, spending about 45 minutes on the lake on the beautiful day. It definitely made me wish I had brought my swimsuit...