{"id":2329,"date":"2025-07-09T18:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T01:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/?p=2329"},"modified":"2025-07-28T19:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T02:01:58","slug":"switzerland-july-9-geneva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/?p=2329","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland, July 9: Geneva"},"content":{"rendered":"

For our last full day in Geneva, Leigh was available in the earlier morning and afternoon, but in the middle of the day she had to do (ugh) her actual JOB. So we started by going for a short walk from our hotel to the confluence of the two rivers that meet at Geneva – the Rhone and the Arve.<\/p>\n

On the way, we met a few foreshadowing<\/del> friends.
\n\"Leigh<\/a>
\nAccording to a number of sites, the junction of the two rivers is very striking because of the way their two colors are very different, and there’s a distinct line where they come together. For example, in this file photo here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, WE weren’t standing where that photo was taken, so the effect visible from where we were was a bit less striking.<\/p>\n

\"Junction<\/a>
\nStill pretty cool, though.\u00a0 The nearby graffiti covered building was also pretty awesome.
\n\"Building<\/a>
\nBut after this I had return Leigh to her conference for a bit.<\/p>\n

While she was there, I went to check out a small museum of historical scientific instruments. These kind of museums always make me appreciate just how much more\u00a0dangerous<\/em> being a physicist potentially was when we had no fricking clue what electricity actually was or how to handle it safely.<\/p>\n

\"Historical<\/a>
\nNot like today, when only sober, competent people are in charge of science and science policy.\u00a0 (sobs)<\/p>\n

At any rate, speaking of policy, let’s go look at the U.N., the other thing Geneva is known for!<\/p>\n

\"UN<\/a>
\nYeah, that’s pretty cool.\u00a0 There’s also a giant chair statue out front designed to first garner support for the international land mine treaty, and then to remind people it exists.\u00a0 People such as the United States, who still haven’t signed it.\u00a0 Sigh.<\/p>\n

\"Giant<\/a>
\nThere’s a lot of very imposing brutalist architecture in this neighborhood, including the headquarters of things like UNICEF, the ITU, the WTO, UNATCO… wait, hang on – that last one is from Deus Ex.<\/p>\n

The International Committee of the Red Cross took over an old hotel, so their headquarters is much less brutalist.<\/p>\n

\"ICRC<\/a>
\nAfter a LOT of walking around in the sun (these buildings are BIG, and are commensurately spaced well apart from one another), I took the tram back to down and ended up buying some train station empanadas for lunch.\u00a0 Sure, why not?<\/p>\n

In the afternoon, once Leigh had been returned to me, we went to the museum of the watch maker Patek Philippe.\u00a0 It made an interesting comparison to the Seiko Museum<\/a> I had visited in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

For one, it was MUCH larger, and included a huge array of historical timepieces.\u00a0 For another, it just felt more like an old school art museum than one about the science of telling time accurately.\u00a0 There were some really amazing pieces, and the museum was definitely worth the price of admission.<\/p>\n

One of my personal favorites was this watch. The hands change length as they proceed around the face.
\n\"Watch<\/a><\/p>\n

Definitely NOT designed by Dr. Seuss, or so they claim.<\/p>\n

Finally it was time to join the rest of the conference attendees for the official conference dinner of.. fondue!\u00a0 Yes, we were in Switzerland, it was time to dip bread into cheese!<\/p>\n

Which, of course, I forgot to take a picture of.\u00a0 But it was bread dipped into cheese, what’s not to like?<\/p>\n

The next day the conference was over, so we had morning plans in Geneva, and then off to see the rest of the country!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For our last full day in Geneva, Leigh was available in the earlier morning and afternoon, but in the middle of the day she had to do (ugh) her actual JOB. So we started by going for a short walk … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}