by Ella Mundy & Sophie Wall
Our group wasted no time and traveled to Geneva, Switzerland for a quick, but efficient, two night trip. From Aix-en-Provence, we took a bus to the train station and jumped on a high speed train that stopped in Lyon, France. This was quite chaotic as someone had taken our seats, so we had to go find free seats. Our next train took us straight to Geneva where we then walked to our hostel, City Hostel Geneva, nearby. The hostel was small, but very clean and the bathrooms were definitely a memorable experience!
On day two, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Pipo’s Cafe before meeting at the famous “broken chair” for our walking tour of Geneva. It consisted of just a croissant, which is quite the opposite of your typical American breakfast! The broken chair sculpture sits in front of the United Nations building, initially symbolizing the opposition to land mines and now serving as a reminder of our obligation to prevent armed violence. Our tour guide, Alex, then showed us some of the most famous institutions in Geneva, such as the United Nations, the International Telecommunication Union, and the Red Cross. Alex was very knowledgeable about the history of these organizations, and how they’ve contributed to solving the world’s health problems.
The front of the UN serves as an appropriate place for people to protest, which we witnessed. However, a cool fact we learned was that if a protest gets too disruptive the fountains in the square can be turned on, which clears people out. We then toured the Red Cross Museum, which does an amazing job of capturing their history and the humanitarian aid provided for victims of war. The Red Cross provides protection and support to the vulnerable, with the main goal of reducing suffering in all ways.
On our way back to the hostel, we made a pit stop at the World Health Organization, a key player in the coordination of the world’s health emergencies.
With our free time, we used the efficient and impressively clean bus and tram system to explore Old Town Geneva. We grabbed lunch at the well known Halle De Rive indoor market, and then treated ourselves to some very fancy Swiss chocolate! We then rode the Grande roue for a beautiful view of Lake Geneva and downtown. After shopping around a bit more, we headed to the John Knox Conference Center to hear from our next guest lecturer.
Our guest lecturer was Dr. Kim Lindblade. Her lecture was our favorite, and it focused on the integration of healthcare systems, and how it related to her specialty in the combat and prevention of Malaria. She spoke on many of her hands-on experiences with disease control when living in Thailand, Guatemala, and sub-Saharan Africa. We ended our night with the most expensive Mexican food we’ve ever had, which proved to be very fitting for the city of Geneva!
Our last day started early with guest lecturer Rico Bevigitia Zampetti, after breakfast at Pipo’s Cafe of course! Mr. Zampetti is the Minister Counsellor at the EU Delegation to the UN in Geneva. He discussed his work in coordinating all the EU member states so as to create and represent a common stance from the EU to be presented to the UN. His work in this allowed us to see how healthcare is handled on a worldwide scale. Finally, we packed up and caught the train back home! Switzerland was such a fun experience and hopefully we will be back soon!
