Bank holidays, parks and lots of reading.

Well the first week of work is done and was extra short thanks to a Genevan bank holiday (I really think banking holidays need to be added to the US's calendar). Work was awesome, I knew I would get some hands on experience but didn't expect to get thrown into NGO working groups so quickly. I have already learned so much about how the UN and NGOs interact and what a balancing act everything is. It is so complicated and takes SO long for these NGOs to get the UN's attention on important issues and then it takes even longer for the UN to act (if they ever do). No wonder people think the UN doesn't do anything. It's amazing to me how all of these NGOs stay motivated when most of the people in the working groups we attended had been working for NGOs for their whole lives, one woman was even retired (after 44 years at the red cross) but came back to work for a different organization. It seems that these people have an endless amount of passion and it is really inspiring.

At work this week we learned that not only will we be attending multiple sessions of the UNHRC meetings for the next three weeks, but we will also be going to the UNECE meeting at the end of October and will have a very active role in that conference (I can't give away details as of yet). There is also a lecture series that the UN supports that our boss is trying to get us passes to go to and at this particular lecture Gorvachev will be discussing nuclear armament, needless to say I'm crossing my fingers that we'll be able to attend the lecture. Our boss is the perfect intern boss, she lets us be hands on but also wants us so badly to learn about the UN and various processes people go through to pass declarations, conventions and such. I really couldn't ask for more out of this internship.

As for Geneva, it's honestly getting better every day (I don't know how that's possible). Now that I know how to get around and can just enjoy the sights instead of being worried about finding my way home, it has made things much more enjoyable. Today I went for a run and ended up lake side watching dozens of sailboats floating by and people swimming, in the background of all of this were mountains and villas all along the hillside. I also went venturing through a park that used to be a huge estate that was given to the city after the owner passed away, it overlooks all of the lake and dozens more people were laying the grass, playing soccer and reading. I honestly think I may have found a city I like more than Portland, and I didn't think that was possible.

French is still a struggle, I'm definitely picking up a lot and starting to understand more but at times I can feel really over my head, luckily I have my handy french-english dictionary on me at all times and just try to push through it. I've taken some advice from David Sedaris and decided to just say yes to anything that I didn't understand, so far it's gotten me some weird looks, but everything has worked out.