I feed the cat. Lazy Sunday morning. Do a load of washing (the black-wash, consisting of socks, underwear, and two black fleeces); put yesterday’s (a shirt wash), now dry, away. Eat the strangely sweet breakfast cereal that’s been in the cupboard for the last six months. Have toast. Get dressed. Go to the airport.

I’m off to Geneva today, the world’s biggest airport lounge, for a bit of fun. Normally my trips are business-related - this one isn’t. I’ve been kindly given a ticket for the Euro 2008 match between the Czech Republic and Turkey; so I’ve dug in my wallet for a little trip to Geneva, and a potentially really crappy cheap airport hotel experience, before flying back at 7am tomorrow, to be at my desk by eight thirty. It’s a good game, too - whoever wins will go forward to the second round or the quarter final or whatever it is; and it’s also the last of three in the Geneva stadium.

Swiss International Airlines turned out to be almost the cheapest when I booked this a few weeks ago; there was one slightly cheaper flight but it was from Heathrow at 6.30, requiring a £35 taxi, thus negating any price benefit. Instead, I’m making my way to London City Airport for a lunchtime flight.

Get to the Victoria line. Discover there’s no Victoria line. Get to the DLR. Discover there’s no DLR. This is a Sunday, and they’re doing line work on the Victoria for the new trains, and station work on the DLR for longer trains. Forced onto a bus at Canning Town. Regaled by some loud tinny rap music from a mobile phone somewhere, even though I’m plugged into my iPod.

Through the airport, waving my magic online checkin piece of paper. Get stopped at the other side of security by a woman who says she has to check whether my hairgel is actually hairgel and not some kind of explosive. It’s a random check apparently. She puts some details about me onto a computer for some reason, swabs the hair gel, decides that it’s all okay. And now it’s on a computer database that I use hairgel. Good job I don’t carry KY jelly with me. Whatever that is.

Ten minutes to kill, so wander into the bookshop to find something to read. Decide on a Ben Elton (I know, I know). Wait to pay as woman behind cash till whines to co-worker that Sundays are so busy they’re like weekdays now, and “they” had better realise that we’re understaffed and overbusy. Wait politely while understaffed and overbusy woman finishes whining to her friend, then turns her attention onto the only person in the queue. I suspect “they” know their staffing levels are about right.

Board plane. Swiss is the ‘airline for all fans’, as it proudly proclaims on the side of the plane. Inside is a special duty-free selection of a football game, a football, and two replica planes which look a little more footbally than normal. I wonder who buys replica model planes? I’m sitting next to two Turkish supporters, and an eager and quite excited japanese man.

Captain comes on. Apologises, but says we’ll be twenty minutes late to takeoff. Nobody tuts. He says we’ll still land on time. On cue, stewardess walks down aisle offering Swiss chocolate to everyone to apologise (even though it’s just air congestion). But it’s not the normal Swiss slabs of chocolate - oh no, today we get chocolate footballs! Japanese man smiles a lot. I do too. This is good. Might buy a replica plane after all to say thank you.

Food and drink comes round, still free to everyone, unusually. Eager japanese man asks for orange-juice whilst simultaneously miming an orange. A mime of an orange. Nice.

Memo to Swiss: I liked the sandwich. Nice Swiss salami. Tasty gherkin pickle thing. Pleasant bread roll. Your beer, though: it might be brewed by Heineken Switzerland AG, but Heineken is really from Amsterdam, not Switzerland. Are there really no Swiss beers to serve?

I decline a potential purchase of a replica plane in a small beer-related huff.

Landing at Geneva airport was smooth as silk. I walk, in a moderately circuitous route, to the hotel. It is chock full of Turkey supporters. This hotel normally costs 99CHF to stay in (it’s currently 150CHF); it’s more basic than basic, but clean, and that’s all that matters. Much rather this than some of the grimy hotels I stayed in while I was fulltime on Media UK (yes, £35 a night is achievable in London, and no, you don’t want to). I was given a free travel ticket by the hotel - turns out it’s something Geneva city are doing, and I’m very grateful for it.

I use it to catch a bus into the centre of town. Then, given I’ve time to kill, I walk from the centre of town to the stadium, along the “fan’s walk”. It’s a 45 minute mostly-well-signed walk, and goes through an area called the ‘fanzone’ (think big telly screens and lots of stalls selling beer). I lack the peculiar Swiss money, and therefore can’t. Instead, I acquire a blister on the sole of my foot. Bah.

I see a lot of rather run-down Geneva. Without the modern miracle of beige-coloured concrete, this city would be huge tracts of wasteland. Walk past dowdy video stores (honest, who hires videos these days?), and one street which smells strangely of laundry until I walk past a laundrette, with a big fan pushing sweet laundry smell out of the shop with a surprising intensity.

Arrive at our seats just before kickoff (after drinking some of UEFA’s beer) and the roar from the Turkish crowd is infectious and very loud. Decide to support Turkey, which has nothing to do with the Turkish man next to me, but more to do with the large number of Turkish supporters I’ve seen today.

The Czechs score. And then, after a half-time interval consisting of TV ads on the in-stadium video screens and a live man on the touchline saying something nobody listens to, they score again. This is bad news. Everyone writes off Turkey. The Czechs certainly do. The two Turkish men in front of me are on their feet, loudly decrying the official’s decisions. One claps his hands to his head so hard it makes me wince.

But plucky Turkey score. And then, in the dying minutes of the game, they score again. 2-2. I remark that it’ll be decided by penalty shootouts, but as I do so, just seconds after the previous goal, they score for a third time. The Turks go wild. The Czechs go silent. And then, as the fulltime whistle goes, the Czechs just leave.

The Turkish man, who has not acknowledged my presence throughout the game, nudges me, tips his hat to me, and grins a big grin. I do too.

Back to the hotel. Set the alarm to wake me at the UK equivalent of 4am. Great. Then set another alarm.

Wake up with the unaccustomed sound of the Blackberry’s alarm. Unpleasant thing. Manage to turn it off. Relax. Instantly fall back to sleep. Wake up one minute later with the iPhone alarm, vibrating the shelf where it’s charging. Struggle out of bed, and snooze it.

Thirty minutes later, I’m walking through a dark Geneva on the way to the airport. Walk past a bus stop, and notice there’s a bus in two minutes. Take that instead - thank you, City of Geneva, for your free public transport.

Queue in Geneva airport. Useful fact: the tannoy is the first five notes of “How much is that doggie in the window”. I may have mentioned this before. The thing that’s keeping me awake is singing “Geee in the window” in my head. Want to buy a t-shirt. Fail miserably: the sensible Genevans don’t open tat shops at 6am.

Get on plane. Full of suits, all going to the City. Sit next to quite attractive woman banker, in suit and white shirt. Realise how different our jobs are. She deals with money, important things. I deal with media, unimportant things in the scheme of things. She turns down the chocolate muffin. And the chocolate football.

Finish Ben Elton book (’Blind Faith’) as we taxi into the gate at London City. It’s his version of 1984 I think. George Orwell it ain’t. But it’s quite good nonetheless.

It’s only five to eight. Just a tube ride to work. Buy a coffee from the airport. Manage to spill some of it on the shirt I’m wearing which is supposed to be a smart shirt for a smart do I’m going to at lunchtime (with Ian Hislop no less). Not only brown shoes with a grey suit, a faux-pas on a dreadful scale brought on my by freshly-hurty feet, but now a blotchy coffee-stained shirt. Oh dear. What will they think?

Looking forward to a tube ride home to greet the unhappy cat. I’ve spent too long away from him this week. He’s due some serious strokles. Oooh. Wuz he a puddycat? Wuz he? Did he be needin’ strokles? Did he? Good cat.

“Ah. Well, I’ve got something to tell you. But you’ve something to tell me. Well, go on, then,” flirts the 30-something ex-public-school boy into his mobile phone, with the foppish hair and posh accent, while nearly colliding with me. My first evening in the city, walking past something that was a tourist shop and is now another watch shop. Welcome to the no-man’s land that is… Geneva. Wherever Geneva is.

After a day and a half of part-tedious, part-illuminating conference at the European Broadcasting Union (who thoughtfully give you unfetterred wifi and three electricity plugs at every conference desk - an EU plug, a US plug, and a UK plug) I have a day off. Starting… now.

I walk from the airport hotel to the train station, and negotiate the automatic ticket machine. It’s really easy catching a train from the airport into the centre of town: just like the Heathrow Express, the only train you can catch is to the city centre, and just like the Heathrow Express, the trains run regular as clockwork, and nothing at all like the Heathrow Express, it takes three minutes or so, and it costs, er, three CHF (which is about £1.50).

Getting into town, my spirits perk up. This isn’t the faceless, characterless, city I remember from a few years ago at all. This is new, and exciting. I’d not been to the train station before - I’d driven last time, staying in a quaint and rather bizarre Swiss-style hotel (with free wifi) downtown. Today, I’m staying in an american-style airport hotel, with wifi that costs over £10 a day. (The EBU’s was free. I used that.)

I walk, and get to the inlet of what we Brits call Lake Geneva, and cross the bridge, and it all comes flooding back. The last time I was here, it was hot - very hot. This time, it’s cold - pretty cold. I try to remember where the nice brew-pub I found was. I discover it in Place du Moulard, and go in for an ambree. And a blonde. (No, blonde is a style of beer, do keep up). The pub sells food, I discover - a choice of four flammekeuchen, a kind of light pizza popular in this part of whatever country it’s in. I eat one, delivered with slightly less than a flourish by the waitress who was pointedly refusing to speak any English, in spite of clearly knowing more English than I do French.

I perch at the bar for a little while. Next to me is an American banker, talking to some overawed German friends. The other side is empty, then silently a banker appears and orders a beer. He looks at me, and squints at the book I’m reading. Grabs the free (French) newspaper on the bar. Finishes his beer. Leaves. I realise I have no idea what nationality he was.

I go to get some CHF out. (Two CHFs to a pound, and the kind of noise that Ivor the Engine makes). I realise my 50cl beers were 9CHF each - £4.50. I still don’t know what country I’m in, but I reckon, based on price of beer, it might be Iceland.

I go walking. This is no ordinary European city, I realise, walking past the HSBC Private Bank, the RBS Coutts, the Lloyds TSB, the Barclays. I keep walking, past the tourist shops, the watch shops, the lingere shops, the watch shops, the tourist shops. In an underground shopping centre, I walk past a European sex shop with typically lurid shop front and realise that, at 7.30pm, it’s already closed. This really is no ordinary European city.

I circle round a few bars, wanting a taste of another local beer. I try to go into the “Jame’s Bar” if only to congratulate them on their incredible apostrophe abuse, but it was shut. I walk past the “Lord Jim”, which tickles me until I realise it’s really a place to eat, not a place to drink, and walk on by. I end up at a bar I’d spotted earlier, but walked past.

The bar sports three pool tables, about twenty internet terminals, and lots of confy-looking small tables. I find a small table almost next to the bar, and order a beer with a fearsome name beginning with ‘f’. In the table next to me is someone who looks barely 16, drinking Coca-Cola, wearing headphones with loud music, and is tapping away at his computer. Aha, I think, there must be wifi here - and reach for the iPhone. There is. I twitter, and Facebook, and relieve some of my personal inbox from the bounces from the slightly misguided mailout to all members. The bar sports a sign saying ‘going home is our inalienable right’, and next to it, a photograph of a new school being built in Gaza. I’m still slightly unclear about where I am. Still, the music’s pretty good (a smattering of Tom Petty, I remember) and the beer’s not bad. I order another one. The billiards continues unabated around me, with cigarettes being smoked in abandon. Geneva, at least, is one place where the smoker can still drink in a public bar.

Back at the hotel, I get a nice surprise. The manager has left me, in my room, a badly photocopied sheet of slightly crumped paper, wishing me a very happy birthday, and it’s accompanied by three chocolates, two dates, and three unidentified fruit which look a little like little red scrotums. Neat use of data collection from my passport earlier, even if I’d have been happier with a Mars Bar.

The next day started with the discovery that Starbucks in this country are slightly different - they don’t accept the Starbucks Card, and give you 30 minutes-worth of free wifi with your coffee. Great idea. Yes please, Starbucks UK.

I wander again: seeing some new bits (to me) of Geneva, which are in fact the oldest bits. I discover a park which has, at one end, around ten huge chess games - massive large plastic pieces. I busy myself with some photography, and then continue walking, looking for something that isn’t a pharmacy, a watch shop, or a lingere store. I tell you, if you ever get a headache in Geneva, you’ll be sorted; but woe betide you if you want to buy some beer to take home. I end up in a Migros supermarket, where I bought some chocolate with the undeniably accurate name of ‘Tourist’, then make a beeline for the beer aisle to take some unusual beers home with me, as I always do in every city I visit.

Every city except Geneva, that is. Migros will happily sell me tonic water, but no gin to put in it. Even in Scandinavian countries you can get (weak) beer; but here in Geneva, there is nothing alcoholic at all. Not even beer. Bizarre.

Defeated, I repair to another brew-pub, before I take a train back to the airport. This one is opposite the train station; beer here rather more expensive than the place I was last night and the flammekuche is twice as dear, and almost twice worse-tasting: the “lardons fumee” sadly living up to its unfortunate British almost-translation by being smoked bacon which was mostly fat, rather than bacon.

On the way back to the airport, I reflect that I heard precious little French spoken; and the only reason I knew I was abroad is the silly currency they insist on still using (rather than being sensible and choosing the Euro, which surrounds all sides of the country). All the brands on the street were those I’d see at home. All the voices around me were English, with the exception of the billiard bar I visited last night.

As I avoid another posh city banker walking and BlackBerrying at the same time, it occurs to me that the most authentically Swiss place I visited was a bar, where they played billiards and surfed the internet. And which was called… America.