Geneva again

I spent most of the trip working with a colleague to get a software project completed, or at least ready for testing. We succeeded in the latter goal, though not the former. The required remaining changes are few and fairly straightforward, though.

I took off most of Sunday, and took the bus/tram/feet to the English-speaking evangelical church in the old city. The number 9 bus doesn't go all the way anymore: you have to change to an electric tram to get from CERN to the railroad station. The tram has automatic ledges that extend from under the doors when they open, so there's less of a tripping hazard getting from the platform to the train.

The service was good. Afterwards I must have looked quite a sight as I tried to pull on my bright red Wyalusing State Park hoodie, trying to stick my head through a sleeve.

The sun made a rainbow arc through the fountain.

I wandered through a different part of the city this time, and found the natural history museum. I was curious about what the glaciers had looked like, and went in. I gather they sort of gathered in the mountains and pushed outward. I started to feel strangely weary and lightheaded--found out later that week that the med I'm taking can mess up the potassium balance: and has.

The place has a huge bird display, and I found that the black and white crow that hangs around CERN is a "pie bavard" aka magpie. That seems appropriate, somehow. Eldest son would have loved the place.

It must have been the first sunny day this year--everybody was out; lovers everywhere by the river and lake.

I ran across a Russian Orthodox church. The gate was open and the doors and there was a woman with her child playing in the yard, and I wondered if they had tours. But then a woman backed out of the church, crossed herself, backed out further and crossed herself, and then did the same a third time. I felt a little delicacy about the idea of sightseeing there.

I was in the middle era between lunch and dinner, and on Sunday only the expensive tourist places seem to be open, so I passed up the opportunity to drop mucho francs on a meal. Not much fun to eat alone anyway.

The fountain spray was blowing onto the pier, and a large crowd was standing there getting rained on. And at 1600, it turned off.

I have to improve my French if I'm going to keep doing this. I feel like six kinds of idiot spending so much time around a town and not knowing anybody besides other physicists.