Geneva

Geneva is everything that you think of when you think of the Swiss, and being totally frank if I didn't know any better I'd swear that it was either Zurich or Geneva that was the capital of the country and not Bern.

The UNISEF ( or whoever it is ) that decided to make Bern a place of global and national interest did a great job of keeping the old town quaint and attractive to look at, but when it comes down to it when your thinking of coming to a big city then Geneva is the place to visit.

Situated right on the banks of Lake Geneva you get all the usual stuff associated with big inner cities, graffiti, separate areas for the Asian and Africans communities, a large immigrant population, tourism, a red light district and billions of cinemas and restaurants wherever you go.

One point that I would like to make is that when I say that they have got loads of cinemas, the best thing is that they are all sort of working together, in that whichever cinema you arrive at has a tiny little fold up brochure of all the films on offer along with a map of all the cinemas in the region free for anyone to take. This means that you don't need to be einstein or have a tour guide show you where they are or at what time the film you want to watch is being shown, they lay it all out in front of you and let you chose, and it makes a nice change to know that although they are slightly in competition with each other that the movie goer really does come first.

In fact, on a Monday the only thing you can't get is a haircut. Having already been down to the main city centre yesterday I was fairly sure that I had not passed many salons and so today I took a trip around my neck of the woods so to speak, up and down and along all the side streets of just ten minutes walk North East of the main train station.

It is a sad state of affairs when I passed numerous brothels, night clubs and street hookers already open and touting for business at 10:30am and yet I must have passed over a dozen salons and they were all had the same sign up on the glass door 'Lundi - Ferme', and just in case anyone thought that I was joking I got so frustrated that I ended up taking a photo of the very next one I came up to.



I'm not sure what kind of political or social statement they are trying to make, but allowing you to be propositioned in broad daylight on a weekday after you have only just had breakfast and yet being unable to get a haircut is one of the weirdest occurrences I have experienced so far on my trip.

Eventually I managed to find a newly opened salon run by a pair of French speaking Seychelles guys, that were lucky for passing business. I asked for a shorter trim and the guy took over an hour with just about every kind of electric device and size of razor guard he had in the salon, and yet he didn't even tough the front or the top and so by the end I was just so glad for anything and to get out that I paid and left. Or at least I would have, but I had only a CF $200 and they had no change so I waited while the guy found a place to change it for me, which took him about ten minutes.

My best haircut clearly was in Penang, Malaysia and I will be doing my best to go back there as I pass. Here in Geneva, the Seychelles guy didn't rank highly and I think he should get himself some change and start to use scissors more and clippers less.

Late September is a bad time to come to Switzerland as the snow hasn't quite started to fall yet, but its a cold as if it had and the sun is only out for a few minutes a day. Having watched two movies this week already, I don't want to do another and facing the cold and blustery winds blowing right off the lake are a prospect that I don't find attractive. The worst part of the being next to a lake is that you get all the winds but no beach to lie on during warm sunny days.

If I had enough money I could live happily in Switzerland, but it is only still up there with the main heavyweights of Colombia, Spain, New Zealand and Malaysia, but I've yet to see so many countries yet that there is plenty of time to change my mind, or not!