Advertisement
Published: June 21st 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sorry I've taken so long to write....Today the weather is in the 80's here, so I'm going to be headed to a beach a little ways out of town to relax.
As for an update on last week, Leanne and I took a trip to London/Southampton last Friday-Monday morning to visit a friend.
I have a confession to make. I almost missed my flight to Geneva from NJ. You see, they had the gate set up in such a way that you had to go down a ramp to get there. I wasn't the only one. There were about 15 people running with me. Why is this relevant? Well, two months ago I waited at the wrong gate for JetBlue in Syracuse, NY and ended up hitching a ride to Rochester with two random businesswomen who I ran into while talking at the ticket counter. In short, I've become an incompetent traveler.
So Leanne and I were at the wrong gate and when we finally realized our mistake and got to the right gate..we found she left her one bag...our one travelbag at security. I think if it had been anywhere but small Geneva Switzerland, they would have
blown it up for security purposes. On that note, travel to and from the airport and once in the airport in Geneva is quite easy given its an international city. When we arrived in London, we stood in line for about an hour and a half waiting for customs to check our passports. I had to laugh at the fact that they write "Foreign Nationals, including US citizens" at the top of the two separate lines just to remind us that no, just because we're americans doesn't mean we can go into the short EU passport holder line.
Anyways, London was fantastic, even for the short time I was there. I had fish and chips on two separate occasions and would go back just to have them again. We had a pretty low key day on Friday, given our 430AM wakeup call. We walked around and took some photographs with disposable cameras we picked up and ended up near some of the art museums on this big lawn with large grass chairs and sat for a bit. London, like NYC, has such a great energy. No matter how short of time I spend there, I fall a little bit
in love with it Though the pound and I have not really come to an agreement just yet. At night we went had some sushi and hung out in SoHo with one of Leanne's friends from highschool and met up with other people she has met in her year in Switzerland.
On Saturday we left for Kanchana's house in Southampton on a 2.5 hour bus ride. The whole next day was just incredibly relaxing. Her apartment is beautiful and has such great natural light. We ate, drank a bit and caught up. On Sunday we stopped at an Art Cafe in downtown Southampton, had a phenomenal lunch and went on our way back to London. We got in pretty late and went to bed around midnight for another 430AM wake up.
The rest of the week flew by pretty quick. One of Kanchana's students from Southampton, Chris, now shares an office with me. His mere presence makes me laugh like crazy. On that note, work has been going pretty well. I'm generally just taking the time to try and figure things out about myself, what I do and do not want to pursue in terms of future employment.
Ato and Anis
Real into the game I think I'm phasing into the quarter life crisis.
Last night Turkey beat Croatia...wooh wooh...I have become a supporter, especially given I watched half the game at a Lebanese restaurant smoking shee sha (totally legal for those reading) with Mohamed. We had a dinner over in Old Town before that and met up with a group of people in plainpalais (where the big screen is) after. I've been spending a lot of time it seems at this Lebanese restaurant, which is interesting given the owners only speak Lebanese and French. They are all incredibly nice to me though and maybe, just maybe, it will help me improve my language skills.
On the health front, my eyes are all screwed up. Leanne brought me to her eye doctor about a week ago and he told me to wear my glasses for a day and come back. I went back the next day and he explained that if I keep wearing my contacts to the point that my eyes are becoming unaturally dry, then i'm going to lose my vision. Needless to say, I've been wearing glasses for the past week. Mohamed has been super helpful and tracked down 2
specialists...I have an appointment on Monday. They should give me some drops to relieve dryness and then I have to go back to the original doctor to fix my glasses and maybe get some day wear contacts that I don't wear as often. Basically, my generation is going to probably realize that all these "great" things we grew up having can really have adverse effects on our health. Perhaps I'll stop using the cell phone I have here for awhile....you know they think it could be linked to brain cancer.
Anyways, have to run to meet Leanne and some others for breakfast across town and then off to discover another part of Geneva in the summer time.
What a difference the beautiful weather makes.
will post some photos soon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0463s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb