Pâquis, hookers and families, etc.

 

Rick and I were bundled in heavy coats, hats over our ears, gloves and soft wool plaid scarves which we'd bought in Scotland. 

We were heading to the English library in the American Church in the Pâquis section of Geneva with our bags of books for donation and plans to find this month's reading.

Across the street we could see the lake, the Jet d'Eau and the Alps including Mont Blanc.

Coming toward us was a young woman in short-shorts, bare legs, a light fabric leopard pattern shirt. She sported a pair of sunglasses, larger than the ones Jackie Kennedy wore.

Next to her was a man who looked like he could be Kevin McCarthy's father, only with a small mustache. He was well dressed as he guided her to the doors of the luxury hotel. 

This hotel has been owned by four different major chains in the last thirty  years. Rooms run 400 CHF and up. There is a small hotel theater where I watched and listened to Marianne Faithful, Barkley James Harvest and a Glenn Miller revival orchestra over the years.

Years before when a co-worker and I had lunch in the area, we saw a colleague give money to a hooker. He saw us. We never said anything to him nor him to us, but he was forever after extra nice to us.

Then there was the visit from my Boston neighbor. I took him to the Reformation Statue with the statues of the religious reformers and their stone faces forever frozen in disapproval at Place Neuve. 

After we walked through Pâquis and a hooker with enhanced boobs called to Gary. He didn't respond but said he thought Pâquis was filled with more life and spirit than the Place Neuve statue.

Pâquis is the red light district of Geneva. But it is far from seedy with several luxury hotels, good restaurants and family-filled flats. Children go to the elementary school in the center. It is multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-lingual. 

Of course, I maybe judgemental in saying what we witnessed with the short-shorts wearing woman and the much older man was a business transaction. Rick pointed out it could be father and daughter.

I do wonder price and satisfaction of the participants.