Thunderstorm II

It is 9.00pm in the evening here in Geneva. The rain is pouring steadily down, a prelude to another night of rolling thunder and lightning rending the skies. For my own sake, I hope it is not so. I don't want another sleepless night.

I went to work this morning over at the Franciscans. The place is slowly getting back to work after the holidays. It has that beginning of term feeling. There are meetings of a planning sort going on. As the new boy I am not participating in any these just yet. I expect I will once John and the main players come back next week. We had our Wednesday prayer today. MPK would be pleased. It was straight up. Mike O'Neill who led the prayer is an environmentalist so he was saving on paper. We just had one set of sheets which was passed around. The theme was Harvest Blessings. A plate of Autumn fruits was set in front of each person. At various points during the prayer we sampled the fruits. Now there's an idea for Synge Street.

I tried to do two things this afternoon. Get a Swisscom SIM card and purchase a monthly travel pass. Failed in both. The travel pass requires one to have a passport photograph. There are three in the railway station. About a million teenagers on back-to-school business were also on a similar quest. Against that lot I lost out. When I finally got to a machine, I found it only accepted coins and I had just notes in my pocket. Arrgh! As for the SIM card. I have yet to see a phone shop. Where is Camden Street when you need it!

So I came home to the apartment and set to work putting it to rights. I hauled some funiture around to create the beginning of a community room. There is a TV but the cable is dead, frayed and looks like it was chewed by a dog. There is a small Hi-FI system that has nothing attached. Dead. And in addition there are two bunk beds that are pretty immovable. Moy Hitchen will have to sleep there when he comes. But I did succeed in setting up lights, moving a set of shelves. Another week, a few lights, candles and some pictures and it won't be too bad. Who said Geneva has to be drab!

Supper this evening consisted of the second half of my steak. Meat is expensive here, I'm finding out. I also had rosti, sort of hash browns. Very popular in Switzerland and easy to cook. Spuds just don't seem to exist in their native form. Maybe they take too much energy to cook.

I'm going to ask Colm Griffey to provide Michael Murray with a few small Edmund Rice items. I need to have a connection with the congregational spirit.

There is a church nearby. German-speaking Dominican parish. I tried to get in the church this morning. It appeared to be locked. Will try again over the week-end. Parish of St. Boniface. Across the Circus Square is another parish, the Latin American Spanish parish of St. Gabriel. Choices, choices, choices.