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/
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