First Trip to Geneva

I wrote this awhile back, right after it happened about 2 months ago – it’s a funny story now, but not so much when I was going through it.

At the beginning of May, my new employer flew me out to Geneva for a quick trip to meet the team I will be working with and try to do a little house hunting - which didn’t happen, because of the following series of unfortunate events.

The plan was to fly from Chicago (where I was at the time for my current job) to London on an American Airlines/British Airways code-share flight and London to Geneva on British Airways. This was a terrible plan because, American Airlines.

Let me start off by saying: I know better. I have NEVER had a good experience with American, they have ALWAYS managed to screw up my trip, and I ALWAYS make an effort to avoid them. But, given the short notice and time constraints for this trip, I didn’t have a choice.

My flight was scheduled to take off at 4:40 pm on Friday, which would put me in Geneva at 11 am Saturday. It was pouring rain all day Friday in Chicago, so I knew before I even got to the airport that I would have some sort of delay. As the rain let up though, an announcement was made that our plane had “technical issues.” Awesome. They needed to go get a new part out of a warehouse, which was not actually on airport grounds, and then install the new part. They assured us that we would still get out of Chicago that night, and although we would all likely miss our connections, we would be automatically booked onto the next available connection.

Meanwhile, I made friends with a lovely Scottish woman in her mid-60’s (shout-out to Dorothy) at the cellphone charging station, which made for a much more pleasant wait. From about 6 pm to midnight, Dorothy and I kept each other company.

Over the next several hours, 8ish to midnightish, they managed to install the new part – but by then it was too late, and the flight crew had reached the end of their shift. Flight canceled. It’s now 1 am, and I go into survival mode.

In an effort to get in front of all the other angry passengers, I hustled over to the desk, retrieved hotel and meal vouchers for me and Dorothy, and herded her out of the airport to get a cab to the La Quinta that American Airlines so graciously reserved for us.

I got re-booked for a flight out of Miami for the following day – which meant I had lost an entire day of my 4-day trip. It also meant that I had missed the 3 appointments I made to look at apartments. To say I was mad is an understatement. I slept for about 3 hours in a humid La Quinta room then headed back to the airport for my flight to Miami. Survival mode still engaged.   

My American flight from Chicago to Miami was delayed (obviously), but thankfully not enough to make me miss my flight to London. I got to my gate in Miami, saw that my flight to London was now a British Airways flight and not American, and the angels in heaven sang and rejoiced.

Throughout the rest of the trip, I took notes on my phone of all the important lessons learned/things I wanted to remember to tell Andy about Geneva; I think these notes pretty much sum up my 48 hours there.

1. British Airways flights are incredibly pleasant – a hot meal, whatever you want to drink, plenty of movies to choose from, and, most importantly, a friendly and courteous flight crew. British people are exceptionally polite.
2. London Heathrow Airport is a nightmare. From what I understand, they just finished a massive remodel…and it’s very clean and updated. But, it’s absolutely enormous – I had a 100 minute layover between flights, and I barely made it to my gate in time.
3. The Geneva airport is wonderful – just big enough to have everything you would want in an airport, but small enough that it’s fairly quick to get through. I made it through customs in no time and quickly got my bag.
4. Cabs in Geneva are outrageously expensive. A 10 minute cab ride from the airport to my hotel cost 40 CHF (pretty much equivalent to $40). Public transportation is the way to go.
5. The city shuts down on Sunday. I had been warned of this before the trip, but it was interesting to see in person; very few shops and restaurants were open the day I got there, including the grocery stores.
6. The city is extremely dog friendly – there were dogs EVERYWHERE, both outside on the sidewalks and inside stores and restaurants. There are even bag stations to clean up after them every so often along the sidewalks.
7. When you order a “coffee,” you’re going to get an espresso. There is no such thing as coffee as we know it, as far as I can tell. Must order lattes.
8. It’s a BEAUTIFUL city. Parks and trees everywhere, cobblestone streets, stunning architecture, and all along a gorgeous lake. AND – people drink out of the public fountains. Like a fountain we might throw a penny in? They fill their water bottles in them, because the water is that clean.
9. A LOT of people still smoke cigarettes.
10. The traffic lights turn yellow in between green and red, but ALSO between red and green.

Aside from the time I spent in my new office, I went on a city bus tour and just explored a bit on my own – walked around the lake, poked in a few shops, ate at a couple restaurants. I’m not very good at traveling alone; I don’t enjoy it that much, because I don’t like talking to strangers, so there’s no one to talk to. This was exacerbated in a foreign country, where I had to start every conversation with “Do you speak English?” Gotta get going on my French! I’m excited to go back with Andy and experience more of the city with him/figure out what life is going to look like. 

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here's a few:

 Espresso and gelato on lac Léman (Lake Geneva) - you can see the Jet d'Eau in the background, one of Geneva's landmarks. The water shoots 460 feet in the air.

 United Nations

 The Reformation Wall, a memorial dedicated to the four fathers of the Protestant Reformation (Theodore Beza, John Calvin, William Farel, and John Knox)