Anyhow, I felt that for the fourth month I needed to reform myself and muster as much courage to initiate conversations in French and pretend that I understand what the other person is telling me even though I only understand 20% of it. With time running out fast,itwould be nice to get to know people from Geneva and have some experience of its culture. With that, I mustered all the courage I have left and tried randomly approaching one of my foyer house mates and ask him in my 'rehersed French' if it would be possible to be shown around Geneva on a Friday night.
Indeed, luck has been somewhat on my side as the people I meet have somehow Canadian connections. Karim, a student of Business Management actually studied English for 10 months in Vancouver, BC. At least I would not feel that ackward to build on a good conversation as I have some topics in store to talk about and I could somehow switch to English if I go blank with my French vocabulary.
Karim actually has an American vintage car, very special for Genevans as most cars I have seen are European-type the size of a Toyota-Yaris. It was interesting to see a dashboard like this:
First stop was the Italian restaurant where it took me such a hard time to decide which one to order. Being in the backyard of Italy, Italian restaurants are indeed very, very particular about their menus here with more selections than what we usually have in Winnipeg. Moreso, I need to be wise enough in choosing which one will best suite my taste and of course my budget which at the same time must also be decent enough in quantity to fill-in my hungry stomach. At first, I was opting for a CHF 17 spaghetti with bolognese sauce but finally decided to go with a single-person pizza for an extra franc.
Unlike North American pizzas, this particular pizza of the original Italian variety has eggs on it. Being ignorant on European cuisines, it is my first time to see pizza with an egg on top of it which drove my curiosity with the taste and appetite even further and allowed me for a couple of minutes to somewhat forget the price that I need to pay for the meal.
In going to this restaurant, I also learned a new indispensible lesson that needed to be done. When the waiter was asking me for the drinks, I do not know how to say 'tap water' in French and I was somewhat in grave danger. I should have memorized how to say 'tap water.' Last time I dined in a Geneva restaurant, saying the magic word 'eau' opened to disaster as we were slapped with a CHF 6.50 water bill for a 500ml bottled water. To mitigate that, I tried to think it over and just opted to have some 'coca' which I expected to be 8 oz. coming in the neighbourhood of CHF 3.50 - 4.50.
The meal was pleasant itself. Most of the time, Karim and I talked about his stay in Canada and his and my respective opinion regarding life here and there. He told me that when he was studying English in Vancouver, he homestayed in a Chinese family where he, in his own terms, had to endure Chinese meals for 6x a day. He also had an impression that some Chinese and Indian meal preparation practice he observed in Vancouver are 'unsanitary' and that Chinese houses 'smell differently' which he attributed to Chinese food ingredients. He also mentioned that his host family, having lived in Canada for a couple of decades, maintains a very strong relationship with the Chinese community only going to Chinese stores, Chinese church service, Chinese social gatherings, etc. He also mentioned that he seldom sees Asian people going to discotheques and hypothesized that they must have their own place for night life.
Talking about Switzerland, he had a concept of the country as the best place to live as almost everything works systematically in order and almost always right on time. He further mentions that although there is a housing crisis in Geneva, most Geneva Swiss people purchase real estates in nearby France as house prices are somewhat a 'bargain' by Swiss standards. I asked him what are the noticeable differences when going into the French side of the boder and he candidly told me that it looks more like a 'poorer country with the disorganizations and road potholes that they have.'
After dinner, I had the chance to go round Geneva for the first time during the evening in a car. I was able to see the headquarters of the king of all watches whose products I could only own in my dreams.
In our drive, we passed by an interesting showroom:
And we stopped to see the banking district of Geneva:
The next day, I embarked on a walking tour of Geneva's shopping district. Spring is way already in its progress in Geneva and on this Saturday, the shopping district has been teeming with people. Unlike in North America, Genevan's prefer to shop more in open-air complexes and not in air-conditioned malls. It gives them the chance to promenade and enjoy the sunshine.
After the shopping district, I went into Geneva's main town square - Plainpalais, where a major spring carnival is going on. They have various rides to cater every tastes, kids and adults alike:
It would have been interesting to try out at least one of the rides but its just dissinteresting and unmotivating to try it out just by yourself. Here are some vids of the rides, reminds me of Disneyland and of course, the Ex:
To be continued....
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