May 2nd, 2008

It's been a while since my last update, so I gotta catch up on a bunch of stuff.

Most of last week was spent finishing my ISP which stands at about 35 pages all together. I'm really happy with it and I had to give a short presentation on it this week. My advisor fully edited it and even came to my presentation which was also really nice.

Last weekend (April 26-27) Chris, Kat, Steph, Alex, Ida, Nico, and I went to Lyon, France to see a soccer match. It was awesome. We got into Lyon around midday grabbed some lunch and walked around for a bit. Chris and I found a Olympique Lyonnaise (The soccer team) store and bought matching jerseys haha. Then we went down by the river (Lyon is surrounded by two rivers) where there were a ton of people chillin and playing and just hanging out. We got some bottles of wine and just soaked in the beautiful weather. APPARENTLY, however, you are not allowed to drink nor have glass down by the water, and we were threatened with 75 Euro fines (oops!).

After, we went to the soccer game which i cannot even describe. 40,000 fans just cheering and chanting the whole time. Lyonnaise played the entire second half down a man (because supposedly Grosso punched the ref at half time). The game ended in a 2-2 tie, with Lyonnaise hitting the crossbar in the 90th minute.

Saturday night was awesome as well. We all got back from the game, changed quickly and headed out to some bars/clubs. There are all these boats docked on the river, and they are all bars or clubs. We finally found a good one and danced and drank the night away on a boat!

We woke up Sunday and decided to go exploring. Most of the city was closed cause it was Sunday, but the city was beautiful. It is really really old, and we went up to the top of the city to see the beautiful Basilica and panoramic view. We saw town hall and a Roman ampitheater from 12 BC! At this point it was just me, Steph, Alex, and Nico and we headed to the train station to find out that the train we wanted to take doesn't run on the weekends, so we killed a few hours in a cafe trading curse words and slang back and forth in French and English. Nico now says "Badass" and "damn straight" a lot hahahahha.

That brings us to this week. There were mostly presentations this week, which were pretty boring. Yesterday was the last one, so we decided we had to celebrate. We have been wanting to go to this club in Lausanne called MAD. It's a really famous club and is supposed to be a ton of fun and we don't have class this morning so we figured it would be a good time to party all night. The club had a special rap night and so the DJs were playing all rap and old school rap. A whole bunch of the program came and so did Nico and Tiff and it was a ton of fun. There were many hours of sweaty dancing cause the place was packed. I think it was a tres bon way to end the program.

Today we have our last official SIT activity. We are taking a boat trip from Nyon to Geneva this afternoon, and then having a big group dinner tonight at the same place we had our first group dinner when we first arrived.

Tomorrow I think I'm doing something with my family, I'm not sure what yet. Sunday I'm going home.

I cannot believe how fast this semester went. It's unbelievable to think about all that I have seen and done and I can't believe I'm not going to see my friends from the program for probably quite some time. I'm also pretty sad to leave my host family, but obviously really excited to see everybody back home.

Not sure if this will be my last post or not, but what a long strange ride it's been :)

April 18th, 2008

I realize this is long overdue, but I've been spending most of my time recently working on my ISP and any free time I have is been devoted to doing anything BUT typing. However, last night I finished the full first draft of my paper and so I'm feeling like updating today.

So I was in Barcelona last weekend?!?!

I left Thursday afternoon and got in around 5pm. Took a half hour bus ride to the center of the city and met Jena at Placa de Catalunya. The city was unbelievable. My first impression was, woah, there are a lot of people here. Guess that comes with living in a village with 2000 people for 4 months. The city does not have the old, historical feeling that many European cities (Paris, Geneva, Brussels) have. The city is fairly modern. Another impression - there are no people between the ages of 30-60 in the city. Everybody is either old spanish or young students.

Thursday we hung around in Jena's apt for a while with Mandy, and then went out to get some dinner in the neighborhood of La Gracia. After dinner we went over to Shana's apt and hung out for a bit there. Then we met back up with Mandy and went to a few bars. We were in a cool bar with good music and lots of Spaniards but the electricity kept going on and off randomly. We called it a night around 2 or so.

Jena and I woke up early(ish) on Friday to go start exploring. We walked from her apt which is near La Sagrada Familia (crazy Gaudi Church) to Placa de Catalunya and grabbed a quick pastry for breakfast. Next we headed down Las Ramblas, this cool touristy pedestrian mall with performers and little booths that sold any kind of animal you could want (including pheasants!). Also, two of Gaudi's famous houses are located on this street. Gaudi is known for his INSANE architecture. We walked around Jena's favorite food market where you could literally buy anything you could possibly want. Then, we headed straight down to the pier.

Barcelona is sweet because its a huge city, but its situation right between the sea and the mountains. So, we walked from the pier to the beach! It was really nice out and even a bit hot! So much nicer than Geneva's decision to be 40 degrees and rainy for all of April. We chilled on the beach for a while, then headed to a cool restaurant to meet Mandy for a good lunch. After we headed back to prepare for one of the craziest nights of my life.

Friday night we drank a bit in Jena's apt after gettin some really good Tapas. We headed out to meet Jena's friends at this awesome old Absinthe bar where supposedly Hemmingway and Picasso used to frequent. At about 2 am, we headed to this insane club called Pacha. The club was really cool and fun and there was even a live violinist and guitarist playing over the DJ. We left around 6 am and passed out in Jena's apt finally.

Sat morning/afternoon (hahah) we woke up and headed out to El Borne, a sweet shopping area with cool boutiques and stuff. I got many gifts for various people and spent far too much money (as always with Europe). After, Jena and I grabbed some lunch and headed to her favorite park, Parc de Ciutadella. There were tons of young people outside and it was beautiful and we just chilled for hours catching up. After, we headed home and made some plans for the night.

Sat night, Jena and I got excellent Mexican food and then walked around El Borne and found some really cool bars. After, we went to another club, Mary's Place (I think named after the Bruce song), where the DJs were awesome and everybody was having a really good time. Around 4:30am, or so, we headed home

We woke up on Sunday and Jena really wanted to show me Gaudi's Park, called Parc Guille (pronounced Wheel). It overlooks the city and is HUGE. It has amazing architecture because, according to Jena, he was obsessed with making nature look like art. We walked around and took pictures for a few hours and then headed back down into the city. Jena took me to a really sweetly designed hospital near la sagrada familia and we got some lunch along one of the streets near it. After we came back and chilled at her apt, then got some dinner at a really cool restaurant (Princesa 23 I think). Then Jena took me to a really cool backpacker's bar where they had excellent Sangria. Jena wasn't feeling too hot though, so we left earlyish. Got up on Monday morning early and headed to the airport - muy triste!

It was amazing to see how much life the city had. No matter what time, or where we were, there were always tons of people out. People were really friendly and didn't seem to have a care in the world. It was an incredibly happy city, I think there is no way else to describe it. I had a great weekend and it was great to see Jena again. Oh also, it was fairly entertaining because from Friday on, Jena had no voice (for a change) and so communicating was fun. Also, Catalan is a crazy language, a near dead mix of French and Spanish. ANNNNDD turns out I remember a lot of Spanish which was a nice surprise.


The rest of this week has been kinda shitty. Geneva in April sucks - its constantly raining/snowing and has been fairly chilly. I spent most of the week getting interviews, getting annoyed at my ISP/professors. They haven't been really clear about what exactly they want until this point and now we have limited time left to fufil the requirements. Regardless, I have a draft complete so I'm much happier now than I was the rest of the week. Time to go put in my edits....

April 9, 2008

So Saturday night ended up being a lot of fun. I went out in Nyon to Cactus Jack's (or "Tex" as the swiss call it, like a kind of island themed bar" with Chiara and Nico. We met up with a bunch of their friends and drank for most of the night. Glad to know that i can still outdrink somebody, because by the end of the night most of them were wasted, and I wasn't really feeling much (although I think they thought i was very drunk lol). I also introduced Nico to the wonderful world of Jager Bombs.

Most of this week has been pretty low-key. Most of the group was still in Barca until Tuesday, so I spent Monday in the UN doing some work. Yesterday, I ended up getting an interview with some people at the BTRF (Borneo Tropical Rainforrest Foundation) through a contact I had at the IISD (Internat'l Institute for Sustainable Development). It was a guy and a girl who were working in the field trying to implement a microfinance scheme in this remote part of the rainforrest to encourage forest conservation in addition to working with them to encourage eco-tourism as a way to increase money flow into the village. This would allow them to build infrastructure and other necessary things for the village. Anyway, they were really cool and helpful.

Today I met Greta and Steph for some thai food for lunch, shopped a bit at H&M (which has surprisingly cool guy's stuff for cheap) and then went to meet my guy from the ILO after lunch. Turns out he forgot about our meeting, but I did get him to agree to be my adviser for my project, so that was good.

Other than that, i just scheduled for a kick ass next semester (no classes on mon or fri). Just packing up some stuff, as I'm headed off to visit Jena and other wisconsinites in Barcelona tomorrow! Hopefully the weather will be much better (its been raining/snowing here for the past few days - turns out its snowed more in March & April than in January & February!)

April 5th, 2008

This week was fairly low key, most of it was spent working on my isp paper. That entailed spending most of my days locked in the UN Library looking at hundreds of journal articles and books. Basically, if i see the word microfinance again, I'm going to throw up. I started writing my paper a little bit yesterday because I had nothing better to do. This weekend 20 out of 26 kids on my program are travelin out of the country. I would have joined, but like 15 were headed to barcelona, and im going there next weekend to visit Jena and other wisco people.

Last night Greta, Ida, and I went out to the Fisherman's Pub and had a pretty good time.

Today turned out to be great, though. Nico and Chiara and I woke up early, grabbed some breakfast, and headed out to Neuchatel. Neuchatel is about an hour and a half by car and is yet another amazingly beautiful old city on a lake. We walked around for a while, saw the obligatory old church and castle, grabbed a small snack and enjoyed the great weather.

After, we drove to Lausanne, a city not far from home, which is really cool because there is a big university there so the city is filled with younger people. Nico and Chiara showed me the centre of the city, which I had not been to yet. There were a ton of people and really cool stores and shops. We had a really good time just walking around and talking and chilling. Oh, and we had sushi for lunch - tres bonne.

Thats about it, prob going to work on my paper for most of tomorrow and monday, and then I'm off to Barcelona on thursday!

Also, working on going to Basel, Switzerland (near germany) to see a soccer match with nico, and then to Lyon, France to see the top French soccer team play the last weekend of the program (hopefully both will happen) - thus fulfilling my dream to see a European soccer game.

March 30, 2008

Not doing much today so I figured I'd update.

This week was ok. Tuesday I worked on our take home final that was due on Weds.

Weds I went in and did a bit of research on my ISP at the UN Library and then headed into the office for a bit and handed in my test. Weds night was actually a lot of fun. Nico and Chiara invited me to go to the neighbors house who is one of their good friends (Jeremy) to party with them. I showed up and there were about 6 people there, and about 4 bottles of hard liquor to each person, which is impressive cause they are incredibly expensive here. But it was funny cause they were all like Malibu and fruity vodkas and stuff. Nico told me to invite my friends, so Rikki and Dave came. We taught them how to play King's Cup and they loved it! They also got really drunk really quickly which was funny cause they all started speaking english so much more. At about midnight, we went over to daves to smoke a little hookah. Finally, at about 2:30 i headed home.

Thursday I stayed around the house all day and did a bunch of research. I think my ISP topic shifted a bit further, and now I'm going to focus on microfinance and the role that it plays in empowering women, with a case study of Bangladesh. Rikki and Dave came over for a bit to hang out and that was about it. Oh, and Daniella and I played some backgammon and she obviously kicked my ass...she's way too good.

Friday I went in late to the UN library, then met Kat, Steph, and her friend for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. After, I headed to the office to do a bit more work, and then got my hair cut. Turns out that may not have been a great idea, seeing as i no longer have very much hair :-O Good thing I got a month to grow it back before I see you all. Fri night I just hung around the house, played some Trivial Pursuit Genius Edition with the family, which would have been hard enough as it was, but obviously it was in French as well.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Dave, Rikki, and I headed into Nyon around noon. Dave and I met up with Chris and played some basketball for a while, and then headed over to Jeongki's for a bbq party. Turns out about more than half the group came, and we grilled and chilled outside cause it was beautiful out and drank a bit. After, we played some more bball and soccer, and then around 6pm we headed home. I was pretty wiped so I just hung around again last night but it was nice to just relax.

This week should be more of the same - more research and interviews (hopefully) for my ISP as I try and really gain some ground on the topic.

Also, I'm home 5 weeks from today?!? Craziness. It's weird because sometimes time feels as though its flying by, especially when I think about all I have done in the time I've been here. On the other hand, it also feels like I've been here forever...strange.

March 25, 2008

I made it back late last night from out Easter Break trip to Genoa (or Genova if you're Italian), Italy.

We left early Fri morning, around 7 am, from Geneva, and after almost missing our train from Nyon to Geneva and sprinting through the train station, we settled in for the long first train to Milano, Italy. It was nearly blizzarding as we left Switzerland. The first train was about 4 hours and finally we made it to Milano after the incredible tardiness of the train once the Italian authorities took over at the boarder.
From Milano, we took another train that seemed to never end to Genova. Me, Steph, and Kat were on an early train and Chris, Kellen, and Greta were on the later train. So the 3 of us got to the hotel after an insane bus ride, checked in, and headed out to explore. The city was really cool. An interesting mix of old Italian buildings, new high rises, a huge port, and industry. We got a snack and a glass of wine down by the port and chilled until the other 3 got in around 5 pm or so.
Fri night we headed out for some dinner, got a bit drunk, and enjoyed the night out at some bars in a large outdoor area with a few hundred people.

Sat we woke up around 10 am and decided that we all wanted to go to Cinque Terre. This was about a 1.5 - 2 hour ride from Genova but it was def worth it. There are five towns 9 km apart and you can hike from one town to the next.
We started at Monterosso and hiked up into the mountains for the longest of the five hikes (I think). Unfortunately, because we started too late, we ended up only hiking Monterosso and Vernazza, but it was still amazing. You hike up into the mountains, through vineyards and crazy scenery and for about two hours walk along cliffs and the sea. Finally, you round a cliff and there, nestled in a tiny bay, is the small town of Vernazza. It had a ton of great restaurants so we stopped to get some food and then spent another hour or two exploring and enjoying the perfect weather, before catching a train back to Genova.

Sat night put a bit of a damper on things. After a good dinner, we headed out to the outdoor bar area where we were all enjoying ourselves when Greta realized her purse had been stolen. Luckily her passport wasn't in it, but her train tickets and money and stuff was, so it really kinda killed the night. We headed home all a bit down.

We woke up on Sunday (Easter) and decided to go to the famous aquarium in Genova (apparently the second biggest in the world). However, we didn't anticipate that everybody in the entire city would be there because everything else would be closed. So we had to wait on a long line and it was cold and rainy and windy and everybody was a bit grumpy. Once we finally got inside we all were much happier and we browsed the aquatic life along with 1000000000 little screaming Italian kids.
When we got out, we walked around the harbor and the docks for a while taking everything in. Then Greta, Chris, Kellen, and Kat went to go get new train tickets for Greta and Chris and Steph and I went off to explore on our own. We found some cool buildings and a sweet farmer's market with amazing cheese, meats, and wines. We all met back up before dinner.
For dinner we found an amazing pizza place and had a nice long dinner, where eventually the waitstaff forgot about us because the sat us downstairs, away from the main floor of the restaurant (oops haha). We headed back to the hotel and somehow managed to find Casino Royale, the movie, on in English which was perfect.

Sunday, we woke up late, checked out, and explored a bit more until we had to catch our trains home. Finally we got back into Geneva around 9 pm, and I got home to Arzier around 10. Apparently it didn't stop snowing the entire weekend and as of last night, was still snowing! I would say there was about 2 feet down, and would def be considered a blizzard in the US.

Today, seeing as I just woke up, I think I'll stay around the house. I have a take-home exam to do and then class is officially over and our ISP period starts!

Here are pics from this weekend - Part I - Part II

Ma Famille!

Here are a few pictures of my host family (mostly from today's trip)


Nice and early in the morning in the car...
(From L to R: Chiara, Antoine, Daniella, Tiff - Nic's Girlfriend, and Nic)

Outside of the water park
(From L to R: Chiara, Georges, Tiff, Nic, Daniella, Antoine)

Me and the fam


Vasco!!!!! (my host dog!)

March 16, 2008

Ah so the rest of this week was tre bon.

Weds was open for research so I did some work around the house in the morning, and then headed in to meet Alex, Greta, Steph, and Kat for lunch. Chris was supposed to show but messed up his bus schedule and ended up not coming.
After lunch, Tina and I headed over to the Salvation Army in Geneva to do some research for our FSS papers on Homelessness in Switzerland. It was pretty interesting and we learned there is a ton of resources available for people but it seems that generally they do not take advantage of. Also, it seems as though many of the homeless/beggars are immigrants and therefore, Switzerland is now the most xenophobic place ive ever seen.

Thursday we had a stupid cultural reflection on our trip to Paris/Brussels in class in the morning and then instead of having French class, we went with our teachers to the ICRC (Red Cross) museum. It was actually really cool and really nicely done.

Friday we had a short meeting at the South Centre in the morning, a NGO that deals with promoting South-South trade. The weather was perfect-finally-and after we all grabbed some sandwiches and headed to a small park in Geneva. A bunch of us hung out and played some frisbee and even managed to hit a local Genevian in the face with the frisbee (way to go Chris) and get yelled at haha. But seriously, who walks in the middle of a frisbee game and doesn't even look?!?
Friday night David and I headed into Nyon around 9 and met up with Alex, Chris, Steph, and Greta. We drank for a while on a pier and then went to the Fisherman's Pub, our fav pub, and proceeded to throughourly enjoy the night. Dave and I caught the last train out of Nyon at 12:17 and rode in a semi-mosh pit of drunk local kids (most of whom were under the age of 17, making me feel like an old man). As we got off the train in Arzier, I hear my name, and my h-mom is in her car apparently picking up Chiara and her bf who were also somewhere on the train. Needless to say, not exactly who I wanted to interact with at 1 am but it was nice to get a ride haha.

Sat morning I woke up with a bit of a headache, shook it off, and went with Dave and Rikki down to Sus-Chatel to Jake's house (its about a ten min ride down my mountain on the train, about three or four towns over). We studied for our French final for a while and then met up with Jeong-Ki to go for a hike. We hiked up a few trails for about two hours and then decided to catch the train back home. I chilled for a while, and then ate some dinner, and then Dave and I headed down into Nyon to celebrate St. Patty's day.
The Fisherman's Pub was having a big celebration because its an Irish/English pub, and so a whole bunch of the group showed up (like 15 or so), and it turned out to be a really good night. There was a really funny duo of Irish/French guys singing, and obviously lots of singing and drinking. We all got cool hats that look like big Guinness beers attached to a clover. We caught the last train out of Nyon and sadly had to leave the group.


(Me and our very drunk friend, Ash, a British guy who's workin in Nyon and playing rugby on the side, thus the cast)

This morning, I woke up nice and early around 9, and we had a big nice breakfast. We had pancakes (which really resembled crepes more especially since we ate them with our hands), bacon, fruit, sausage, and eggs. At about 11, my family and I headed out to AquaPark, an indoor water park on the other side of the lake, about an hour away.
We got there around 12:30 and for about the next four hours we had a lot of fun. There were about 7 water slides, none especially big or insane, but still fun. There were also wave pools and a cool spa section with Saunas and stuff. It was just really nice to hang out with the family and have fun and feel really included and comfortable. We all had a really good time, even Georges and Daniella were sliding away! We left, had a small late picnic, and then headed back home. The whole car slept on the way home, and we got home to cold cold rain. We ran inside, grabbed a nice cup of tea, and then spent most of the rest of the early evening playing with Vasco! It was glorious to say the least.
Here's the water park haha!

We had an awesome dinner of steak avec cafe au paris (a kinda hamburger thing with amazing sauce on top), and some potatoes and some really good true Bordeaux wine. It was a really good end to a really good day.

This week is a short one, but we have a few assignments due in the next few days. On Weds I also have a meeting set up with the head of the Special Finance Programme at the ILO to discuss my thesis and some questions I have. And then, on Friday, Greta, Steph, Kat, Chris, Kellen, and I are headed to Genoa, Italy for the long Easter weekend. Should be very fun.

That's all for now, I can't believe its half way through March already.

March 11, 2008

Blah, what a rainy/snowy week its been so far, and there's only more rain in the forecast. I'm ready for spring. now.

The past two days have been really long. We have been meeting at the UN, so that means we have to meet earlier than usual to get through security and get cleared for the meetings. On Monday we met with UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) and UNDP (UN Development Programme). They were both pretty interesting breifings, and hopefully the guys who presented can help me with my thesis later on.

Today we went back to the UN and had briefings from the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Org) which was pretty interesting. The woman who spoke to us gave a really interesting presentation on what constitutes intell prop and diff international laws about it and what the org does. After, a member of the WTO came to talk to us and was really boring. She was from the press corps in the WTO and so all of her answers were long winded and avoided our questions.

Tomorrow we have a day for "study and research". I think I'm going to try and get some work done on my second cultural paper that is due next week. I'm researching the issue (or non-issue) of homeless people in Geneva, since they seem to be non-existent. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to some people at some shelters in Geneva or at the social service office to get some more details. Its weird to actually have a bit of work to do. We have this paper due next Thurs, our final proposal for our thesis due next Tues, and then our French final next week as well. I think i may actually be a bit stressed (haha).

Then next weekend me, Steph, Chris, Kellen, Kat, and Greta are going to Genoa, Italy for a long weekend we have off for Easter. After that, we have a take-home final in our ISS class, and then we are done with official class on march 27th (I think). Then, from march 27th til the end of the program, we have to research and write our thesis. Should be interesting!

I'm wiped, time to go chill and catch up on some much needed sleep (I'm also a bit sick, boo for colds!)

March 9, 2008

So it's been a while, but this week was pretty quiet. We had Monday off as a recovery day for the Paris trip, Tuesday we had an interesting professor come to talk to us about basic political economic, weds was a review session, and Thursday we went to the ILO to have a briefing on child labor which was actually pretty interesting.

Jena also came to visit this weekend! She came in on thursday night so I just stayed around Nyon after French class and met her at the airport around 7:45. We dropped her stuff off at the hostel she was staying in, and then walked around Geneva for a little while (it was freezing though, so not that long), and grabbed some dinner. After dinner I headed home.

We met back up in the morning because I only had a few short meetings at school. Jena, Steph, and I walked around Old Town and Steph and I gave her an abridged tour, which she seemed to enjoy. Then I headed back for a short ISP meeting with Alexandre (my prof) and Jena met and hung out with some of my friends. We all grabbed some lunch and then headed back to SIT so I could pick up my graded papers and talk to Aline (another prof) about my cultural paper due in a few weeks (the meeting turned out to be wayyyyy too long, way to be a good sport jena!). Turns out SIT doesn't grade hard at all, because I got A's on both my papers with putting minimal effort into them (and I mean that hahah).

Around 4pm, Jena and I caught a train to Luzern, a cool little city in the middle of the country. The ride there was about 3 hrs, but we met up with a really nice couple and they talked to us almost the entire way there. The city was beautiful when we arrived and there was a crazy light show going on. The city is best known for its covered bridges (see pictures) from the medieval ages. We watched the show for a while, headed to our hotel, and then grabbed some dinner (after wandering around the city for about an hour looking for a good, cheap place). After dinner we headed to a little jazz club and grabbed a drink, but we were exhausted and called it a night.

Yesterday (Sat.), we woke up and set out to explore the city. We walked all over the city (which isn't very large), and hiked up to the old part of the city which is actually enclosed in a fortified wall from centuries ago. Unfortunately, the wall was closed during the winter, so we couldn't go in it and walk along the top of it. After exploring for a few more hours, we went into a cool little art museum, a personal collection of modernist art, including a ton of Picasso. After, we got some raclette (for jena's sake), and chilled in a cool restaurant by the water for a while. Then we went back and chilled in the hotel until dinner. We grabbed some dinner, and then went to a cool little bar for a while. We called it an early night because I wasn't feeling great, woke up this morning, checked out, and now I'm home.

It was really nice to take a break from the group for a few days and be with a good friend again. It was also really intriguing to get Jena's take on Switzerland (she loved it and thought it was beautiful, but couldn't believe how quiet it was at night and stuff). I think we had a good, relaxing weekend, and I can't wait to get a taste of Barcelona life in April (hopefully).

This week should be interesting. We have the last cultural paper for our FSS due in a week and a half, so I gotta start working on that. We are also headed to the UNCTAD (UN Center on Trade and Development), as well as a few other IO's that deal with economics and politics, which is what I'm really interested in. Other than that, we have only two or three weeks of actually class left before we begin out ISP period. Pretty crazy. I can't believe how fast time is flying by here, I have less that two months left before I head home.

Luzern Pics

Pictures!

I think I finally figured out how to link to my facebook albums for anybody not on facebook. So hopefully these links will work:

Geneva Orientation
Week 1
Week 2
Bern
Brussels
Paris
Versailles

March 3, 2008

(Just a warning, this is going to be a long post)

I got back yesterday from a week of traveling with the program. We were in Brussels from Sunday 2/24 to Weds 2/27 and Paris from Weds 2/27 to Sunday 3/2.

We'll start with Brussels:
We got there on Sunday after a long day of traveling and walked about twenty mins from the train station to the hotel. We were a little nervous because we had all heard mixed reviews of the city and the walk from the train station to the hotel looked like we were walking through Queens. We got to the hotel and headed out to explore the city.

Well, we were wrong about the city. It was awesome. A few of us headed out to explore, and somehow found ourselves sitting at an outdoor cafe drinkin Hoegardden (a great beer) on tap. After some more walking, we picked up some bottles of wine for the night and went back to the hotel to drink and chill for a while. We ended up gettin a bit drunk and feasting on real Belgian waffles and fries for dinner.

Monday we woke up and headed to the European Commission, a division of the European Union. We had a few really interesting lectures and then were free for the afternoon. We headed out to explore further and found the Grand Place, the main square. It was unbelievably stunning and we were all taken back by it. Then we went back to nap in the hotel and get ready for the night. That night we met up with Kellen's friend who happened to be there with his study abroad program and a group of 10 of us got dinner in this small alley with great deals on three course meals with the famous mussels from brussels. After, we headed to this amazing bar called Delerium Cafe with over 2000 beers available. Needless to say, it was a good night.

Tuesday we woke up early and were quite unhappy and a bit hungover, but headed out to the Free University of Brussels for a day of lectures. The lectures were horrible and boring, and the rain and wind outside only added to the unhappiness. Finally, around 5pm we finished up school stuff, and headed back to the hotel. There we crashed for a bit, and then met back up with Kellen's friend and grabbed dinner at a great Vietnamese place. Then, it was back to Delerium cafe for a crazy night where nearly the two entire study abroad programs were present. From there we headed to a really smoky tiny Irish bar with a small dance floor and danced until like 2:30am. We left, and had to drag Greta home cause she was a bit drunk hahah but it was all fun.

Weds we woke up quite tired and eventually headed out to the train station. We got into Paris around 4 and crashed for a bit. Then we got up and me, Chris, Greta, and Kellen headed out to explore. Our hotel was in the Sacre Coeur area, not a great area. We headed up to the church (Sacre Coeur), which is on the top of a hill that overlooks the whole city. We grabbed dinner in a really cute French cafe and then decided we had to go see the Eiffel Tower. After a bit of confusion on the Metro and a long walk down by the river, we finally found it and it was well worth the walk. At about 11pm we went back to the hotel and crashed.

On Thursday, we woke up early and went to a meeting at UNESCO (United Nations Education, Social, and Cultural Organization) where a guy talked to us about the Education policies and efforts of UNESCO. At about 11am we finished up and Chris, Kellen, Greta, Kat, Steph and I headed out to explore. We went to a cafe and grabbed some crepes for lunch and then went to Notre Dame. It was really impressive, but really crowded because it was rainy and ugly outside. From there Kat, Kellen, Chris, and I decided to go to the Pompidou, the modern art museum, and walked around for a few hours. After feeling fully confused by most of the art, we met back up with Steph and Greta and decided to go the Catacombs (the old old Paris buried underneath the streets). After about an hour ride on the metro, we arrived to find out that they are closed for renovation. So we went back to the hotel and chilled. We drank a bit and finally headed out around 9:30pm to the Latin Quarter for some dinner. After dinner we met up with a few of Stephs friends and went to a small bar for a few hours. Wasn't super exciting but fairly chill.

Friday morning we woke up early again, and had a few people speak to us on French foreign policy. The first speaker was everything stereotypical about French people, very arrogant and responded to every questions with "France is amazing and doing everything amazing" more or less. The second speaker spoke to us about the attempt to create a Mediterranean Union for economic and cooperative help which was fairly interesting.
After the lectures, we grabbed lunch over by the Louvre and I had my first croquette monsieur (ham and cheese toasted, its a French specialty). Then we headed into the Louvre which was, of course, amazing. It is unbelievably huge and I probably could have spent about 5 days looking at everything in it. But we saw the obligatory Mona Lisa and Winged Victory, and walked around for a few hours. After we grabbed some desert crepes and went back to the hotel.
That night, nobody really wanted to go out, but me, Greta, Kat, and Steph went to meet up with Steph's friends at a bar. Here we got some pitchers of beer and taught some French guys how to play beer pong (and then thoroughly beat them). Steph got pretty drunk and inaugurated the trip with the first vomit on the Metro (it was pretty gross haha).

Saturday morning was a bit rough, but we woke up around 9 and decided to head out to Versailles. Me, Chris, Kat, Kellen, and Ava all went and bought our train tickets and Palace tickets together, which proved to save a lot of time in the end. I wish I could even begin to describe the place. It was easily the coolest man-made thing I have ever seen. To even imagine that somebody spent the time and money to build a place like that is absurd. I'll post links to the pictures, because words really cannot do it justice.
Saturday night was Leah's 21st birthday so we all went to this cool bar called the Lizard Lounge and drank for a while. In typical American 21st style, Leah got drunk and puked on the streets of Paris, ahhh what a birthday story haha.

Sunday morning we woke up late, nearly missed the train back home, but caught it at nearly the last minute. We got back around 5pm. The week was great. Not only did we see a ton of stuff, but it was nice to get really close with a small group of people. It was hard to do everything as a large group, so we were forced to hang out with smaller groups. I really can't describe everything I saw and hopefully my pictures will do justice to the amazing this I saw. Brussels was awesome and way underrated, and Paris was - well, Paris!

February 23, 2008

So much to update about. I guess well go in chronological order.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, with the exception of finding out that my family was not the worst by far haha. My friend Kat was napping and was awoken to her host mom talking on the phone to a friend about how much she didn't like Kat. Needless to say she was really upset and she too is joining the moving families club.

Yesterday was about 60 degrees out and sunny and was beautiful. We had half a day of classes and grabbed some lunch, changed some money for the Brussels/Paris trip on Sunday, then I headed home to pack up the room. Around 6pm my mom drove me around the corner to my new house. I quickly got set up and settled in (pain in the ass that it was).

The dad, who is an astrophysicist for the University of Geneva (and may actually be a mad scientist) gave me a tour around the house, which includes a nuclear fallout shelter (apparently it was Swiss law at some point to require houses to have one. There are also more books in this house than I have ever seen in my entire life. We had a really good dinner and the family seems really tight knit. The mom is really cute and tries hard to speak English which is really nice. The younger son Antoine doesn't speak much English and is really shy.

After dinner we played a quick game of rummy cube with the parents and Antoine, and then went upstairs to play some Wii with Nick and Antoine. After, around 10pm, me, Nick, Chiara (the sister), and a few of their friends went to go play laser tag in Geneva. That was an interesting experience but a lot of fun. We got home around 1:30 and I pretty much passed out.

Today is even warmer than yesterday, and I think David, Rikki, Jake, and I are going to go explore/hike around the mountain a bit.

Super excited for the Brussels/Paris trip and we leave really early tomorrow and get in to Brussels in the afternoon.

Oh, and Vasco (the beautiful black lab) is amazing, finally I have a dog!

Miss everybody back stateside.

February 19, 2008

Sorry it's been a while, I got loaded with some work and laziness recently haha.

This past weekend was pretty chill, just hung around my house and did some work on Saturday and watched a movie with the host bros Sat night. On Sunday Steph and I went to Lausanne, a small city about 20 minutes from Arzier. The headquaters of the IOC is located here, so there is a cool Olympic Museum that we went too. It had all the torches and medals and a bunch of equipment from all the modern-era Olympic Games. After we walked around a bit, we headed down to the pier (Lausanne is right on Lake Geneva), and walked around here. There were a ton of people and little kids out and it was a beautiful day. We headed back in the late afternoon and enjoyed a good Sunday day trip.

This week has been somewhat interesting. We have been at different UN agencies for the past two days hearing people speak on human rights and international law. We went to the UNHCR, UN Coordination Office, and some others (they were not as interesting haha). Other than having to dress up and look nice every day, its been pretty cool.

As for my family situation - it's official, I'm moving. I think I'm actually just moving around the corner to family friends of my current family. They have three kids, two sons 20 and 10, and a 17 yr old daughter. The mother is Swiss-Italian and the father is a scientist. Apparently they also have a black lab!!! and a cat. I'm headed over in about an hour to meet them and see if I like them. If all goes well I should move in on Thurs or Friday.

Other than that, not much else is going on. We're headed to Brussels/Paris for a week on Sunday, so everybody is looking forward to that.

Oh, its officially 4 weeks into the program and I can't believe its been so quick. After we get back from Brussels/Paris (which I'm sure will fly) the program is nearly half over. CRAZY!

Alright, time for dinner and an awkward meeting with the potential family soon.

February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day

I just got back from Bern (the captiol) and I'm pretty wiped, but I'm going to attempt to fill in all that we did in the last three days.

We got to Bern after about a two hour train ride on Tuesday afternoon, grabbed a quick lunch and then headed out for a guided tour of the city. The city is built on a hill and is really old and has tons of cool fountains and buildings and a huge old church. Also, there is the Swiss Federal Bank and Parliament building. In addition, there are bears everywhere (not real of course)!!! They are on fountains and buildings and signs and cars....legend has it that when Bern was founded, the founder claimed the city's mascot would be the first animal he killed - and he killed a bear. There are also two live bears in "bearpits" in the city. It was actually really depressing cement habitat, but apparently there have been live bears in the pits since like the 1400's or something. Also, the city has a famous clock tower from hundreds of years ago that puts on this show every hour on the hour that involves dancing bears and bells and stuff, it was pretty cool. On Tuesday night we went to a cool microbrewery that was a bit pricey but still enjoyed the night.

On Weds we woke up early to go to a few lectures on Human Trafficking and Swiss foreign aid that were pretty interesting. Then we had the rest of the day free. We got some real German Brats (Bern is in the Swiss-German part of the country so everybody spoke German and all the signs were in German, it was really funny) on the street and chilled for a bit. Then a bunch of us went to get a tour of the Parliament building which was absolutely beautiful. It was completed in the early 1900s so its fairely new, but really ornately decorated. It certainly puts the US Capitol Building to shame. It was funny to see how small the houses of government were! Also, interesting to learn that women didn't receive the right to vote in Switzerland until 1971.

After the Parliament tour, it was around 4 and everybody was draggin a bit so we went back to the hostel and chilled until about 7 when we started drinkin a bit. Then some of us went out for some pizza, and after some wandering and arguing about where to go, finally met up with the others in the group at this Cuban bar where we danced the night away. Every one of the 26 of us were there and we took over the bar. My friend Steph even ended up hooking up with a guy from the Swiss Army hahah. It was a fun but longgg night.

This morning we woke up early to check out of the hostel and then had til about 3 to do whatever we wanted. A bunch of us headed back to the crazy big old church and paid to climb up to the top of the highest tower. It was a really long walk up a crazy steep old spiral staircase but when we got out to the balcony it was amazing (and really scary!). You could see all of Bern and the surrounding area. Then we climbed even higher and it was even crazier!! I couldn't stay up for very long and soon took a dizzying climb back down to ground level. Then we went to go see the bears in the bearpit (which was quite upsetting) and finally ended up in a cool restaurant in like a graffiti alley part of town. The people were really nice and the food was great and me, Steph, Greta, Alex, Kat, Kellen, Chris all chilled and ate there. Then we caught the train at 3 and headed home.

Now I'm updating and looking back it was a fun three days. It was really interesting to experience Swiss-German culture and compare it to Swiss-French culture (Swiss-German dominates most of the country). It was also good to be with the group all together again and have a good amount of free time (not that the program is all that demanding).

I can't believe i've been here for over three weeks already. I can't decide if it feels like I've been here forever or for no time at all.

Oh and it looks like im definitely going to be getting a new host family soon. I'll keep you posted on the details of that.

That's all for now, time to go relax

February 10, 2008

Je suis fatigue.

It's about 9:30 am on Sunday morning and I'm writing mostly to pass some time. This weekend was fairly low key. Friday night a few of us went into Nyon to a couple of bars and had a fun time, they helped me drink away my homestay sorrows (haha more on that later). Then yesterday I spent most of the day working on a paper and then went to get my haircut. That was an experience - try explaining how you want your hair to look when the hair cutter doesn't speak a word of English (no worries, it worked out fine). Last night, a few of us went to Kellen's homestay apt because his family was out of town all weekend and so we had a mini-party there. Me, Chris, and David spent the night and left early this morning, and thus I'm up at 9:30 am updating my blog.

As for my homestay sorrows, it turns out I'm moving. Whether or not I'm switching families seems to be the question. The family has apparently already rented out their current house next month, because I think they assumed they would have found a new place already. However, if they cannot find a new place then I will have to move in with a different family. It's not a huge deal, but more of an inconvenience and I may have to go through the whole readjusting period again.

As I am writing this, however, my host mom just informed me that she is taking me to the oldest Swiss castle in the country in a town called Montreux. So I will pause here and update the rest of this later today.

I'm back! haha its about 3pm now, and we just got home from Montreux. It was amazing! We went to the Chateau du Chillon, the castle in Montreux. It was so cool, seeing stuff that was built in the 13th century and earlier. Obviously I took tons of pictures. The castle itself was under many different rulers, but we walked through prisons, houses, dinner halls, and just about everything else. Everything was so old and it even had that super authentic old rustic smell hahah. The castle sits right on the edge of Lake Geneva and looks out onto the alps. Needless to say the pictures are quite amazing.

I guess its time to go do a bit of homework now.

Miss everybody back stateside.

February 7, 2008

Wow I'm full. Tonight we had raclette (rack-let) (see picture below) which is the most traditional Swiss dinner. All of the kids on the program were invited with their host families to a restaurant in a nearby town to have raclette. Basically, there is a massive half block of this special kind of cheese and they put it under a heater which melt the top layer of cheese.

Then they scrape off the layer of cheese onto your plate and you eat it with potatoes dipped in the cheese, and then with tiny pickles and sweet onions on the side. They also claim you need to drink hot tea or wine while eating it because if you drink water or something cold, the cheese will congeal into a giant ball in your stomach and give you a bad stomach ache.

Besides that, class was really interesting the past two days. On Weds we went to the ICRC (Red Cross) and had a few lectures on the role and goals of the Red Cross. Then today we had a guy come to talk to us about the UN who served in Bosnia and Somolia and served directly under the Secretary General a few times. He was an amazing speaker and his stories were even better.

Other than that, not much is going on. I've started bonding better with my family as we become better adjusted to each other, but all of the kids have holiday (vacation) next week, so they are going to Vienna. A bunch of us on the trip are thinking of going there for Easter weekend.

My French is slowly improving, and each day I try to choose one phrase that I can use and I repeat it over and over and it becomes a joke in the group. Today's phrase was "Il y a monstre sous moi lit" (there is a monster under my bed!)

That's it for now, got to go sleep off the massive amount of cheese in my stomach.

February 5, 2008

Bonjour! The last few days have been a bit of a blur.

We'll start Tarantino style and say that by the time I went to bed last night, it was the first time I slept in about 40 hours.

So as we all know, the Giants won the Superbowl in amazing fashion, which is where this story begins. Four of us from the trip braved the night and went into Geneva around 11:30 to a British pub that was airing the game. It was really strange to hear announcers during the pre-game with British accents, but it was nice to see T.V. in English at all.

When we got there they were running "specials" on American beer ($60 franc for 12 bottles of Sam Adams, MDG, or Corona [That's not quite American but what can you do?]). As the game progressed we made friends with a student who was interning at the ILO and had just arrived in Geneva, as well as many ex-patriots who were happy to talk to us. I even was able to interview people to hopefully write one of my cultural papers on how the Superbowl is viewed in Switzerland/abroad!

After a few buckets of beer between us and the Giants winning, we got thrown out of the bar because they were closing (keep in mind its about 4:30am now). Now, the trains don't start running until about 5:30 so we wandered the streets for a while unsure of whether it was worth it to go home and come back into Geneva for class in four hours (no worries, Switzerland is super safe), and then ended up having to run for the first train to Nyon because we decided to stay at our friends apt and try and sleep.

This is where the night gets interesting...so as were running for the train, my friends make it on, but I don't. I call them and decide I'm going to meet them in Nyon on the next train. I get on the next train, but of course I fall asleep and end up going two stops (about a half hour) past Nyon. I get out, no idea where I am, its about 6am, and I'm still not entirely sober. Needless to say, it was interesting. I figure out the next train back to Nyon (where I was supposed to get off), get on it, and spend the next two hours somewhat sleeping in the Nyon train station hahahah.

Class yesterday was QUITE a challenge and we were all struggling. I was actually falling asleep during French class (which is only 6 people) but the teacher was really nice about it hahah

Then I finally get home last night only to find out we are going to the dad's house for dinner which I went to. But it was worth it because as a hobby he collects wild gourmet mushrooms so we had an amazing dinner and then watched Meet the Fockers in French.

Today I got back on track and class was pretty easy. We also found an amazing chicken restaurant in the Old City for pretty cheap for lunch and it made us super happy.

Moral of the story is it is a great story and I'd do it exactly the same again if I had to, just to see the look on the Patriots' faces as they watch their perfect season slip through their fingers.

February 3, 2008

Yesterday was our first trip outside of the Geneva area. After waking up only minutes before I had to lead because I set my alarm for 6:30 pm instead of am, I ran out of my house and caught a series of trains eventually leading to Les Diablerets. The first train was really scenic and ran around the entire of Lake Geneva. Then we had to transfer and take a tiny regional train that ran up into the mountains. The train looked like something out of Harry Potter and was full of skiers and people headed up to the mountains.

The town is a small ski town that was originally just a few ski chalets. Then a few more were built, then a few hotels, then ski lifts, and so on. There is a main street with some restaurants and shops, but for the most part, the town looks completely snowed in. It is clearly very expensive to own or vacation there, as there were tons of BMWs and incredibly rich looking people. As we were snowshoeing, we found more houses and restaurants that were completely snowed in and must only be accessible in the summer. I think it would be really cool to go back once the snow has melted and see how different the town looks.

We finally got there at about 11am, rented snowshoes, and then took about a 15 min bus ride to one of the snowshoe trail heads. Steph, Jess, and Ida went off to ski so that left me, David, Aubrey, Ali, and Alex to blaze our way through the snow. After some small adjustments early on, everybody quickly got the hang of basically hiking with clown shoes on.

We hiked/snowshoes for about 1.5 hours up a mountain. Along the way, there were snowed in towns that must only be open for the summer season, incredible views (pictures are up on facebook), and just utter beauty of nature. It was actually pretty warm for a while and the sun was out for most of the hike so it was really nice. After about an hour and a half we turned back and headed down the mountain. By the time we reached the road at the bottom my legs were burning and my feet hurt, but it was definitely worth it.

After, we stopped for a small snack and then caught the bus back into town. We walked around for a bit and eventually found a small restaurant/bar to chill in for a while. Soon the skiers met us and we all had a bit to eat and some drinks, and then we headed out of Les Diablerets around 6pm.

We got back to Nyon earlier than expected so we decided we couldn't go home quite yet. We went to a bar called Les Brasseurs (which roughly translated means the..... i have no idea). Some people started to bail because everybody was pretty tired, but me, David, Steph, and Alex hung around until about 11pm and ordered a few 3 Liter test tube things of beer. They bring you a massive cylinder of beer with its own tap and stand and its pretty cool (see the pictures). At about 11pm David and I headed out and made it back home alive and basically passed out.

This morning there was a ton of commotion at like 8:30am and apparently the Dad of the family came to take Adri and Seb skiing. I met him briefly, and now I'm sitting here not doing much, trying to procrastinate doing work.

Tonight should be interesting - as mentioned before, we're headed into Geneva around 11pm to watch the Superbowl. Because it goes on so late, we are all just going to stay in for the whole night/morning until class. But no worries, it does have an academic side to it, as I think I'm going to do an assignment on the perception and popularity of the Superbowl abroad (its one of our assignments for our culture class) hahaha.

I'll put some pictures up of the weekend below, but they cannot do it justice.

Go Giants!

February 1, 2008

Firstly, when the hell did it become February?!?

Things are more of the same at school, today was a relaxed day, we only had to go into Geneva for a short meeting this afternoon which was nice because I caught up on some sleep and work this morning. Me and the cat, Caleen (spelling?) bonded this morning while we were alone in the house. She basically is a dog, and will meow at you or lick you or nudge you until you pet her. And if you get up, she'll follow you and keep after you until you pet her more. Who knew i'd actually like a cat?!? After the meeting, a couple of us stocked up on some snacks and food because all of our houses seriously lack snacks. Seems like they eat large meals, but lack good snacking habits haha.

Yesterday before French class a few of us were walking around the old city and we passed a fancy pastry/desert shop. We all stopped to look closer (they were inside in a slanted glass case). As we leaned in to look at the prices, I proceeded to look a little too closely. I soon slammed my head into the plate glass window causing people inside to stare at me, and all of my friends to crack up at me. Apparently I'm just as clumsy in Europe as in the states (if not more, because apparently everything in Europe is far too small for me).

After French class we were able to coordinate all 26 of us meeting up at the same cafe/bar and had a really good time drinkin a bit and bonding after we got out of French class. We celebrated one of the girl's half bdays, but really just celebrated getting through the first week. It was a good time.

Tomorrow I'm headed out early in the morning to go to Les Diablerets. Les Diablerets is about 2 hours away by train and its a big skiing/outdoors destination. Our plans are hopefully to snow shoe (hike with tennis rackets on your feet) and maybe sled down the mountain. We're planning on coming back late at night because we couldn't find anywhere to stay over.

As for the superbowl, we finally found a British pub that is having a party and it starts at 12am because of the time difference! But I think a bunch of us are going to go into Geneva to the pub around 11 and watch the game (which should end around 5 am). But the trains stop running until about 6am so I think we will just stay in Geneva all night/morning and just go straight to class...should be an interesting experience.

Tonight I think I'm going to watch a movie with Adri, Seb, and one of their friends and call it an early night because I have to get up at like 6:30 manana. Still adjusting to the family...the mom left for Italy this afternoon to visit her bf for the weekend.

More pictures should be up soon, probably after our day trip tomorrow.

Hope all is well stateside

January 30, 2008

The adventures continue...today we had our first trip to the UN. We received badges and a tour of the UN library and cafeteria and now have access to the UN whenever we want (pretty cool stuff [I know, I'm a nerd]). Afterwards, we split up into groups of 4 to go research different places around the city like libraries and organizations. My group got assigned the University of Geneva library so we had to go and walk around and get information and so on. It's amazing how similar it looked to a normal college campus.

As for regular classes, for the first two months, every morning we have an SIT class. It is either ISS (Internat'l studies) or FSS (Field studies - like cultural stuff). Then on mon, tues, and thurs afternoons we go to a different school across the city (and by across i mean like 5 minutes) to French class. My teacher is Jean and hes really funny and super enthusiastic which helps because I'm in the beginner class which involves 6 of us making asses out of ourselves as we try and drop our Spanish accents and speak French. So far I have learned the alphabet and numbers and a few words.

Now for something completely different - Until tonight I wasn't so sure about my homestay family. They seemed to be coming and going and not so interested in me. But tonight we had a bit of a dinner party. Adriana (the older daughter), her bf Seb, Vali (the younger daughter), Nicoli (the older brother who lives in Geneva, and their friends who are their neighbors all came here for a dinner party. The neighbors are Swedish and have a 17 yr old guy and 16 yr old girl. The mom works for the ILO (International Labor Org) and they speak super perfect English. Needless to say this was an interesting night. Oh, and it was the daughter's bday.

Conversations ranging from cultural differences to American culture to economics to politics flew across the table. Jokes were told in different languages, and many stories were told in French and then again in English so I could understand. It was nice to finally feel included. Then, after dinner and cake, all of the kids went upstairs and we smoked hookah and bonded over trading music and comparing music. It is amazing how much American culture is present in the form of music and movies and entertainment. So far, it seems the Swiss love any music with a good beat to it. But Adriana likes classic rock too, which is cool.

This weekend I think a few of us on the trip are going to go to Les Diableret, a small town at the foot of some big swiss mountains. There is a ton of stuff to do, from skiing to night sledding (they take you up a mountain and you sled down but its dark and you have a headlight on, and then you go for fondue dinner after!).

Anywho, its almost 12:30 and I need to get up in 7 hours so I can commute to school (it takes about an hour to get into Geneva from my small mountain village) for class at 9:30. Good thing I don't have to be in Geneva until 3:15 on Friday.

Missing everybody back stateside.

Oh and super excited that the Mets got Santana. Totally made my morning website check routine much more exciting this morning.

January 28, 2008

Bonjour

This past weekend was interesting, on Sat I got to my homestay. My family is very nice. There is a mother, Angela, who is Columbian and used to work for the UN. She is divorced, but her ex-husband is Swiss. She has a four children, two older sons one who lives in Nice, France and one who lives in Geneva. Her daughters are Adriana, 19, and Valentine, 15. Adriana lives mostly with her boyfriend Seb (Sebastian) in a town about 30/45 mins from here. Angela has an Italian boyfriend who she shes often apparently. The family is really nice and we've been talking in English and Spanish, but it seems like they are just going to kind of leave me be and not really do a lot of activities with me. That's a bit disappointing, as I was hoping for a family who would really show me Switzerland and stuff, but I guess its also good because I'll be able to travel and do what I want to do.

Saturday I just chilled and watched a movie and passed out, very tired after waking up around 7 every morning prior. Sunday I slept late and ate breakfast and then organized all my things for class. Then in the afternoon I decided I was going to take the train into Nyon, a small city at the bottom of the mountain. I figured it would be good practice because to get to class in Geneva, I have to take a small commuter train about 25 mins to Nyon, and then another 15 min regular train into Geneva.

Anyways back to the story, so I get to the very small train station and the train pulls up and I go to the doors, expecting them to open, like in NYC...well of course they dont, so I'm standing like yanking on the doors, which won't open. Soon enough, the train begins to pull away with me holding onto the doors like an idiot. Sure enough, as the train pulls away, I see a big lit green button about 6 inches from the door which you need to press to open the door hahahaha. So instead of going back to my house like an idiot I decided to wonder around my village, which is tiny and so beautiful. Eventually I made it to the train and back off, but everyday is definitely a new adventure.

Today was the first day of classes and I commuted into Geneva at about 8am. We have like two main classes ISS (Internat'l Studies) and FSS (Field Studies), which is cultural stuff. I only have these classes one or two days a week. And on mon, tues, and thurs, I also have French class in the afternoons. Today was ISS in the morning for three hours and French in the afternoon. Needless to say, combined with a one hour commute each way, I'm pretty tired right now (it's almost 11pm).

This weekend a couple of people on my trip are trying to plan a trip to Interlaken, a cool backpacker destination about 3 hrs from here in Switzerland this weekend. We want to go nightsledding. This is where you take a gondola up a mountain and then you sled down for about an hour, and once at the bottom they take you to a restaurant for a traditional Swiss fondue dinner and drinks. Should be fun!

It's amazing how much of an adventure each day is. Each day has it's own little challenges, from figuring out how to get on a train to how to get to class to who you are going to hang out with or what time you need to get home. I can't believe I've been here for almost a week, it feels like I have done so much in such a short period of time.

Oh and I had my first Swiss chocolate today, which of course was unbelievable.

That's it for now, peace

Oh and for all the non-facebookers, the link for my pictures from Geneva is here-
http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=7880052905

January 26, 2008

Bonjour!

This morning was an interesting experience. After getting up really early, we left the hostel and headed to Nyon, a town about 15 mins outside of Geneva. Here we met up with our host families, and one by one people started leaving the group. It was super awkward at first and we were all crowded in the corner of a small conference room waiting anxiously. Finally families began to come in and everybody said their uncomfortable hellos. In Switzerland its often customary to kiss somebody three times on the cheek (left, right, left) instead of hugging or shaking hands, so it was funny to watch all of us engage in this cultural oddity, and plenty of the kids messed up.

Anyway, I've finally settled into my Swiss home. I'm living in the town of Arzier, a small old village of about 2000 people nestled in the Swiss mountains. From my window, I can see the massive Lake Geneva and an incredible view of the Swiss Alps (pictures soon to follow). It almost doesn't look real. My room is nice, about the size of my dorm room with a bed, a dresser and a small desk. And yes, I have met the cat, who is actually quite nice and affectionate. I don't remember the name of it but I will update when I do.

As for the family, my mother is Colombian and speaks many languages, but we have been speaking mostly Spanish and English. The older daughter met me at the hotel today, but then had to go to work at McDonalds (which I find pretty funny). She is the equivalent of a high school senior, but lives half the time with her boyfriend who apparently just got an apt somewhere in Switzerland haha. The younger daughter is skiing for the weekend but will be back tomorrow night. There is also and older brother, but he lives and works in Nice, France. The mom is divorced but apparently her husband lives somewhere close.

Seems like I'll have a good amount of independence. The town is about a forty minute commute into Geneva nearly every day, which shouldn't be too bad. The family seems like it is pretty busy so it should be interesting to see how the interaction and day to day life plays out over the next fifteen weeks.

Pictures from the few days of orientation in Geneva are up on facebook and im trying to get the link so i can post it up here.

miss everybody back stateside!

January 25, 2008

So its been a couple of days since i got here and Im finally feeling a little bit more comfortable in the city. For the last few days we have been doing orientation stuff like finding our office building and the place where we take french and all that good stuff. the actual program looks pretty intense but really interesting. Once i have more time ill post some more details of the program.

the kids are all pretty cool and outgoing and were all having a good time struggling with french and teh city. last night was pretty strange. we all went out to this italian restaurant for dinner and the program paid so everybody ordered really expensive stuff. the meal took like three hours and then the waiters started fucking with everybody but it was all in good fun. Then we went to a aussie bar and ended up participating in karaoke with random foreignors. Nobody could figure out if the dj was a guy or girl and eventually I volunteered to go find out. So i went over to it and said that it was doing a great job and asked when our song was coming up. SHE responded with "youre really cute and it will be up next". so yea, i was hit on by a transgender shemale karaoke dj in switzerland. pretty much one of the strangest nights of my life.

Im running out of time on my internet card here but Im meeting up with mz homestay family tomorrow and then will have more time to update and talk to people. miss everybody back stateside.

Peace

January 23, 2008

Hey all!! Greetings from my first very very long day in Geneva. After my flight arrived about an hour early at about 7 am, I ventured by myself on a fourty dollar cab ride to the hostel my group was staying at. After gettin a room to put my non-valuables in, I walked around the city at sunrise with all the little school children heading to school. Then I came back and read for a bit, until I finally found some other SIT people to hang out with. Then we all ventured out for a while and walked all over the city again. After getting some lunch in a cute cafe and some real European coffee, we grabbed a quick beer (10 dollars!!!) and came back to the hostel to meet the group.

After meeting the group we had a quick orientation and got a ton of papers and info and then headed out for a bite to eat at this crazy european mall thing with a cool restaurant on top and then proceeded again to walk around with a bunch of kids who hadnt seen the city yet. needless to say I was happy to play tour guide (kinda).

Then we finally came back to the hostel, which is kinda dirty but what can you do? I took a quick shower and now Im checking my email to keep from passing out too early so I can hopefully get on a normal sleep schedule.

The city is absolutely beautiful. I watched the alps by moonlight early this morning, then the sun rise over the lake, then finally it set and cast crazy shadows everywhere. Today has been exhausting and Im going to go pass out soon.

The kids all seem pretty cool and there are five other guys on the trip, one is from South Korea. One of them is also living in the same town as me outside of Geneva, and were meeting up with our families on Sat.

Oh, and it turns out there are TONS of dogs in switzerland. I have pictures to proove it, and it has already become a running joke in the group and people are constantly pointing them out to me.