After spending a few days in Geneva, I felt like I had mastered the public transportation system. Buses and trams were frequent and punctual, and before long I was helping a couple of lost American tourists figure out the system. I tried to fit in like a local, partly for camouflage and partly for entertainment. Pro tips: wear sunglasses, act cool and unfazed by everything, and carry an H&M shopping bag with you.
The day after my Cologny adventure, it was time for a special treat: my dear friend Sarah came to meet me in Geneva! I’m usually happy to experience things by myself, but the long hours of isolation were starting to wear on me, so having Sarah around was like having a little piece of home. This was the last day of her Magellan project; she spent time in parts of France and Switzerland for a cultural comparison of francophone countries.
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| Can you see the sparkle of pure joy in my eyes? |
We got ice cream by the lake, shared tales of our adventures, and went wherever our hearts desired. She wanted to see the UN headquarters and the Red Cross museum, both of which I really enjoyed. I even explained a few things about the public transportation system to her, which was great until we took the bus to the wrong station! I guess Bel-Air is different from Petit-Bel-Air . . . so it turns out that neither of us are experts! And I’ve decided that that’s okay! I guess I just wanted to be the source of knowledge for once, since she's always the practical and logical one of the two of us. I really loved seeing her and being able to experience a different culture together.
At this point in my trip, I needed a break from the constant bustle of the city. I can get a little overstimulated when I’m surrounded by people and busy bus stations all of the time, so I thought I would take a day to enjoy Geneva’s wildlife. Luckily, I was only a short bus ride away from the base of Mont Saleve, also known as the “balcony of Geneva.” I was determined to reach the top because I like to experience things thoroughly -- I didn’t want to say “I hiked around the bottom of a mountain a little,” I wanted to say “I hiked to the top of a small mountain!” Also, I loved the part in Frankenstein when Victor Frankenstein decides to hike a mountain by himself because “the presence of another would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene.” Of course, his monster interrupts his sublime reverie a couple of paragraphs later, but luckily I didn’t have that problem.
Once I actually found the start of the trail (harder than it sounds, since most people opt to take the cable car up and down the mountain), I was soon surrounded by beautiful greenery and the sound of chirping birds and insects. A natural escape, indeed.
I took a lot of short breaks, got lost, and felt pretty discouraged at some points, but I knew that the only way to go was up. Maybe that’s an apt metaphor for life! I almost felt like I was climbing the spiral staircases of Old Main for hours, and my fellow W&J peers might know how unbearable that would be.
After about three hours of climbing and trying to decipher the trail markers, I finally made it to the top of Mont Saleve. I was almost ready to pass out because I had finished my water bottle about halfway up, but that didn’t matter! I had made it to the top, and I decided that I deserved a nice picnic lunch and a smooth ride back down in an air-conditioned cable car. I ended up doing it again two days later, too, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke the first time!
I also wanted to take a cruise on the lake while I was in Geneva -- the Romantic writers definitely did that! Towards the end of my stay, the weather grew cooler and rainy. This was nice not only because it was a break from the heat, but also because I was able to get a taste of Geneva the way Mary Shelley and John Polidori saw it. Under a thick layer of clouds, the lake turned from turquoise blue to an opaque grey-green, but it was still lovely. I even got to see the front of the Villa Diodati in a totally legal way.
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| The old Geneva lighthouse on the edge of the Bains des Pacquis. |
One of my favorite things in Geneva was a little silly by anyone else’s standards, but I loved the statue of Frankenstein’s monster in Plainpalais. I visited it a couple of times because it was cool and also because I wanted to see if other people stopped to take a picture. The statue is located in Plainpalais, on the outskirts of central Geneva, because that was where the monster killed Victor’s brother in the book. I had a real English major moment when I sat near the statue and read a few pages of the book, just for fun.
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| You meet the coolest people when you travel. |
It seems like, when visitors pass the statue when walking through Plainpalais, they often stop to take a picture with it. It was especially funny to see the people try to mock the monster’s position, with his clawed fingers and twisted scowl. Hilarious people-watching. But I thought it was funnier when I gave him my H&M bag.
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| Poor Frankie trying to fit in with the locals. |
I enjoyed my time in Geneva. I wish it had been about twenty degrees cooler for most of my stay, but I was still able to enjoy the lake’s beauty and the rich culture that surrounds it. Unlike my stay at Loch Ness, it’s clear that the literary gems that I sought in Geneva are mostly unknown and do not contribute to Swiss tourism. People typically come to Switzerland for lake views and expensive dining, not the ghosts of writers and the monsters that they created. That certainly didn’t hinder my enthusiasm, though; if anything, I preferred that my adventures were a little off the beaten path during this leg of my journey.