EU Switzerland Blog

Switzerland Blog-

Thus far Switzerland is my favorite! Lake Geneva is so pure and clean looking! A huge land locked lake surrounded by beautiful natural wilderness and villages nestled amongst the rolling hills, peaks, and valley’s! Breathtaking is an accurate word to describe the glory of this land- as it truly looks as it does in the ‘Sound of Music!’ Wildflowers- fields of red poppies, meadows of sunshine yellows, powder blues, brilliant purples
On our one day off in Geneva, I organized a day hiking trip by speaking to a knowledgeable local whom as an aside speaks 12 languages and is a consulting teacher at the London school of business- since retiring as an engineer of oil pipelines and bridges. It is interesting that after living all over the world and holding legal passports to six countries including China and Russia- why would he live here? Well, the next day I found out why as 2 girls and myself traveled from Geneva to Nyon where we boarded a mountain train to St. Cergue which is just a train stop in the middle of the Jura Mountains which borders France. With his help I had a 12 mile hike picked out and we just loved it! The whole day was magical – we hiked to the top of the mountain – where we had lunch and rested as we looked out at Lake Geneva in the distance.
Due to steep inclines we noticed the amazing degree of fitness achieved by many there- sufficed to say I have never seen such well built legs as I saw there! We stopped at a mountain chalet to have a coffee (a muddy espresso shot) and found our way back to the train about 8 hours later. What a marvelous day!
Geneva (which is French speaking) is not considered by locals to truly be Switzerland so I am so grateful that I got to see La Gruyere and the Jura mountains. Next time, buy a Regional Pass for one week and travel throughout the country rather inexpensively. I plan to go to Interlaken and take the Golden Pass route where the train’s glass top allows a panoramic view of the highest point in all of Europe!
In Geneva, food is expensive due to inflation, where for example a decent meal is $25 franks; a small bowl of Wonton soup is approximately $8 franks and a hamburger is about 22. However, I did notice that outside of the City it is much more reasonable. Since, Geneva is home to the United Nations, Cern, and the World Health Organization the area is rich in both diversity and intrigue!
The UN is an organization made up of member states and goal is World Peace which means no one is hungry in the world. The WHO is under the UN mantle but has its own rules and mandates and is not part of the UN governmental structure. Like most else in today’s world you must pay to play which means that countries apply and pay yearly membership fees based on last years GNP.
We had several different lecturers that spoke about the structure and function of the agency, how risk assessment and response with global epidemics work, and my favorite is why bio-diversity is essential for global nutrition. The last speaker of the day heads up a taskforce on this topic and as she shared I cried happily because finally some one who understands that we can’t just have a world of monocropping. She said that her research team has found that each cultivar has a unique set of vitamins and minerals that create a synergistic effect in the human body. For example, since each type of eggplant varies in it’s nutrient profile this means that if we only have a few cultivars available we can’t receive the benefit that diversity adds to our diet. I had this burning question for her, and I got to ask her! I said, “do you think that conventional agriculture is sustainable in it’s current methods and practices?” Her response, “Absolutely not! And infact it is very very scary!” She is an expat who was educated in the US and then has lived abroad for 20 years and based on her status I took to heart what she had to say because it touched me deeply. I know we are heading in a unproductive path and I am glad that some people in positions of influence see that eliminating bio-diversity and expecting scientific innovation to always have an answer for what nature kept in balance is certainly risky business!