Notre Dame, Paris
The Louvre
In a park just past the Louvre
You know this one!
Probably my favorite part of the Paris trip-- drawing the Nike of Samothrace!
So gorgeous.
The Palace of Versailles...
Eiffel Tower Round 2
A night in with yummy French pastry desserts
Back in Geneva-- with the Jet d'Eau
You can see the Jet d'Eau in the back if you look closely
Biking around Lake Geneve
LDS Temple in Bern-- we just went yesterday!
Well, those are some of the highlights so far. This week there is a national holiday on Thursday, so I'm taking Friday off as well and we're going with a bunch of other intern friends to Cinque Terre, Pisa, and Florence. It will be a whirlwind, but it should be fun! Here's a pic of us with Davina and Pascal, some of the friends we'll be driving with. We had them over for dinner to plan the trip!
As for Public Health related stuff.... well, the WHO has lived up to its reputation. It's a bureaucracy. Though a well-intentioned one, which is definitely a good thing. I really like Director General Margaret Chan, who seems to really be focused on impacting individual lives, and trying to facilitate a working relationship between top-down/bottom-up approaches. Probably my favorite part of the World Health Assembly was when, in a Q&A at a technical meeting, one of the delegates accidentally addressed her as "Director General Margaret Thatcher." Boy, was that a choice moment! Everyone was in tears. :)
Here's one of me with some fellow interns at the World Health Assembly, in the Assembly Hall of the UN:
As for Jordan, he has been very busy keeping our flat in order, studying for the GRE, and training for his upcoming marathons. He signed up for a marathon that runs up the base of the Matterhorn, at Zermatt.
No, I'm not talking about Disney's Matterhorn:
That's in sunny California.
I'm talking about this Matterhorn:
Where hopefully he won't run into one of these:
We'll just hope Disney didn't get it right, huh? Anyway, Jordan is awesome and training all over the place, and regularly runs up the Saleve, a mountain range that sits right behind us in France.
Here you can see it behind the Jet d'Eau
And just last week the owner of the house we're living in asked Jordan if he wanted to come up for the afternoon to their Chalet just outside Chamonix, a town at the base of Mont Blanc. Of course he accepted, and said that running up there (he went for about 3 hours) was completely breathtaking. Here are a few pictures he was able to snap while up there:
As a result of all this running around and hiking, his feet have been permanently chaco-fied:
He has also been busy climbing in the bouldering gym in the house :)
And last but certainly not least, we were able to join our LDS English Ward (church group) on a trip the the LDS Temple in Bern, Switzerland yesterday. It was, per usual, beautiful! The session was done in Italian, so I left off my translator headphones and did the whole thing in Italian! It was wonderful. I love that language! :)
On the bus to Bern
In front of the Bern Temple!
5 comments:
la la la :) super beautiful place. super great people. :D
Beautiful pictures! WOW! It must be so incredible!
I can't wait to hear about Italy!
xoxo,
Em
The real Matterhorn is breathtaking and thinking about walking (let alone running) up it gives me the heebie jeebies and makes me want to throw up a little. Good luck, Jordan. I have every confidence that you will do just fine. :)
The chaco-fied feet picture was hilarious. Way to go Jordan to do that Marathon. Pretty crazy. And all the trips you guys are going on look so fun. Even though you're pinching your pennies now, you'll never regret it. Miss you!
Are we really supposed to believe that you are "working" over there?? Even the internship looks like fun! Enjoy!
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