Allo, Suisse!
Greetings All,
My only evening in Switzerland is drawing to a close but so much happened today it seems like it will be tough telling it without writing a novella. Following my previous post this afternoon, I descended into the central area of Geneva, which I presume to be the central shopping district.
My first goal was the record store I mentioned, Mental Groove Records, but I'm looking for a number of things. The first thing I noticed is that prices here are ridiculously high. I don't know what the Swiss are thinking. Actually, I think what it is is that U.S. banking policy has been to devalue the U.S. dollar against other currencies, thus making American exports cheaper and imports pricier. The result is that the U.S. economy does well but the forlorn traveller such as myself faces steep exchange rates.
Another disappointing aspect to Geneva in addition to the prices was the sheer number of tourist shops selling Swiss watches, knives and T-shirts etc. I am not exaggerating when I say there are more here per square mile than in Times Square in NYC. In fact it reminds me a bit of that. High prices, lots of tourist-themed shops. Not as many tourists though, thankfully.
Geneva is a strikingly international city. I have seen representatives of every race milling about, and I think that there is no such thing as a Swiss restaurant in Geneva. They're all Italian, French, Chinese, Indian, Thai, American, Mexican etc. And they're all expensive. Anyway, I made my way to the record store, but despite the fact that it was 4:30pm and it opened at 3pm, the owner had stepped out until 5:30. Thus, I had an hour to kill milling about.
I walked all around and went into a number of shops. The only reasonably priced thing I found was in the English section of a bookstore in which I found an English-French dictionary. I did figure out that the value of the dollar against the franc is higher than I thought, such that four dollars U.S. gets you five francs. Still didn't make anything much cheaper though.
Finally I got into the record store and it was suitably cool. Most of it was newer vinyl but they had a nicely stocked section of newish electronic CDs and a really bizarre assortment of used LPs. Mostly old trance and acid techno, which brought me back to 1993 and the days I used to listen to that kind of music exclusively. But nothing worth purchasing there. I did decide to buy two CDs. One was a really bizarre mix of cheeky French music by Mr. Flash that I had heard a cut from on the internet, and the other a really strange collection of 'Afro-disco.' I can't tell if it's all new, all old, or even a lot of old African disco newly remixed. Needless to say, it's both bizarre and awesome. You haven't lived until you've heard African chanting through a vocoder. The store had CD players for you to listen to stuff otherwise I might not have been so adventurous but thank goodness it did.
I took my findings back to the hotel and felt tired. I took a brief nap and considered my options. Earlier I had discovered an interesting-looking Indian/Sri Lankan restaurant that was fairly reasonable, and I had also discovered a Burger King. I also had found the name and address of the club in town that has the kind of music I'm into and I found out two electro artists would be performing or DJing tonight, and one of them, Plastique de Reve, I'd heard before. What to do? Be adventurous or get fast food and spend the night on the internet in the hostel? After all, I am all alone.
Well, I decided to be adventurous. I left the hotel and first walked over to the club, which is named l'Usine / the Zoo. Seemed an easy enough place to find in a safe part of town. Then I went back to the other bank of the Rhone River and found the Sri Lankan restaurant. I saved a menu card so I can actually remember everything I ate, but let me just say it may have been the best meal of the trip. Yes it was Indian, but like no other Indian food I've ever had in my life, and it ended up being about the same price as my lunch. I guess it doesn't seem so expensive if the food is kickass.
I ordered a beef curry in a brown sauce which came with some some kind of wafer, curried lentils and rice on the side. I also ordered some samosas and two different sauces. The samosas were very small but delicious, kind of like Thai Samosas. One dipping sauce was tomato and cinnamon, so it had the odd sensation of tasting like half apple butter-half salsa, but all delicious. The other sauce was sort of like the syrup from sno-cones, only onion-flavored and hotter than anything you've had before in your life. The curried beef was supposed to be spicy but it wasn't really that bad. It was quite tasty and soft enough to cut with the wooden fork and spoon that I was served. Luckily the lentils (which reminded me of Ethiopean lentil dishes) took the edge off the heat, but after I finished the beef I poured the hot sauce on some remaining rice and it was so hot even I couldn't handle it.
I read for a little while and then came back here. The club doesn't open until 11pm so I thought I'd use this time to update the ol' weblog and maybe do a little getting ready to go. I'm going to be safe and leave my wallet at home, taking just a little cash and my driver's license and room key with me. That way, worst case scenario I'll just be out some francs, not any credit cards or bank cards. Well, wish me luck. I'll probably be updating this thing very regularly in the next three days since I don't actually have any English conversations and this is a bit like calling everyone and saying hello.
My only evening in Switzerland is drawing to a close but so much happened today it seems like it will be tough telling it without writing a novella. Following my previous post this afternoon, I descended into the central area of Geneva, which I presume to be the central shopping district.
My first goal was the record store I mentioned, Mental Groove Records, but I'm looking for a number of things. The first thing I noticed is that prices here are ridiculously high. I don't know what the Swiss are thinking. Actually, I think what it is is that U.S. banking policy has been to devalue the U.S. dollar against other currencies, thus making American exports cheaper and imports pricier. The result is that the U.S. economy does well but the forlorn traveller such as myself faces steep exchange rates.
Another disappointing aspect to Geneva in addition to the prices was the sheer number of tourist shops selling Swiss watches, knives and T-shirts etc. I am not exaggerating when I say there are more here per square mile than in Times Square in NYC. In fact it reminds me a bit of that. High prices, lots of tourist-themed shops. Not as many tourists though, thankfully.
Geneva is a strikingly international city. I have seen representatives of every race milling about, and I think that there is no such thing as a Swiss restaurant in Geneva. They're all Italian, French, Chinese, Indian, Thai, American, Mexican etc. And they're all expensive. Anyway, I made my way to the record store, but despite the fact that it was 4:30pm and it opened at 3pm, the owner had stepped out until 5:30. Thus, I had an hour to kill milling about.
I walked all around and went into a number of shops. The only reasonably priced thing I found was in the English section of a bookstore in which I found an English-French dictionary. I did figure out that the value of the dollar against the franc is higher than I thought, such that four dollars U.S. gets you five francs. Still didn't make anything much cheaper though.
Finally I got into the record store and it was suitably cool. Most of it was newer vinyl but they had a nicely stocked section of newish electronic CDs and a really bizarre assortment of used LPs. Mostly old trance and acid techno, which brought me back to 1993 and the days I used to listen to that kind of music exclusively. But nothing worth purchasing there. I did decide to buy two CDs. One was a really bizarre mix of cheeky French music by Mr. Flash that I had heard a cut from on the internet, and the other a really strange collection of 'Afro-disco.' I can't tell if it's all new, all old, or even a lot of old African disco newly remixed. Needless to say, it's both bizarre and awesome. You haven't lived until you've heard African chanting through a vocoder. The store had CD players for you to listen to stuff otherwise I might not have been so adventurous but thank goodness it did.
I took my findings back to the hotel and felt tired. I took a brief nap and considered my options. Earlier I had discovered an interesting-looking Indian/Sri Lankan restaurant that was fairly reasonable, and I had also discovered a Burger King. I also had found the name and address of the club in town that has the kind of music I'm into and I found out two electro artists would be performing or DJing tonight, and one of them, Plastique de Reve, I'd heard before. What to do? Be adventurous or get fast food and spend the night on the internet in the hostel? After all, I am all alone.
Well, I decided to be adventurous. I left the hotel and first walked over to the club, which is named l'Usine / the Zoo. Seemed an easy enough place to find in a safe part of town. Then I went back to the other bank of the Rhone River and found the Sri Lankan restaurant. I saved a menu card so I can actually remember everything I ate, but let me just say it may have been the best meal of the trip. Yes it was Indian, but like no other Indian food I've ever had in my life, and it ended up being about the same price as my lunch. I guess it doesn't seem so expensive if the food is kickass.
I ordered a beef curry in a brown sauce which came with some some kind of wafer, curried lentils and rice on the side. I also ordered some samosas and two different sauces. The samosas were very small but delicious, kind of like Thai Samosas. One dipping sauce was tomato and cinnamon, so it had the odd sensation of tasting like half apple butter-half salsa, but all delicious. The other sauce was sort of like the syrup from sno-cones, only onion-flavored and hotter than anything you've had before in your life. The curried beef was supposed to be spicy but it wasn't really that bad. It was quite tasty and soft enough to cut with the wooden fork and spoon that I was served. Luckily the lentils (which reminded me of Ethiopean lentil dishes) took the edge off the heat, but after I finished the beef I poured the hot sauce on some remaining rice and it was so hot even I couldn't handle it.
I read for a little while and then came back here. The club doesn't open until 11pm so I thought I'd use this time to update the ol' weblog and maybe do a little getting ready to go. I'm going to be safe and leave my wallet at home, taking just a little cash and my driver's license and room key with me. That way, worst case scenario I'll just be out some francs, not any credit cards or bank cards. Well, wish me luck. I'll probably be updating this thing very regularly in the next three days since I don't actually have any English conversations and this is a bit like calling everyone and saying hello.
posted by Brian at 9:46 PM
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