What's there in Geneva to See?

Thanks to the national Swiss holiday of Pentecost we all had a day off of work today, a couple of us decided to use the opportunity to do some long over due sightseeing.

Melissa, Grace, Olga, an unusually pleasant Parker and I started by taking a ride up the FUNicular to the top of the mountain that I can see out my window, it was so exciting to actually be on top of the mountain I see every day.  From the top of the funicular we hiked up a little further and sat and had a picnic lunch.  We all packed separate lunches and listened to music and had a little beer at the top of the mountain with a view of Geneva and Lac Leman on one side and the French alps on the other.  We then hiked back down to the funicular and made our way back to ground level.

We then took the bus downtown, dropping off Olga on the way and, due to my insistence on accomplishing all things touristy today, we stopped by to see the flower clock, unfortunately it was being reseeded and was thus even lamer than ever due to it really being more of a weed clock today.  We met up with Katie and Zunaira near the Jet d'Eau and went back to get some of the best ice cream in the world and walked toward the jet with our ice cream.  When we pointed out the pedal boats we had rented Parker decided they were not up to his boating standards and decided to head back to the cite with Zu and Katie.  Melissa, Grace and I proceeded to our 4 person pedal boat complete with Toboggan (aka SLIDE!) and pedaled our way out into the middle of Lake Leman where we sat back, relaxed in the sun, and enjoyed some beer while listening to some music.  Eventually my need to pee overcame my fear of the cold water and I jumped into the Lake, the initial shock was such that I couldn't really speak and the need to urinate was momentarily suspended and my graceful climbing onto the boat had never been better.  But Grace and Melissa soon followed suit jumping into the Lake, the water was clean and felt very different from normal water-so refreshing.  We obviously used our slide and did the standard jumping into the water pictures and were disappointed when our hour and a half rental was over far too soon and we pedaled back to shore.

Our dip inspired another trip to the best ice cream in the world and we were able to exercise enough self restraint to only purchase one boule (scoop) each.  Then we caught the bus over to the Parc de Bastion where the giant chess boards are located, the tourist attraction we had been eager to visit since we first passed it and took a couple pictures followed by a game of very poor strategy between me and Grace (I blame the heat for impacting my logical decisions) and then we caught the bus three and headed back to the cite where we showered and fixed dinner and ate outside on our exclusive roof.  After dinner we made coffee in order to force ourselves to work.  I was more productive this evening then I had been all day yesterday when I cooped myself up inside to do work so I could have this wonderful day of enjoyment-and while the work yesterday was minimal this was easily the best day we've had in Geneva.

Biggest Mystery: Despite a plethora of emails few GSG members were lured to our day of fun and excitement

Finally: We played chess in the chess park!

So Close: to being DONE with finals!!!!