Sabbatical in Geneva - Recently Arrived

8/27/10. Three a.m. here in France, 8:00 p.m. in Auburn and I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling listening to the cars pass every so often. Our son Chris is sleeping upstairs like there is no tomorrow and Nancy hasn’t joined us yet. This house is right on a main road with traffic noise night and day. The weather on arrival was perfect, i.e. low humidity and low to mid 70’s with a clear day allowing the view of Mount Blanc, which apparently isn’t always visible. Leaving the 98 degrees and 98 percent humidity to land in a cooler climate was a blessing although it still can be warm during the day and without air conditioning, it gets stuffy in the house. We opted for a cheap flight and changed planes twice adding hours from the layovers.

Getting into Switzerland is remarkably easy as the airport guard just stamped our passports and sent us on our way to the luggage that was waiting at baggage claim where we walked out into a fresh Swiss day. We rented a house across the border on the road between Ferney-Voltaire and Ornex, France, only a short walk from Ferney-Voltaire, a town that boasts the Château Voltaire, the home/museum of it’s most famous citizen. For 2000 Euro’s, we rented an old renovated French farmhouse claiming only 1,300 square feet but boasting three floors and a basement including three bedrooms. It is a narrow but high stuccoed stone house sporting real shutters and modern double pane windows. The shutters serve as curtains since there are none, or screens for that matter, but so far the bug population seems slight.  I was told that these old French farmhouses used to have a barn built on the back thus their narrowness and the farm animals were brought into the basement in the winter. We have stalls in the basement so I believe it.

The house has radiator heat, no A/C, and reasonably new appliances that we can’t figure out – the toilet is a pleasant exception. For example, the microwave emits hot air and microwaves and we just punch around on it until it makes a noise. Typical of European homes, they hide the refrigerator and kitchen appliances into the cabinets so you can’t find them. The house has a youth hostel feel due to the sparse furnishings of which some is grand but most dilapidated. We have a real back yard with grass and it’s own clothesline and some trees. Unfortunately, the house is directly on the busy highway so we stay shuttered up trying to lessen the traffic noise; a problem that may run us out as we are feeling hostage to the noise. On our second day, we had a visit from the Mayor whom Chris talked with. He was apparently explaining what we have to do to keep our place tidy and the sidewalk unobstructed. Still, he was the mayor and did visit us, Bill Ham take a lesson.

After walking to the Carrefore supermarket – kind of a small WalMart – and toting groceries home, the idea of being carless seemed more romantic than practical resulting in a $17.00/day Toyota two door Yaris; a car that makes my Mini Cooper  big and luxurious. It’s wheels however. Switzerland did not join the EU so they retain their Swiss Francs (CHF) while France uses Euro’s meaning we still have to carry two currencies. Visa trumps them both however. There has been progress since last I was here between EU countries in crossing borders where we are finding unmanned border stations that you just drive on through. Everything is close together and it takes little time going from village to village.

We visited our U.N. contact, Debra Perry, at her apartment which is a number of villages up the lake from Geneva but only a half hour bus or train ride according to her. She took pity on us and gave us things for our house as well as taking us to dinner.  We dined at a small restaurant on Lake Geneva and we feasted on Lake Perch, a local favorite, floating in butter – hmmmmmmm. Debra lives in Celigny in a 300 year-old stone apartment that previously was the town hotel. She has a beautiful place furnished with artifacts and carvings from Thailand where she has lived for the past 8 years. Her apartment overlooks the cobblestone town square and is the picture of what you think of Switzerland. Most Swiss in this part of the country however live in large cube shaped beehive apartment buildings. Her only complaint is that when you sleep with the windows open and hear the musical phrases of French being spoken outside, it is romantic initially but becomes annoying when you want to sleep.

My French is terrible, I should have worked harder on Rosseta Stone. Chris chides me that I can’t get by on Bonjour and Merci the entire time and has taken a parental role in getting me to buckle down and study. I’ve bantered that his learning French this term is the reason I brought him so he can be my personal translator. Fortunately, many of the locals speak English and certainly any English they speak is better than my French. It is surprising how much I can figure out in print due to similarities to English, but spoken French is an entirely different matter.  It does make it hard in trying to do everyday things such as getting the computer network working. I suspect we’ll improve since our TV and surrounds are all in French. One of the differences I’ve noted is that many things close for two hours at lunch and it is the rare store that stays open past 6:00 or 6:30. Debra tells me that many are also closed on Saturday and nothing is open on Sunday making it difficult to find time to get errands completed.

Chris started his orientation at the College du Lemon in Versoix (ver – souwh), an international school with over 20 campuses worldwide where he will be in grade 11. Orientation was the usual crammed into a hot high school gym affair that occurs anywhere but the mix of kids was impressive and he was excited to see the “hot” French girls that will be part of his school world. As might be expected in an English speaking school in Europe, there were many Brits with a good sprinkling of French, Asians, Africans, etc. His schooling may prove to be one of the more important outcomes of the trip. For the costs, it should be.

Debra took us by the ILO (International Labour Organization) office where I’ll be working starting 1 September (don’t you like how I’m now affected, I’ll be crossing my 7’s next). It is a huge flat building full of windows and offices – you can see it on Google maps. My role will be her GTA in the disability specialist office where I anticipate we’ll be doing some disability statistics collection as well as designing a training orientation course on disability for their staff, bringing them coffee, cleaning up, etc. They really do plan on sending me to Oman to help them with establishing a vocational evaluation procedure for those with disabilities. She referred to me to the staff at ILO as her former professor so I have apparently become known as The Professor as in “When The Professor gets here ……. I’ll certainly have to dress and act the part.

It’s time to try sleep again or I’ll never adapt. Maybe just a bit more baguette, butter, and wine ………