There was really only one piece of useful information I was able to glean from my pre-trip research: Switzerland is an expensive place to live. And even pricier if you're just visiting. And Geneva, the manicured city of cushy diplomats and expense-account ambassadors, was the most expensive of all. It's a good thing the company is picking up most of the tab.
The same series of conferences that had sent me to such exotic destinations as Boston and Orlando had now sent me packing for the Old World. Meetings were scheduled for all day on Friday, but I had a day before and three days after to immerse myself in the Genevan state of mind.
My family encouraged me to escape Geneva as quickly as possible. "Go to Interlaaken!" my sister said. "You should visit France," my brother advised. I, however, was intent on staying put.
I'm trying to develop a style of travel that, at its most basic, requires staying in one place for at least a few days. One can tour the sights of a city in a day or two but that is only seeing. Taken at such a rapid pace, it can amount to little more than a three-dimensional slide show. Soaking in the culture, understanding the people, and uncovering the personality behind the statues and streets requires at least a week, if not months. I have 5 days.
At this very moment, as I write this, I'm on a plane bound for New York, where I'll connect with my flight to Geneva. One of the advantages of business travel is that it gives me a really good excuse to take my laptop. My plan for this trip is to write it in real time -- to find an interesting place, pop up the screen, and try to capture with nimble keystrokes the essence of where I am. I have great visions of sitting in a cafe on an ancient cobblestone street, or on a bench in a green park, or on the floor in the middle of a vast silent museum, and writing phrases like:
The city comes to life in the morning with a single, self-important clearing of the throat: one moment the ghostly streets are empty; the next they are cluttered with fancy people walking entirely too quickly.
or
The grass here has been thoroughly domesticated.
or
In some ways the art feels naive, with no representations of the darker violent depths of the human experience. But then again, maybe that's what life here is like.
Those phrases, invented entirely before I set foot on Swiss soil, probably reflect quite accurately my preconceptions about the city of Geneva. Now, let's see how reality measures up.