June 29th 2008, Journal Entry from Geneva Layover

It's 5:19 in the morning, Swiss time. I was awakened from a deep sleep at 4am when a crowd of drunken club-goers started shouting and singing on the street below. Note-to-self: Request a room higher than the 2nd floor. After our 2 hour delayed arrival yesterday, and feeling so exhausted, I forced myself to get up (around 5pm) and go out to see where I had arrived to. Damn! It was so beautiful! I wish I had gone straight out and just laid on the grass by Lake Geneva. There were so many people about. All along the lake there were beautiful parks, restaurants, cafes and places to just chill. I ran into a crewmember out there and we walked around some more. I wanted to find what appeared to be a church in the distance, so we walked together to find it. We ended up finding some cool off-the-beaten-path restaurants and cafes along the way. I will definitely go back and hang out at one of those places next time. After finding the "church" (I think it might have been a museum, I'm not sure), we walked back towards the hotel and ate at my crewmember's favorite lebanese place. I had Shawarma (yum) and fresh Ayran (yogurt drink that I learned to love in Turkey). (yum yum!!). On the way back to the hotel I spotted a market selling Efes beer. We bought two and enjoyed them back in the crew room at the hotel. The guy did us a favor to sell them to us after 9pm (we bought them at 9:05pm). Apparently you can only buy alchohol in restaurants or bars after that time.

I would LOVE to come to this place again. If we arrive on-time and it's beautiful weather like it was today I might do the boat tour one of my co-workers told me about. It's an all day tour that stops and different places along the lake, even some very cute little towns on the French side.

Alright, I guess I'll try to "sleep" now 'till our 7am wakeup call. (Doesn't feel like that's going to happen, well at least I had a snack comprised of hot chocolate from the hotel in Berlin, a bagel from the plane and honey from the hotel in Dublin. ;) At least i'm not starving now. :)

p.s. Observations: I had no idea there are so many Turks in Geneva. They were all over the place at the lake (I can always spot them :)). There were also a LOT of africans. There seemed to be more Americans wandering around then the average European city too. What are they doing here? Not a bad place to come and work if don't say so myself. ;)