Chris McMillan is a senior diplomacy and foreign affairs major studying abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. Follow his blog, McMillan's Musings, and stay up to date on his travels and experiences.
Bon Soir,
First and foremost I apologize for the time in between posts. It seems that despite being in a place as gorgeous as Geneva, one can still catch a stomach virus and can make one incapable of exorbitant amounts of physical activity (i.e. walking around outside).
So for the weekend, while my plan was to originally go to Cinque Terra with some of the guys fell through, I managed to find other ways to occupy myself. A lot of it has to do with critiquing Switzerland. Ironically, and this may be difficult for some of you to hear, I found some positive things about Europe. Who knew? The Swiss drinking water (it's unconfirmed if it was the water or the smoked salmon sandwich that gave me the stomach bug) is some of the purest water I've ever had. Essentially my weekend consisted of my catching this bug, hanging out by the lake, visiting the cathedral in Old Town Geneva, heading over to catch the Notre Dame-Purdue game—after watching the Miami game of course, and lastly enjoying some Vin Blanc which is clearly the drink of choice in the Geneve region.
I probably spent a combined 6-8 hours of my weekend spent at the lake/beach area reading and catching up on schoolwork…already. Fun fact though, despite all the time I've spent outside in the sun, I'm still super pasty and pale, Casper the ghost style. I'm looking forward to going to Nice this weekend *hopefully* and getting a little color. That's the plan as of right now, depending on if those freaking French decide to get over their strike and get the planes, trains, and automobiles moving once again. Mom and Dad, be proud, I'm currently ahead, yes, ahead, of my school work and it's only been three weeks into the semester. This may be a record for college.
Anyway, continuing with my weekend, I had the opportunity to go back and visit the cathedral in old town Geneva again, which despite its Catholic architecture and general layout is actually Protestant. Regardless, the cathedral was gorgeous; the chapel in particular was fantastic. The stained glass coupled with the sun shining in on the church made it look amazing.
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Now to the most important part of the weekend, clearly, the watching of the Notre Dame game preceded by the Miami vs. Florida game. The day began with the watching of College Gameday via channelsurfing.net. From there, we acted like purebred Americans, yelling at the computer screen as Miami led Florida for one quarter, which in all my years of watching football, may be the most fantastic 45 minutes of my watching. Unfortunately Florida decided to stop sucking and start being Florida and beat Miami senseless. As a consolation prize, I got to watch Notre Dame live at 9:30 pm via slingbox. Now if you haven't heard of slingbox, I strongly suggest you look up its awesomeness. The greatness that is the 21st century allows people time zones away to rock out to the Notre Dame fight song and collectively yell, "Ohhhhhh" every time Robert Marve gets sacks. Anyway, the game was awesome, we won, end of story. On a side note, there's a circus across the street from the watch party, with lots of animals. Geneva is weird. Only in a city like Geneva can you have a circus right across the street from upscale offices and restaurants. Sweet Europe, you're so great.
Of course, over this whole trip, the group and I have been enjoying the classic drink of Geneve, Vin Blanc. With its sweet flavor and its interesting ability to make people play basketball much better than their actual ability, the Vin clearly must be the nectar of the gods. If you're in the states, I can only hope and dream that you can come to Geneve and experience the Vin Blanc. Similarly to getting Ice'd with the amazing drink Smirnoff Ice (which actually is a ‘premium' drink in Europe, go figure) the new fad should be getting Blanc'd, just a thought. The Vin is great, that is all.
vs.
You be the judge
A short preview of what you have to expect in the future:
The ‘Eurostyle' critique continues, this time in honor of the beloved Tristan Chan and his scooter. While Tristan has started, or at least attempted to start a fad in the States, Euros are often on their scooters, looking super Euro and super horrible. Freaking scooters…
Deuces,
CM
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