Our second day in Geneva was packed with activities, as it was our only full day in the city when the musuems were open. The hostel we stayed at offered a complimentary day locker service where, for a 10 franc deposit, you could leave your belongings in a secured locker on your checkout day. We ate our petit déjeuner (breakfast) at the local Internet café and hit the road to get to the United Nations Headquarters before a crowd formed. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize how large the complex was, and helpful directions from passerby were all in meters. Wandering around, we came across the permanent US mission to Geneva and J almost embroiled us in an international scandal. Near the outer wall, a small painted square proclaimed, “Take picture here.” J snapped a photo of the wall, then pivoted (staying always inside the square) to take a picture of the garden. A concerned security guard came out of the office and said, “Only the wall, please!” His friends with guns became more alert and we walked off.
Gazing up a hill, we saw the International Red Cross Museum and decided to visit it first. This was the highlight of the trip for me – not only did we get to read about the founding spirit of the movement, but we also got to see medical instruments, letters, and other artifacts from its earlier days. My favorite exhibit was the timeline which tracked wars, disasters, and Red Cross activities for over one hundred years. Looking down the line, one could see that until about 1890 and even afterwards, there wasn’t a large divide between the East and West, rich and poor in terms of destruction of human life. J’s favorite vocabulary term was “raz-de-marée,” which translates to “tidal wave.” The exhibit also provided information on criticisms of the movement, such as those which prompted the recognition of the Red Crescent in Muslim nations and critics who denounced the movement’s silence during the Holocaust (the official answer is that since the people in concentration camps weren’t POWs, there was no international treaty in place allowing intervention). We ate lunch at the fancy, but reasonably priced restaurant, and explored the “Modestes” photography exhibition which explored the lives of women in several Muslim countries. One striking theme was the number of transgendered people (women to men and men to women) from certain countries, where this transformation is seen as more acceptable by authorities than cross-dressing or slow transitions.
After asking the friendly receptionist where the UN (Organisation des Nations Unies in French) tour entrance was, we queued up and waited for about 20 minutes to enter. Since it has been one of J’s lifelong dreams to have a UN badge, I let her enter her information in the database and have her picture taken for our joint ID card. A nice German woman named Christine led our tour in English – the other members of our party were from Germany, while the French-language tour was full of Spaniards and Italians. Since it was a Saturday, we were able to go into many of the conference rooms normally occupied during the week. I’m not sure what Christine’s title was, but I’m sure that she outranks some US diplomats. Every room had a story for her – who signed this treaty, who she ran into at the Christmas party, where the world-famous artist had installed his work. The artwork at the UN HQ comes from the member nations. We didn’t ask to see Senegal’s gift, but did see large murals, intricately-painted vases, and gorgeous tapestries from Finland, Japan, Nepal, and Botswana. Since they shoo you out of the compound pretty quickly after your tour ends, we collected our belongings and moved to hostel number 2. For dinner, we ate Ali Baba’s Kebab Shop. To celebrate Halloween, we strolled around in the cold before coming across the Alhambra dining complex and went to Alhambar. The Swiss aren’t huge fans of credit cards, but they are more than willing to take euros so we were fine. Stay tuned for more updates!
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