July 30-Aug 1: Geneva

Geneva is a beautiful place with the lake and mountains. It is a quiet, but well-developed city. "Quiet" and "well-developed don't usually go together in my head, but it does here where the economy is based on finance and where the UN has many of it offices.

Beautiful views on the train ride

DAY 1

After we dropped off my luggage, we took the tram back to Geneva.

OLD TOWN

There was the opera house, cathedral, other nice buildings but I was too hungry to pay attention.

CHEZ MA CUISINE

My first introduction to Geneva prices... It was one dollar sign on google, but in the US it would have been two.

Roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and salad - well-dressed salad, not much else to say...

Indian salad - no I didn't like the spiced mayo. it also had raisins and pineapples along with the chicken. there were some crispy chips that reminded me of shrimp chips though.

PLACE DU BOURG-DE-FOUR (OLD TOWN)

Cute bookstore

CHOCOLATE

We stopped by two chocolate shops: Auer and Du Rhone

JARDIN ANGLAIS

The kids playing by the fountain knew what fun means.

And we tried the chocolates from Auer.

Dark chocolate truffle - had some fruity notes to it, but not what I normally might taste. Almost like an added floral perfume. Present in the other chocolates too.

Dark chocolate pistachio - as per usual, also had some almond flavor. bits of crunchy pistachios definitely had some roasty toasty flavor.

Dark chocolate passion fruit - pretty strong passionfruit flavor, had brightness and acidity but still felt sweet and like a candy (somewhat like my coconut passionfruit bars). passionfruit definitely overpowered the chocolate

LAKE GENEVA / JET D'EAU

The landmark of Geneva tourism (the jet) was only running for a few minutes today. Barely caught it in the first short here

We sat along the path to the jet d'eau, where we had the chocolates from Du Rhone.

Mocca glace - coffee-flavored, both in dusting and chocolates. coffee flavor is present but not too strong! more upfront in dusting but mellows out into sweet coffee perfume. chocolate was very smooth too. According to the website, it also has hazelnuts and lots of vegetable fat in it. It is also a form of the pave de Geneve, a signature of Geneva. amazing! my favorite!

Praline Imperial - earl grey. probably what you imagine, great balance.

Coline - smokey (but not too much) with a touch of salt and some gold!

QUAI DU MONT BLANC

We found a little pathway to walk on. It was very peaceful here, especially to see the water slowed down by the bridge supports. Maybe that's why trolls like living under bridges?

And then we went on a carnival ride, one of the few meant for bigger children like us.

It was fun, but then we felt nauseous. So we laid in the grass before dinner.

Clara getting leaves out of her hair from lying in the grass

CAFE DU SOLEIL

Fried branzino with grilled vegetables and fries - fish was lightly coated in flour and fried, well executed, crispy skin. impressed with the sauce - pesto like flavor but pretty creamy (probably roux?)

Fondue with gruyere - bread definitely soaks up the cheese. so tasted like cheese. solid experience!

Then we went back to CERN to practice piano. Yay!

DAY 2

We headed to the Carrefour in the morning for some breakfast.

Along with pain aux chocolat and a banana, I also tried some cabecou cheese. It was stronger than I expected (since it looked like brie) - makes sense since it's made of goat's milk. Both the rind and the middle was strong but in different ways. Interestingly, the rind was soft but the center (which had strong salty goat flavor) was firmer.

There was also a few varieties of canned duck confit...very French to me.

PLAINPALAIS FARMER'S MARKET

Clothes, produce, and street food vendors. Many of the street food vendors were advertising Swiss roasted chicken, whole or in a sandwich.

I got some ginger beignets at an African food stall. Basically fried dough with lots of ginger flavor. Tasted more like dried ginger, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was also fresh ginger juice since they were selling ginger juice by the bottles there. Definitely strong ginger flavor.

PARFUMS DE BEYROUTH

In search of cheap and good eats, we ate lunch at this Lebanese place.

Mixed lebanese plate - falafel, lamb and chicken schwarma, lamb kofta, hummus, garlic labneh. flavorful meat, kofta was particularly juicy. i liked the olive oil on the hummus and the raw garlic flavor of the labneh was woke my senses up but not too strong. I was pleasantly surprised that the onions were pickled so not particularly pungent.

Chicken saffron rice - chicken was juicy and flavor. i liked the hint of cardamom on it.

Overall a solid meal. We even had leftovers and we came under 20 CHF per person, which is pretty good for Geneva.

PALACE OF NATIONS

We passed by the home of the UN offices on the way to the Ariana Musuem.

ARIANA MUSEUM

Officially a museum of glass and ceramics, it felt like a wealthy person's collection of china, which is actually pretty accurate. The span of time and geography was pretty broad though. There were dishes from the 1300s onward and from both the East and West and in between. Interestingly, I learned that the Chinese also made dishes with Western designs, either Western subjects or Western drawings of pseudo-oriental subjects. There was also some more contemporary art, although the temporary exhibits were not free like the rest of the museum. There were also lots of places to sit, including a balcony for some fresh air.

Can you see me on the stairs hehe?

Recently commissioned work

Contemporary art

BAIN DES PAQUIS

This is the second lake I've swum in and the water is definitely deeper than the part of Lake Garda I swam in. This made it better for swimming and allowed for a 10m diving platform (not pictured) and bouldering wall.

It was lots of fun, and at 2 CHF, it was the most worth-it purchase in Geneva. There was also a peaceful and enjoyable female area only that we only discovered upon leaving. It was much less crowded and had women enjoying the water without tops.

Also, the Jet D'eau was actually on this time.

BACK TO OLD TOWN

Can you tell what time it is?

FAVERGER

Another round... This time we sat in the Place Bourg-de-Four

Jasmine green tea - more acidic than the other tea chocolate we tried but with some floral notes in the middle of the eating experience

Caramel milk chocolate - perfect caramel, not too sweet (slightly salty) and luscious

Sesame pave de geneve - pave de geneve is supposed to be dusted in cocoa powder but I didn't see that here. Nevertheless, the crunchy sesame contrasted the smooth chocolate. Again a hint of saltiness, almost like peanut butter and chocolate

RESTAURANT LES ARMURES

We (by "we", I mean "I") were a little indecisive where to eat dinner due to the high prices, but finally we settled on this historic place.

Apparently there was a copy of The Portrait of Dorian Gray on the side there

I got the cheapest possible meat dish, which was Swiss sausage with mustard and herbs and potato rosti. Topped with extra cheese (which I must say, I didn't know cost extra. But don't worry it was not an extra 1-3 bucks as you might expect; it was 7 CHF extra. for one piece of cheese. supposedly raclette but it wasn't that special). The cheese was pretty luscious and added to the soft on the inside, crispy on the outside rosti. The sausage had crispy casing and went well with lots of mustard. Mustard was not too strong and I loved the herbs. Nonetheless, by the end of this meal, I was tired of potatoes.

Then we practiced piano. Yay, two days in a row!

DAY 3

Even though it's a Swiss national holiday, CERN keeps chugging along so I just followed Clara around.

We had breakfast in the infamous CERN cafeteria. For me, that was a multigrain croissant and some berries, which were macerated in some sugar and possibly some flavoring.

Then, Clara worked and I blogged in the library.

And considering that I'm a physics major at CERN, I visited the exhibits they had. I learned that protons only collide in one part of CERN and the rest of the experiments are involved in making different measurements to gather information about the collisions. There are different layers to capture the different particles ejected. In the end, all the information collected has to be reconstructed to understand the actual collision event. Also, apparently the world wide web was developed here.