Dear josephine
I'm back in the U.S. I did some shopping in the U.N. gift shop on my last day in Geneva and I thought I deserved a special memento of my ten minutes of U.N. spotlight, so I bought myself a Universal Declaration on Human Rights 50th anniversary commemorative Swatch!! I won't wear it, but I'll keep it as a collector's item.
After the U.N. I decided to walk down the Rhone River and explore and it was the best time exploring I had in Geneva. I should have done it my first day there. For me, it's just natural to gravitate towards water, so if there was a river, I'm surprised I didn't explore it. The Rhone is a beautiful fast moving river that drains Lake Geneva, but never succeeds. People swim in the Rhone, so it's clean and I was surprised that I could see past the surface. it was a beautiful blue-green color. Several hundred years ago, people probably took it for granted that they could see all the way to the bottom of the river it was so clear, now it's a surprise to be able to see past the surface.
The Rhone isn't the only river flowing through Geneva, the L'Arve also flows through Geneva and joins the Rhone not very far from Lake Geneva. The L'Arve is very different. It is slow, brown, muddy, and ugly. So I was very curious to see what happens when the two rivers meet. So that's where I went exploring and it was fascinating!!
I was able to get to the piece of land right where the two rivers join. From there, I saw that there was a bridge that looked down right over that point. So I explored some more to find the bridge. Eventually I made it to the bridge, which had train tracks running on it, but also had a walkway for pedestrians.
It was really neat looking down and seeing the two rivers interact. The Rhone is the dominant river with its clear blue water. It overpowers the slow, muddy brown water of the L’Arve, but right where they meet it was really beautiful. The fast blue water of the Rhone would flow into and mix with the brown water of the L'Arve and there would be these feathery swirls and whirlpools of brown and blue water. I would never have been able to imagine such a beautiful sight.
An annoying thing happened to me while I was in Geneva. I felt myself lapsing back into the old personality. I guess it was being in a foreign country and a foreign language and my overpowering impulse to be polite and not come across as a typical rude American. But my personality overdoes it, and I get so polite that I become dysfunctional and paranoid and worried about every little detail of what everyone MIGHT be thinking about me. The way I want to be is not afraid to make mistakes, not afraid to take risks and look like an idiot, and not care what people think.
So, on my last night here I was in line at the McDonald's, and I had already caught on that people don't order meals by asking for a "number one". I did that once and the person had to look at the menu to see what that was. So I was standing in line and I heard the person behind me say MAcSalsa, and I noticed the long MAc, rather than the short "Mic" that Americans say. And instead of Big Mac meal, the menu said "Big Mac menu", and I remembered how Thais say "menu" differently and thought about how the French would say it. So when I got to the counter I very confidently said "Beeg MAc Menyuuu", and it worked!! She says, "Beeg MAc Menyuuuu" back to me and then says something in French that stuns me in my shoes. So I just go "oui", and that worked, too!!!
