Geneva, Switzerland
where i was reminded of the grandness of it all
The bus trip from Lyon to Geneva was less than 3 hours, and even though I crossed into another country the Swiss speak French in Geneva. But I did have to withdraw Swiss Francs because they don’t use the Euro there… I only had one day planned in Geneva because my house/pet sit started the next day, but really because it’s the 5th most expensive city in the world and I’m on the poor dirtbag travel bus. But I had a big day planned as I had 2 big name places I wanted to check out while I was there: CERN and the United Nations. But first I walked along the lakefront (Lake Geneva) to see the big water fountain-really just a jet of water shooting 459ft/140m up into the air. Not able to check into the Geneva Hostel (38CH-Swiss Francs) yet I dropped my pack off and took my free 1-day transport card (what accommodations give out to guests) and walked to the train station where I withdrew my francs and took tram 18 to the end of the line at CERN.
CERN
I’ll be honest, I first learned about CERN from reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. I vaguely remembered the place and where it was but when I was doing my Geneva research and saw that it was here it all came back and I was like of course it’s here and I have to go. Now, I never took physics and science is not my strong suit, but the more I expose myself to the more I learn, so off I went. ..I hadn’t organized a guided tour so I took advantage of their free exhibits and took a couple hours to read every placard and to watch every video. So I’ll just give a brief overview but you could also just google it. CERN is the European organization for nuclear research and is the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Essentially the LHC is “the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator” (home.cern). There’s a 27km ring running around the area near Geneva 100m underground. There, insulation, magnets, liquid helium, etc. hold protons together where they travel almost at the speed of light and collide with each other at 4 locations around the ring and that’s where the 4 experiments are located (Atlas, Alice, CMS, and LHCb). The purpose being to create particles. This is where back in 2012 the experiments presented evidence of discovery of a particle that “is consistent with the Higgs boson” (home.cern). …So to suffice it to say I had to take pictures of every placard cause there’s no way I could remember it all. Very interesting and so glad I was able to visit the site.
United Nations
Next up I visited the UN and took the last guided tour of the day (15CH). I guess I was under the misunderstanding that this was the main office, but I’m glad I got to tour it anyway. For those not familiar with the UN, the headquarters is in NYC and then they have 3 offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. An interesting fact is that it’s in the Palais des Nations which was originally constructed for the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations. On the tour we got a history of the UN, visited several of the large conference rooms and the big assembly hall where delegates sit at long desks with microphones and earpieces, and saw works of art donated by the member states. Fun fact: according to my tour guide only 2 countries in the world (out of 195) are not members. Do you know? I had kinda guessed one only when she gave a hint. They are Vatican City and Palestine.
——
After all that I checked into my hostel and had a 24CH (conversion rate now:1CH=1$) vegan risotto dinner, yikes, too pricey for me… I recently found out that fondue is a Swiss thing and I’ve never had fondue so that was something I wanted to try, but I didn’t while I was in Geneva. I figured I could try it in the town I was headed to next.
Next: Vevey, Switzerland
