Plus Genève

The next day, on Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel and then set off for the United Nations. The United Nations was a really great place, and we had a guided tour and everything which gave us a lot of information about the building and the functions of the U.N. It has huge rooms, obviously, that many, many important people go to discuss security, human rights, economic development, etc. The building itself is known as the Palais des Nations and was originally the location for the League of Nations before WWII. It's located in a gorgeous park complete with some sort of challet, peacocks roaming the grounds freely (even though some are eaten...), and other monuments and such. It's on Lake Geneva, and you can see the Alps from le Palais.

The ceiling above is in the Spanish room, and it represents how different cultures, ideas, and people can come together to cooperate, have peace, etc. The first pic is also of the Spanish room. It's called the Spanish room simply because some Spanish guy designed it or something.

In the picture, you can barely see it, but there are tons of different monuments and sculptures given from various countries and politicians. The rotating ball/statue thing was a gift from a U.S. President (I don't remember who, don't judge), but it is easily the biggest and coolest of the gifts (duh). However, it used to rotate, but now it doesn't, sadly.

Above are the pictures of the Council Chamber. Very cool because the entire room is painted including the ceiling representing human progress, cooperation, medical advances, and human rights. The ceiling has a painting of the five continents, as represented by five giants, uniting to bring peace and prosperity. The painting were also a gift from Spain. Spain doesn't dominate the building though; there is art from France, marble from Switzerland, not surprisingly, tapestries from Belgium, and others. (Man, I love tapestries from Belgium, I'm really, honestly in love with them, and they are all over Europe).

So for the rest of the day, we ate some lunch, walked around Geneva a bit, went to a suburb of Geneva and walked around since it was such a cute area, and gawked at beautiful cars. It was a great trip, and I would love to go back to Geneva. It is a really great, clean, rich place, and it would be a brilliant place to live. The Swiss are super disciplined, on time, clean, and friendly; it really just makes for a pleasant stay.

Now that my traveling with CEA is over and Geneva was our last trip, I get to spill on what really went down, right? Well, we all found it very difficult to get along with our CEA director, unfortunately. He grew up in Detroit, married a French woman, and has lived in Grenoble for about 30 years now. He is way too French, as in, he is the second most liberal person I have ever met, is extremely stuck in his ways, and likes to be really pessimistic about everything. Thus, he is very set on our agendas and likes to make rude, pessimistic comments constantly. This is really unfortunate because it sets a bad tone for some of our trips and puts many in bad moods. During this trip, many of us just scrammed away from the group just to be away from the tension. It obviously doesn't matter now at all, but it just goes to show that being an adult doesn't mean you act like one and getting along with people is sometimes much, much harder than it should be, even if you're in fabulous places like Geneva!

Next trip post: MUNICH!!!