yesterday i ran by all 23 human chromosomes
Posted by torytolles | Filed under Switzerland
Le Jardin Botanique is my favorite place in Geneva and they just opened an exhibit on the human genome, complete with 20 ft inflatable chromosomes. Amazing. Le Jardin is the same place where Chris and I recently invented a yet-untitled version of tag: (Chris+bike) x (Tory+running shoes) / (gravel paths+winding brooks+innocent bystanders) = |hilarity|.
And now for the rest of the comprehensive update.
My dear friend, Paula, procured an invitation from a UN official so that I might join her for a luncheon feast at the United Nations. To enter the United Nations domain, one needs an official invitation, and the ever-so-flattering staff(?!) badge pictured above. Following the feast, Paula escorted me on a private tour of the building and grounds. Standing in the Assembly Hall (the room televised during important negotiations and announcements), I felt the reverence usually reserved for grand cathedrals; the walls emit a portion of the grandeur absorbed during high profile negotiations.
Two weekends ago, Heather and Lois, other friends from Crossroads Church, invited me to join them in un natation (a formal swim) in Lake Geneva. For fifteen francs, I was given a swim cap, UNICEF baseball cap, t-shirt, the pleasure of swimming 1km in sixty degree (fahrenheit) water, and a parasite infestation. About twenty hours post-swim, I started to itch. I woke Chris. ”I think I got duck lice.” ”Yuck! Are they crawling around our bed?” That was not the reassuring response I had hoped for. Instead, WebMD explained that the mosquito-bite-esque red bumps then covering my body result from tiny worms burrowing into my skin and dying there because they cannot survive with humans for hosts. Thank goodness I am not a duck. On the whole, the experience was totally worth it - and might be repeated (minus the parasite) next weekend in a sprint triathlon.
While training for the aforementioned natation, I got an internship! One night Chris played ultimate frisbee with some other interns by the lake - and I met Johanna. She is an environmental policy lawyer who swims 1k each day with her two golden retrievers. I’ve ben swimming and working with her for two weeks now. I’ve been editing papers of her for the Earth Charter Initiative. It has been super fun and super interesting and I really enjoy feeling like a productive member of society once more, even if it means I’ve slacked on keeping you all updated.
watson home-making part 02: (finally!) geneva, switzerland
Posted by christolles | Filed under Home-Making, Switzerland
Bienvenue chez Chris et Tory!
watson booze cruise part 02: panach’ (switzerland [france])
Posted by christolles | Filed under Booze Cruise, Switzerland
Today I had the pleasure of sampling the finest of historical, revered, storied French beverages: Panach’! What is that apostrophe doing there, you might ask… no clue. If you roll francophone, please check out their homepage and fill us all in, because it certainly is ugly to have two punctuation marks in a row. That’s right up there with using periods in an acronym at the end of a sentence: U.S.A.. Ugh! What do I do with that second period?! Which reminds me of another despised punctuation faux pas: attempting a “smiley” emoticon within a parenthetical: (of which I use many :)). Leaves a terrible taste in my mouth.
But we’ve come full circle, because so does Panach (no apostrophe from now on). First of all, what is Europe thinking with these ridiculous 250 ml bottles? 8.454 fluid ounces for the imperially-inclined among us, it’s like serving beer in a glass juice box - a little silly, although perhaps it’s proportional to their stomach sizes, because Tory and I have noticed many things sold in surprisingly tiny portions, from yogurt to pasta (more on that in a later post). I would describe Panach as weak lemonade that was accidentally mixed with a small amount of water-flavored light beer. Not inspiring. But at 1.8% ABV, you needn’t worry about it getting you in trouble, either. Even Tory didn’t feel anything!
Enjoyed at a church BBQ afternoon in France, one thing I’m pleased with is that it was free. Panache is like a wimpy Euro version of Mike’s Hard Lemonade: a lot softer, and made by a smarmy mustachio’d guy named Michel (pronounced Michelle). Overall taste grade: B-, but only because it is also as inoffensive as it is uninspiring…
Design-wise, the same. Gradients, swooshes, annoying Flash website, blah blah blah: C+.
What’s this?! Classic scripts? Foil? Embossing?! Also discovered at the BBQ was a package of Lindt’s 99% pure Cacoa chocolate, if you can even call it that. From the brilliant perforated pull-strip to the restrained typography, you can tell that this is a product of distinction. As I raised a bite-size bit of the nearly black bar to my lips, I was glad to get the Panach aftertaste out of my mouth… NOT. This stuff is gross.
With the consistency and flavor nuances of black chalk, 99% Cacao would be Excellent as fertilizer. Would your car run on 99% crude, even if it did cost $23/gallon? Taste: F. Design: A.
NB: The Google can also do other neat calculations.
