The flight to Geneva

I've finally gotten the chance to get on the internet and start documenting the whirlwind week that we've had thus far. I got to Hopkins Sunday morning at around 10:45 with mom and Kevin. I met up with Ashley at the Starbuck's next to the check in desks, and we went through security shortly thereafter. The plane was delayed a bit on the tarmac due to traffic in the New York/Newark airspace, but we eventually took off at around 1:10pm. The flight to Newark went relatively smoothly, and we touched down at EWR on time at 2:15. Unfortunately, as we were boarding the plane to Newark (last people to get on), we were forced to check one of our carry ons. As a result, when we got to EWR, we had to go down three floors to baggage claim, get our bags, go back up to the main floor, and go through TSA security again. This would be the first drawback of many.

When we got to Newark, I was surprised by how nice the airport was. Ashley had told me it was cool, but it was less airport and more mall; there were even Westfield advertisements on the walls. At 3:00, we had a group meeting to get to know one another and get a better idea of what was going on. When I walked in, I wasn't particularly enthused by the group that was there; this was compounded a bit by the fact that while Ashley and I sat in the back, apparently almost nonexistent to the other people, the rest of the group spoke very loudly and somewhat obnoxiously.

After the meeting, we went to lunch in the massive food court. We ended up getting Chicken Teryaki from Sakkio's and then a crappy smoothie from Jamba Juice. I wouldn't recommend going there - Robek's is way better. There was quite an interesting restaurant in the airport - Gallagher's Steak House. Apparently they decided that it would be a good idea to make the walls and door to the meat fridge out of glass - there were rows of what looked like cow torsos. It was lovely. Our flight to Geneva was delayed, and the plane didn't get to the gate until we were due to take off. We finally boarded at about 6:10 (we were supposed to leave at 5:35), and then sat on the tarmac while ten other planes took off from our runway. Thankfully, Ashley, Sam (another kid in the program from Miami U.), and I had seats in the front row of coach. This gave me a little extra leg room, and I'm sure it's not going to make Kevin very happy. I was not able to sleep at all on the flight, so I eventually gave in to this fact and read the book that I bought on Swiss culture (Ashley and Sam were both able to sleep). It didn't make them seem like overly pleasant people, so I wasn't sure what to expect when we got there. During the flight I had a lot of water, two cups of coffee, a small bottle of wine, some crappy chicken and penne dinner, and a small breakfast of a croissant and a fruit cup. There was some turbulence on the flight, so the seatbelt light was on about 90% of the time. After I finished my book, I watched the end of an episode of CSI and a full episode of CSI: Miami. I guess that Continental has a number of themed channels, including movies and one devoted entirely to CSI.

We landed in Geneva at about 7:25am GMT +1:00 (1:25am in Cleveland), and headed into the Geneva airport. Like the city itself, the airport was very small, and it was littered with watch advertisements every 3 feet. George Clooney must be huge in Switzerland, because he had three separate ads in the airport for Nespresso Coffee and Omega Watches. We waited in line to enter the country and got a stamp from the Swiss guy at the entrance and officially entered the country. Then after waiting 20 minutes at baggage check, we struggled to carry our bags through customs and get to the bus that would take us to our home for the next four months - the John Knox International Centre in Grand Saconnex. The French-Swiss bus driver had quite a time trying to fit all of our bags in the bus' luggage compartments, and he eventually placed a handful of them in the bus itself. Then we pulled away from the airport and arrived at the Knox Centre about 20 minutes later. More to come.