Geneva experience: Our first movie night

After a busy week so far with other Expedia friends/new Geneva residents, Preston emailed me at work around 4pm last night and said, "Interested in a date night outing? If so, meet me downstairs at your office at 6:15pm." Okay!

Turns out Preston's plan was to take a nice fall walk through the English Garden in Geneva and head toward the Train Station to see an American "VO" movie -- "version originale"; the subtitles were to be in German and French and the movie in English. Awesome.

So if you know Preston and I, chances are you know our story -- we worked together at Merrill Lynch in the late 1990s, lost touch when Preston left NYC and moved home to Seattle and reconnected in October of 2007 while living 3,000 miles apart. Reconnected via facebook. Now it seems most everyone is on facebook (how many times a day does my Mom log in, I wonder!?) but even just three years ago it was significantly smaller than it is now and I felt a bit old to be on facebook then ... things change though and we're certainly better off thanks to facebook.

So what better movie to have as our first in our new country than "The Social Network?" Funny thing is, in the three years we've been together, we've actually only been to the movie theatre together twice. I like to say it's because we're being social!

Going to the movies in Geneva was actually only slightly different than in the U.S. Not too shocking was the price, 18 swiss francs per ticket (that's just over $18 -- while always shocking, relatively normal, right?). I was in the mood for popcorn and ordered one for us to share. It was a new experience for me when they asked if we wanted it sweet or salty (en francais, of course). I was a bit taken aback ... um, I want it plain. Nope. Sweet or salty? Okay, salty.

Bad choice.

The previews were very strange. There were a lot of short, seemingly odd public service announcement clips and a bizarre preview for a documentary about a tire. No joke, a black tire.

The thing that shocked me most was the timing of it all. In Switzerland they are notorious for being on time. I expected the movie to START at the time on the ticket but that wasn't the case. I guess those 18 swiss franc tickets don't pay for everything,;everyone needs some advertising!

We both really liked the movie and thought it was really well cast. I especially enjoyed being aware at what the English as a second language people laughed. For the most part, they were all really on top of it and I was impressed. I doubt I could ever get to the point where I could sit in a French theatre and get all of the nuances/jokes in the language.

So friends, it's not all fun and travel here, we even have movie date night! Missing you all.

PS - Mark Zuckerberg, we have a really cute story in case you are interested in a sequel!