Una Reunione a Ginevra

This weekend I visited my friend Emily in Geneva! Having never been to Switzerland before, I was pretty excited. And here we are, as happy as very rained-on clams (there's been a lot of rain in this part of the world this past week or two):


Stevie visited that weekend too (it was a veritable mini-reunion), as did Emily's friend Mabel from Wellesley. Emily took the three of us to all the touristy spots. One of my favorites was the Red Cross museum; "fun" isn't quite the way to describe it, but it was fascinating. We also went outside the UN (apparently the tour isn't so great)...

...and to the Reformation Wall...

...which is according to Emily the most visited tourist attraction in Geneva. It's a wall, with sculptures of the main Reformation guys. They're not jolly guys, neither as theologians nor as art, but they can still draw their fair share of crowds, it seems.

My favorite thing in Geneva (aside from the company, of course) was the scenery: trees, hills, water. (Any of you who have had the misfortune of driving with me on 280 or 92 in California will know how excited I get about these three things.) Emily took us to the Geneva Botanical Gardens, which I was sooo happy about; there are no trees in Florence (or, apparently there ARE trees, but only in private gardens so I can't see them) so I'd missed autumn foliage, but it was everywhere in Geneva. As was the lake. And hills that just happened to be in France.



Emily's least favorite thing is the Jet D'Eau--a wonderfully inventive name for a really tall jet of water. I'm not quite sure what it's for, but... it's there.


I also saw my first Christmas lights of the season in Geneva! (They've since been put up in Florence, too.) Here are the lights on a grocery store, that seemed like a good Christmas-Hannukah hybrid:


Now I'm off to my last class before Thanksgiving, and then to the Alps for the long weekend! Please eat extra Thanksgiving food on my behalf. :)