Summer Internship Experience at International Trade Centre, Geneva (WTO and UNCTAD)

Among the learnings from this internship, one thing stands out: relationship building. My whole internship experience is memorable not because of the place or organization but only because of the friends I made! Each day I used to meet someone new - from a different culture, a different place. And everyone had a unique story to tell, a unique aim, a unique perspective towards life and unique tastes. Trying to converse with them through actions, learning few greetings in their language, and then telling them about our Indian culture, our strengths was altogether a very interesting experience that I would never forget! If not anything else but one thing most of them knew about India was the ‘Taj Mahal’!

The most challenging and fun part of my stay was to remember the names of all the people I met (I am sure I still can’t pronounce few) in their own languages and pronunciations. I stayed in an international hostel with 80 other students belonging to 54 different nationalities. It’s an amazing feeling to have friends from so many different countries and be in constant touch with them. I hope I get a chance to visit all of them in Egypt, Sweden, Dominican Republic, Canada, China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Spain, Germany, and the list goes on. Also I will love to be a host to them in my country. We had fun on various events that were conducted by the hostel. At one of the events, we had to prepare a dish from our own countries, and we got a chance to taste other countries’ delicacies!!

Time just flew by without me realizing the pace of it; sometimes so engrossed in office work that I wouldn’t realize it was late evening. Amidst all of this we used to visit different places in Switzerland and nearby countries. Lausanne was the first city in Switzerland I visited and I instantly fell in love with it. The beautiful blue lake in front of the snow clad mountains in the misty and slightly chilled air - the image is still inked in my mind! We visited Bruges, Belgium where we went on a bike (bicycle) ride to a beach for a total of 50 km. Traveling to Europe and not taking a bike ride is like visiting Mumbai and not experiencing the local trains, for bike ride is the most common form of travelling in Europe. Visiting Amsterdam which is known as the ‘city of bikes’ was also a great experience! Here, pedestrians cannot walk in the bike lane or else bikers will just take you down!

Sometimes, travelling alone is also a bliss, remembering one such day when I explored the beautiful city of Geneva alone. I had the famous Swiss ice-creams and chocolates all day long, sat beside the renowned landmark of Geneva, Jet d’Eau and felt the fresh air around. It was a calm and serene ambience where people did not bother each other; they were free, independent and happy! And walking at night on streets couldn’t have been more fun and safer! From mountains to lakes, rivers to valleys, courtyards to vineyards, I saw a lot in those two months but still a lot remains to be seen!