The World Health Assembly started yesterday and so far it has been incredible. I heard the Director General of the WHO speak yesterday, along with various ministers of health (Canada, US, China, to name a few) - today I watched Ban Ki Moon address the WHA as well as a smaller session for WHO staff. I almost shook his hand too...but not quite.
In other news my laptop is experiencing some extreme difficulties so until I find a Windows XP cd and try reinstalling my operating system, I won't have much internet access at home. I'll post my WHA pictures once everything is up and running again!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Le Saleve
Today I rejoined the cycling club from yesterday for a real ride - 72 km around (and partially up) the mountain Le Salève. Apparently there were about 80 riders - everyone was allowed to go at their own pace and start anytime between 8:30 and 10am. I started at 8:30 am (we actually got underway closer to 9), and went with two ladies and a man who I met yesterday. The first 35 km was basically uphill (not very steep though) - but we slowly made our way around the mountain. You can see our route here - it doesn't show all of it at once (I still don't know why) but if you scroll you will see all of the pieces. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&start=1&num=200&msa=0&msid=116979252322631580965.00046a1c0fabd81bf92d4&ll=46.156886,6.198177&spn=0.092986,0.207367&z=13
From the top we had a nice view of Geneva - if you look hard you can see the Jet d'Eau! At the halfway point they fed us snacks and drinks as well. Along the way there were checkpoints where you stamp your "passport" - and then when you get to the end you show your stamps and you get a certificate =)
You can see the guy in our riding group at the checkpoint - the "brevet controle".
We rode at a fairly relaxed pace, which was nice because I've never gone up a mountain before (even if this mountain is considered more of a hill compared to the other mountains in Switzerland). All in all we covered about 600 m of vertical distance. You can see the terrain profile in the last picture. It's just a picture of my phone - I don't know how to display this information on a real computer yet!
We finished around 2:30 and along with my certificate they gave me a pair of socks as well (or I could have chosen a water bottle or a fanny pack). The route was marked as well - they had placed signs all along the route at 6am this morning. A pretty good service, considering I paid 30 CHF to join their club and 15 CHF for today's ride. The next ride is on Saturday, and I don't have to pay for it because we will all go as a group (ie no signs, or snacks, or certificates, or socks!). But the following week is another go-at-your-own pace ride. Thanks to the relaxed pace, I'm not totally dead now! But I have to sleep early because I'm going to be at work at 7:40 tomorrow. The World Health Assembly doesn't technically start until 10am, but my supervisor has to be there for 8, and she offered to take me and show me around, as long as I don't mind the early start. I'm sure it will be well worth it! The Director General of the WHO speaks at 2pm I believe, and I hope to be able to see it in person, but if not everything is webcast on the WHO intranet. Everything you ever wanted to know about the WHA and more can be found here: http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha62.html
From the top we had a nice view of Geneva - if you look hard you can see the Jet d'Eau! At the halfway point they fed us snacks and drinks as well. Along the way there were checkpoints where you stamp your "passport" - and then when you get to the end you show your stamps and you get a certificate =)
You can see the guy in our riding group at the checkpoint - the "brevet controle".
We rode at a fairly relaxed pace, which was nice because I've never gone up a mountain before (even if this mountain is considered more of a hill compared to the other mountains in Switzerland). All in all we covered about 600 m of vertical distance. You can see the terrain profile in the last picture. It's just a picture of my phone - I don't know how to display this information on a real computer yet!
We finished around 2:30 and along with my certificate they gave me a pair of socks as well (or I could have chosen a water bottle or a fanny pack). The route was marked as well - they had placed signs all along the route at 6am this morning. A pretty good service, considering I paid 30 CHF to join their club and 15 CHF for today's ride. The next ride is on Saturday, and I don't have to pay for it because we will all go as a group (ie no signs, or snacks, or certificates, or socks!). But the following week is another go-at-your-own pace ride. Thanks to the relaxed pace, I'm not totally dead now! But I have to sleep early because I'm going to be at work at 7:40 tomorrow. The World Health Assembly doesn't technically start until 10am, but my supervisor has to be there for 8, and she offered to take me and show me around, as long as I don't mind the early start. I'm sure it will be well worth it! The Director General of the WHO speaks at 2pm I believe, and I hope to be able to see it in person, but if not everything is webcast on the WHO intranet. Everything you ever wanted to know about the WHA and more can be found here: http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha62.html
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Bicycle!
This morning I set off in search of a tube for the bicycle pump that I found here so I could pump up my tires...but I didn't get very far. I found a bike repair shop that didn't have anything that worked, but offered to pump up my tires for me. They also recommended that I do it weekly, and that it's worth the investment to buy my own pump. They could order me one, for about 85 CHF...I'm going to shop around a bit first. But for the record, 100 psi = 7 bar (their unit of measurement).
There are quite a number of festivals going on. In Carouge (a small town that borders Geneva, where I live) there was the "braderie de Carouge" which is basically a massive city-wide garage sale. I picked myself up a nice bike for everyday use (ie I won't cry too hard if it's stolen) for 75 CHF. I circled in front of their stand a few times before I worked up the courage to talk to them and try out the bike. It was actually marked for sale at 100 CHF but I only had 75 on me (for real - it wasn't a negotiating tactic!) and they were ok with that. It's a pretty good price for the bike - used bikes can easily run 200 CHF around here. Yup, Switzerland is expensive.
Another festival is the "fete de sport". One of the local cycling clubs organized a 20km. They went at a very relaxed pace and it was very nice going through the countryside. There were only 9 of us in total and everyone was very nice. One lady was very excited that I was Canadian because her daughter (who is 26) is somehow very taken with Canada...so after the ride we passed by where her daughter works (really close to where I live) and she was like "Look! I found a Canadian!". The lady actually lives practically across the street from me (what a coincidence!) and was really really nice. Here's a map of today's route...somehow it doesn't display all of it...we actually make a complete circle (use your imagination):
View Promenade1 in a larger map
There are quite a number of festivals going on. In Carouge (a small town that borders Geneva, where I live) there was the "braderie de Carouge" which is basically a massive city-wide garage sale. I picked myself up a nice bike for everyday use (ie I won't cry too hard if it's stolen) for 75 CHF. I circled in front of their stand a few times before I worked up the courage to talk to them and try out the bike. It was actually marked for sale at 100 CHF but I only had 75 on me (for real - it wasn't a negotiating tactic!) and they were ok with that. It's a pretty good price for the bike - used bikes can easily run 200 CHF around here. Yup, Switzerland is expensive.
Another festival is the "fete de sport". One of the local cycling clubs organized a 20km. They went at a very relaxed pace and it was very nice going through the countryside. There were only 9 of us in total and everyone was very nice. One lady was very excited that I was Canadian because her daughter (who is 26) is somehow very taken with Canada...so after the ride we passed by where her daughter works (really close to where I live) and she was like "Look! I found a Canadian!". The lady actually lives practically across the street from me (what a coincidence!) and was really really nice. Here's a map of today's route...somehow it doesn't display all of it...we actually make a complete circle (use your imagination):
View Promenade1 in a larger map
Friday, May 15, 2009
They eat oranges with a knife and fork!
I live in a girl's residence. There are only 12 or so girls here, and breakfast and dinner is included in the rent. We eat breakfast at our leisure, between 6:30 and 8:30, but dinner we eat all together. After dinner comes dessert - normally there is a choice between something sweet (tiramisu, flan, mousse) and fruit. I've always chosen the sweet option, but tonight there was only fruit. Everyone else was cutting up their orange into slices, so I did the same - it's more practical anyway. The other orange eaters then became engrossed in conversation, so I could no longer follow their lead, so I picked up my first orange slice and took a couple bites...until they started eating their orange slices with a knife and fork! They cut the orange slice free from the rind, and then again into three or so pieces. All this with butter knives. So...I followed suit. Except that everyone else is very skilled in eating oranges with a knife and fork, and I am not. So everyone else was done and I had only made it through two of my six orange slices...alas. They even gave me a steak knife to help me out (I admitted to them that I had never ever seen people eat fruit - even a banana - with a knife and fork)...next time I'll just take a kiwi!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
First Day!
Today was my first day! I didn't start until 2pm (the admin person said so, for reasons still unknown since another girl started today in the morning). As it turns out there are multiple WHO buildings, but I managed to walk into the main building. Got my badge and found my team in a separate building. All of the buildings are connected by tunnels, which is good because my badge only lets me in the main door of the main building (where you show your badge to enter), while all the other doors require the badge to have some sort of code put onto it. Took a tour of the buildings - there is a magnificent view of the city from the top floor of the main building (I'll take a picture soon). One side of the main building faces the lake and the other side faces the mountains...it's pretty sweet. However I am in a different building and the window of the room that I'm currently in faces a bush and the permanent mission of the US (I think). But I'm not complaining!
In other news, this morning I went roaming around downtown, which was quite nice. I found an adapter to allow me to plug into the three pronged diamond Swiss plugs. There are no Swiss-North America plugs, so I found a Swiss-France/Germany plug, and plug my France-North America adapter into it. Not the most elegant solution but it works!
I bought my first thing of Swiss cheese today as well...it was very yummy. Not quite as cheap as in France (I think anyway) but it's still better (and probably cheaper) than at home. Also, while in general things here are more expensive here than at home, there is one exception (other than the cheese). I bought some shoe polish today - actually the exact same as what I would have purchased at home - and I'm pretty sure it's cheaper. But I haven't found much else yet that is cheaper.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
I have a phone!
I took my free day before the start of work to explore downtown and run some errands. I got my transit pass for the month, did a test trip to the WHO, and bought a couple sim cards for my phone (yes, two of them!)
Here are my new phone numbers:
Primary (Lebara): 076 753 41 79
Secondary (Swisscom): 079 885 34 73
To call from abroad, dial 0041 first and then drop the leading 0 in the phone number (you only dial the 0 if you're calling from within Switzerland).
Cell phone rates are pretty confusing here. Swisscom is the only carrier that offers somewhat reasonable data rates (1CHF/Mb, which is still fairly expensive I think) so I will only use this when I absolutely need internet (ie if/when I'm lost in the middle of nowhere and need to pull up a map!) Otherwise it's fairly expensive: 0.70/min to call mobile phones within Switzerland, or 0.80/call (up to 60 mins) to other Swisscom phones or landlines. I think it's 0.20 for SMS within Switzerland and 0.40 for international text messages. On the other hand, Lebara costs 0.45/min to other mobile phones (which is still expensive but the absolute cheapest that I found was 0.35/min with Yallo) or 0.35/min to landlines within Switzerland. It's free to call another Lebara mobile though. Texting is 0.10 to anywhere in the world. But get this...it's 0.09/min to call Canada! And on top of it all I paid 14.90 for the sim card and 22.50 worth of credit. I haven't tested it yet, but the only fine print that I could see is that they bill by the minute and there's a 0.09 "set up fee" for each call. But still, that seems pretty good!
Other interesting things to note:
- There are 5-franc coins here. And they are massive! They also have 2-franc coins (smaller) and 1-franc coins (slightly smaller still). They are all silver. So are the 1/2 franc, 20 centime and 10 centime coins. The only coin that's yellowish is the 5 centime coin. I have yet to see a 1 centime coin, though I did see a man try to pay for his groceries (12 CHF) with a 200 franc bill...until he realized that he pulled out the wrong bill.
- In Switzerland they say "septante", "octante" and "nonante" for seventy, eighty and ninety, respectively (vs "sixty-ten", "four-twenties" and "four-twenties-ten" in France and Quebec) - which makes much more sense, except that I'm not used to it!
- The toilets (yes many interesting things about the bathrooms here) have buttons to flush and to stop the flush in order to conserve water (I imagine anyway)...I have also seen little-flush and big-flush buttons. Very practical!
Here are my new phone numbers:
Primary (Lebara): 076 753 41 79
Secondary (Swisscom): 079 885 34 73
To call from abroad, dial 0041 first and then drop the leading 0 in the phone number (you only dial the 0 if you're calling from within Switzerland).
Cell phone rates are pretty confusing here. Swisscom is the only carrier that offers somewhat reasonable data rates (1CHF/Mb, which is still fairly expensive I think) so I will only use this when I absolutely need internet (ie if/when I'm lost in the middle of nowhere and need to pull up a map!) Otherwise it's fairly expensive: 0.70/min to call mobile phones within Switzerland, or 0.80/call (up to 60 mins) to other Swisscom phones or landlines. I think it's 0.20 for SMS within Switzerland and 0.40 for international text messages. On the other hand, Lebara costs 0.45/min to other mobile phones (which is still expensive but the absolute cheapest that I found was 0.35/min with Yallo) or 0.35/min to landlines within Switzerland. It's free to call another Lebara mobile though. Texting is 0.10 to anywhere in the world. But get this...it's 0.09/min to call Canada! And on top of it all I paid 14.90 for the sim card and 22.50 worth of credit. I haven't tested it yet, but the only fine print that I could see is that they bill by the minute and there's a 0.09 "set up fee" for each call. But still, that seems pretty good!
Other interesting things to note:
- There are 5-franc coins here. And they are massive! They also have 2-franc coins (smaller) and 1-franc coins (slightly smaller still). They are all silver. So are the 1/2 franc, 20 centime and 10 centime coins. The only coin that's yellowish is the 5 centime coin. I have yet to see a 1 centime coin, though I did see a man try to pay for his groceries (12 CHF) with a 200 franc bill...until he realized that he pulled out the wrong bill.
- In Switzerland they say "septante", "octante" and "nonante" for seventy, eighty and ninety, respectively (vs "sixty-ten", "four-twenties" and "four-twenties-ten" in France and Quebec) - which makes much more sense, except that I'm not used to it!
- The toilets (yes many interesting things about the bathrooms here) have buttons to flush and to stop the flush in order to conserve water (I imagine anyway)...I have also seen little-flush and big-flush buttons. Very practical!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Arrived!
Here I am in Geneva! Plane rides were uneventful. The Frankfurt airport is massive...took me about 30-45 mins to get from my first plane to the second (and there weren't even lineups at passport control and the security check). You don't really appreciate the scale of it all from the picture...but it was a very long terminal!
On the way to Geneva the plane flew over Lake Geneva and it was beautiful! Here is a view of the famous Jet d'Eau on arrival in Geneva. I can also see the very top of the Jet d'Eau (though it's quite far away) from my residence room.
At the airport you can get a free ticket for 80 minutes on the entire transit network in Geneva, so I was able to lug my stuff onto a train and tram to get to the residence. The residence itself is very nice and clean. Here are pictures of my room and the view from my room:
View looking left
View looking straight ahead
View looking right
Other interesting things to note:
- they do my laundry here at the residence...so I had to label all of my undergarments with a permanent marker (the regular clothing I will just have to sort through and pick out my own)
- the laundry room here smells like the laundry room from my residence in France...but does not smell like laundry in Canada
- the grounded electrical outlets here are not like the one in France...luckily I have an adapter that kind of fits but it's not grounded and doesn't fit into all of the (diamond-shaped) plugs here!
- the washroom consists of a toilet and a bidet (and a sink)
- toilet paper here is coloured (yellow!)
- pillows are square here - not rectangular
And now...dinnertime! Soon I will venture outside, if I don't fall asleep first!
On the way to Geneva the plane flew over Lake Geneva and it was beautiful! Here is a view of the famous Jet d'Eau on arrival in Geneva. I can also see the very top of the Jet d'Eau (though it's quite far away) from my residence room.
At the airport you can get a free ticket for 80 minutes on the entire transit network in Geneva, so I was able to lug my stuff onto a train and tram to get to the residence. The residence itself is very nice and clean. Here are pictures of my room and the view from my room:
View looking left
View looking straight ahead
View looking right
Other interesting things to note:
- they do my laundry here at the residence...so I had to label all of my undergarments with a permanent marker (the regular clothing I will just have to sort through and pick out my own)
- the laundry room here smells like the laundry room from my residence in France...but does not smell like laundry in Canada
- the grounded electrical outlets here are not like the one in France...luckily I have an adapter that kind of fits but it's not grounded and doesn't fit into all of the (diamond-shaped) plugs here!
- the washroom consists of a toilet and a bidet (and a sink)
- toilet paper here is coloured (yellow!)
- pillows are square here - not rectangular
And now...dinnertime! Soon I will venture outside, if I don't fall asleep first!
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