Tuesday 21 December 2010

bonjour? hallo? hello hi!

My trip started really well with a lovely sunny and warm day in Bordeaux.
Oh how I love the SW part of France!
Then my plane got delayed for an hour for no obvious reasons.
I suspect, though, the arrangement was made to transport those angry English passengers across the channel.
They've been having a hard time, yes, I'll wait for the next plane to make their life easier.

Though sometimes the world does not evolve around you as you wish.
So, after collecting my bag on the French territory at the Geneva airport and failing to remember my pincode to my credit card (!) I obviously missed my last train to town.

La Suisse is such an amazing country.
There's even a French territory section at the Geneva airport.
I bet there must be a German equivalent at airports bordering Germany.
(This was set up before they joined Schengen I think, cos you no longer need a separate Swiss visa to enter the country.)

On top of my loud music, I can hear all sorts of languages being spoken in the street.
French, German, Italian, Spanish, English, Russian...
I am not well-travelled enough but by far, this is the most international city I've ever been in.
You'll never know what language to use to communicate with a stranger.
On my way to the UN, I ran into two ladies who clearly looked local enough but did not speak a word of French! They still gave me the correct direction anyway.
So I guess the first thing anyone should do to avoid such situation is dash to the office de tourisme and ask for a map?

Oh, just one another thing, it'd be super unfair if the SAR govt sends a plane to collect kids from london just to get them home for xmas.
I shall take it to the street french style.
C'mon, there're also kids on the continent who have been held up too.
What are you gonna do about them?
If they can't go home for xmas, tant-pis, learn to live with it and grow up.
Being overseas studying is more than just escaping the competition at home(and many more reasons I shall not pronounce).
It's also about learning the fact that life sucks at times and no matter how powerful your parents might be, they can't beat mother nature.

2 comments:

lu said...

totally agree with your view on the stuck london kids, but the parents and the kids who are stuck, they'll unlikely be agreeing with us :P

so you've already been UN! we went to the culinary school next to the UN for lunch coz we were so hungry and didn't know where else to go. that's probably the closest restaurant around. but the food was good. hehe

enjoy~~

cr said...

I didn't go in there becos it was closed for visits for xmas holidays. They're having a holiday that's longer than mine! So much more French than me, well played! XD

I didn't see a culinary school around but there was a school of hospitality of some sort around there.

I know that the govt has to show that they "care", but if I was to say anything, I'd just say, suck it up, c'est la vie.