Bonsoir!

I’m writing this at the end of another interesting day in Geneva! While we aren’t completely underway with our class activities, we’ve had some time to spend as a group getting around the city. We met this morning at the Geneva airport and then traveled to Webster University, where Kent State University has dorms available for students studying abroad. The interesting thing about them is that they used to be an old Rolex factory!

After checking in and getting some time to relax, we went out and got bus passes to last us for our trip. The interesting thing about Swiss bus passes is that they take your photograph and put it on the front. (I guess to prevent people from passing them around!) Following that, we stopped and had something to eat, and also went to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast food. The rooms we’re staying in are equipped with stove tops, refrigerators, and microwaves so we were also able to pick up some things to eat throughout the week. Grocery shopping was a fun experience - similar to the U.S., but different in the fact that people only tend to buy what they can carry home. It was interesting to see the types of foods available and to compare prices to the U.S. Looking through my public health lenses, I also noticed the set up of the grocery store. The first thing you hit when you enter are all of the fresh foods - fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. From there, you worked your way in - more like a pyramid shape than our rectangle-shaped Giant Eagles!

Geneva

After the grocery store, we headed back to the dorms. We spent some free time this evening checking out the neighborhood. A few of us stopped for some coffee down the street. Swiss coffee has an A+ in my book!  This was also a good opportunity to get to know each other and to talk public health :) I think we’re all looking forward to getting started with our work out here and to learn. We have Saturday and Sunday free, and then on Monday, everything starts! Monday also happens to be a national bank holiday in Switzerland and we’ve been informed that nearly everything will shut down - should be interesting as well :)

It’s great to be out here and it’s easy to see that Geneva is an interesting city - very dynamic and diverse. I appreciate that about it! 

More tomorrow!

Diana