Our First Night Out:

Thanks to the local version of Facebook in Geneva, glocals.com, we found some fellow english-speakers to explore a new bar with. Some of our new friends, Minda, a Dane, and Johanna, from Brazil, were holding down a corner of the bar.

Settling in Geneva is somewhat like being at the crossroads of the first day of school, the first week of work and the first month of living in a new place—all wrapped into one. You don’t know much about the town, let alone your way around; you must adjust to new surrounds, expectations and customs...and curiously, you realize more people than you thought are in a similar situation.

Minda had organized the group and played hostess as more people arrived. Next in was Fahrrad, a likeable English guy. We talked soccer, most of the worlds icebreaker at the moment. As the table grew in its numbers so too did the characters surrounding it.

Gradually rising to a crushing crescendo, an oafish Egyptian and Johanna lept in Portuguese, maintaining an animated conversation diagonally across the table. “Ahh,” he broke out, quickly changing back to English, “I love to hear real Portuguese; the Europeans absolutely butcher the language. The rest of the table, all Europeans, turned to look at the source of the recklessly inflammatory remarker. Without missing a beat and as if not to leave us out of the mix, he started a side conversation with Ashleigh and I. “What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual. And what do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi…as in bi-lingual. What do you call someone who only speaks one language? American!”

Having done his damage at our end of the table, the foul-smelling, sweat-factory of a man plopped himself on the bench seat next to Minda, blocking her exit from behind the table. While I briefly felt bad for her, I knew she could hold her own…until I overheard part of their conversation. “100 swiss franks for half an hour! I mean what can she possibly do to me in half an hour that’s worth that much money?”

“yeah,” a shocked and mystified Minda started, “that’s not something that I have a lot of experience with.” She moved him aside so she could retreat to the relative safety of the adjacent table. Ashleigh and I did the same—on our walk back across town.

Who said this would be dull?

Stay tuned for future installments including:

“Mademoiselles of the Razor Scooters”

“The Escalator ‘Non-Pass’ zone” and

“The Return of the Murse”