My First Trip – Geneva January 23, 2010

My First Trip – Geneva January 23, 2010


Geneva or Genève is located in the French speaking part of Switzerland. It is the birthplace of many philanthropic world organizations and is where the United Nations and Red Cross have their head offices – to name a few. It sits on the border with France and the famous Mont Blanc casts its shadow over the city.

Switzerland is coined to be the banking capital of the world and is – as stated by Wikipedia – ‘one of the richest countries in the world.’ Geneva is rated as having the 3rd highest quality of life in the world. In addition Switzerland is known for its global neutrality, and is very much a peace keeping nation. The flag (red with a white cross) is known worldwide not only for these philanthropic reasons but as well for the countries snowcapped peaks – the Alps.

So a group of us decided to do a quick run over to Geneva for the day yesterday. AGH! How cool is that? I just went to Switzerland for the day – you know no biggie! It was 22 EUR round trip (about $33 CDN). So the Canadians (Dennis, Claudia, Linda and Myself) plus some Americans (in our immediate group was Abby, Tyler, Danny) and Pei Pei from Taiwan all got up at the break of dawn and caught the 7am train (fyi we met up at 6 – working with a large group is fun). Some Germans (which we had some fun calling out ‘the Germans are coming’ whenever we talked to them…) and other Americans were there later that day too.

For Linda, who is our little sheltered Lethbridge-ian, it was the first time on a train. (We have pictures to prove it…many). Most of us crashed on the train, but Tyler (an avid outdoorsman like myself) excitedly peered out the window as the sun came up to reveal the gorgeous surrounding countryside. We passed little sleepy towns that were just awaking with smoke pillowing out of the stone houses, and bubbling brooks that still had the morning mist hanging over top of them. The sun slowly came up casting a pink glow over the mountains the beautiful snow capped hills with rough rocks exposed and I excitedly wondered about climbing…