Things I Forgot to Say . . .

This is going to be a post of things I’ve noticed but either forgot to include in the post in which they would be most relevant, or are more general than a specific day or activity.  Here goes:

-        Le Corbusier, the architect, was born in La Chaux de Fond. His first and last buildings are located there. I had intended to visit La Maison Blanche, one of those properties, but found the location difficult to get to, given my time in La Chaux. Oh, well . . .

-        There are parks EVERYWHERE! And they are beautiful and well cared for. And they are used! I have deliberately walked through parks wherever I’ve been, in part to see them, and in part because I simply enjoy them.  At whatever time of day I’m there, people are out enjoying the parks. This even applies to shortly before or after the rain. Parents often have their children in the playgrounds that are so often part of the parks, but people of all ages are out in the parks.

-        Flowers are everywhere! Yes, they are frequently in parks.  But there are flower beds along roads and sidewalks – wherever – and they are well tended.  This was particularly true in Neuchâtel and Basel. And there were glorious beds of tulips out in front of a city building in La Chaux de Fond.  In Geneva, as I mentioned, there were no flowers at the flower clock, but the beds were ready to be planted. What I noticed in Geneva was that the flowers were slightly past their prime in the gardens around the city – still beautiful, but the petals of the tulips were about to fall – and other flowers were in a similar condition. Regardless, there were flowers everywhere!

-        I have been stunned by the use of technology in the museums I have been in. There is a lot of interactivity, and it is creatively used. There is a lot of video to aid in understanding. Another use I’ve seen for video is to demonstrate how something works when that “something” is too old or too delicate for a lot of individual visitors to handle/make work themselves. For example, winding a clock. Or handling an old piece of cooking equipment. I’m excited by how the use of technology I’ve been seeing inspires visitor engagement in the subject of the exhibit. The technology I’ve seen is phenomenal!

-        Similarly, I have been impressed by the language skills of the people I’ve met. Someone may say something to me in French or German, I indicate I speak English, and they repeat the whole thing in perfect English. Then they talk to the next person in another language.  Today I had an encounter that was all too typical: I was speaking with the receptionist at the hostel where I was checking in.  She explained something in rapid French. I asked her – in English – if she could repeat that in English. She said, “Of course.” My response was that “Of course” was not something most of us would say in my country because most of us don’t speak more than one language. It’s also interesting to see what language people address me in.  In Germany, they usually speak to me in English right away.  Here, in Switzerland, I get French most of the time, or German some of the time – and less frequently English.  I wonder why. I think I “look like” an English speaker (whatever that means; what it means to me is that I think I stick out as an American). Anyway, that’s my experience – and the language skills I’ve encountered are impressive!

-        I saw an old synagogue in Geneva. Why is that remarkable?  Well, there are none in Germany.  All the old ones were destroyed on Kristallnacht. I don’t remember the date the Geneva synagogue was built, but my guess is either early 20^th or late 19^th century. It was beautiful.

-        People smoke a lot more here than they do at home – perhaps not quite as much in Switzerland as in Germany, but there is still a lot. There is almost no smoking inside buildings – at least I don’t remember any (except the airport in Frankfurt, where there are smoking lounges – and the smoke drifts out into the rest of the airport). But people sit or stand outside buildings and smoke.  One thing about hostels is that none of them I’ve been in allow smoking.

-        While in Basel, I forgot to mention the profusion of pharmaceutical companies. They were all over. This is particularly in my head now that Novartis is involved in the Michael Cohen scandal/shell company. But my classmate in Freiburg who lived in Basel worked for one of the pharmaceutical companies.

-        In contrast, in Geneva, there were watch companies everywhere.  Along the waterfront, there were two buildings side by side; one said “Rolex” and the other said “Patek Philippe.” But I walked into a Swatch shop. And I saw countless other watch shops and companies, some with famous brand names and some with much less well-known names. In La Chaux de Fond, there also were watch shops all over – not companies because watch making was a cottage industry, for the most part, there.

-        And in Geneva, the number of Victorinox (Swiss army knife company) signs was overwhelming! Even the hostel was selling Victorinox! The company is not based in Geneva, but given the visitors from all over who land in Geneva, I’m sure Victorinox has a great market there for selling its knives!