Goin' down to Geneva... to get my passport stamped

So if you want to work in France for six months, you'll need to get a visa... but that itself can take four months or more, so if you're in a pinch, go ahead, hop on the plane and head over... just make sure you leave the country every 90-days so as to maintain a visitor or tourist status. Apparently you can keep this up for quite some time -- extending your visitor status for six months or more.

My first 90 days ended quite unexpectedly last week.("Hi, I'm here to teach your company about planning, organization, and the importance of maintaining rigorous schedules... oh, wait, holy crap! I've got to leave the country... excuse me.") No problem, I thought, we're going to Italy at the end of the month. Au contraire mon frere -- it turns out that you need to leave the European Union, not just the country -- so we needed to find another destination for a quick get-away.

Where to go... where to go... A quick scan of the map reminded me that I am clueless about the European Union, who's in and who's not, so I began asking around... Switzerland was the unanimous reply -- get thee to Geneva for a day or two. Alrighty then.

Geneva is about five hours away by car; 4:15 if you're willing to violate the speed limits egregiously -- something which is quite rare in France. The fines for speeding escalate exponentially, culminating with the loss of license at offense number four -- which explains why so may folks are happy to drive 25-horsepower Renaults from 1972. I was only too happy to flout the traffic laws, and we careened down country roads and high-ways alike at break-neck speeds, blasting our way through the iPod's playlists once, then twice before we finally arrived.

First thing we noticed was that the GPS navigation system in our car does not cover Switzerland; the next thing we noticed was that we've become utterly dependent on the GPS navigation system in our car. Over the past months, I've been only too content to type in the address of our destinations, and then "follow the pink line" super-imposed on the map displayed on the dashboard. Now, suddenly, there was no pink line... in fact, the map was ominously blank... I confess to having a few moments of cognitive dissonance as I tried to reconcile the blank screen with the physical reality of the country-side we were driving through. Part of my brain wanted to see blank country-side to match the blank expanse on the map!

My atavistic male navigation skills kicked in rather quickly, and in rapid succession, I made three wrong turns, swore at each of my children in succession, and decided that instead of asking for directions, I would follow a city bus displaying an advertisement for fabulous lingerie and the 21 year old girls who wear it.

We found the border crossing and despite the guards best efforts to wave us through without so much as a glance at our passports, we demonstrated enough confusion and lack of a second language that he directed us to the side of the road and pointed to the office of his supervisor. Now we're getting somewhere, I thought... surely this guy will stamp our passports.

No. The guy behind the counter asked us if we were carrying any chemical weapons, plans for Iranian nuclear reactors or quantities of low-quality American milk chocolate, and sent us away.

We eventually made our way downtown, found a place to park, and set about the task of passing an afternoon and evening in a new city. Geneva is a lovely place -- if you've been to New York, think Park Avenue and the upper east side, and you'll have a sense of the place. Blocks and blocks of high-end shops and high-end people to shop in them. The side-walks were crowded with very well-dressed and attractive folks, all of them, seemingly, loaded down with dozens of boxes and shopping bags.

We had a wonderful and wonderfully expensive lunch -- naturally, this being the gateway to Bavaria, the children insisted on pasta, pizza and gelato for lunch. Afterwards, I headed off in search of a hotel while Ceil and the kids went to see what damage they could do to our credit report.

Coming to a city without any sort of plan, let alone hotel reservations, was a new experience for me, but it turned out remarkably well. At the second inn I visited, the ladies at the desk were only too happy to rent me a room with four beds for 195 Swiss francs per night.

I find it's easier if I research the exchange rate after a trip -- in my mind, 195 sf was a bargain for one large room with a twin bed and a set of rickety bunk-beds... and we had our own bathroom -- a luxury not afforded to most of the other guests. (As you will have suspected, 195 Swiss francs is worth about $250 US dollars, so the accommodations were a bit dear, as it turns out.)

Having eaten lunch like kings, we decided to pass on dinner (surely a sign that the end-times are upon us), and after a walk, settled in for an evening of bickering, recrimination and airing of intrafamilial grievances.

The next morning couldn't come soon enough, for my tastes, and I was out for a pre-dawn walk before the rest of the troops were up. Again, I was struck by the beauty (and wealth) of Geneva. The litter was quite atrocious, but by the time I finished my walk, a small army of municipal workers in miniaturized street sweepers was out in force.

We had another Laurel-and-Hardy-esque moment on the way out of town: I had parked in a public garage about 10 minutes north of the hotel, and having told Ceil to pack up the kids while I went for the car (how much longer will she let me get away with that?) I started off. I was flummoxed though, to discover that the machine where you pay for the parking would not accept credit cards, and I had no currency, Swiss or otherwise. So I reversed course in search of a cash machine... finally finding one after re-tracing my steps back to and beyond the hotel. Being Geneva, the machine dispensed 100 franc notes!

I found my family encamped by the side of the street as I doubled back (again) towards the garage. Ceil was not interested in waiting there amidst our luggage, so we decided to walk together and carry our gear. (The photo to the left depicts a key moment in our discussion, with Lee making an impassioned plea for a new plan involving mechanized transportation, and Miles contemplating applying for adoption by another family with stronger logistical skills.)

So we marched off, stopping every thirty yards as Lee wailed, gnashed teeth and flailed her arms.

When we got back to the car park, naturally, the machine would not accept any bill larger than a 20... pissed, I decided we'd get in the car and crash through any barricades blocking our exit. As it happens, there were no barricades, but there was a very friendly guy in a kiosk who was only too happy to let us pay by credit card. The whole circus had been for naught.

For whatever reason, I was possesed by the urge to spend the 100 franc note before leaving town -- the only place open early on Sunday was the local Starbucks-- a happy coincidence. Again, we gorged ourselves, and reveled in conversation with some other American families we met while waiting on line.

And finally, around 12pm, we were off. Again, crossing from Switzerland to France we had to make every effort to arouse the suspicion of the border gaurds who would much rather have waved us through without so much as glancing at our papers. The guy behind the counter had to rummage around in his drawer to find a stamp for our passports ("They still use those?") -- but in the end, we were successful.

Anyway, the experience confirmed our hypothesis that the first visit to a new city is gauranteed to be a touch stressful and dysfunctional... and that future visits go more smoothy. Here's looking forward to our next trip to Geneva!

Peace.