Happy accidents

I don't know that anyone says to themselves "I think I will go to Geneva for vacation this year." In fact, the Rick Steves Switzerland book does not even have information about the city of Geneva. Which is really unfortunate because Geneva is a great very livable city. The transit system is pretty much perfect, it has a touch of the medieval and a touch of the modern, and there are tons of beautiful parks.

We ended up accidentally bumbling into a bunch of interesting things today. First, and very much on purpose, we decided to tour the United Nations. 

We followed it up with some Maltesers.

We then ran into a solar car rally. They have been traveling for a while with a collection of postcards from youth around the world about their individual commitments to ending climate change. The rally was delivering the cards to the United Nations as was explained to us enthusiastically by a woman from Austria. There were cars from all over the world.

They were working on getting into formations for a picture from a skyscraper. I don't quite know what they were trying to spell out but it was proving difficult.

Next we went to the museum of the international Red Cross and Red Cresscent. It was a very interactive museum explains both the past and the present work of the Red Cross. Each part of the museum was designed by a different person with a different cultural background so there was a lot of variety. It was also a good combination of the factual and the abstract. I think Ellie's favorite part was the game of hurricane where you need to prepare an island for an impending disaster by building shelters, doing drills, and stockpiling food deploying people with the correct skills to do the work. We played it about five times. 

If you ever happen to be in Geneva check it out.

After a quick bite sitting on the steps in a public square watching people try to avoid a fairly untalented street performer, we decided to check out the music festival. When I saw the rehersal yesterday, I was thinking way too small. Here is the schedule for just today.

We hopped from venue to venue for a while. It seemed like every person in Geneva was out tonight. They will still be going well past midnight. We started with hip hop and rock (and crepes), then migrated to classical. We did not stay any place very long because variety is fun and it was getting late.

So there you have it. Some days you accidentally end up at a giant citywide music festival and a solar car rally. 

Tomorrow we pack it all up and head on home.