Geneva, Naples, and One More Sleepless Night

   
   I arrived in Geneva completely exhausted; I stumbled around in the train station for about half an hour until I finally found George and Aashika. We walked to George's apartment; he lived in the center of Geneva, and it was quite nice to be able to see the city.  Tired to the point of almost drunkenness, I took a thousand pictures of very ordinary streets, thinking that somehow these poor-quality pictures would represent the very heart of Swiss living. Unfortunately, my pictures ended up more like this, with un-glamorous trucks and electrical wires in the background:

 
    We found our way to the grocery store after deciding to pick up picnic ingredients; Aashika's nostalgia came back with a vengeance as she passed shops and streets that she recognized. (Aashika studied abroad in Lausanne, a city near Geneva.)  We bought the ingredients for a perfect Swiss picnic--bread, wine, cheese, chocolate, and fruit--and made our way to the famous fountain, narrowly avoiding the crazy bikers that seem to populate every European country.  These people hurtle down pedestrian paths, arrayed in speed-racer getout. Their warning system, generally a set of pitiful bells, doesn't give off a loud enough sound to make up for their speed.  If you are perfectly silent, you can hear a slight tinkling sound reminiscent of some fairy godmother.  But this fairy godmother is merely a distraction for the evil demon to follow: some Swiss biker, intent on an accidental manslaughter charge.

 Posing with George in front of the fountain; rejoicing with the fountain.

   After finding the fountain, we found a park and ate our delicious meal by the lake. A few swans graced the waterfront, floating around like they jumped straight out of The Ugly Duckling.  At first, I was entranced by the graceful beasts.  Then they turned into cruel, vicious birds of prey, intent on stealing our food or pestering us until we agreed to a "donation." In order to avoid being strong-armed into giving up our precious food (the first meal I had in two days), we periodically moved around the rocks, hoping the swans wouldn't notice. Unfortunately, they did.

Enjoying our lakeside picnic

   

                        My lovely friends :-)

   After eating the majority of our food, we found a park that no self-respecting American would ever visit.  It was a rubber-tire park, with rubber strips tied to trees and dangling down in cool towers and climbable monkey-ropes.  There were ten thousand ways for children to die, with zero safety nets or really any consideration for children's vulnerable spines at all. I could practically hear the lawyers slavering.  In spite (or because?) of the danger, we had a very lovely time. We climbed all the towers and swung around like monkeys, all while drinking our bottle of wine and talking about everything from life to growing up and moving abroad. We probably disappointed the few children who came by and found their playground overrun with adults pretending to be young, but we didn't care. It was a lovely evening.

Swinging on the tire towers!

An uncountable number of potential hazards await the Swiss children. 

This is, by far, my favorite image from the whole trip.

This would have been my favorite place as a child!

After our lovely time playing Tarzan on the beach, we made our way to the historic center of Geneva.  We climbed the stairs up to a church, and on impulse I found myself humming Loch Lomond (a famous Glee Club song) with George. Nobody was around, so we sang from the balcony of the church to the city below.  I love spending time with fellow singers!

This magical experience was destined to come to a close, however; Aashika and I bid goodbye to our wonderful host and headed to the Geneva airport for my second night sans a bed.  We explored the entire airport looking for some kind of couch, but the Geneva airport is specifically designed to discourage overnight guests; there was only one tiny area with couches, and it was almost filled with other people trying to save some money on hotels. We finally settled in between two men who snored like......like.....I can't even find the words. It was dreadful, but more bearable than sleeping on the floor (or so we thought).

Our oh-so-glamorous accomodations

   We woke up the next morning sore and tired, and had to fight through crowds of people to even brush our teeth. I don't really remember the flight itself--I passed out as soon as I sat in the seat.  Our arrival in Naples, however, remains quite vivid in my memory; we were terribly, terribly lost for a good amount of time. Each new person we talked to gave us new directions, as far as we could decipher--not many people spoke English, so we mostly attempted to follow the direction of the infamous Italian hand gestures.  We also discovered several important facts about Italian driving: it's very aggressive, Vespas are above the law, and the aforementioned Italian hand-waving became even more violent in a vehicular context.

   My job had been to vaguely plan our time in Naples. Unfortunately, my sense of decency had been massively eroded from the two airport overnights, and I decided that our first day there would be the most morbid. We would visit the catacombs, and then the cemetery.

    Still deliriously tired, it took us well over an hour to find the catacombs. Once at the office, we had to wait thirty minutes for the next tour. We plopped ourselves down on the couch and fell fast asleep during the wait, scandalizing the man at the ticket counter.  I'm sure our behavior will be enough to earn Americans his censure for decades to come, but I was far too tired to care.  When the time came for our tour, we realized that we had accidentally picked the tourist destination for middle-aged couples with a morbid sense of fun.  This theme (of middle-aged couples) was to be a recurring one throughout my trip.  Our catacomb guide's English ability consisted of a completely memorized tour; any questions were met with a blank, resentful stare and a halfhearted attempt to answer the question she didn't understand in the first place.  In spite of this unforeseen difficulty, the catacombs were very intriguing.  There were several levels, and rectangular niches covered the walls. We were lost as to their purpose until our guide explained that they were, in fact, holes for bodies.  I think my favorite and most gruesome fact was that infant baptisms were regularly performed in a room surrounded by infant graves.

Part of the catacombs. Eerie, yet awesome.

     Our walk to the next tourist destination cemented my reputation as the girl with no street smarts.  We were walking in a rather sketchy neighborhood, and all of the sudden I was inspired--hadn't I heard that Napoli was the center of the Mafia? Well, where were these supposed villains? Did they live around here? I practically shouted these questions to Aashika, who looked at me like I was an escaped asylum patient and tried to lose me around the next corner. But I was a sneaky bugger, and she couldn't shake me.  We definitely got more than a few narrowed looks, but escaped the area unharmed.  After we slowed down and I got a well-deserved tongue-lashing from Aashika, we started to notice the area around us and we wondered what, exactly, these people did with all their time. From all appearances, it would seem that the primary occupation of most people consisted of sitting on their porches and occasionally hanging laundry.  I think I'm starting to understand the financial crisis in Italy....

     We finally arrived at our next destination, and it was even cheerier--the cemetery!  Most cemeteries are rather boring things, with the bodies all buried and only slabs of stone to mark their resting place. The Cimitero delle Fontanelle, however, was an experience all its own. This was a chapel filled with bones. Literally. The walls and floor were covered with skulls, femurs, vertebrae--there was even furniture made out of it.

 L-R: The Day of the Dead. Conjoined twins rest in peace.

 L-R: The creepiest headless angel statue I've ever seen. The crucifix is supported by a pile of bones.

I'm not sure why I was so determined to visit this place, but afterwards, I was really glad I did, and not just for the creep factor. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it reminded me of my own mortality and insignificance.  There were thousands of bones all around me.  I'm sure some of these people were also young and thought their youth was eternal.  Each skeleton once housed a soul; who was I to come in and gawk at what I will so soon become?  My future accomplishments, however worthy, will doubtless lead to the same oblivion in death. Am I really so different, so noteworthy?  What will I do that makes my life worthy?

   These questions are a bit out of place for a blog that usually attempts at jest, and I apologize. I couldn't in good conscience post gruesome pictures of bones to make fun of them; I had to say what I thought. However, if this is distressing to you, I suggest you do what I do when I don't like what I read: I purposely forget it!

    The rest of the day was rather uneventful. A pizzeria generously supplied dinner, and we met a Belgian guy who just so happened to stay in the same hostel room as us. In an attempt to make some friends, we sat ourselves on the grass with people-sized spaces conspicuously between us.  When no one joined us, we just talked in the cool night air for over an hour and then went upstairs to get ready for bed.  At first, I didn't realize that there were separate men's and women's restrooms (give me a break, this was 50+ hours without any proper sleep), so I staggered into the nearest bathroom and brushed my teeth next to a very hot, very shirtless guy.  He didn't say anything, just looked at me. The next morning I realized my mistake and was completely mortified; when the shirtless guy from the night before passed, I didn't even raise my eyes. It was humiliating. Incidentally, I also figured out that while the men's showers were quite normal, the women's shower curtains were completely transparent. Oh, Italy.