Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Paris!
I am going to Paris this Thursday and will be staying there until Monday afternoon. I really can not believe it, I am so excited. My friend Maria is visiting there at the same time with her French class, so I will get to see her as well as Bronwyn and Eugenie, two friends who actually live in Paris. I am going to stay at a youth hostel, and I am taking a train from Geneva to the Gare de Lyon. I plan on spending as much time as is physically possible seeing as much of the city as I can. I will take hundreds of pictures, I'm sure, and will put them up here as soon as I get back. The whole trip will be so different for me, much more independent and open than anything I have done before because I am going alone, although still meeting people there. I am really looking forward to it, and promise to give a detailed account of it all when return.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Back to School
Today was my last day of a two week vacation. I managed to do a lot during that time. My boyfriend, Lukas, came here for five days and we spent our time going to the movies, finding good places to eat, and hanging out by the lake. I went to Kim's friend's house in France and slept over there, and did a bit of shopping in Geneva, but not too much because everything is so expensive. I acted as a background character in someones senior project movie, and thankfully did not have to say anything. Also, I saw Maryse, a friend of my family, who lives in Geneva, and she showed me a few different areas of the city I had not been to before, as well as an adorable chocolaterie where we got very good hot chocolates. Last night I went to Kim's father's house in France for the first time, and slept there, surrounded by hundreds of books and photographs. We had gone to a movie earlier that night, called Disco, which I didn't like very much, but I guess I didn't catch most of the humor. It was about three 40-year-old men in a disco competition, so just imagine the costumes. Tomorrow I will go back to school, where we will have math as our main lesson again, but with a different teacher. The class here isn't very good at math, so I think we will actually be working on our multiplication tables, which is a little embarrassing, but good for me I guess, because saying them in French will be practice for me. Well, I'll get to see what it's like tomorrow.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter
Happy Easter, everyone! So much has happened since the last time I wrote, I don't know where to begin.
Overall, things are going really well here. My French is (very) slowly improving, I understand the basics of the bus system now and got a bus pass, I have adjusted to the time difference and stopped falling asleep in class (a very good thing), I have eaten maybe a bit too much good chocolate (but you can never really have too much chocolate in my opinion), and I have almost finished my third book. I have written in my journal every day, but have only just discovered that I started writing in the back of the book, so it is upside down. I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to figure it out, but not too much. Also, I have now been to France three times, but if no one had told me, I wouldn't have realized that I crossed any borders between countries, because there is almost nothing to show it. A little different from America, I guess.
Things are much more expensive here and the Swiss franc is now almost equal the value of a dollar, which is not at all good news for me. Still, as long as I refrain from buying too many books and chocolate I should be fine. I should have no problem refraining from buying shoes here though. I have already received much sympathy from Kimberley's father's girlfriend about shoes here, because they have very few choices once you get up past a U.S. size 8, and they are really expensive. Oh, well...
Back to the present, today for Easter, I went to Kim's mother's boyfriend's house for dinner with his daughters, parents, and brother. After we had all been introduced and kissed on the cheek a million times, we all sat down in the living room and had a bit of socialization and snacking. We had olives with anchovies inside, crackers, nuts and champagne. It feels very strange to be offered wine and champagne at a meal as if that was normal, it will take a bit of getting used to. Once dinner began we ate salad, warm bread, and (I know there is a culinary name for this, but I don't know it) duck liver. It was very good, very salty. This course was followed by lamb, a kind of potato and cream casserole, hard boiled eggs (of course), and more bread. Desert was a fruit tart and mille feuilles, which I don't know the name for in English but it means a thousand leaves and it is a kind of pastry. It was an amazing meal, perfectly satisfying, and everyone was very friendly and helpful to me.
Afterward, Kim and I sat on the couch, altering a few of her pairs of jeans that had wide legs, which used to be fashionable, but skinny jeans are the mode right now, so they had to be taken in at the bottom. That was fun, I think Kim is still working on a pair now. I guess being able to do projects like that very easily has something to do with all those handwork classes I've had.
Kim is upstairs right now, watching Meet the Fockers on TV, and laughing loudly, which I know anyone who stayed in our house for a while while she was with us will remember easily. She would be alone in her room, watching a movie, and laughing so that you could hear her through the whole house. I love that she does that, it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud if I'm watching something by myself. The movie is dubbed in French, like so much of the TV here. Most of the shows we watch in America come out here a bit later, but they have most of the same. Almost all of the songs on their radio are songs that are popular in the U.S. It would really not be that hard to live here speaking no French at all, everyone speaks at least a few words of English.
Well, it is getting late here so I am going to head up to bed. I will try to write more often, and I have two weeks of Easter break now, so it should be easier to do. Happy Easter!
Overall, things are going really well here. My French is (very) slowly improving, I understand the basics of the bus system now and got a bus pass, I have adjusted to the time difference and stopped falling asleep in class (a very good thing), I have eaten maybe a bit too much good chocolate (but you can never really have too much chocolate in my opinion), and I have almost finished my third book. I have written in my journal every day, but have only just discovered that I started writing in the back of the book, so it is upside down. I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to figure it out, but not too much. Also, I have now been to France three times, but if no one had told me, I wouldn't have realized that I crossed any borders between countries, because there is almost nothing to show it. A little different from America, I guess.
Things are much more expensive here and the Swiss franc is now almost equal the value of a dollar, which is not at all good news for me. Still, as long as I refrain from buying too many books and chocolate I should be fine. I should have no problem refraining from buying shoes here though. I have already received much sympathy from Kimberley's father's girlfriend about shoes here, because they have very few choices once you get up past a U.S. size 8, and they are really expensive. Oh, well...
Back to the present, today for Easter, I went to Kim's mother's boyfriend's house for dinner with his daughters, parents, and brother. After we had all been introduced and kissed on the cheek a million times, we all sat down in the living room and had a bit of socialization and snacking. We had olives with anchovies inside, crackers, nuts and champagne. It feels very strange to be offered wine and champagne at a meal as if that was normal, it will take a bit of getting used to. Once dinner began we ate salad, warm bread, and (I know there is a culinary name for this, but I don't know it) duck liver. It was very good, very salty. This course was followed by lamb, a kind of potato and cream casserole, hard boiled eggs (of course), and more bread. Desert was a fruit tart and mille feuilles, which I don't know the name for in English but it means a thousand leaves and it is a kind of pastry. It was an amazing meal, perfectly satisfying, and everyone was very friendly and helpful to me.
Afterward, Kim and I sat on the couch, altering a few of her pairs of jeans that had wide legs, which used to be fashionable, but skinny jeans are the mode right now, so they had to be taken in at the bottom. That was fun, I think Kim is still working on a pair now. I guess being able to do projects like that very easily has something to do with all those handwork classes I've had.
Kim is upstairs right now, watching Meet the Fockers on TV, and laughing loudly, which I know anyone who stayed in our house for a while while she was with us will remember easily. She would be alone in her room, watching a movie, and laughing so that you could hear her through the whole house. I love that she does that, it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud if I'm watching something by myself. The movie is dubbed in French, like so much of the TV here. Most of the shows we watch in America come out here a bit later, but they have most of the same. Almost all of the songs on their radio are songs that are popular in the U.S. It would really not be that hard to live here speaking no French at all, everyone speaks at least a few words of English.
Well, it is getting late here so I am going to head up to bed. I will try to write more often, and I have two weeks of Easter break now, so it should be easier to do. Happy Easter!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
I'm In Geneva!!!
I took my first flight ever, and crossed an ocean in 8 1/2 hours. The feeling of taking off and the views of France and Switzerland as we came closer to arriving were amazing, with the patchwork of fields, the enormous mountains rising from a comparatively flat landscape, and the ocean of clouds that pooled around them. Everything went well with my arrival, and I was picked up by Kim, her mother, and her sister. They brought me back to their house which is beautiful, and I unpacked all of my things. My room is very nice, with everything I need and a beautiful little balcony off the back with good views of the mountains. I have spent a little time in the city and will go to exchange my money and get a bus pass tomorrow. What I have seen of it so far is very nice, but I think that la vieille ville (the old city) might be the most beautiful. I want to do some exploring eventually but I want to brush up on my French some more, get my bus pass, and wake up a bit before heading out. I am still so tired, and actually almost fell asleep in class today, during my first day of school. The school is very nice but the class is so small, only about 8 students in the entire 11th grade. The weather has been a bit cold and wet the past few days, but it is not so bad. I really can't wait until it warms up a bit. I have already finished reading A Room With a View and have just started Three Cups of Tea. As promised, I have written in my journal every day so far. In general, it is beautiful here, and very European, with their smaller cars, lots of traffic circles, and narrow, winding roads. I still can't really believe it is all happening.
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