will WE play in Peoria?

I don’t know what I expected Geneva to be like. Or, I guess, I just wasn’t sure what to expect. And after a few hours here, not much has even changed.

My first impression is simple. I don’t care for driving here. It is confusing. People honked at me. I’m used to being the one honking, not the one being honked at. Sure, it didn’t help that the GPS directed us to the wrong place. At least it mistakenly led us through the shopping district. I’ll have to find that again.

Once we finally got to the hotel, we dragged our 6 pieces of luggage inside to be told they didn’t have our reservation in their computer. All I could think was “shit, not again,” remembering our trip to Barcelona when we arrived a mere 24 hours ahead of our reservation. I was surprised when I heard myself saying in French that I’d just received another e-mail confirmation just yesterday. And luckily, I had brought a print-out of the original confirmation I got when I made the reservation. The front desk clerk was great. He told us not to worry and got us checked in. Still don’t know what the problem was, but at least it doesn’t appear to be me this time. At one point, the clerk even asked me if I’d rather he spoke French or English. No one has ever asked me that before. They’ve always just switched to English. Given that, this is now my all-time favorite hotel.

After getting settled into our rooms, Dad, Kaitlyn and I set out to see what we could before our dinner reservation. Dad examined our free map and we decided the famous flower clock would be a close destination with a promising first impression. The tourism board describes it as “a masterpiece of technology and floral art.” Granted, this is the tourism board. And that should have been an indication of what was really to come.

Armed with umbrellas, we headed out on our clock quest. My favorite hotel clerk assured us of its proximity and the complete lack of a need to seek public transportation there. Of course, he was saying this from the warm, dry comfort of the front desk.

On the way, we paused at the lake front to attempt to admire the jet d’eau. It’s a 140 meter high jet of water spouting out of the lake. Maybe it’s more exciting on a sunny day. Or at night all lit up.

Then we followed the promenade along the lake to the area where the clock is. We consulted a map that provided zero help in our search. The free map Dad brought along was even less help. How could something so spectacular not be marked on the close-up insert of our map? I wandered off in search of a second sign that might offer some assistance when Dad announced he’d found it. Right next to us. And, honestly, pretty easy to miss. The flowers at the entrance to Disneyland is more memorable. All we could do was stand there and laugh. It was so ridiculous. Then Dad looked at a clock across the street and back at the flower clock only to realize the masterpiece doesn’t even keep the right time! It was an hour and 20 minutes off! It’s a masterpiece of marketing… tricking thousands of visitors into trudging through the rain to find it then stand there having pictures taken in front of it.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 6:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.