I spent Saturday morning groceries shopping, calling home and doing work, then going out to "Bains des Paquis" for some swimming in the lake and sunbathing. I should have realised by the name of the place that it wasn't going to be that nice, but I was oblivious, spoilt by the beautiful beaches we have back at home. Supposedly there is a "Geneva Beach" with real sand somewhere along the lake front, but that is not where we went. The "Bains des Paquis" is built onto of an a break water wall, jutting out into the lake. So there is a concrete walkway, and on one side there is some wooden decking, with pebbles making up the boundary between concrete and the water. On the other side of the walk way was the restrooms, the restaurant, and a diving area. I guess you have to make do with what you have, and the place was packed with people, all sunbathing on their towels in various states of disrobe. There were very few people in the cordoned off swimming area in the lake, which was a little strange, considering the entrance fee, I wouldn't pay for an area of pebble to sunbathe on, as there are much nicer places you could do that. The four of us claimed some wooden decking and joined the locals, perhaps with the difference that all of us went into the water at some stage, even swimming out to the floating platforms. Here is a photo from the bridge which you need to cross to get into the area, I didn't want to take a photo any closer to the undressed people:
I guess Australia is more conservation in this aspect than here, you wouldn't see so many females sunbathing topless with so many people around. What was also strange were there were people there who were just sitting fully clothed in the shade of the wall. There was also a women's only area, where you go if you were worried about unwanted attention, but supposedly this area is just below the restaurant and people can look down on you. Speaking of unwanted attention, when one of the people I was with and I were gingerly entering the water, slowly to get used to the temperature difference, some random guy in the water just started splashing us. Which we both thought was awfully rude. We ignored him and walked away. But then later, when we got out of the water, he went up to my friend and asked "was the water good?" to which he got an outright "no" and went away. That would not happen back at home, at least I think it wouldn't unless it was a dare or something, but he didn't have a group of friend egging him on at all. It was just him being a prat.
*sigh* I'm going to miss summer at home. My boyfriend and I have gotten into boogie boarding and have been going out whenever the weather is good when both of us are free. We were going to step it up at some stage and learn how to surf. I guess learning how to ski will have to make up for it.
Anyway, I've continued the hermit trend by staying home today and working while calling home. Which is actually fine with me as at home I would be spending my weekends with my boyfriend and now I'm just spending them on Skype with him instead. The time difference does allow me to have some time to myself however, and there are plans for a barbeque in St Genis, with the rest of the Australian students and some of the British students. But they could be overturned by the weather, which has been a little fickle, it had been gorgeous all day, but windy, then it got cloudy, then there was a thunderstorm about an hour ago and now it's sunny again. And I was told that the weather in this city was fairly constant and predictable! Maybe this is just a one off.
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