UNITED NATIONS & RED CROSS IN GENEVA Fri., June 24

 A short tram ride took us to the international section where large offices house some of the hundreds of international organizations located in the Geneva region. We selected two:

The United Nations
Outside the building stands a huge chair (two stories high) with a broken leg. It's a dramatic reminder of the crippling damage done by land mines.




Inside, a tour guide took us through part of the UN building, including what was originally the League of Nations building and the new section - in total a huge building - larger than the pentagon.

The guide explained the various missions: peace and security, development, human rights, humanitarian affairs (including refugees, floods, land mines, food supply) and international law. She showed us meeting rooms, large and small, and pointed out some of the gifted art, much of which sends provocative messages.

What hit us was the realization that hundreds of people, representing 191 countries, are devoting countless hours to trying to bring peace to our world. The proclamations and pronouncements that emerge from the various meetings outline solutions. Why, then, do we have such a hard time protecting our environment, feeding the hungry, preventing war???

The Red Cross
Our second visit was to the headquarters of the International Red Cross. A museum with videos and artifacts tells the history of the organization, highlights some of the people whose commitment has resulted in the good work of the RC, and describes the hundreds of interventions over the years.

We learned about Henry Dunant who is credited with starting the Red Cross in 1863. Overcome with anguish at seeing wounded soldiers left to die on the battlefield, he lobbied long and hard to convince governments that medical intervention must be allowed. It was his proposals that led to the 1864 Geneva Conventions. That was the beginning of Red Cross involvement in wars and other disasters. Taken together, the number of volunteers who have responded is overwhelming and inspiring.

Among the things we learned was how the Red Cross and Red Crescent relate. Although the "red cross" symbol was selected as a reverse of the flag of Switzerland, where the organization was born, branches in Moslem countries were uncomfortable with the cross, seeing it as a symbol aligned with Christianity. In 1929 the symbol of the red crescent, used by the branches of the organization in Moslem countries, was recognized (as was the red crystal - considered a neutral symbol -in deference to Israel - in 2006).

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Location:Geneva - UN, Red Cross

LAST DAY in GENEVA -With BOB BISHOP, June 25, 2011

What a marvelous final day in Geneva - spent with Dr.Bob Bishop and his wife, Yoshima. Bob, former CEO of Silicon Graphics, has spent 40 years in technical and scientific computing and is now spearheading an ambitious initiative to raise multimillions of dollars to create the International Centre for Earth Simulation. It will house a supercomputer capable of modeling the whole earth and simulating its behavior. This means climate and geo-modeling, integrating the natural sciences and sociology-economic sciences. I met him when he visited the demo of the World Resource Simulation Center last September in San Diego, which is a smaller, but significant, project that will complement the ICES and provide it data.

I was pleased to get an update on his progress. He is on the go constantly, lecturing widely and traveling to explain his concept and elicit support. Given the need to amass data from all over the world, Bob has selected Geneva as the home for the Centre--drawing upon many of the international organizations already there and winning worldwide cooperation because of Switzerland's history of neutrality. He is currently negotiating for a site where he hopes to break ground in a year.

His vision includes the building of a computer with power similar to any of the top ten in the world - able to process about one million billion floating point operations (I.e. petaflop) and deal with extabytes (billion billions bytes) of data. This will serve this worldwide organization for climate science to predict the occurrence of natural disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes.

We visited over a lovely lunch at the Dumaine Imperial golf club in Gland, a small Swiss town-become bedroom community to Geneva. We ate on the patio of a mansion built by Napolean III overlooking Lake Geneva - with a view of the snow caps of Mount Blanc and surrounding French hills. The house is steeped in history, illustrated with paintings and portraits, and faces on colorful flower gardens, a rich green golf course and a lush evergreen forest.

Bob and Yoshima have lived in five US cities and five countries - including 30 years in Switzerland. As a result of his experiences and his keen grasp of history and current events, provided us with great perspective on life in Europe. Among other things, he confirmed our recognition of the extraordinary engineering expertise in Switzerland.

After lunch we stopped at Nyon, another suburban small town with its own character. This town is distinguished by its picturesque castle - now a great place for special occasions. As we stood in the castle, overlooking the town (imaging ourselves to be the count of the region!), a wedding came to do their photos.

That lovely and stimulating afternoon marked the end of our trip to Switzerland - and what a great trip it has been!


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Location:Gland Country Club

GENEVA "HOMECOMING", Thurs., June 23, Geneva & a poem

Arrival in Geneva brought a flood of strange feelings:
*excitement to recall a life-changing year when I studied at the U of Geneva, 1960-61
*Curiosity to see how things have changed over 50 years. Europe was "behind" the US in 1960. Today it's fully as modern and beyond.
*A touch of sadness that I could not share this with my parents, who were so supportive of my going overseas at a young age.
*Disappointment that I have lost contact with everyone who I knew there - with whom I could compare notes.
* Realization that although I traveled widely in Switzerland and Europe and beyond in 1960-61, my world in Geneva was very small. My route was not much more than from university to home!

Following a city-wide tour which introduced us to an overview of this international city, we started our own exploration.

UNIVERSITY:
We walked around Bastion Park in which the 452-year-old university is located. The outside building walls are the same - with some sections cleaned, some not. The classroom looked the same except for the added LCD (but still chalk and blackboards!).

We spent time reviewing the history depicted in the famed Reformation Wall built into the Vieux Ville wall at the edge of the park. I recalled that it was my interest in Calvin's theocracy that prompted me to select the U of Geneva.

MY STREET
I retraced my steps from the university to Avenue Champel and found a few familiar markings, though many of the buildings have been replaced with modern condos and apartments or retail shops with bright colored awnings - and lots of motorcycles and cars, replacing mostly bikes and a few cars.

JET D'EAU

Then we took a lovely solar-powered tiny train along the south lakeside - past the Flower clock (which has the largest second hand of any clock in the world) and the JET D'EAU, built in 1880 to regulate water pressure in the city, now an icon of the city.

MANSIONS AND PARKS
We also took a tiny train along the north side of the lake past beautiful gardens and mansions of the last couple of centuries. I realized that this was all there 50 years ago (except for the tourist train and the souvenir stands at the bridge), but I'd missed it. (My head was in books and trying to learn French, I guess!).


John has been writing poems as we go. Here's his poem for today:

GEN'S JET D 'EAU
Geneva's jet flys -
High into the skies.
But then it fades
Like mists over the bay's
Waters from which it came.

But that symbol of regular powerful sprays
Is a symbol of her orgasmic ways,
Constantly building up pressure
In a spirit of reform
From which Calvin and Knox were born -
A new baptism of religious and political spirit
And a personal humanitarianism.

There is a pulse here, a throbbing pressure below
That keeps a constant pressure flow
For a creative reformation in freedom, justice, enterprise and compassion.

It fills the lungs of freedom;
It keeps the artery flow.
One should regularly back to Geneva go!





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Location:City tour of Geneva

CHOCOLATE & CHEESE AT GRUYERES, Wed.,June 22

Today we were tourists exploring "typical" Switzerland. We boarded a special train painted gold and marked "The chocolate train." It took us into the alps, past the picturesque green hills and valleys.

Our first stop was the Gruyeres cheese factory with an informative tour and yummy samples!

Then we had time to visit the picturesque town of Gruyeres. There were two highlights.

The first was a big surprise:Museum H R Giger, which housed the magnificent art of surrealist HR Giger, who did the art for the film "Aliens." Since we are not up on science fiction or mythology, his name was not familiar to us and his work was shocking, odd, amazing and magnificent.
It was hard to imagine someone with such a creative mind and artistic ability. We were glad to stumble upon this.

The second was the Castle of Gruyeres. You might say that if you have seen one, you have seen them all, but actually each castle has it's own story. (I am just glad I never had to learn Swiss history; it's very complex!)
The castle's history goes back to the 11th century. Now the canton owns it and has maintained it beautifully. It is amazing how many artifacts from the Middle Ages have been preserved in such good condition.

From Gryueres we went to the town of Broc where Nestle's chocolate factory is located. Known as the House of Cailler, it is a new production facility opened in 2010. At that time, they created a new tour for visitors with a most creative multimedia presentation giving us the history of chocolate. (Did you know that Cortez took the cocoa bean to Spain? And did you know that the cocoa drink was considered too dangerous for women to drink until the pope ruled that it was OK!). The tour was very informative and the samples exceedingly generous. I never knew there were so many types of chocolate! (it was a bit like wine tasting!)

A relaxing train ride took us back to Montreux, where we boarded a train for Geneva - our home for the next four nights and our last venue before heading for the U.S.


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Location:The chocolate train to Gruyeres

MONTREUX OLD CITY Tues., June 21

We had a leisurely day exploring the Old City and looking for "The Poets' Ramble" which is benches, statues or monuments that note the presence of famous guests who have spent time in The Montreux area: Charlie Chaplin, Jean Paul Rousseau, Lord Byron, Francis Bacon, Freddie Mercury, Hans Christian Andersen, and dozens of others

We found ourselves in the Tralala Hotel which houses guests for the annual Jazz Festival in August.
It will be sad to leave Montreux, but there is more to explore!


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Location:Montreux

VEVEY and back to MONTREUX, Mon., June 20

A short boat ride along the lake brought us to the town of Vevey, where Charlie Chaplin settled after being banned from the US during the McCarthy hearings.

The lakefront provided a lovely walk among the flowers - to find the statue of Chaplin.

Then we enjoyed a stroll though the Old City and finally a funicular ride up the mountain overlooking the town.

The view of the town and lake below with the mountains on the other side was beautiful. It was hard to believe that people live up this mountain and come and go regularly via the funicular cable car! For us, it was an outing with an opportunity for a fondue lunch while overlooking the lake - with Rivolli (a Swiss soft drink made from dairy).

Upon return to Montreux, we walked along a Thai festival going on at the lakefront-- a wonderful opportunity for a Thai foot reflexology session!

A most relaxing "vacation" day!


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Location:Vevey

CHILLON, MONTREUX, Sunday, June 19

 
We settled in a lovely hotel right on the lakefront and then walked along the lake, past the palm trees and colorful gardens, viewing the green mountains and the snowy peaks across the lake. No wonder this is called Montreux Riviera!

In 45 minutes we reached the Chateau du Chillon. What a site! I remember visiting this spot 50 years ago, but, even though the castle is more than 800 years old, a lot has changed in 50 years! Now there are six excellent videos about the history, architecture and prison stories, as well as self-guided tours with an iPod and a great book store.

The building was during many times a hone for the counts of Savoy. We spent most of the time focusing on the periods during which the castle was used as a prison and particularly the story of Bonnivard's imprisonment in 1530 made famous by Lord Byron's sonnet written after visiting Chillon in 1816. As a champion of trampled freedom, he composed "The Prisoner of Chillon."

Since Byron is one of the poets featured in the poetry sessions Johm leads at the Vi Retirement Community, he drank in the history and context of the poem. I also found the history of the building fascinating, learning more about the many uses of the castle over the centuries.

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Location:Chateau du Chillon, Montreux

GOLDEN PASS TRAIN THROUGH SWITZERLAND TO MONTREUX, Sun., June 19

The Goldenpass train has the name for a good reason. The scenes we passed are works of art - beautiful green hills with snowy mountains peeking through, typical wooden chalets with flowering window boxes, making for enchanting views for miles and miles. John's comment: "in spite of the pictures, I think I underestimated the grandeur."

As we moved from Interlaken to Montreux through the gorgeous mountain passes, some general impressions of our brief time in Switzerland are surfacing:
**Everything is on time.
**We've seen marvelous engineering projects, not least of these are the wonderful trains and cable cars that go to all kinds of places in the mountains.
**Public areas are in great shape - clean, modern, in repair. This goes for train stations, curbs and sidewalks, roads, toilets, walls. Probably because they pay higher taxes!
**The yodel festival was very much geared to the Germanic Swiss audience. Little was in French and nothing in English. They were happy to have yodeling groups from Japan, S.Korea, Alberta Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Wisconsin. And there were a few groups from the French speaking part of Switzerland (all singing in SwitzerDeutch). Out of 10,000 participants, however, the vast majority were Germanic Swiss.
(The only ad in the program book in English was to invite guests to "play poker and black jack" in the Interlaken casino!
***The greeting custom is for three cheek kisses (left, right, left) - especially initiated by the women.

As the train neared Montreux we could see hillsides with grade vine and the architecture changing to a French style, as the signs changed to French. I felt "home" again, able to read the signs and pick up on conversations,

More about our afternoon in the "Montreux Riviera" tomorrow.

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Location:Golden pass to Montreux, Switzerland

MORE YODELING FEST/INTERLAKEN, Sat., June 18

After a 20 minute train ride from our home in Lauterbrunnen, we were back in Interlacken. (Did we mention how great the trains are? Such an engineering feat, with trains and cable cars going to all sorts of places high in the mountains.)

Today the hills were alive with the sound of music -- at least Interlaken was. We spent the entire day listening to yodeling groups present in competition and never got tired of it. A special treat was seeing our new friends from the yodeling club in Laufen; decked in their local costume, they looked quite different than when we'd seen them at their rehearsal and the sounded great! We also enjoyed the presentation from the club in New Glarus , Wisconsin - not far from John's family home!

The brightly colored costumes, different for each canton, the intonations, the harmony, the amazing voices with terrific ranges- what a treat. During intermissions we walked around town, sometimes in a torrential downpour. Rain or shine, there were yodeling groups or alphorn players gathered on corners, in plazas and in cafes. The town was alive with the sound of music!

We enjoyed the shops, too. The wood carving, the Swiss watches, the music boxes, Swiss army knives , Hummels - they were all there. So, too, were the native costumes. We both bought native blouses decorated with edelweiss - to wear when yodeling!!

This festival is clearly an effort to keep alive the Switzerdeutsch language and customs. Is was a privilege to be a part of it.

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Location:Yodeling fest, Interlaken Switzerland