Ni hao, Fang!

Welcome to glocals and good luck with the apartment!

You will indeed be arriving at a time when Geneva is at its most beautiful... Unlike what it must be like on the US East coast right now...

Once you settled in and know what part of the city you'll be staying in, I'll be happy to give you recommendations. For now my best recommendation for you is to go to glocals events! There's no topping that :)

Bon weekend,

Tal

Hey Tal,

Ya, it's crazy in DC this winter. Still tons of snow everywhere :( I'm soooo looking forward to some summer sunshine and lake breeze. Right now, finding a short term sublease seems to be a problem for me. Apparently, not only me wants to make the best of the Geneva summer and the housing is as hot as the city over there~

I'll definitely try the glocal events once I'm settled there!

Have a nice weekend too!

Fang

Hi Fang,

Gong Xi Fa Cai and welcome to Geneva!

Hope you already had some luck with the apartment, if not, you should lookup the Intranets of the various UN agencies. I believe ILO, UNOG, UNHCR etc have intranets sections where staff members post their apartments for sub-let for either long or short term durations. This was how I got my apartment just 2 months ago.

If you need details about this -- let me know...

Cheers

Hey there! Thanks for your information! I LOVE eating too! (& cooking, actually) Adventure to go~

Which organization are you working for? My supervisor at the ILO did not mention any intranet like that to me, he probably did not use it. He mentioned websites such as Glocal and Angloinfo though. Could you share more details with me please? Thx!!!!

btw, are you from HK?

hahaha...tell me which Chinese person doesn't like eating!!

I work for UNHCR. We have an Intranet for staff members and have a section where we can post our apartments up for rent. Will write you separately on details.

Yeah, I don't work for the NGOs but I've heard about this system too. You should have lots of luck with it. Also, it really doesn't make too much sense to look so far in advance - you will most likely take something that pops up on glocals or that intranet like 2 weeks before you come here. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but that's kind of the way it works here. People tend to find a place to live only at the last moment, really.

BTW where are you from in China?

Evan

Hey Evan,

I'm from the south part of China, a city called Xiamen which right opposite of Taiwan. Ya, I got the saying about start looking for apartment right before leaving and if I'm lucky I'll get one. I've also heard differently that I should start searching early....confused~ anyways, too early to get worried. 

Hey is ur gal Chinese too? (very cute, BTW)

Cheers, Vivianna

Hey Vivianna,

That's cool that you're from Xiamen... do you speak Cantonese/Mandarin or both?

As far as the apartment search goes - if you're looking for something long-term, then yes definitely do lots of searching. But for something short-term like you're considering, you will most definitely find a suitable sublet within a few weeks of coming here unless you know someone. Best to at least familiarize yourself with Geneva's layout for now; if you need any help on choosing a neighborhood I can most likely help you out, I've lived all over GVA.

Haha yes the girl in my profile picture is Chinese, but she's an ABC (American-Born Chinese). We studied in Shanghai together and dated for a while. Thanks for the compliment - I'll tell her you said that :)

Evan