Homeless in Geneva

After spending a week in German-speaking Switzerland, I am now here in the largest city of French Switzerland, Geneva. Being near as well with the French border, French is spoken as a first language and English definitely takes a backseat. If you may ask, how do you navigate? Well, its really good to have an elementary command of the language, for example asking questions about which bus to take, directions etc. or else your life here wouldn't be as easy as you may want to be. Notwithstanding the language barrier, people here are nice as they try to be patient as possible to understand and accomodate me in my mixed body-gesture and broken French.

My New Year's resolution is to better speak up my mind and care less about what other people think when I express my opinions and be less sensitive for the fear of offending someone or setting off a bad impression. I'll try to fulfil this resolution with this blog.

Geneva is a very-Swiss city more international than Zurich. It is rich, elegant, elite and most of all expensive. Your 20-bucks does not go a long way here. I've actually proven that last night when I went into a Chinese restaurant which was personally recommended to me by an ILO security person for being 'cheap'. I ordered a simple meal consisting of a stir-fried meat in oyster sauce with red and green pepper and a single plate of rice. I tried to enjoy the meal myself as I get entertained through simultaneously evesdropping and people-watching. It turns out that my seatmates were Germans and Portuguese trying their luck with chopsticks and Chinese food for the first time. And on my other side were four American backpackers who I presume were enjoying Geneva to the max!


As usual, at the end of every restaurant meal is the bill. Voila! Fr. 21 (approx. 20 CAD), Fr. 15 for the stir-fried meat and Fr. 4 for a small plate of rice. I'd better be careful next time I go eat in restaurants as my pocket has been really bleeding profusely in the past couple of days. I imagine if Asian which in North America is the cheapest you can get comes as such a hefty price, how much more would it be for the European ones which I presume would be far more expensive as its production factors are higher. Well, oh well I wouldn't really like to know as Swiss prices makes my pulserate pretty much into panic mode.

That was the story last night. Today, I started my day pretty early. As you know, I am still staying in a hostel in downtown Geneva sharing a dormitory room with 3 other guys. At present time, I got an accomodation at the beginning of February but from today up until the end of the month, I'm basically homeless. I tried consulting with our HR department here at the ILO and they said that Geneva is really like this, no apartments and lots of people trying to find a space to live. They offered me to have a temporary accomodation in neighbouring France but since I do not hold a Canadian passport, I need to get a Schengen visa to live in France while working as an intern in Switzerland.

I was really scared of arriving late at the consulate and managed to arrive 30 minutes before my appointment time. It is really hard to get by and I really feel stupid as I could not understand what the guard is telling me. I really do not know what the guy was saying - if he is yelling angrily at me. At this point, you really feel nervous and stripped of your dignity as you have no clue of what is happening around you.

Finally, the interview. Madam consul said with a big frown on her face - 'Unfortunately, the French consulate cannot issue you a visa because you are not a resident of Switzerland and what you need is a residence permit and not a tourist visa. At this point, there is no applicable visa for your situation and with that, you need to find a place to live in Geneva.'

Well, oh well, as I expected. They should be thankful at least as I am really honest enough to go through the intricate bureaucracy of applying for a visa. As you know, European borders are not quite like in the US where they go through each person one-by-one. Since the introduction of the Schengen treaty, European borders have been pretty much free of barriers which means I can actually go to France as they do not inspect at the border. I wonder if those officials ever realized that.

Now, the big problem for me is that I do not have a place to stay starting tonight. Since I was being offered a place in France and I did not get the visa, that solution would not work out for me. Another thing, my youth hostel which has kindly hosted me in the past three days has been fully booked and would not be able to accomodate me until the next week. I am trying my luck on other youth hostels as well but so far, everything seems to be fully booked. I must say it is really financially and most of all mentally draining.

I'll keep an optimistic mind. I do hope some generous soul out there would be able to help me. And how's life in Geneva if you may ask? I'll quote another blogger for my answer.

“Great! Great! The hills are literally alive in Switzerland. I dare say one could even film the sequel to the movie Sound of Music there — really. And the cows are well fed. The milk is fresh. The chocolates are oh, so good. And the cheese fondue…wow! I don’t even eat cheese, but now I do! And oh, the Swiss cuckoo clocks look and sound nice, quite on a par with their German counterparts. Um, what else? The Victorinox Swiss knives have lots of new designs. And the watches…nothing like Swiss-made. On top of it all, the place is so clean, even sterile! And it’s so quiet in our noise-free apartment building I could even hear my own breathing! So, what more could I ask for?”