So I’m back in my tertiary home (my brother’s place in Geneva) and this time around the drama quotient has increased (courtesy the parents); they like to attend mass everyday and we dare not go late or even think of skipping church, cause we (the siblings) don’t want things to get out of hand. Almost everyday I’m on the Geneva catholique church website trying to figure out where to attend mass (messe in French) and how to get them to church (église in French) on time. It helps that the churches or chapels are cute and nestled in wild greenery, so we get to explore mother nature too… the living breathing church. We don’t seem to realise that we are part of her.
The visa process was normal enough, though it took a long time at the visa processing center (VFS in Chennai) to get things done. The last time (2017) it was rather quick, in a hour or so my number was called and they took my application and in a week’s time I received my passport with the schengen visa. This time we were stuck at the VFS for close to five hours, my dad was threatening to walk out every half hour… They were excruciatingly slow at the processing centre. Received the passports in ten days and then booked tickets to Geneva on 5th July. No one asked about vaccines and we weren’t required to undergo any tests either, so that was good. My sister would join us from the States on 8th July, that was the plan. So the entire month of June my dad was like, I’m not coming, cancel my ticket. This was his refrain from dawn to dusk.
I would go with him to the hospital and I’d tell the doctor to prescribe medicines for two months and my dad would tell the doctor, I don’t want to go but they’re dragging me to Switzerland. I don’t know who was more stunned, the doctor or me. Anyway, this was the drama till the 4th of July, with my dad hardly packing and me going crazy trying to keep things under control. The next day we reach Trivandrum and settle in for the four hour flight, which was packed. I was feeling a little nauseated, it was too cold in the flight. Couldn’t eat, just wanted to sleep. I was thinking, why all this aasai, Kavitha? So there I was silently waiting to land and get out of the intense AC atmosphere, and I’m wondering how my parents were feeling. I peep through the blanket (I was all bundled up, it was too cold for me) and they were engrossed in a movie, eating food and I’m just trying to keep my nausea under control, so didn’t eat anything. In four hours we land in Dubai, and there’s a security check again and we barely have time to go to the restroom before we board our six hour flight to Geneva.
There were empty seats on this flight, so slept well.
Woke up, ate some nice fluffy dessert, pasta salad...
There were fresh fruits...
And some soup...
Flying above the Alps...
Saw a Bhutanese movie, ‘Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom’, a beautiful movie with stunning visuals. Landed in Geneva, effortless immigration process, took the luggage, came out and guess who is standing there waiting to receive us, Nam and Jude! Yeah, Nam wanted to surprise us, she reached Geneva a few days before us and in the evening she and Jude flew to Barcelona to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. We (Vinod and I) dropped them at the airport in the evening. We then went to a Thai place to pick up dinner for mom and a Lebanese place to pick up dinner for dad and me. So that was our first day here, ate mutabal with pita bread and then just crashed for the night.
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First night in Geneva...
This was the first day and it was great to be back, will update the rest of the trip as time permits.
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