Before anything else — thanks to Dex for allowing me to attend this time around… thanks to the HQ staff for the preparations, the very informative and collaborative workshop and an unforgettable dinner… thanks to Carilu, Keith & Raef for the company on the first few days (of course I had to extend my stay )… and biggest thanks to Ed and Patrizia for all the hospitality, tips and all the trivia…

Here’s what I did during the Holy Week:

Day 1, Holy Monday
My flight was at 10:45am. Learning from the Davao trip, I anticipated that my transpo to the airport would arrive early — and it did — I was fetched from my house at 8, and I was at the airport by 830 (my supposed pickup time).

Probably the nicest thing about long DTs is that we always fly in business class. After the usual check-in routine, I went straight to the KLM lounge and had my breakfast — arroz caldo, mini-sandwiches and mini-pizzas. The internet consoles were being hogged by two “busy” caucasians, but luckily, a few minutes before leaving, I was able to logon and say my goodbyes to Beej via gtalk, who was at the office at that time.

Manila-Amsterdam was a 14-hour flight. And it wasn’t a good omen that my flight was 30 minutes delayed. Luckily, the actual flight took only around 13 hours (good pilot!) and I had one less hour to kill on the plane. I saw (in order) Night at the Museum, an episode of Friends, The Black Dahlia, The Illusionist, KLM Destinations: Dubai (by Megan McCormick), Every Picture Tells a Story (a short documentary on the Mona Lisa), an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Rocky Balboa, and Tips for Extreme Sports (surfing & skateboarding!) — all in between eating the delicious food and listening to the latest albums of Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani.

When I got to the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, it was only around 30 minutes before boarding to my connecting flight. I went straight to my gate and rode the quick 1.5 hour flight to Genève.

It was a little past 10pm by the time I got my luggage and went past Immigration in Geneva. I planned to change my US$ to ChF (Swiss francs) at the airport, but being already late in evening, everything was already closed. Luckily, one guy in the airport was kind enough to exchange Swiss francs with me. I got ChF3 from him, and I gave him $2. After several inquiries at the information counter, I was finally able to find the bus stop. I looked at the ticket vending machine, and I was confused at the numerous buttons and the French instructions! Luckily (again), I overheard two Filipinos at the bus stop (kahit saan talaga may Pinoy), and they gladly helped me purchase my one-way ticket to Gare Cornavin.

The two Filipinos told me a bunch of stories while we were in the bus, about the neighborhood surrounding the Gare (and my hotel), so when I got off at my stop, I was hesitant to bring out my map to the hotel, which was walking distance away from the stop. Luckily (again), my instincts brought me to Hotel des Alpes, and I was in my room at around 11pm.

Day 2, Holy Tuesday
Since I still didn’t have any “local” money (francs or euros), I had to wait till 8:30 am so that the foreign exchange stores would be open. About an hour before that, I was already bathed, dressed, and ready (I wasn’t able to sleep the whole night), so I decided to stroll around my hotel. It was then that I found out that my hotel was in the middle of the red light district of Geneva. Nice.

After a whole day of hellos, meetings with people, and the workshop itself, the HQ staff treated us to dinner in the evening. We were actually finished with the workshop 2 hours before dinner, so I had some time to visit Quai du Mont-Blanc and take pictures of the Jet d’Eau, Geneva’s most famous landmark (may proof na ako, pede na ako umuwi, hehe). After that, me and my fellow participants Carilu, Keith and Raef all met Tony at Willi’s. Since we were all advised that the resturant (at the Hotel des Villes) was only “walking distance” away, we all walked to the location. It took us around 30 minutes to get there (walking uphill a street, which I later found out to be Grand Rue), and everyone else was already waiting because they all went by car or bike.

It was actually more of a drinking session rather than a dinner, and we had very good conversation all night with our beers and wines, while Susan and I feasted on our cheese fondue. We were a very happy crowd and we were even talking to people in our adjacent table — which we later found out to be the owner of the restaurant! It was a fun night.

Day 3, Holy Wednesday
When the workshop concluded in the afternoon, we all went straight to Manor (largest department store in Geneva, similar to SM) to do our shopping. All the other participants were leaving the next day, so they actually had no other choice.

After saying our goodbyes at the hotel lobby, I met with Ed and we went to l’hotel d’Ed (hehe) aka his apartment, which was to be my shelter for the remaining days. After the short tour and demo of the “different” restroom (hehe) we went straight to dinner to meet with Ed’s girlfriend, Patrizia. We went to a Mexican restaurant, which looked more like a bar in Makati serving Mexican food. I had a delicious mixed burrito with a bottle of some European beer.

Day 4, Maundy Thursday
This was my free day because it wasn’t a holiday in Geneva. While Ed was in the office, I took the self-guided walking tour of Geneva’s Old Town from the Tourism Office. For ChF 10, I got a map showing 25 points of interest and a portable CD player which took me “through 2000 years of Geneva’s history”. Words can’t describe how amazing the tour was — just have a look at the pictures and see. In the middle of the tour, I had lunch at The Spaghetti Factory, where I had a “Vermont” pasta.

I was done at around 4pm, and before meeting with Ed, I tried to locate the Geneva branch of Central Perk in Plainpalais — and found it! After a quick stop at the apartment, we went to look for a place to have dinner and found a nice Italian restaurant. Browsing through the menu, one specific pizza caught my eye — Cosa Nostra — which is the name of one of Beej and myself’s favorite restaurants. I later found out from Patrizia (a Sicilian) that Cosa Nostra is actually the name of the Sicilian mafia. Haha!

Day 5, Good Friday
I met up with Ed and Patrizia at the Gare in the morning. We took a one-hour train ride (along the side of the lake and with a nice view of the Alps) to Montreux, and visited the Chillon Castle. Again, take a look at the pictures to see how amazing it looked. After a tour of the castle, we searched long and hard for a restaurant to have lunch and found one by the casino. They had good food and we enjoyed every last piece of what we had, but we felt really out of place there, because it seemed that all the other patrons were old ladies with dogs. Apparently, it was a tea place.

After lunch, we searched for Freddie Mercury’s statue (whose ashes were reportedly thrown at Lake Geneva), where some his fans still visit to bring flowers, and even poems — in fact, there was one poem when we got there.

Since it was still a bit early and we were all still in the mood for more pictures and sights, we made an impromptu visit to Lausanne. Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding the way back to the train station, and by the time we made it to Lausanne, we were already starting to get tired. It didn’t stop us though, and using a Lonely Planet guidebook, we walked thru its steep uphill streets and looked for Notre Dame Cathedral, the finest Gothic building in Switzerland.

On the train ride home, nobody talked. We were all tired from all the walking and we even took a short break at home before dinner — which was at Patrizia’s apartment. She cooked a very filling italian dinner for us — in sequence — of antipasti, pasta, potatoes, mushrooms & veggies, italian burger, and fruits (including red orange hehe).

Day 6 & 7, Black Saturday & Easter Sunday
My flight home was at 7am. I had to take the first bus to the airport at 5:17 am to get there. By the time I finished with check-in, immigration (there were very long queues maybe because it was so early in the morning and there were very few counters) and some last minute shopping, I was just in time to catch my plane. I then basically just slept from Geneva to Amsterdam.

In Schiphol Airport, I bought a few additional shopping items and proceeded to the KLM business class lounge. It was huuuge. My only comment is that they didn’t have enough food — I only had bread, cheese and some cold cuts for lunch. They served mostly drinks in the main bar. One could have gone home wasted from that place as they had the largest collection of wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages that I had ever seen in an airport lounge.

On my final flight home, I still busied myself with movies and TV — Casino Royale, You Me & Dupree, Miss Potter, and episodes of Frasier, Will & Grace, King of Queens and The Simpsons. Apparently, April is Chinese celebration month for KLM, so I had Asian food (a nice transition back to Filipino food) on the plane.

I got home at around 9am, to find my whole family (including Beej) waiting for me back home. Happy times.

Oh by the way, the title is Geneva in Spanish. Gi-neb-ra!