Genève or Ginebra... what language do I speak again?

Things here in southern Spain have been beautiful - once we got through the hell of the worst weather they've had here in 30 years, the sun came out, the trees started blossoming, and the 75-degree temperatures led me outside to read while stretched out luxuriously on marble fountains in the shade of palm trees. Two weeks ago I headed to the beach, in reality to the only beach I ever made it to last semester, called Almuñecar. The outing, an easy, one-day thing, turned into an ordeal when we missed our bus back because the schedule I picked up in the station that morning was horribly out of date, and we were forced to stay in a hotel. Had we planned this, it could have been a great evening, but we checked into the hotel at 9:00 PM on a Sunday, badly sunburned, with no toiletries or extra clothes, and with early classes the following morning. Being March, the town was not in its high-season, and we got a great room with a balcony with sweeping views of the Mediterranean. Not that we could actually see it. We checked in when it was dark, and attempted to leave the following morning at 5:30, trying to make our classes. This would have been fine, had the elevator not been turned off and the stairwells locked. We panicked a bit, and contemplated jumping off of our fourth-floor balcony until around 6:00, when the elevator began working and the stairwells were opened by a very grumpy receptionist. Apparently no one works in the hotel during the night, so everything is locked up, and no one has ever heard of fire codes - thank God I didn't have any desire to get a hamburger from room service, because it wasn't going to happen. Besides being trapped on the set of The Shining, the funniest moment of the evening came when my friend Tess opened the bathroom door wearing only a towel, covered in welts from her sunburn and practically crying, the result of the shower-head leaping out of its mount, drenching the room in boiling hot water. Tess had panicked and was trying to get out of the shower when she knocked down the shower curtain and its pole, which lay in a heap, propped up on the sink and surrounded by about an inch of water.modeling the hat I convinced Tess to buy for the next beach outing; considering the sunburn I had the last time, I might keep it for myself

As beautiful as it's been here, I was feeling antsy again in Granada, and decided that I had to put an end to the sunshine and warm temperatures, so this past weekend I headed to Switzerland. I went to meet up with a friend from Bates who studies in Fribourg, and my friend Curstin from my program last semester decided to hop a plane and meet us both in Geneva. There's a train station integrated with the Geneva airport, so I went up to the ticket window to ask, in French, for a train to Fribourg. "Fry-berg?" asked the woman. "Yes," I replied. "Well, hold on. Where are you traveling, Germany? Or are you staying in Switzerland?" I had to think a minute - Switzerland is one of those crazy countries with borders all over the place. There are four official languages in Switzerland - German, French, Italian, and Romansch - and everyone speaks English. The most common language of any given town is based on it's proximity to the surrounding countries. Geneva, for example, is across the lake from France, and so falls into the French-speaking section of the country, though everyone there is tri-lingual. My friend's city, as it turns out, is divided into French- and German-speaking sections along the river which cuts through it. Anyway. "I'm staying in Switzerland," I hesitantly replied. "Oh, well then you want 'Free-bur,'" instructed the woman, using the town's French pronunciation. "You must know, 'Fry-berg' is in Germany."

After finally making it there and meeting Daniella on the platform, we headed off to eat a wine and cheese fondue (which, in Switzerland, is served just with bread and potatoes - what else could you need?) for dinner with a half-bottle of wine, all payed for by Daniella's nifty dining-services vouchers. I eat fried balls of fat on a daily basis, and this girl has her pick of the dining hall or any of five restaurants for every meal. I was put up for the night in an unused dorm room in a beautiful, modern residence hall with gorgeous views, towel-warmers, exposed beams, leather lounge furniture, and beds which tilt themselves up at the touch of a button for more comfortable late-night reading. Around ten the next morning, after a quick tour through the town, we headed for Geneva aboard a double-decker train, where we sipped coffee on a curved couch while reading the International Herald Tribune and watching the lakes, chalets, and mountains whiz by. We knew we had arrived in Geneva when we saw the peak of Mont Blanc poke through the buildings from across the lake. I'm telling you, the Europeans get some things right.
Fribourg's old town
the view from my dorm room - doesn't have anything on my pedestrian walkway
Mont Blanc with the knobby trees which are all over Geneva

We didn't have big plans for the weekend, and in reality, we saw very little of the city. It was freezing cold there with one heck of a wind, and I had brought only my lightweight jacket - a big mistake, considering where I was coming from. The Jet d'Eau, the massive fountain in the middle of Lac Léman (or Lake Geneva, depending on whom you ask), more or less the symbol of the city, wasn't running, and it was frankly just too cold to do much lounging around outside. On Saturday we made it to the Patek Philippe Museum, the museum of perhaps the most exclusive watch manufacturer in a city known for watches - these things start around $50,000. It was probably the most touristy thing we did, and was well worth it. I saw, in addition to some simply beautiful timepieces, two watches owned by Queen Victoria, and the most complicated watch in the world, with some 24 functions, not that I could tell you what any of them are.

We also went to a flea market in a residential area of the city, and spent a lot of time in cafés - no one wanted to be outside. Friday afternoon was spent at the Hotel d'Angleterre, one of the most exclusive hotels in the city, and the site of one of Michael Jackson's famous baby-dangling spectacles. Daniella had done her research and discovered that this hotel served the best high-tea in the city. Why I ate lunch before this, I'm not entirely sure, but I managed to stuff in every bite, a goal I had set for myself after finding out how much this thing was going to cost. We were shown into the elegant, art deco Windows Restaurant, where we were seated in front of several bay windows overlooking the lake and Mont Blanc. I've never been a big tea drinker, though I always love a good high-tea, and this was no problem at Windows - I had the choice between a normal high-tea, a coffee-themed "high-tea," or a chocolate version. Clearly, I needed little time to decide here, though I asked the waiter if I might substitute the hot chocolate for coffee; I thought all that chocolate might be too much. "Well," said the waiter, "we can do as you wish, but personally, I think it would be a dommage (a shame) not to have the chocolate. It takes fifteen minutes to prepare, but I think you might enjoy it." He had sold me.

I have never eaten so much chocolate in my life. It was actually embarrassing, and entirely gluttonous. While we waited for the drinks, we were brought slices of cake - the girls tea cake, mine a thick, heavy flour-less chocolate torte. Then came the chocolate. Thinner than "Spanish" hot chocolate but much, much richer, it had just a hint of cinnamon and spices. Unbelievable. This is to say nothing of the four waiters it took to simultaneously bring out the food on two massive tiers. I'll let the pictures fill you in on the rest.yes, that's three tiers of food there, on top of my pad thai for lunch. the best part might have been the thickest, richest whipped cream I've ever tasted - or maybe the mousse... it's all such a blur...

The meal was just coming to a close when a dark-skinned, single woman walked in, wearing huge, mirrored aviator glasses, and spoke to our waiter in slightly-accented French. "Excuse me, would it be too much trouble if I sat on the other side of the restaurant, by myself?" As she made her way to the other wing of the room to sit with her back to us, I continued to stare. She never once took her glasses off, but we had all already come to the same conclusion. "Good Lord!" I hissed. "That's Halle Berry!" I suppose one must expect these things when one dines at the kinds of hotels where Michael Jackson makes a spectacle of himself. Yes... quite.

But really, how cool is that?!

the restaurant was beautiful, too, and had Murano glass chandeliers and the heaviest chairs I've ever encountered

On the way out of the hotel, we walked by the hotel next-door, the Four Seasons. What, you might wonder, would be parked out front, to make me completely ignore the Aston Martin and Land Rover sitting neglected at its side? One of the ugliest cars I can think of, but also one of the most expensive, and something I never thought I'd see outside of a magazine."[Expletive!]" I yelled. "That's a Bugatti Veyron!" The car, a recent reincarnation of a famous Italian manufacturer from the '30s, is worth an obscene 1.5 million dollars, with no options. It goes up a few hundred thousand if you want the Hermès leather. It's the fastest production car in the world, and, if I'm not mistaken, the most expensive. "That's what I just said to my wife!" said the American man walking in front of us. Welcome to Geneva.

The tea and the car foreshadowed the rest of the trip, which was essentially a competition between the three of us to see who could liquidate his or her bank account the fastest. The one "cheap" meal of the trip was at a restaurant we discovered on the New York Time's Frugal Traveler blog, Chez Ma Cousine On y Mange du Poulet, or, At My Cousin's House, We Eat Chicken. For 14 francs, we each had half a roast chicken, a salad, and a mound of rosemary roasted potatoes. That, a bottle of wine, and a vanilla bean covered tarte tartin (caramelized apple torte) was the best, and cheapest, meal of the trip.

I was pretty happy after that meal, and enjoyed basking in Old Europe

Saturday night we had decided to go to a few bars. You must know that Daniella is from New York's Upper West, and has very discerning tastes. Not that I don't, but put the two of us together, and things like that high-tea happen. Combine that with Geneva's insane pricing and international diplomats, and you've got our evening. The night started out well enough. I had a cheeseburger (with the best cheese I've ever had on a burger; oh those Swiss...) and a coke at a cute, local place. Then we went to the Alhambar, apparently one of the most popular bars in the city, doubly interesting since it was a play on the Alhambra, the castle here in Granada. The 16 franc drinks there were shocking, but less so when we thought of the exchange rate (ever so slightly in our favor) and the fact that we were in a very expensive city. Then our final stop of the evening, where we each had one drink. At 21 francs each, it was all we could do. The lion statues outside, the 12-foot-tall plastic tubes filled with columns of fire, and the giant Russian bouncer were all pretty intimidating, but we made it inside to the dark, gorgeous bar, where two huge, marble samurais stood frozen in a sword fight. We snagged a table in the corner, and were instantly greeted by a gorgeous blonde waitress. We noticed that she seemed a little preoccupied, which was explained when our neighbors were seated at the reserved table next to us. One large man, one very skinny one, each dressed in dark grey silk suits with glimmering red silk shirts underneath and tiny, blue-tinted glasses, and a well-dressed, businesslike woman were escorted in by two hulking bodyguards who stayed close-by all evening. The blonde waitress rushed over with a huge bucket of ice, inside of which were nestled three bottles of Absolut vodka. Daniella turned to me and whispered, "the Russians just showed up." This was funny until they actually started speaking Russian. As we pondered this and slowly sipped our drinks, two very tan older men walked in, one in a khaki suit, one dressed in white linen. Each had on about eight gold rings and wore three or four golden chains around his neck. Before I could make a joke about it, they ordered in Italian. As the night progressed, our friends from the table next to us and the well-dressed Italians were escorted to a quieter section of the bar, where they stayed until we left. "We're gonna read about this arms deal in the paper tomorrow," whispered Curstin. We also saw an enormous, corpulent man with a stunningly beautiful 20-something who left in a chauffeured BMW, and several very dark-skinned women dressed in slinky dresses in traditional African prints who slid up to the bar where they sat with several Middle Eastern men. It was truly international. As we left, the early-'90s dance music (which is great - it's an instant party!) changed into pulsating Middle Eastern lounge music. The middle of the bar had been cleared where several patrons were dancing with a scarf, when a waitress brought out four sticks which looked like rolled-up newspaper. She proceeded to set them on fire and hand them to the dancers, where they began to shoot out green flames. It was an experience.

cute, old building

All in all, I had a great time, though I wish I had spent less money. Geneva is a clean, beautiful city, and Switzerland definitely seems like a place I need to explore more throughly. As always on these travels, my favorite experiences aren't the crazy, James Bond-like bars or the expensive meals, but rather the local, low-key moments, like my "cousin's" place for chicken, or the quirky little tea shop where I breakfasted one morning on fresh scones and cheese-filled croissants while seated in an antique, wooden Ferris-wheel carriage. I'm now back in Granada, and, at two in the morning, have realized that I still have French to study for tomorrow. Until next time.