A Suisse Rendezvous

The second day was the opening of the conference so it was all work... nothing interesting to blog about. It was only on Sunday did I have some time to go about exploring the little town of Geneva in the evening.

Thanks to Peter, a friend of a good friend of mine... I had a host to show me around! He's from Switzerland but somewhere closer to Zurich. He's only working in Geneva for a couple of months for an internship.

He brought me to a charming little restaurant called the Chalet-Suisse and introduced me to a traditional Swiss Fondue. He also told me that they call what we Chinese call the "steamboat", Chinese Fondue. hehehe... imagine us calling this cheesie dish Swiss steamboat???


My gracious host


Cheeeeeeeesse... my fav, yummy!!

After dinner, he took me to somewhere near Lake Geneva where the locals were having a big celebration for the Swiss Sailboat that won some international competition.


Alinghi

There were tonnes of people around despite the light drizzle. All were well equiped with jackets, raincoats and umbrellas... all except for this silly-tropical gal me! I thought summers are supposed to be hot. I was dressed in the regular clothes I wear right here in KL, with no umbrella pulak tu! Luckily Peter brought one. He said that there will be a concert and fireworks later.


Open air concert - apparently he's a very popular Italian singer a couple of decades ago. Reliving his fame eh?

The speakers were super duper loud, too loud for both our ears so we decided to walk about elsewhere while we wait for the firework show.


Lake Geneva at nite


Wild swan... not like those domesticated ones at Bukit Tinggi Resort

Peter said that if the wind was blowing in the right direction, we would be able to see the Jet d'eau really close. It'd look magnificent. So we decided to try... but looking at the wind, it would be impossible to be close to the Jet d'eau without getting completely drenched. On a cold night like that? No way!


This was as far as I got

After walking about aimlessly for a while, it started to rain pretty heavily. Not as heavy as our tropical monsoon rain but nevertheless, heavy by Swiss standards. The air was freeeeezing.
We almost wanted to give up thinking they've cancelled the show due to the heavy cold rain when suddenly, it appeared in all glory...




It lasted for quite some time and it was a spectacular sight! It was worth freezing in the rain, getting slightly drenched.


I guess the rest of the crowd standing there with umbrellas thought so too...