Hiking, hang gliders, and hope for the world

"Give humanity a chance, give the earth a future" are the words written all over the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, and are now happily ingrained in my brain. Over the past few days our group has taken in lectures about the different branches and programs at the UN. My favorite has been OCHA (office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs). It's mission is to organize people in order to efficiently respond to any type of emergency. For example, when a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti occurs, OCHA is the first to organize and send international help to the country, through trained emergency response people and supplies. Of course, the other lectures--women's rights, World Health Organization, Development-- were amazing as well. In general I was incredibly impressed by the UN and the work it does for humanity. It gives me so much hope for the future to know that such a powerful organization dedicated to human rights exists! While we were there we got to meet some of the interns at the UN, college graduates from around the world who are working towards careers in international affairs. Talking with them (as well as learning about the UN) made me interested in working at the United Nations. Overall, the word I would use to sum up my experience at the UN is inspiring.

I know this is turning into a lengthy blog post, but so many important things have happened in the past 3 days that it's just going to take me a long time to write it all! Feel free to skip to the pictures if you're pressed for time.

Moving on- another highlight of our stay in Geneva was the hiking. The Swiss Alps are gorgeous (Christoph and I like to quote a video we watched in high school German class that says, "God wasn't kidding when he made the Alps!"). On Sunday my family and the college students all went on a steep and strenuous hike that seemed to go on forever. When we reached the peak we all agreed it had been more than worth it- the view was exquisite. As we sat on the grass admiring Geneva from above, a man with a huge backpack marched out in front of us and started laying out what looked like a giant tarp. At first I thought he was setting up a tent but it turned out to be the top part of a hang glider! We all watched in awe as he set up the hang glider, clipped himself in, and took off running down the field until the wind caught him and carried him up into the sky. It must have been a perfect day for hang gliding because about 5 other people followed him up. They were all colorful, so the hang gliders looked pretty cool flying together against the blue sky.
On an unrelated note- I've tried some very interesting food here. Last night I tried "chilled avocado soup" which I unfortunately decided I do not like. However, the Swiss make darn good butter. It's the creamiest I've ever tasted.

Being in the global group and being a tourist here in Switzerland has made me think more about tourism and what tourists hope to accomplish. Here is something I've been reflecting about during our stay-- while we were on the mountain and taking photos of the amazing view, we all lined up for a group picture. As we were taking the shot, someone said, “cover photo!” and we all laughed. It was funny because we all knew that later we would upload the picture of us hiking to our facebook pages, with a caption describing how amazing our day had been. The day had been amazing, but it suddenly struck me as strange how obsessed we all were with making sure the picture got on facebook. It seemed important to everyone- myself included- that other people see the picture of us.  Maybe it was only because we wanted our friends and family to see what’s going on in our lives, but I think part of it is also to show everyone who views our statuses that we are having a great time and that our lives are awesome. People usually post the fun, exciting things they do on facebook so that their friends can see how much fun they're having. I’m completely guilty of this too- I often find myself thinking, “oh, I need to put a picture of this cool thing I’m doing on facebook". I wish I could just say to myself, “wow self, what I’m doing today is really fun”, without wanting to show my friends how much fun I’m having. I love being able to take pictures so that I can remember what things were like, but sometimes it gets to the point where constant photography is actually taking away from the activity that I'm doing. Don't think I'm trying to critisize people who post pictures of fun things they do on facebook- this blog itself is mostly for describing the the fun things I do on my journey abroad :) At the bottom of this post you can find my pictures. 

Ok, that's enough for now. If you stuck with me through this whole thing, thank you! Right now I am sitting in the John Nox center where we've been staying. This morning I said goodbye to my family and the rest of the global group at the airport. They're moving on to Athens, Greece, while I'm staying here in Geneva for tonight. Early tomorrow morning I'll take a train to Vicenza, Italy. I can't wait to meet my host family!
 

                                                  view from the hike in the Alps

                                       Gabriel, Christoph and I on our way up the mountain

                                                     Julia and I, finally at the top!

                                             Hanging out downtown, next to Lake Geneva

                                                       In front of the UN in Geneva

  This is a crazy type of tree we named the pinecone tree because the leaves are all like               pinecones! I'm holding a branch in my hand- they're all spiny!

                                Julia and I exploring the sculpture garden outside the UN