Today is Interminable Meeting Day. I expect to have some time for exploring tonight, but I wasn't anticipating much worth writing about during the day.
It turns out I was wrong. I've just come back for lunch, where we all went down to the hotel's restaurant for a catered buffet -- the same restaurant I dismissed offhand last night. Well, the restaurant put out quite a spread. The influence of French cuisine was immediately obvious, and the contrast with a typical North American buffet was intriguing.
The food was good. Not that the kinds of buffets with which I usually gorge myself are bad -- just that the chefs here obviously cared deeply about their art. The food was rich and warm -- not warm in the temperature sense, but warm in the healing, filling, tasting, bathing in flavour sense. Geneva could prove to be a culinary adventure waiting to happen -- if I can afford it.
Over lunch I asked my tablemates for sightseeing recommendations. The suggestions were to visit the old town, which I did yesterday, or to get out of town -- drive to Gruyere, or Interlaaken, or up into the mountains. Evian is just around the corner, and France is a three-minute hop on the highway. As I was typing this I got a recommendation to visit Montreaux -- and the idea that I would spend some time trying to absorb the character of Geneva was met with an eye-roll. Perhaps I should go for a little drive tomorrow...
I spent a lot of time tonight aimlessly wandering the city streets.
I parked in the same downtown garage as yesterday, and this time I walked left instead of right. I strolled here and there, taking photos and enjoying the city. I was very casually looking for a place to eat, but when I started walking, around 7pm, I wasn't hungry. Around and around I strolled, sometimes doing loops, until I found myself back at the lakefront, on the promenade.
The promenade had a few people on it; most were couples, and a few of those were basking in the glow of a warm kiss. The air was a little breezy but warm. The lights of the pier and the lights of the city glowed on the surface of Lac Leman.
A jetty sticks out into the lake, and at the end is a lighthouse guarding the entrance to Geneva harbour. I walked out to the end to see what I could see. It was a fairly dark, secluded place, but a few couples were there to provide an air of security. I continued out to the end of the jetty where a lone figure sat on the cement, drinking a beer.
"Bon soir," I said.
"Salut," he replied. He pointed at some ducks and started rambling in French. I informed him I only spoke a little. He pointed at the ducks again and I think he said that either the ducks were fucking or that they were fucking ducks. It was hard to tell.
When I asked him what he did, he said he was unemployed. "But what do you do?" I asked. He said, "I am a poet."
He certainly looked the part. He had a mat of long black hair, a skinny Italian face, and a worn wool sweater. He was drinking beer from a green bottle and he said "fuck" a lot. His English was probably only marginally better when he wasn't drinking beer.
I asked him about Geneva. Sometimes he'd break off into bouts of French that I couldn't understand, but sometimes I'd catch the word fou (crazy) or stupide. He said, "The Swiss, they hate the people who live near Geneva. And the people who live near Geneva, hate the Genevans. And the Genevans hate everyone."
In the water, a swan made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a fart. "Be quiet, you," he said. "These swans, they are people who have killed themselves." I gave him a quizzical look. "People who commit suicide, when they resurrect, they become swans."
"Really?" I prodded.
He shrugged. "It's a legend."
I picked up my camera and backpack, took a few photos, and then we walked back along the jetty to the promenade. The middle of the jetty is a swimming area with saunas, diving boards, and docks.
"My father," he said, "my mother, my parents? They were poor. They took me here, I learn to swim. Now, the rich people... we have to... garder?... fight to be here."
He seemed to have a lot of class issues. I suppose that's not uncommon for unemployed poets. We passed two black men sitting on a bench.
"I have a knife," he said.
Oh-oh. He reached into his jacket and I caught a glimpse of some folded-up thing. Was he going to mug me?
"You have to be careful. The black men, they can kill you."
I scoffed. "But, I could kill you," I said. "Well, except, I don't have a knife." Is that the kind of thing you should admit to someone who just showed you a knife?
He was serious. "No, the negroes are dangerous. 3 people were killed last week. I always carry a knife here."
Around about this time I was starting to think of how I might part with the poet. He had been entertaining and informative, but I think he was just a little too insane for my tastes. He stopped to pee over the railing and I wandered back onto the promenade, milled around a bit, and he caught up with me. I continued walking in the direction I'd started, away from downtown.
"That way, that's where the homosexuals are," he said. His tone indicated that the place where the homosexuals were was A Bad Place.
"Down here?" I asked, pointing down the promenade. I shrugged and kept walking.
He stopped. "Okay, good-bye brother!" he said, and turned and walked the other way.
"Adios!" I said, and that was that.
I wandered back into the old town, up and down streets, looking for a place to eat. Several sidewalk cafes were open, but none struck my fancy. I finally settled on Movenpick, a big European restaurant chain, and ordered a marinated duck breast with gnocci in thai red curry sauce.
I'm still saying "si" instead of "oui".
The food was, once again, delicious. The thai sauce was more of an impression of a thai sauce than anything. The curry flavour was there, but it tasted more French than anything. Nonetheless, it was delicious. The desserts here look really yummy too, but I'm getting a bit worried about the waistline.
I've discovered that at Swiss restaurants, they won't bring you the bill unless you ask for it. That's actually a good thing -- especially since I've been sitting here for 45 minutes, typing into my laptop, nursing un eau gassee. One problem, though: I'm not sure how to say "bill" in French. Billet, I think. Well, I'll find out soon enough.
To the waiter: "pardon, le billet s'il vous plait?"
Waiter: "... " (Sure...umm... who was your waiter?)
Yup, it's billet.