Thursday

This morning I made it to the pool for a pre-work swim.  It was great to be back in the water!  The Varembé pool is incredibly clean and was nice and cool (unlike our soupy Davidson Centre Pool).  This Swiss are so orderly, even in the pool, so I had no lane swim rage at all.  I was able to get 50 minutes of swimming in and still make it to work for 9:00.

I joined the interns association for a tour of the UN buildings in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to go on the official tour, but we were able to wander around the buildings on our own.   I felt a bit like we weren't supposed to be there, but it was pretty cool to see the inside of the building.  I'm going to go back another day for the official tour.

Me in the assemblée generale.

The Geneva II talks between the Syrian government and the opposition groups are taking place this week, so there are lots of news agencies stationed outside the UN building.  Ironically, I have been quite out of the loop regarding any news, without my daily couple of hours of CBC radio.  I'm going to have to read up on the details.

Tons of news agencies reporting on the Geneva II talks outside the UN (even though the talks are in Montreux).

One thing I am really liking about interning here is all the interesting people I'm meeting.  The intern population seems to be  in excess of ambitious, over-achieving, idealistic young people, all with different backgrounds and perspectives on the world.  I'm looking forward to moving beyond the "Where are you from? What department are you working in?  How do you like Geneva?" small talk to really getting to know  some of my fellow interns.