After spending a few nights out at the Distortion festival in Copenhagen, trekking out for the early flight to Geneva was a bit more difficult than I had hoped. A quick hop over to Munich, and then a skip over Switzerland and I was in Geneva.
The beautiful lake
I am staying with my lovely friend Sandra, from Bolivia, who studies International Affairs at the Graduate Institute of Geneva. I met her at the WTO conference back in April, and we had stayed in touch. When I arrived, she had cookies baked, and strawberry juice (I know, STRAWBERRIES!) ready on the table. She is the best host ever! After unpacking, we left to the Novotel to meet up with Janani and the team, and we had a quick chat before going for a long, beautiful walk around Lake Geneva, past the thousand watch stores, past the boats, the “baby plage” the fabulous fountain, and even past a jungle gym made up of old bicycle tires (it was awesome, and there is an awkward video of me stumbling through it too!)
The playground
Sandra took me for a little barbecue at the ”WakeSport Centre” by the beach, a beautiful place with amazing (if a little ridiculously expensive) hamburgers, where we met her friends from the Institutes. A few minutes into the conversation and I realised I had to get to know everyone more! One person at the WTO, the other at the ILO, a collection of the most sought after TLAs in Geneva, and I was having dinner with them!
Sunset on the lake
An amazing first day in Geneva, and I am excited to get into the “meat” of it tomorrow with our first real team meeting.
More pictures available on my Flickr, and make sure to check out facebook.com/listentochildren, @janchildrights and listentochildren.tumblr.com.
