Good morning from Geneva.
Flights from Lyon, France back to Houston were problematic, so for the last three days of our honeymoon we took the 2 hour train ride to Geneva to fly out from here.
I wish I would have had an extra day to spend in the boutiques (everything is closed on Sunday). But the but to our surprise we found the GPHG exhibit was open on Sunday and that was very interesting. The day before we went to the Patek Philippe museum - the watches were absolutely AMAZING, but everything else was poorly done (layout, guides/information, bathrooms, AC). Still a must for any watch lover in Geneva.
But the highlight of Switzerland (and I'd have to say the highlight of my watch enthusiast life) was the Initium workshop we attended. We opted for the full day class in which we had a private session with a master watchmaker.
We started with coffee and pastries and just chatted for a bit with our teacher, Quintin and our other host, Jane. Then we got into a presentation on the history of timekeeping and watches which was great for my wife, but I actually learned a good bit. Definitely helped clarify for me why Switzerland became the watch making hub it is today. Next they did a great job going in detail through how a mechanical watch operates and answering questions until we fully understood the basics.
I will say, this is why I did this class. I have watched so many YouTube videos on how a watch works and I understand certain parts, but I'm a hands on learner. It has never fully clicked for me. So after the presentation, we got into the fun part. We started by taking the movement (an ETA 6498, which is used by Tissot, Hamilton, Sinn, and others) apart and then put it back together. THIS is where it clicked. Actually taking out the balance bridge or the pallet fork and seeing what started or stopped in the rest of the movement made it all fall into place for my brain.
After practicing on the movement we were treated to a very nice lunch at Brasserie Lipp with Quentin and we had a fun chat about life, culture, and politics in the USA and Switzerland. He thought our Texas accents were so funny. We busted out laughing when he so genuinely and curiously asked us "So how often do you eat crocodile?"
After lunch we got down to business - putting together the watch! We had an enormous range of aesthetic customization options. I am not typically a skeleton fan, but glad my wife encouraged this because now it is so nice to look back at all the movement parts we put together and think about how they work.
It took probably 3 or 4 hours start to finish to have a finished watch. If any of you go to this part of the world and you are not 100% confident you know how a mechanical watch works, I HIGHLY encourage you to do an Initium workshop!! It was so much fun, and it has already given me greater appreciation for my other (and future watches). You can't really appreciate George Daniel's (Omega) Co-Axial escapement until you understand a basic escapement. And the process of quality control and cleaning the movement and case before blocking it all off gave me whole new appreciation for the detail that companies like Lange and Vacheron put into every part they use.
