NorthDownMuse

My fellow students

Are a pretty interesting bunch. One Swiss student spent a year working for an NGO in Lebanon. She met and married a Syrian, who is in Lebanon awaiting a visa to come here. She flies to Lebanon every other month to see him. Another student, a Dane, spent four months

And she caves.

Yesterday was the hottest I've been. I wore a shirt that was constricting and a bit heavy. And a black skirt made of a synthetic fabric that didn't breathe at all. Most of the day we were not in AC (contrary to what we were told)

We came, we saw, we sweated.

Today was our big day in Geneva. The moot court went very well. A member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights--whose proceedings we were mimicking--said it was the best moot court he had ever seen and he wished his colleagues were there to see it. I

Relief--finally

Our committee met with our professors in the morning to prepare for tomorrow's moot court. The afternoon was free and I knew exactly what I wanted to do--go to the Limmat pool. The River Limmat flows from Lake Zurich to parts northwest. At one point, part of the

Tour Too

Today was wide open. A group of us retook the tour we took back on Monday because we wanted to take it when we were fresh. There's so much to see, like... There are more than 1,200 fountains in Zurich. So you can get free clean cold

Hiking in Switzerland

The first thing that struck me was that it isn't far at all from Zurich to hiking trails--we walked from the pension. Next was my amazement that there were two trail systems, one for we hikers and one for mountain bikes. Let's say we traced an

Irony

Today we saw a documentary about the trafficking of children from the desperately poor countries of Mali and Burkina Faso into the Ivory Coast to pick cacao pods. The major chocolate companies (Nestle, Mars, etc) have signed sternly worded protocols forbidding child labor, but the documentarian had no difficulty finding

Aunt Rosemary

My favourite aunt and godmother died today. She was 93. She had had a series of strokes and was mentally ready to go. None of which makes losing her any easier. She was the kind of aunt who made you feel like a smarter, better, more important person than you

Baptism

Morning: leader of a major Swiss retailer talks about the coalition it is part of (1,400 retailers) that does independent audits of 26,000 supplier factories around the world. Afternoon: Trade union leader (with 12mm members) talks about levers it pulls to improve working conditions. Main topic: World Cup

Mini UN

There are 27 of us from 19 countries. Impressive. Next week we will go to the UN at Geneva to do a moot court. We've already got that geographic diversity thing down. This is from yesterday's tour. The hands on the clock span 7 metres. Hallway

A very long day

Today I found myself wondering, more than once, why I can't be a normal person and spend part of my summer sitting on a beach with a cocktail and a good book. Summer should be about relaxation and indulgence in a peaceful place. I spent much of the

Zurich

Up at 3:30 am, on the bus at 4:30 to Dublin, on the plane at 8:55 to Zurich. At hostel by 2. Catch bus at 4 to reception and lecture. It was a long day. McDonald's ad at Zurich's airport train station: I

Tollymore

Kyle perused the mountain of tourist literature I gave her and selected a hike at Tollymore Forest Park in the Mourne Mountain district. I got only one shot b/c my card is out of space and I didn't want to sit and delete photos. It isn'

Perspective

Kyle & I took the two-hour bus back to Belfast, went home to dump luggage, then out to lunch at the Dirty Duck, which overlooks Belfast Lough. Then for a long walk on the Coastal Path, then into town to meet David for a few drinks in the Cathedral Quarter.

Airports

I took the bus down to Dublin today to meet my friend, Kyle, who's visiting for a week. Her 11 p.m. plane got in at midnight, which gave me plenty of time to watch lots of people greeting lots of people in the arrivals lounge, which is

Keen Dean

I had lunch today with Dean Blackwood, a Queen's PhD candidate researching issues relating to town planning. He's a (young) retired planner himself and is pretty energised by his work on ethics in decision-making. When he isn't researching his topic, he's filing

Weight, weight, don't tell me

I've reached that stage where I either need all new clothes, because mine are too tight, or I need to lose weight. Being a student has been very bad for my waistline. David is encouraging me to go for the new clothes. He's put on weight

Choir Redux

We went back to church last night for a proper concert by the visiting choir from Portland. They sang songs in Spanish, Swahili, Hindi and Latin, as well as English. So very beautiful. Seated in front of them was the South Ulster Community Band, which played selections from Les Mis,

This is my song

Our church was graced this morning by the presence of the 60-strong choir from First Unitarian Church of Portland OR. Oh how I love choral music, especially religious music, especially Unitarian music. I was in heaven. I found myself getting teary frequently. There is something about those harmonies floating over

National pastime

We are within 10 minutes of a half a dozen golf courses, so it seems a shame not to play. We went to a par 3 and played 18 holes, although I didn't technically play all of them. On the three where my tee shots were a disaster,

Oh ship!

After a day of reading, I went downtown to meet David at the Tall Ships festival (with my recharged camera). There were ships from Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, Ecuador, Portugal and they were scattered in docks all over the city. I felt like I was walking around in a

Evenings

In an attempt to fight middle-aged spread without undertaking difficult exercise, David and I have been going for walks or bike rides in the evenings. I forgot my camera the night we walked along the coastal path in Cultra, then, tonight, my camera battery was done. So no photos from

Frogs in a pot

For two days I've been reading "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein. It echoes the message of "Carbon Democracy" that the oil majors are in control and we are basically screwed. She uses the frogs-in-a-pot analogy--where the water heats up so incrementally that we

"He has time for people"

When we walked the coastal path on Saturday, we met up with Noel and his dog Tilly. He told me about a TV celebrity who was in Greyabbey recently filming "Bargain Hunters." Two couples go to antique shops and hunt for bargains then the things they buy are

Back to the books

I read all day, nearly finishing a book on how oil has driven and distorted global politics since it first gushed out of the ground. It is about as cheery as yesterday's mural tour. On the topic of depressing information, I chatted with Michael next door, telling him