France Trip 2015: Blog Entry 10 - Lyon, France (Geneva, Switzerland); Day 6

Wake up!

I woke up so early my eyes burn a little. Not even coffee is working for me right now. I have no issues staying up until late, but somehow waking up early is not my thing. We went to Geneva and weren’t asked for our passports when passing the border, I found this a little amusing.

We got to CERN and I found this to be one of the best visits of the trip, not only I felt like they were really serious about the visit, this place was awesome. It’s one of those places where dreams meet reality and the phrase “anything is possible” is somehow true. If you can dream it you can do it, that’s what one of the guys said and seemed pretty convinced of it. They have lots of students doing projects in there and they try to barely supervise them as the students develop all sorts of skills along the way. For the first time I feel like this is a place where I could actually work and not feel like I’m working, but I’m doing what I love, I’ll try to send my resume when I get back to Dallas and just hope for the best!

There is not much to say about the United Nations but wow. Every room we entered was more beautiful than the previous one and there were people from all over the world. Our guide was really nice and explained to us the origin of every single statue and painting as well as the life of the painter or sculptor. I felt a little overwhelmed by the beauty of the building and discovered how much I enjoy this type of things. I guess museums and art gallerias will be part of my weekends from now on once we go back to Dallas.

After the UN we went to the Red Cross museum, at first I didn’t like much, but the more I walked thru it, read and heard the different testimonials I felt really moved. I remember standing in one of the rooms and dropping a couple of tears after listening to one guy from Rwanda. There were a lot of stories and these made me realize how many different people I know but how little I actually know about them, for instance, I’ve been studying with the cohorts for over a year but I feel like I know well less than a handful of people.

After the Red Cross museum we walked around the city for a while and eventually went back, the sight from the bus was really beautiful, and as we were being driven back I took a small nap. I remember I actually dreamed of a world full of smiles and without the horrors I saw in the Red Cross Museum.