Geneva made it into our itinerary because one of my closest friends lives there and another great friend was also based in Geneva at the point. These are my ride-or-die friends who always come visit whenever i'm in the continent - mostly Germany. They had actually joined for part of Oktoberfest too this time. My main friend in Geneva actually came to surprise me for my 30th birthday - all the way in Nairobi. Imagine that - going to open the gate and finding Pattiko there - all the way from Geneva to visit for my 30th. I love you Patti and Constantinos!

We left Venice in the afternoon and got to Geneva in the evening. We were instantly picked up by our friends, they took us to drop our bags and off we went clubbing. It was a fun Friday. Despite our exhaustion and sleepiness we had a blast - two of those in our group - The Reluctant and The BARacuda even danced on stage. Geneva was expensive. I remember each drink was around 25 Swiss Francs/USD.

Saturday morning we woke up a bit more refreshed. My other friend - Constantinos - also a friend from my university days in Boston - is a nuclear physicist......Yes, you heard right. Nuclear physicist [name dropping alert]. He took us to his workplace - The European Organization for Nuclear Research - CERN. This was a few months after the Higgs Boson particle had been discovered by CERN scientists. Constantinos told us the coolest stories about how lectures had been given at CERN shortly after the discovery and the lines to get in were even longer than lines at famous rock concerts. CERN houses the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world! Yes, we were nerding out at CERN and it was lovely - especially when you are being given an insider tour.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Geneva then had dinner at an Italian place called Luigi's. Later on we went clubbing with our friends and their friends.

This was our Geneva experience - great friends, great memories.