Wandered down to the breakfast room to begin my day in Geneva. There must be some kind of convention going on. After all this is Geneva. The breakfast room is full and busy for 0700 on a Monday. Sitting and consuming my croissant allowed me to observe…
My observations:
My observations:
My Observations:The black african nations (not sure if that is an ideologically sound description) are the best dressed by far. The men wearing their beautiful suits and the women in more traditional dress. They look exquisite as they glide across the floor to their food of choice.
There are a couple of older executive men also in perfect suits with ties just so. I wish I could tie a tie like that. The women are dressed perfectly also, chic, perfect travelling outfits.
Then I noticed that they are all travelling outfits. When anyone passes closer their clothes have that, just out of a suitcase, slightly crushed look. Even the executive men have visible crush marks on their shirts, when they actually unbutton their suit coats.
Then I pay attention to the tourists, me included. Tee shirts, jeans, most of us quite sloppy in this dining room for conventions. And overweight. Yes, the tourists look considerably more girthsome than the conventioneers.
Language is fascinating. My high school french is holding up enough to be polite slightly before I look stupid - I think. These people, not the tourists who are mostly like me, the conventioneers - their language is amazing. In a pair they relax into their language of choice, I know I could hear french, german and spanish. The african table spoke little and were too far away for my aged ears. I also heard languages I guessed as Russian, Scandanavian of sorts and others, many others.
Then a funny thing happens, some of these people must have met before, at other conventions I guess. They greet each other welcomingly and warmly and seamlessly slip into English. Some less comfortable than others, but by and large the language of broad conversation is english. Now I feel totally undereducated. They all use English as point of contact, I use it, well, because it is all I have.
One last thing to note. Typical of me I guess to notice their phones. Everyone had a phone lying on the table, near them across breakfast. They looked to them often and many of them rang lots. Most were set to vibrate only, the one I kept hearing however was one with that typical Nokia ring tone of 10 years ago. The tourists almost all had iPhones 5s. Many of the executives had iPhones also. The Russian sounding women near me had android phones, not clearly recognisable because of the outlandish cases on them. And truly, the African breakfasters had flip phones pocketed in their immaculate suits.
There are a couple of older executive men also in perfect suits with ties just so. I wish I could tie a tie like that. The women are dressed perfectly also, chic, perfect travelling outfits.
Then I noticed that they are all travelling outfits. When anyone passes closer their clothes have that, just out of a suitcase, slightly crushed look. Even the executive men have visible crush marks on their shirts, when they actually unbutton their suit coats.
Then I pay attention to the tourists, me included. Tee shirts, jeans, most of us quite sloppy in this dining room for conventions. And overweight. Yes, the tourists look considerably more girthsome than the conventioneers.
Language is fascinating. My high school french is holding up enough to be polite slightly before I look stupid - I think. These people, not the tourists who are mostly like me, the conventioneers - their language is amazing. In a pair they relax into their language of choice, I know I could hear french, german and spanish. The african table spoke little and were too far away for my aged ears. I also heard languages I guessed as Russian, Scandanavian of sorts and others, many others.
Then a funny thing happens, some of these people must have met before, at other conventions I guess. They greet each other welcomingly and warmly and seamlessly slip into English. Some less comfortable than others, but by and large the language of broad conversation is english. Now I feel totally undereducated. They all use English as point of contact, I use it, well, because it is all I have.
One last thing to note. Typical of me I guess to notice their phones. Everyone had a phone lying on the table, near them across breakfast. They looked to them often and many of them rang lots. Most were set to vibrate only, the one I kept hearing however was one with that typical Nokia ring tone of 10 years ago. The tourists almost all had iPhones 5s. Many of the executives had iPhones also. The Russian sounding women near me had android phones, not clearly recognisable because of the outlandish cases on them. And truly, the African breakfasters had flip phones pocketed in their immaculate suits.
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