He must have hit town on a Sunday when everything except the cathedral is closed tight and all you can do is window shop. Many restaurants are closed too but the one at the Bourg-du-Four isn't. (Great fondue, coffee and steaks too.) Guess he didn't like the atmosphere of Calvinism leashed. Unleashed, as in the days of the Escalade, or any other day, it can be colourful.
Obviously he wasn't there in early December, at the time of the Escalade, when kids go around shouting the first three verses of the Genevese National Anthem in 17th century Genevese, all about beating the pants off the Savoyards who tried to invade but were beaten off by getting sloshed by cauldrons of hot soup over the battlements. I love the Escalade, when people smash huge cauldrons of chocolate with marzipan veggies inside and shout, "So perish the enemies of the Republic."
Bill couldn't have been there for the Fetes de Geneve fireworks either with all kinds of food from all over the world along the quais.
He says everyone walked hunched, not looking anybody in the eye. There he's right. I soon learned not to look anybody in the eye in downtown Geneva because if you do they know you've seen them and expect you to get out of their way. And so I soon perfected a half-focused gaze, enough to see where I was going. That way I melted through the unseeing crowds like butter, because they could see me not seeing them. This peculiar gaze allowed me to recognize people I knew, and there were quite a few of those, or to make contact with anyone I didn't know if I wanted to. And sometimes I did, as when listening to buskers or interviewing them.
Bill goes on to say money is everything in Switzerland. He confuses Geneva, which is not Switzerland, with Switzerland as a whole. Geneva happens to be a republic within the Helvetic Confederation, as well as a City, a State and a Canton and contains many ethnic communities including English, American, Portuguese, Spanish and Scottish, and is the Canton least inclined to vote against being nice to foreigners. If he could understand French, the official language there, the odd time you hear it spoken, he would hear lots of talk about money, and be proven right.
As for the squeaky cleanliness of the sidewalks, I don't recognize the place from his description. People keep lots of dogs in all those apartments, but do not scoop ...
He probably never had to visit a doctor's office, where he would have been greeted with a polite Bonjour on entering from everybody in the waiting room, whether you know them or not.
Then he speaks of declining the advance of "Geneva's only prostitute". Rosemary is a very nice woman, who used to keep an eye on the little shop of an unworldly Indian lady I knew. ("She's not there today, and last time she forgot to lock her door" ...) I know Rosemary's not the only one, because in broad daylight I heard this dialogue in French shouted across a street over my head between a woman in an elegant pink suit and two colleagues on the other side: "Hey, you don't look like a whore! All dressed up like a lady," and her cheeky reply with a proud toss of her head, "No, I don't, but I am one." I couldn't help chuckling, and I could see they were trying to shock prim-looking me. We shared a hearty laugh as I passed by. To me Geneva rhymes with the unexpected.
Hey, Bill, learn at least one other language, and see how the world opens up in technicolour.
And try for some less tasteless humour while you're at it. OK, sometimes you surprise me into laughing, but I find you too cynical for comfort.
Still, since Ken and Phil speak highly of your walk in the woods, I look forward to its return from its wanderings back to our local library, where my name is down for it.
It didn't last long in my hands. Bill's and my woods bear no resemblance to each other.
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