Lausanne!

[nibot]

Journeyed to Lausanne today by rail, with Shannon, Ken, and Abram. It's a pretty city with a cathedral on a hill and small mountains sloping down into Lake Geneva. They were preparing for some festival so there were exciting food vendors everywhere. Seemed in many ways more amusing than downtown Geneva. Took a nap on the shore at Ouchy (haha), allegedly the place where T.S.Eliot wrote The Wasteland (and Frankenstein was written not too far away — weird). The big highlight was this museum of art made by crazy people in insane asylums. On the way home I loitered in Geneva long enough to satisfy my needs for Lebanese cuisine (i.e. shawarma!) and wander around the shore. (I'd sure like to know French these days, but knowing Arabic would be pretty fine too.) We're far enough north (rather to my surprise) that the weather's good at the beach (er, "beach.") until something like ten at night. Anyway, 'twas nice. Plan for tomorrow is to play the "How many people can you pack into a Peugeot" game (let's call it the "Peugeot Partner People Packing Problem") and go off somewhere in the Jura's for a hike.

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Eliot wrote The Waste Land in many places, including the beach by Geneva, insane asylums in France, and various places in London and the surrounding area. Notably, none of the work was done in Boston, his original home city. I believe "Unreal City" is mostly based on London.

I missed a chance to go to the beach this afternoon because I had to pack, fold laundry, do bathroom clean, and wake up. Perhaps one of these years I'll finally make it to the beach in northern California. I imagine Lac Lucerne (isn't that what Lake Geneva is called in French?) is much warmer than the north Pacific, being much smaller.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

It's Lac Leman in French.. and, yeah, it's quite warm! except for when we had a week of cloudy weather, then it became extremely cold.

When I get back we can have some bonfires at Ocean beach!!