Sundays in Geneva

I yawned and smiled contentedly. The warmth of the sun was a pleasant weight on my eyelids.

“My god! Check that out!” H.P exclaimed sotto voce.

I peeked an eye open and glanced across the park. Eaux Vive is in and of itself comment worthy: an expanse of green lawn extends from a restored mansion, sweeps down a gentle hill, reaches the absurdly blue waters of Lac de Geneve. Perfectly arranged tulips, daffodils and assorted fauna are crisply maintained in beds throughout the park. Vibrant cherry blossoms are silhouetted by the azure sky.

Sorry to wax all poetic. Geneva has been swathed in the same shade of gray for the last five months, so all the color has made me slightly more delirious than usual.
Apparently, I was not the only one.

Was H.P commenting on the vigorous games of bad minton occurring throughout the park? I haven’t seen a set since the 1980’s but apparently it’s undergoing a revival. Even without nets. No, that was not a likely cause of the amused note of alarm in H.P’s voice.

Maybe the two girls sunning themselves directly below us caught her attention? They were slathering themselves in tanning oil. As I watched, one nonchalantly reached into her off the shoulder top, pulled out one breast, copiously oiled it, then its twin, before returning them (mostly) to her blouse. Her friend had set up a foil reflector to capitalize on the sun’s rays. I was momentarily distracted by the fact that they were lying with their heads at the bottom of the incline.

“That has to be uncomfortable,” I muttered.
H.P followed the direction of my gaze and agreed, “Yeah, and it’s going to be a heck of a burn. But no, check out three o’clock.”

Oh dear god. A mountain of a man, as pallid as the snow capped Alps, was spread eagled on the lawn, with nothing more than a very small, nude colored Speedo. At least that is what I told myself before hastily averting my eyes. Nude colored Speedo. Definitely. Very small, nude colored Speedo.

“I think I can smell the melanoma from here!” I remarked.
“I just don’t understand the European fondness for Speedos,” my friend remarked as she slathered a piece of baguette with cheese. She gazed at it for a moment, before remarking wistfully: “I miss bagels.”

“You’d think we could find them somewhere,” I mused. “I wonder if we could make them?”

“By my apartment in New York, we have the best bagel shop. All my favorite flavors, made fresh daily…”

I interrupted with a giggle. “Once upon a time in a far away land…”

HP obligingly continued. “There was a magical kingdom! Full of stores, people, and restaurants, most of which were even open on Sunday!”

With mock disbelief, I interjected, “No, surely the stores weren’t open on Sunday! Next thing you’ll be telling me this magical kingdom’s grocery stores stayed open past 6 p.m!”

Laughingly, HP continued. “Oh yes, my child. Stores were open late every night, and restaurants were full of diverse and delicious foods, including bagels!”

Trying for a note of childlike wonderment, “Bagels?! Really? Was this only on a special day of the year?”

“Oh no. Bagels could be bought any day of the week!”

“But how could that possibly be?! Wouldn’t people need an assigned time to eat bagels? Just like with laundry? Otherwise it would be complete chaos! People would eat bagels whenever they liked!” My voice resonated with mock horror.

HP snorted. “Oh no my dear, they ate bagels AND did laundry whenever they pleased!”

Aghast, I retorted, “Good lord! The sheer insanity! No weekly assigned times rotating on a fixed schedule to designate appropriate times to use the washing machine! Next thing you’ll be telling me they could take showers after 11 p.m!”

“Yes, yes they could! In this magical kingdom, the hot water was available 24 hours a day! Even on Sundays…”

It’s been about eight months now, and of the many things to get used to in Geneva, the hardest has been trying to figure out, and make sense of, the many rules. Regulations are legion here. I’ve tried to give up the quest for logic in many of the decrees; it’s simply not to be found. The stores will close before most of us get off of work, laundry can be done only at the assigned time, and if you try to take a shower after 11 pm or 5 am, be prepared: it’s going to be icy cold.

The biggest adjustment was Sundays. I can’t remember any weekends from this fall, they passed in a nauseating blur of studying for the oral board exam. By the time I resurfaced after my fateful day in Dallas, it was winter, and Geneva resembled a ghost town on the weekends. Buried in damp, monochromatic grey, anyone who wasn’t skiing was taking advantage of plane tickets to almost anywhere else. In retrospect, the fact that the highlights of Geneva were mentioned as the incredibly tacky flower clock, the underwhelming Jet d’eau, and its proximity to other European destinations, should have prepared me for the weekend wastelands.

Sundays were simply strange. Nothing is possible on a Sunday. Stores are closed. Recycling is forbidden. Laundry hours are nonexistent. Use of washing machines, be they for clothes or dishes, curtailed. Electricity was at least still available, and public transport would make a half hearted appearance, but everything else? Nope.

I vacillated in my response to this. At first, I tried to think how nice this was, that EVERYONE had the day off on Sunday, and that pretty much everything except for religious services and couch surfing was forbidden. Then I got kind of annoyed and abandoned my brief attempt at Pollyanna-hood. There are only so many hours in the weeks to get assorted errands taken care of, none of which the Swiss make simple, be it laundry, bill paying, grocery shopping, or gawd forbid, a hair cut. I learned that women only got the vote in the 1970s in Switzerland, and that most policies are passed assuming a hausfrau is available at home to run the dishwasher on alternating Mondays between 9 and 11 a.m.

It’s enough to raise your blood pressure, especially if you think you can accomplish anything, be it a quick trip to the bank or grocery store in an efficient fashion.

After 8 months though, I’ve begun to embrace laziness myself. Eight hours of sleep a night, 40 hour work weeks, and 2 days off a week? I can’t remember the last time I had this schedule, and it’s phenomenal the change it makes in my outlook. The sun shining is another excuse to put it off till next week.

As long as the sun keeps shining, you’ll find me smiling, slathered in SPF 50, lying in the park, ignoring all of the many things I should be doing instead. When in Geneva after all...

Mind the Gap

I should have known better. The thing is I’d convinced myself, that there was something special between us. I thought that years of shared history, common values and habits meant that we had something unique. True, I don’t always understand what you’re saying, but still. Sniff. Clearly I was wrong! It’s you, not me. Cuba never treats me this way, North Vietnam was nothing but polite. Formal, agonizingly meticulous, and painfully slow, but gracious.

So why the heck do I always get thoroughly grilled in UK customs? I have a U.S passport, a Swiss “legitimacy card,” and a diplomatic passport to substantiate that I am who I say I am and that I’ve never been convicted.

Mind you, I submit to full body scans (including retinas), standard video and photo recording, I disrobe nearly completely and patiently wait for the people in front of me going through security who somehow missed the signs every three feet about NO LIQUIDS MORE THAN 3 OUNCES and yet are still trying to convince the security guard that their oversized bottle of Aqua Net qualifies as a medical necessity.

Well, “patiently” is perhaps a gross exaggeration in the interests of dramatic effect (Lady, it’s NOT aerosolized insulin or breast milk, and as a doctor, it is my medical opinion that you shut your pie hole and move it along), but nonetheless I cheerfully submit to a variety of intrusive procedures because that is what we all signed up for. Security is important. I get it.

I don’t quite understand how what is happening at the United Kingdom’s border is making the skies any friendlier however.

My first two trips to England, I thought maybe the custom official was having a bad day, but this last trip confirmed my suspicion that it’s systematic.

After enduring the Easy Jet cattle stampede off the plane, I waited in the “All other Passports” line, landing card filled out in neat block letters, assorted identifications in hand. Finally, it was my turn.

I promptly walked over to the counter where the dour faced man waited. The straw colored wisps of his hair that remained were clinging frantically to the smooth surface of his egg shaped pate at awkward angles. The front row of his teeth overlapped each other and protruded forward over his lip inquisitively. He’d be a great mascot for the Oregon State Beavers.

I smiled, and slid my papers across the countertop to him.
“Look at the camera!” he barked. I nodded and blinked as a rapid fire series of digital pictures were taken. I caught a glimpse on the computer screen. Good lord; the pictures are about as flattering as those taken by speed cameras. I looked like a half wit with a good hair day.

“Why are you in England?”
“I’m here to visit a friend, she just had a baby.”
“How long are you staying for? Where does your friend live? How do you know her? How long have you known her?”
“I’m here for four days, they live on X Road, and we went to high school together.”
“High school? In the United States? Why is she living here? What does she do? What does her husband do?”

I wasn’t entirely sure what this had to do with national security, but I explained nonetheless. I even more or less managed to describe what my friend’s thesis was on. I was confused. Is this some sort of interrogatory tactic where he would pester me with a range of random social questions, then would sneak one in about terrorist activities? I was envisioning the scene from Austin Powers, where he asked the spy the same question three times, before he finally revealed all.

Oh my god.
The customs official let loose with a racking cough and exposed me to a full view of incisors one through forty two, soft and hard palate. Was that a fungus growing on his teeth? Is that even possible? Maybe I shouldn’t drink the water here. Maybe his mom took doxycycline while she was pregnant with him?

He interrupted these medical musings to ask if my friend had delivered a boy or a girl. Hmm. Maybe their technique is more sophisticated than Dr. Evil! I glanced around. Were video cameras and heart rate monitors measuring pupil dilation, tachycardia and body language to identify liars and thus potential terrorists?

He stopped me after I gave the baby’s gender, birth weight, length and APGARS. Dang, I was really looking forward to taking him through a c-section, but seriously, my ride was waiting, and if we chatted much longer he was going to need to buy me a drink.

“Why do you live in Switzerland? How long have you lived there? What do you do for work?”

I hesitated. I don’t mind the body scans and property searches, but it just never seems like a good idea to tell the truth to authority figures. Possibly this is the result of hiding from Officer Mann on his stealthy Schwinn during my misspent youth, or more likely it’s from having a lot of friends who are lawyers. Nonetheless, I was already half way concerned I was going to get pulled into solitary for a prolonged chat with British customs. I eschewed a more creative response and stuck with the truth.

“I moved to Switzerland six months ago for a job. I’m a doctor with the World Health Organization.”

“What kind of nursing do you do?”

“None. I’m a surgeon.” I delivered this last line with a minor challenge issued by my shoulders and a firm glance into his pale, ferret shaped eyes.
Stamp, stamp.

“Welcome to England.”