Singha Import

This is one of the beers of choice of my hosts. It is "The Original Thai Beer, Since 1933" and quite good, I guess.

The Office

Minus Michael Scott and plus real work.

Geneva Pool

The pool where I've been swimming.

Maps

Blue dot is my location.

Maps

Here's a screen shot of my location from my iPad. Vernier is a "suburb" of Geneva and its only a 20 min commute to the office in the morning. One picture is a close up, as you can see the house is very close to the approach for Geneva International Airport. I don't know how an airport can be considered "international" when it only has one runway (JFK has 4...), but its Europe we'll give them a break.

Things That Are Different

Needless to say many things over here are different from the states.
Here are a few of the most drastic ones (some good some bad):

... No light beer (bad)
... They charge for bags in the grocery store. Learned this the hard
way and had to carry six, one litre gatorades a mile home.
... Most things are significantly smaller for an equal or greater
price. For example a can of coke is .33L which is 11.2 OZ as compared
to the usual 12.
... The 'Y' and the 'Z' are reversed on the keyboard. I guess it could
be way worse, but you don't really how much you use 'Y' until it's
always 'Z'
... The metric system, still getting used to that.
... Training in a 50m LC pool.
... Everyone speaks French.
... Everyone speaks AT LEAST two passable languages. At the office
most are fluent in at least three. Usually english, but sometimes not.
... The food.
... There are actually other countries nearby. France is less than 15
min away by car. Germany is two hours north, Italy is two hours south.
... The (casual, day to day) european style is horrible. God awful.
They look good at work though.
... The washer machines are tiny. A standard cold wash is 100 minuets.
Needless to say I've selected the "court" (short) option.
... The chocolate is better and there are many more options.
... The wine is better only because you can get Italian wine for much
cheaper because it isn't really an import.

That's all I can think of for now... Will post more when I think of them.

--
Braden

Box of Swiss Chocolate I got for my Birthday

Lunch

This is a typical lunch at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) cafeteria. This was a cheap 9.80 CHF, I was expecting worse when I first got here.

The View

The view from the Febo's. Classic switzerland I think.

The mountains that ring Geneva

France is actually before the mountains less than a 15 min drive.

A few pics from two weeks in Geneva

Two weeks are complete here in Geneva. The family that I'm staying
with is great, the Febo's, swimming is really good and an awesome
place to practice french. Most of the kids on the team don't speak
much english. The coach of the team, Michele speaks almost none. On
the other hand the PwC office in Geneva is about as lingual as it
gets. I'm pretty sure I'm the only idiot who doesn't speak AT LEAST
two languages.

Last Thursday I went over to a colleague's house to watch the movie
"Office Space." In attendance were Mike (the host, an american), his
college buddy from Middlebury (also an American, works at a "think
tank" over here), and three guys from the office. All three were
german which means that they speak English (the language of choice for
the night), french and german. Mike married an italian so his language
count is at four... English, spanish, french and italian. Wow.

Pics coming soon.

--

Braden