It is officially fall here. Cold, crisp air, wind blowing leaves all over the city, every plat du jour has switched from salad to soup and every bar is ready for vin chaud (hot wine). It's funny how you don't realize how many corks a place might have until you compare it to something else. Geneva could easily be seen as..well boring. But it's not, it's just different. It's the kind of city that doesn't do your work for you. If you want to explore, you need to take the time to figure out what is worth exploring and how to get there. If you're me, and you don't enjoy putting in so much work just to do simple things daily, Geneva is great for "just getting lost". I do this all the time. I "get lost" in just about everything I do. By, "getting lost" I mean I allow myself to roam wherever my curiousity lies. I go to the grocery store and 2 hours later I'm leaving with the most random selection. I go to the post office and don't get nearly enough of what I need, etc.
Recently, the most wonderful "getting lost" experience happend. Chris and I took our scooter to Annecy, France. It's about a 45 min. scooter ride. On our way home we tried to take the back roads. Then, all of a sudden, we stumbled on the most amazing bridge. It had two castle like towers on either side. It is a walking bridge between to huge canyons over an amazing ravine. The sun was shining, all the leaves were different colors and the white wash castle towers were magical. Who would have thought this even existed? It wasn't on any maps we saw, or guide books. We just happend to stumble across it and bam, a little bit of magic just popped right up and hit us in the face.
These are the types of things Geneve has to offer. Well, not just Geneve but Europe in general. These are just one of the things that make it uniquely different from the West Coast. When you go out for a drink in the city in Seattle, you may be lucky enough to see how beautiful the city looks all lit up at night, but when you go for a drink in Geneva, you may be lucky enough to see gothic churches and amazing architecture lit up at night, just one building here or there, but as soon as you see it, you get the, "We're not in kansas anymore" thought. So, okay, easy enough to believe, Geneva looks different than Seattle...but it's not just the look, it's the feel. It's the people and the culture.
Did you know that women didn't even have the right to vote in Switzerland until 1970?! Yes, it's very different. No women or coed soccer teams for me. We sign up for a gym and the guy automatically thinks I need to take lessons on how to use the machines, even after we tell him that I played a competive sport in college and am used to the weight room. It's interesting here because Geneva is so international that it is really quite libral for true Switzerland standards, which I am slowly learning, I can truly appreciate :). As with any major city you have more access to food, shopping, music, learning, etc. Once you drive about 15 min. out of the city you are piggie back between slow moving suburbia and rural farm lands. Not to mention, jaw dropping cliffs (okay, Alps) at every corner.
Our personal life here is settling in quite nicely. Chris is used to his work routine and, like any time all your constants in life are taken away (besides Chris) I am learning to find simple things that make my day feel stable. Who would have thought that at the age of 25 I would be more interested in finding some normal boring routine, then exploring a new city. Ha, married life has a way of domesticating you (just kidding).
It is a really interesting point thought. Here I am, nothing to hold me back (metaphorically, because actually there is a lot to hold me back, like the language, and the social norm, etc.) and I would perfer to spend more of my day doing familiar things then going outside of my comfort zone. So obviously I have had a lot of time to think about this and I am left with this one simple thought. There are types of people in the world. Each type of person has something that does it for them, it is one thing that is the most imporant. For some types its careers, for some types its travelling, for others its growing, well for me it's relationships. Relationships are at the heart of everything I do. So much so, that ever major thing I have chose to do in my life was based on relationships. I played a team sport, and when the relationship between coach and players wasn't good, I wasn't happy. I picked a career where I work with people, I married at the age 25 and I moved to Geneva to see the most important person in my life fulfill one of his dreams. Now, it's great that I can recognize this, but the obvious is, I don't have relationships here...well not yet. The truth is, it's not hard to build relationships here, I have met loads of people and just really haven't put forth any effort to sustain anything. The reality is, I'm happy, truly happy, and love that I am out of my comfort zone and get to try new things in a new way. But at the end of the day, it's still not home, and it's not home because I can't replace the relationships I have back home. They have taken my entire life to cultivate and there are irreplacable. Funny that you have to go half way around the world to realize something simple, the most important thing to me is family and friends. So, should I sit around a sulk because they are all in Seattle? Obviously not, I challange myself to grow is ways I never knew possible. The point of me telling this, isn't for pity. It's to say, thank you. Thank you to all my friends and family. Life happens so quickly and so many good deeds go unnoticed and I spent time focusing on things that well, just simply don't matter as much as the people in my life do. So I am taking this moment to thank all the wonderful people and to let them know, they mean the world to me, LITERALLY, the world is the people for me.
Also, as I'm obivously on this path of discovery, I ask this question to anyone who is reading this. What type of person are you?
Sorry it has been so long since our last post, a lot has happend, I turned 25, we went back to Seattle, got married, have taken many trips around Swiss/France and, ok that's it :)
Will try to post pictures soon :)
