Leaving

Here I sit at Geneva airport awaiting a flight back to America. I finished off the last of my spending francs on a Carlesburg beer (I was 5 cents short, but the woman was kind enough to let me have it anyway). I love nice people. According to the can, it is the Official Beer of Switzerland, and proudly boasts that it is ‘probably the best beer in the world’. I agree entirely, assuming that when they say ‘world’ they mean ‘beer can’. Crappy stuff.

Honestly, I expected the beer to be bad. This trip, however, has been about nothing if not new experiences, and I’ve been giving numerous beers a chance, even when the label seemed to obviously declare “You will hate this beer” (like last night’s Cardinal Special). Thus I figured I’d let the madness of indiscriminate beer-tasting to last until I reach American soil.

After hearing stories early on about other Americans having their face spat upon, I feel almost let down that I’ve only encountered even one mildly anti-American comment (I don’t consider anti-Bush comments to be anti-American, even if he does. After all, the American people elected Gore). I had this cool retort prepared and everything, where I was going to tell whoever made a negative comment that they ought to boycott everything American. Things such as internets, telephones, and electricity. Imagine the reaction of this fictitious America-hater. Wouldn’t it have been great?

Ah well.

{Insert Pause}

I’m onboard an airplane now, and by pure luck I managed to snag a window seat just when I most wanted one. A window seat over the alps should be pretty spectacular. Here’s hoping.

Last night my two fresh-out-of-high-school roommates left and a middle-aged Irishman also named Allan (same spelling) took their place. I consider it an exhibition of a newfound social skill that my first response upon finding him in the room was to introduce myself and give him a warm welcome.

For two Allans, we couldn’t have been much less alike. He was big into sports, and we ended up talking about them for a time (perhaps a bit too long for my tastes) after I mentioned a passing interest in Gaelic soccer. It should be noted though, that Gaelic soccer is as crazy a game as exists

I asked him if he enjoyed traditional Irish folk music, but the closest we could agree upon was Van Morrison. When all was said and done though, he was still a nice chap, both interesting and helpful.

Can’t say as I’ve done much with my day today. I woke up, checked out, and dragged my stuff to the railway station. I accidently paid double for a storage locker, but with my flight not leaving until late in the day, I figured it was worthwhile to experience as much of Geneva as possible.

Among my experiences, I stopped in a tea room this morning and had an unpleasant encounter with a pastry. I can’t actually read French, so I pointed to the pastry that looked best to me, something akin to a cheese Danish. The lady gave me an odd look and told me “It’s a cheese pastry”. Since that was exactly what I thought I wanted I nodded eagerly and she shrugged because, well, it was her job. But as it turned out, cheese Danishes in Switzerland are different than in America. But instead of the American sweet creamy filling you’d find in the states, it just tasted like it had cheese on it. Kind of a gross cheese. So yes, I had a bad experience with Swiss cheese here.

Then I just wandered the shores of Lac Leman and ended up just lying in the sun. It was late, and I feared a migraine was coming on. The last thing I wanted was a skull-splitting plane ride.

I also had a really tasty chocolate ice cream cone. Thus far, the Swiss have shown me nothing but excellent sorbet and ice cream. Chocolate, mango, and apricot have all been pleasing to the tongue.

This has been my day thus far – relaxing and blissfully uneventful. Now I’m in for a day filled with time-travel. The world will soon give back to me the 6 hours I’ve stolen during the course of this trip, and so I plan to arrive home at 10:30pm feeling like the sun should be rising any minute. It should be easier on my sleep schedule than the other way around was.