day 1
look it's fine or whatever but someone needs to track down jetlag and punch it right in the face. i can't handle it. i consider myself a moderately-to-very strong person but i cannot deal with jetlag at all, not even a tiny bit, i hate being tired so much it makes me all weepy about things. i've cried four times today and all for very stupid reasons:
i saw mountains
the tiny 14-year-old boy in a pink sweatershirt next to me on the plane was reading a book about ada lovelace
my airbnb host offered me cookies
there's a small and weird plant in my room and it's so small and weird and i love it TOO MUCH
anyway in the grand tradition of Everyone In The World Is PRETTY SURE Molly’s Gonna Accidentally Break Something By Virtue Of Being Alive, my taxi driver from the airport to my airbnb stood with me outside my airbnb until my hostess came out because he wanted to make sure i “was not left alone. your french is terrible.” WHICH IS TRUE, but also, why do people always assume i'm going to cause an international incident just because my entire life is crossing my fingers and hoping for the best???
still day 1
IT'S 3 AM AND I'M AWAKE!!!!! JETLAG WHERE DO YOU LIVE!!!!! WE HAVE TO FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!
i've listened to tHREE HOURS of "news from lake wobegone" on this 24-hour stream of "news from lage wobegone" and i'm going to die if my body doesn't accept that we're nOT IN CHICAGO ANYMORE. IT'S NOT TIME TO GET UP. IT'S NOT TIME TO GET UP. IT'S NOT TIME TO GET UP.
day 2
well anyway i missed an outing this morning because i had the wrong meeting location, WHATEVER, IT'S FINE, HAHA. actually it is fine, secretly i didn't really want to go to this particular one because it doesn't apply to my job, but it's certainly not a GREAT reflection of my professionalism.
still day 2
i’m awake and doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great doing great espresso more like espress-YOOOOO amirite i am i am right
i'm reading about transnational networks and international advocacy and i love LEARNING LEARNING IS SO GREAT!!! LEARNING IS GREAT AND COFFEE IS GREAT!!!!
day 3
the united nations is housed in a building with the same area as versailles and they have cookies that are just okay. i'm being flippant because i'm a little overwhelmed by all the different people and the different points of view and all the ways that humans can help and hurt each other. all the hundreds of thousands of tiny ways we can make a difference, both for better and worse.
but seriously though the cookies in their cafeteria are a c+ at best.
still day 3
I WENT FOR A RUN BY THE LAKE AND IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL THE BOATS AND THE MOUNTAINS AND THE TREES AND PEACOCKS AND I MET SOME DOGS GENEVA IS GREAT I'M NEVER LEAVING
day 4
today we are studying international law and LET ME TELL YOU, american law is confusing but international law is pretty much the same thing as smashing yourself in the head with a brick. this has confirmed for me that i would be a terrible lawyer, which i already knew because arguing with people makes me cry and semantics give me a headache. but it is always nice to have confirmation.
still day 4
good news: everyone was right about swiss chocolate
relatedly, bad news: everyone was right about swiss chocolate
day 5
the one thing about traveling for work is that sometimes it's BEAUTIFUL OUTSIDE and all you want to do is go be in the sun but you have to sit inside and "do" your "job" and i think that's really unfair.
on the bright side today i ate two whole blocks of cheese and yes i did feel sick after and yes i WOULD do it again
still day 5
one thing that i really love about geneva is that it stays light so late, at least in the summer. people are outside, just hanging out. not doing anything, really, just laying on the grass. playing guitar. watching boats go by. for a city that's something like 50% (50%!!!!!) expats or foreigners, that's ... like, a pretty chill attitude to take.
i know this is not a perfect place--for one thing everything costs two hundred million dollars--but i don't know. it kind of gives me hope that maybe one day we could all learn to like, stop killing each other and just hang out.
day 6
today i went to OLD GENEVA it has COBBLESTONE STREES and a BEAUTIFUL OLD PRISON!!! or and a church. i wasn't 100% sure which was which because the signs were in french. also a sweet man at an outdoor stand gave me a free croissant with chocolate, which was lovely of him, though definitely bad in terms of enabling my chocolate habit. i did have a brief and terrifying run-in with an old lady who was brandishing a sandwich at me and asking me something in very insistent french, and i was like, "JE NE PARLE PAS FRANÇAIS!!!! JE SUIS DÉSOLÉ!!! JE NE--" and she was like, "SANDWICH ASDJFHALSDK!!!! AKJDHFASDFJHASKLDJFHASKDJFHASLKDJFH SANDWICH!!!!!"
i wouldn't call this interaction unpleasant but i would call it bewildering. i hope you're ok, Sandwich Lady. i hope someone helped you with whatever your Sandwich Problem was.
day 7
TODAY I SAW A CASTLE AND I RODE ON A BOAT. sailed on a boat??
the mountains here are so BEAUTIFUL. i mean, i know that's not news, everybody who is alive in the world knows the alps are like, the nicest gift god ever gave the earth, but it's so insane to be just casually surrounded by them. sometimes i'll turn a corner and BAM, HELLO, WE ARE THE ALPS!! and i have to stand for a minute and think about how itty bitty i am and how not real my problems are. also i can't get out of my head that image of the Smol Cheerful mountain hugging the Tol Grumpy mountain. you know the one.
anyway, the castle at prangins (i know it's pronounced praw-jawh but i always read it in my head as prang-ins) was so BEAUTIFUL and by all accounts the baron and baronness who lived there were in LOVE WITH EACH OTHER and the baron was a BIG NERD who once wrote something like, "all i want to do is write all the time and it's really unfair that i have to do things." I FEEL YA, BUDDY. ME, TOO. VERY SAME.
but after he met his wife for the first time he couldn't write anything for sixth months because he was SO DISTRAUGHT about how into her he was so he finally just went to find her to be like, "PLEASE marry me being in love with you is RUINING MY LIFE," and she was like, "okaaaaay, ok ok chill, i'll move to your beautiful estate and we'll keep a joint journal together like Big Old Nerds," and they did!!! until he died and she was too sad to keep journaling. :(
i a l m o s t bought a tiny crystal penis statue from the open-air market in nyon, but i didn't, because there wasn't a price listed and i was too embarrassed to ask for it.
WELL, that's all. that's week one in switzerland. i didn't get down everything but, to be fair, i didn't really try. the world is a beautiful place!!!! humans mess up all the time but the world doesn't. no matter what happens, man, the alps are always gonna be the alps.
isn't that kind of comforting?