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.