Geneva, Switzerland's second city, is home to 191,000 people or so. Home to the ICRC, many UNO organisations and lots of banking and finance. It punches above its weight in expectation, but sadly delivers well below. Before we moved out I was anticipating a city full of hustle and activity. Instead it turns out to be a very quiet city for its size. Things move sedately, for example, you can't rely on a pharmacist or boulangerie being open on any given day of the week: they tend to close once a week on any day they choose. Also if you find yourself at a loose end on a Sunday, go back to bed. Otherwise you will struggle to find much to engage you on a day when the city stands still.
Let's face it, Geneva is a small European city, with a heck of a lot of serious work going on. If it doesn't have time to pander to your extra curricular needs it is because it pours its energy into delivering on the more serious elements of keeping the world safe and managing the money that goes to supporting that endeavour. Cry about it, why don't you?!
Although you might think with such a wonderful mix of the serious minded (NGOs) and the serious partiers (banking and finance) there would be more of an attempt at a fulfilling cultural life. When we first arrived in the city we were warned that it was not the most exciting place to be. We were also advised that in winter "the city is dead at the weekends as everyone heads to the mountains." I felt flattered to be included in the illustrious company of skiers. But it is true, a large chunk of the pay off of living in Geneva is its location, proximate as it is (compared to where many expats have come from) to northern Italy, Provence and southern Germany.
The city itself is a cosmopolitan place where you are as likely to hear English spoken as French, and many in the service industry will happily help you out in your mother tongue. Next your are likely to hear Portuguese or German. But listen carefully and you might hear pretty much any language spoken here, what with 192 nationalities living and working in the city.
Curiously the city has aspects of closed mindedness that can surprise you. Some small act of prejudice occurs, so alien to yourself, that like deja vu, you're unsure it actually occurred and quickly dismiss the situation, carry on, and blame it on a misunderstanding and your own poor French.
As a last point, after all the point of the blog is to talk about the city, the people are exceptionally nice and very welcoming. By and large they are totally disinterested in the fact that you are foreign, which is probably what makes this city so very different from other international cities, where cultural differences, of writers, thinkers, shop keepers, entrepreneurs, students and so on, are celebrated in the complete spectrum of cultural life from the city newspapers to local support groups. That's not what they do in Geneva.
