On the 8th and 9th we went down to Geneva (about a four hour busride from here) to attend lectures at the UN and World Meterological Organization. As soon as we got to Geneva (Genf in German) we met with someone who told us about the basic workings of the UN in Geneva, then we split up into Political and Economic groups and met with someone from the High Commission on Refugees. They were both very interesting, but I won't post all my notes from the lectures. If you want them you can email me and I'll transcribe. I was the person chosen to thank the lecturer from the UNHCR and the timing was incredibly awkward as people started clapping immediately after he finished instead of giving me a chance to say thanks. It worked out in the end.
Dinner was provided by IES and we were taken to a Swiss Fondue restaurant. The meal was basically lots of bread, lots of cheese and some white wine. It was incredible, but we all came out of the restaurant smelling of cheese.
We had the evening free and Paul and I decided to wander the city with Stephanie and Brian. Our mission: to find 15 random statues and take pictures with them. We succeeded in this, but also succeeded in getting comepletely soaked due to rain and lack of umbrella...Back at the hotel it took a good half an hour in the shower to regain feeling in my hands and feet.
The next day we again had meetings on the WTO, WMO, and IAEA (I'm starting to speak what our first speaker referred to as "UNese"). Somehow the IAEA lady made nuclear energy boring. As someone put it: "Even when Bush speaks about nucular energy it's more exciting."
We had lunch in the UN cafeteria where the girls I ate with and I were asked what office we worked in.
We had about and hour to see Geneva by daylight and proceeded to buy chocolate and food for the ride home. The trip back was kind of crazy, people had lots of energy and it was a good sign of the long trips to come...
Heidelberg
Saturday after Geneva a group of us decided to take a day trip up to Heidelberg which is the only city in Germany completely untouched by WWII. It's about a three hour regional train ride, and was through gorgeous countryside to the very north of Baden-Württemburg. There's a special state -wide ticket where 5 people can go anywhere for only 27 euro. So Paul, Jessica, Belinda, Stephanie and I took full advantage of it. We had half an hour in Karlsruhe so wandered and found a zoo where from the outside we could see flamingoes and elephants.
In Heidelberg we mostly walked around and through the ciy and found our way up a very steep hill to the castle where we spent the remainder of the day. In our journey we discovered that Paul is a robot, and the castle we were at invented medicine and some other random things I can't think of right now, and meat is a very good snack.
When we got back we all went out dancing in Freiburg which was a ton of fun.
Fußball!
On Sunday SC Freiburg played 1860 München. A huge group of us went and stood in the student section. Amazingly Freiburg continued their 5 game winning streak and beat München 3-0! It was an exciting second half (when all three goals were scored), we started to pick up some of the cheers, and at the end the team danced for us! Things are not overpriced at the stadium like there are in the US. There are still 7 more home games and we're hoping to make it to at least a couple more.
So, I think that's all caught up before I head off to Eastern Europe until the 25th!!
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