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.