{"id":291,"date":"2009-10-14T03:21:20","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T08:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=291"},"modified":"2009-10-14T03:21:43","modified_gmt":"2009-10-14T08:21:43","slug":"geneva-thoughts-and-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=291","title":{"rendered":"Geneva – Thoughts and photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to add some of my own thoughts and photos to Claire’s post about Geneva.<\/p>\n

Geneva was a really beautiful city.\u00a0 Even if it out prices you to the point where all you can do is walk around, as long as you are in good company I guarantee that you will have a good time.\u00a0 It was alternately pouring rain and sunny while we were there, prompting me to buy an umbrella from our hostel…one of the many rain-proof items that I have to acquire while I’m here.\u00a0 Why didn’t anybody tell me that Switzerland had such temperamental fall weather?<\/p>\n

We stayed at the City Hostel in Geneva which was nice but small.\u00a0 My only complaint is that after advertising that they had a full kitchen on each floor, there was no coffee pot!\u00a0 We got lucky and found an old, handle-less one on another floor, but I loath to buy coffee from their Nestle machine or from Starbucks (German lesson: ein Tall ist sechs francs, f\u00fcnfzig rappen).<\/p>\n

We spent time wandering thought the old city and also looking for the green space.\u00a0 While Europeans my drive less than North Americans, their smaller streets mean that they fill their space just as efficiently and you end up feeling like you are walking on the side of a highway where ever you go.<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/a>Claire in the Megachess part of the park.\u00a0 Not for the faint of heart!<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/a> Claire in the \"Hungy?\"<\/a> cheese and sausage market.\u00a0 Yum!<\/p>\n

Being attracted to useless information of all kinds (there must be a term for that), Claire and I were drawn to the Natural History Museum, where we spent time in the minerals and rare animals sections.\u00a0 One of the most shocking exhibits was the Darwin one, where they so accurately captured the chain of evolution.\u00a0 However, the labeling was poor and I couldn’t tell which was the final product and which was the proposed “missing link”.\u00a0 See if you can.<\/p>\n

\"Peak<\/a><\/p>\n

On Saturday night we sought out traditional\u00a0Swiss fondue and managed\u00a0to find the best place in town.\u00a0 Right on the lake…actually almost in the lake…with a laid back atmosphere and inexpensive (20 CHF\/St\u00fcck) pots of\u00a0pure\u00a0melted cheese and wine.\u00a0 Does it get any better?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Seth<\/a>\u00a0Seth with his pot of fondue.\u00a0 Actually we shared the pot, but I really<\/em> wanted my own.<\/p>\n

Finally, we spent time roaming around the Botanical Gardens and lake wall.\u00a0 The Sunday was beautiful and the lake was alive with activity.\u00a0 Nature was frolicking and the local jets of water were spraying almost totally vertical. A calm, sunny day.<\/p>\n

\"Swan\"<\/a> Swan on the lake.<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/a> Beautiful Claire and the creatively named “Jet d’eau”.<\/p>\n

Just out of curiosity I visited the Wikipedia site for the Jet and found that they run it with a set of two pumps consuming an impressive megawatt of electricity.\u00a0 Yes, after doing some easy research, I found that – for our viewing pleasure – the city of Geneva spews water and a justifiable ton and a half of carbon into the atmosphere every day!\u00a0 Sorry Hermione, I did buy those high efficiency bulbs, but I’m afraid that just admiring this monster for a few seconds undid years worth of my carbon savings (for those reading this – go to www.justsaving.org<\/a> to carbon-sponsor Hermione on her cycle from London to Morocco and lets see if we can undo some of this.\u00a0 Her target sponsorship is 15 tonnes and last I saw she had exceeded that goal – lets see if we can smash it!).<\/p>\n

For now it’s back to the work week.\u00a0 Wow, it’s already half over again – that’s 2 of 35 weeks gone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to add some of my own thoughts and photos to Claire’s post about Geneva. Geneva was a really beautiful city.\u00a0 Even if it out prices you to the point where all you can do is walk around, as long as you are in good company I guarantee that you will have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}