Happy Birthday Misha!

I had a fun week hanging with Misha around Geneva. He stayed at a Hotel in France, so we were alternating between France and Geneva all week. We toured the city, walked around to places I hadn’t even seen yet and enjoyed fall in the city.

The last day he was here we celebrated his 21st birthday. Pretty Exciting!!! Went to a local Irish pub with friends where we all shouted out Happy Birthday at the strike of midnight. The next day we had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street. Our crazy Italian waiter got everyone eating at the restaurant to sing the happy birthday song in Italian! And I thought they don’t celebrate birthdays here like they do at Red Robin or Casa Rojas!

Let me give you more of an insight on my weekly routine

So you may ask what I've been up to lately other than traveling around and having fun with friends.... Well I have conveniently left out details about 85 percent of what a typical week in Geneva entails. As I have mentioned earlier I have been interning at the International Union Against Cancer, the largest international cancer advocacy organization in the world. What does that mean? Well good question, if I knew all the details about what departments are working on what I would tell you... but I don't.. What I can give you is a little insight on my work experience thus far. Surprisingly I have been able to make quite an impact in my department of the organization in a short time period. I am currently in the process of recreating the UICC community web page and researching new links that will make the site more useful for our members.This entails a lot of research and a lot of work posting my research on the their website. I hope to eventually get involved in some graphic design work for the web pages and possibly creating an entirely new promotion pamphlet for my department. So that's just a quick snapshot of what I've been working on and if you want to hear more let me know.

I also am currently enrolled in a public health class, that I have to say is probably the best class I've ever taken. Every week we go on site visits to different organizations around Geneva, and then after our site visits we have discussions on specific public health issues. So far we have visited UNHCR, International Aids Society, The World Health Organization, and Handicap International. It is truly unreal to be so close to some of the top NGOs in the public health field, and hear from people who have first hand experience.

The photograph I posted is the view I have on my walk to work. The UICC office is only about a ten minute walk from my apartment.

Spreading the Halloween Joy!

There is one bar in Geneva that goes all out for Halloween, so that is where most of our crew ended up. After having our own celebration back at the apartment. We danced through the ages dressed as pirates, teachers, angels, peacocks and anything else you can think of.
Here are some fun pictures from the night. The one up top is of the band that played us music through the ages. The photo on the left is me with my dear friend Diana, and the photo on the right is with our RA Phil.

CERN

Took a tour of CERN this weekend. My RA is working for CERN and was able to schedule us a tour. CERN for all those who don’t know, is the world's largest particle physics laboratory. The tour guide may have gotten the wrong impression about our group and thought we were all physics majors, so most of the information explained by the physicist went over my head, but the portions I actually understood were very fascinating. Maybe I should look into a career in physics… Also not only do we have an RA that works at CERN, the man that is painting is also a roomie of ours. He is an artist from Boston that is being commissioned to paint on one of the buildings.

First Week at WORK

For the next eight weeks I will be interning for the International Union Against Cancer. The largest International Cancer Advocacy group in the world. I am working for a new department that my supervisor created. It the UICC Community department where I will be researching and updating the website on new job links and creating a brand new public forum and all that entails. In other words, I have no idea exactly what I’m doing but I will let you know when I figure it out.

Headed to Sardinia

Took an overnight cruise from Barcelona to Sardinia. The sea was so rough that it felt like a 14-hour rollercoaster ride. So 16 Dramamine pills later… between the three of us … we made it through the night without getting sick. Craziness I tell you!

Made it to Sardinia alive!! Success. Maybe. Never been so cold in my entire life! Had to spoon the entire night for body heat to stay alive…

After 72 hours of being sea sick and frozen, we packed our stuff and backpacked across Sardinia to Olbia the land of airports that would take us away from this desolate island. Or so we thought…

We arrived in Olbia after a long bus ride, took another bus to an airport where we found out that there was absolutely no flights to Geneva until two days later. And every other flight to anywhere else was 300+ Euros. All three of us never felt so defeated in our lives.

Hopelessly we headed to the center of Olbia to find some place to stay. When we arrived at the center we found a city with a little more action than we had thought. Went and tried to bargain our way through six hotels until we arrived at a 5 star hotel in the center of the city with a roof top terrace, sauna, hot tub, Turkish bath, and flat screen TV. Since literally there was no one staying at that hotel we got the deal of a lifetime. Hands down best money I have ever spent!

We spent the next two nights lounging around, going in and out of the spa, watching RTL and eating incredible Italian pizza. A perfect ending to a great 10 days!