Hi Heidi
It is funny reading all the comments about my country, some of them are true, some of them are wrong, no problem, we are used to it, hehehehe...
Here it goes. Geneva is probably the most international city in Europe, this because of its international reputation. There is the WHO, UN, Unesco, Red Cross, Olympic games and so on and on. So you will find all kind of people living there (ambassadors, diplomats etc). This is also the reason, that you can find police men walking the street with a machine gun. This is only when there are important politician in town. G. Bush and all the important politicians are often in Geneva. So the reason for that is for the safety and is no big deal, just ignore them. Otherwise Switzerland is a very safe country.
About guns, yes we do have machine guns at home, we have a miliz armee and every military men has a gun at home, like myself. This does not mean that we are walking around with our guns, it’s more a political and historical reason and is discussed right now. No big deal.
Geneva is in the French part of Switzerland but still in Switzerland near the French border, in Switzerland we speak 4 languages, French is one of them. Being an international city, English is no problem, we are used to it. Just say “Hi and do you speak English” and the rest is done.
Now lets go to the more interesting things, what to do.
Switzerland is famous for 3 things: watches (expensive and nice ones, if you want you can spent 50 Dollar (Swatch) but also more then a 100.000 Dollar. Just go shopping and you will find lots of shops. Chocolate: best in the world and the alps. About the alps you can travel in Switzerland and will find the alps always present. Zermatt, Grindelwald and also other places are beautiful to visit, lots of tourists. Like above, they call Switzerland “Disney World of Europe”, but don’t tell them, we don’t like this. About travelling: we have a very good train system, for example you can travel to almost every city in Switzerland, trains are leaving every half hour or even more. And the train station in Switzerland are always right in the center of the city. I don’t recommend a car, it is not America, driving in Europe is much more stressful then in the USA (streets are narrow) and most places are not so far away, our country is very small. There are many nice cities and all of them are completely different. For example Bern (german part), Luzern, Zurich, Lugano (Italian part) etc. Within a few hours by train you will be there. And visiting lakes and going on the boat is also very popular in our country.
There are at the moment 2 bad reason visiting Switzerland. First the Dollar is high for Americans and second, it is spring time, the weather is getting colder, in the mountains it has already snowed in the mountain (early for that season) at the moment right now it is raining. Better would be in Summer or Winter for skiing and fun in the snow. Anyway, I am sure you will like it. If it is the first time travelling to Europe, I remember an Australian I have met once. He told me: “It is amazing in Europe, you just go around the corner and then you will find other people, other language, other mentality, other food, other nature, other buildings, just all is different just going around the corner”. Yes that’s true. If you want some more information, just ask.
Have a nice trip and enjoy.