A Post for Paris

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and then, one not-so-special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people, but most of all, a story about love. A love that will live forever...Wow. Got a little carried away with that Moulin Rouge quote, but I figured it was a good start to my Paris post.

 I attached this photo to my application at the Moulin Rouge. I'm hoping for a summer internship.

Since this trip was about a month and a half ago, I'm going to keep it brief and stick to the highlights and just show pictures. Although we had four full days and nights in Paris, we were there with the program and were unfortunately kept relatively busy visiting NGOs like Médecins du Monde and Action Contre La Faim during daytime hours and were forced to become crazed super-tourists during all off hours in the late afternoon and evening in order to cram in all those "must-see" tourist sites that Paris has to offer (because who knows when I'll be back someday!). We even had to resort to the late night Louvre visit, finally getting kicked out at 10 p.m. and then struggling to use the complicated metro system to find the way back to the hotel in the pouring rain. Not exactly my favorite memory from Paris...

 Obligatory optical illusion picture.

Found her. Making my best Mona face. 

Being the super-tourists that we were, we got the most out of our metro passes to fit in visits to the Eiffel Tower (a short walk from our hotel), Musée d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Montmarte and the Sacre Coeur, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge,  Hôtel des Invalides, and probably any other tourist stop you could think of in Paris (sadly no Versailles). Needless to say, we were exhausted, physically and mentally, and as much fun as we had there, I think my next trip there would be more enjoyable without the stress of seeing every major tourist site, because there are just way too many in this city for such a short stay.

 Arc de Triomphe

 Sacre Coeur

Notre Dame

Not to miss out on any cultural experiences, we also made sure to check out the Parisian discothéques, a decision my body would later regret when I forced it to wake up 3 hours later for a lecture across town. C'est la vie.

Being able to visit all the sites that I have seen in so many movies and pictures was an incredible experience and to think that that was only one of several unforgettable trips I've already made during my stay in Europe makes me realized how blessed I truly am that this is my life! Next post: Brussels and Amsterdam, probably. Then Morocco. Then Portugal. Now that I'm done with classes and just have the month of April to travel and write a 20-30 page paper means I should have more time for blogging. Get ready.

And the award goes to...

Me. For being the worst blogger ever. Sorry about that. Sure, I could pull out the excuse that I've been too busy having amazing European adventures to sit down and write about them, but then I'd just be rubbing it in, and I don't want to do that. So I'll just launch into what I've been up to for, oh, the last month or so that you've been left in the dark.

A few weeks ago, my host family was kind enough to let me tag along on a trip to their chalet, or ski lodge, with them for a weekend of snow activity, in where else but the Swiss Alps. I got in some QT with the Matterhorn (slightly larger than Disneyland's version, and minus a rollercoaster), attempted to master the pole-between-the-legs lift on snowboard (not my favorite experience), and all-in-all just tried to appreciate the fact that I was skiing in the Swiss Alps, because who actually does that?! Following the long day of skiing we ate raclette, a traditional after-skiing dish in Switzerland consisting of melted cheese and potatoes, and soon after entered into a raclette coma, the direct result of the copious amounts of cheese and white wine consumed in combination with extreme bodily fatigue, for approximately the next 14 hours. Then repeated the experience the next day.

 Le Matterhorn!

Not as easy as it looks...Take my word for it.

Now I know you're wondering. How did it compare to Colorado's slopes?! At risk of sounding snobby, I'll just say that I will be perfectly content snowboarding in the Rocky Mountains next winter. Although skiing may be the one thing that's actually cheaper in Switzerland than the US...Who would've thought?

With my host sister, Nathalie

In order to not overload you with information--after all, you're just getting used to me blogging again--I'm going to end this blog now and save the next installment (which will most likely be very soon) for all the exciting stories of my trip to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam!



On a completely unrelated note, my dad (briefly) admitted that I was more clever than him today, but then quickly took it back. I assume his friends following my blog will enjoy reading that. Also, don't tolerate him telling you he's "winning" too much. It's only okay when Charlie Sheen says it.

I Am The Luckiest

Just having one of those moments when you realize that you're in exactly the right place at the right time. I literally don't know how I could be loving life any more than I am right now. Thanks, God. I'll have a real blog update soon...I promise.

So International

Back by popular demand, here is the second installment of my study abroad blog! I still have a lot to cover, so I'll try to just hit the highlights and update more often in the future.

I had my first day of classes about ten days ago and am finally starting to get accustomed to my new Swiss life. Contrary to popular belief, studying abroad actually does have a studying component, although I haven't found mine to be too demanding...yet. I have a Global Health and Development Policy seminar every weekday from 10 am to noon, a two hour lunch break, and then French class from 2 to 5 pm on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and afternoons off on Wednesday and Friday (beaucoup de Français, je sais). During the morning seminar we have speakers come from various international organizations based in Geneva to share about their topics of expertise or we make our visits to these various organizations' headquarters, as we did yesterday when we visited the UN! Not only did we get a behind the scenes tour of the United Nations' headquarters in Geneva, but we also all received passes to use the UN Library and cafeteria for the remainder of our semester here, so don't be surprised if you hear about me brushing elbows with foreign diplomats in line for mashed potatoes.

In the UN Conference Room--I look the part, right?

Another cultural thing about Switzerland (and many European countries) is that everything closes on Sundays. Everything. Considering that this is one half of our weekend, this initially seemed to be a problem, until a few of my new friends and I decided to make the best of this situation and turn Sundays into "Outdoor Sundays" and utilize this day to explore the great outdoors, Switzerland-style. This past Sunday, two friends and I coordinated our train schedules and headed up to St.-Cergue, a little town about 20 minutes past my train stop in the mountains. On the train, we befriended an American/Canadian man in the 50 to 55 year old range, now living in Geneva, also heading to St.-Cergue to take advantage of the beautiful weather outside for a day of hiking. Wait a second, beautiful weather, you say? I thought it was freezing in Switzerland? So I thought too, however, lucky for me, for the past week the weather has warmed up to the mid-50s and it has been nothing but warm and sunny everyday. My host family keeps telling me "It's summer!" meaning this is not typical weather for this season in Switzerland, but I ignore them and pretend like this weather is completely normal and will continue for the rest of the time I'm here. 

Back to our new friend, who we will call Andrew. We hiked with Andrew for close to four hours and saw some absolutely breathtaking views of the Swiss and French Alps, including Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Western Europe. I have never seen a stretch of mountains continue for so long without interruption--and I'm from Colorado, so I've seen some mountains. It was probably the one time in my life when I actually wished I had a panoramic camera to capture the sheer size and beauty of the massive mountain range before me. Totally put the Rockies to shame.

It was only after maybe three hours of hiking with Andrew before we start getting details from this guy about his history and his reason for being in Switzerland. Turns out, yada yada yada (see Seinfeld episode of the same title), this guy was the former Bureau Chief of Sub-Saharan Africa for Time Magazine and now is working as a Project Manager for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and he was talking to us about important global issues, past and present, like we were his equals, not like three 21-year old American girls studying in Europe. It was an incredible experience and I have no idea how we managed to make connections with such an influential figure in the international world in the most simple of settings, on a hike in the Swiss Alps. This just goes to show you how truly international a city Geneva is and why it is, literally, the perfect place for me to study. Luckily at the end of our time together we were able to exchange information with him and he said he --and I quote-- "hoped to see me again," before I hopped off at my train stop in Givrins. Moi aussi (Me too). 

Hiking with our new friend, the big time foreign correspondent, 

chatting about maternal health in India, no big deal.

So after returning from 4 hours of hiking and 1 hour of travel, what's the one thing on my mind at this point? Food. Any food, I thought. Any food, just give it to me and I'll eat it. But alas, as always, I spoke too soon. Dinner time rolls around and what's the dish of the night? Onions. Not onions in a beef stew or on the side with some chicken. Just onions, sitting there on my plate, alone and staring at me. Anyone who knows me moderately well knows that not only do I not like onions, I don't eat them, ever. However, I couldn't just not eat the food my host family had prepared for me, especially when I was that hungry. So, being the gracious guest that I am (thanks for the years of training, Mom and Dad), I put on a happy face and ate it. You heard me. I ate onions. Shocking, I know. Needless to say, now both my body and my stomach hated me, but I made sure to nurse them back to health with a few hours of bedrest and some Lindt chocolate.

Today we had the day off, so we did what any normal study abroad student would do when class is cancelled...Go to France. About ten other students and I purchased our ferry tickets this morning and headed to the lake (as in Lake Geneva) for a short ferry ride to a small medieval town called Yvoire (pronounced ee-vwar). This was my first experience going to France, so I was excited to see what it was all about and to add another stamp to my passport. However the stamp never happened. Suffice it to say, the French aren't exactly concerned about national security at this particular port. We hopped off the boat with no one so much as asking my nationality, although I should think it would've been quite obvious after our reenactment of well-known Titanic scenes from the bow of the boat. (And yes, I'm going to try to make a Titanic reference in every post. I imagine that this doesn't surprise you, the reader, at all.)

See? I wasn't lying.

Anyway, we hopped off the boat and began exploring France immediately! The little medieval town, one of the oldest cities in Europe, was absolutely charming. For brevity's sake, I'll just show some pictures of what I got to experience today. 

Not too bad for a Wednesday afternoon.

Switzerland: The Beginning

Let me just preface this blog by saying, I don't like blogging. I typically find the whole process incredibly forced and unnatural and I have had serious reservations about creating one of my own. That being said, I do realize the importance of online journaling and being able to share my experience with friends and family not lucky enough to be here with me, so I overcame my fears, and here I am, blogging about my time in Switzerland. So...here we go. Cut me some slack if it's not as insightful/funny/profound/whatever as you were hoping.

For those of you who don't know, I am studying Global Health and Development Policy in Geneva, Switzerland for the Spring 2011 semester, and so far I'm off to a great start! I have been here just about 10 days and I regret not starting this blog sooner because I am just about ready to burst with stories upon stories about my time here. So let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (Sound of Music reference). I arrived in the Geneva International Airport on Wednesday January 25th after some tearful goodbyes and phone conversations with the Americans I left behind having no idea what to expect. Five hours later, with more or less the 26 students in the program, we finally left the airport for three days in the Geneva Youth Hostel before meeting with our host families on Saturday. During this time we had our program orientation, time to get to the know the other students, and a bit of exploration around Geneva and the smaller neighboring city of Nyon, where we take several of our classes. A few observations about Switzerland right off the bat:

1. It is very cold. (Although apparently not as cold as it is in the US right now...So I can't really complain).
2. It is very clean. The buildings, streets, and sidewalks are spotless. I think the Swiss would be shocked and appalled to walk down Bourbon Street and see the gutters lined with plastic cups and people dropping their trash on the ground before even looking for a trash can nearby.
3. It is very quiet. The Swiss value silence, we learned firsthand after being super-American and shouting across the street to some friends that we would meet them at the hostel and getting a handful of stares and dirty looks from the surrounding Swiss city-dwellers. Lesson learned. Apparently the Swiss even used to have a law against slamming your car door because it created too much noise. How the Swiss don't hate Americans, I truly don't know.
4. They too are on European time, as in no food is fast food and no timeline is set in stone. The Swiss will spend hours eating dinner and catching up and there is a never a rush to get the check and leave. And that is something I'm quite enjoying get used to.
5. The chocolate really is amazing. Imagine the best chocolate you've ever had. That chocolate is the "cheap" chocolate in Switzerland. Now take a moment to let that sink in. I imagine that the jealousy is kicking in right about now. My host mom left a bowl of a variety of Swiss chocolates in my room, a generous, but dangerous gift. Thank goodness we walk everywhere or a different Ali might be coming home in May...

Now, enough of those general observations and back to what I've been doing in Switzerland for the last ten days! After Orientation, we all piled into a bus with our luggage in tow to meet our host families at the Hôtel des Alpes in Nyon and the excitement of meeting our families suddenly turned into nervousness. We all had received an email from our host families with basic details, but anyone can sound good via email. Now it was the moment of truth. Luckily there was nothing for me to fear! I met my Swiss family which consists of two parents, an 18 year old daughter, Caroline, a 17 year old daughter, Nathalie, and a 14 year old son, Patrick (who definitely wore the same Hollister shirt for the first four days I saw him...but more on the Hollister phenomenon in another post), and two cats, one of which I am not especially fond of. C'est la vie. In the afternoon we returned to what will be my home for the next several months, a cute yellow house in the small village of Givrins a mere 20 second walk from the petit train station that I take to class everyday. And yes, you heard right, I said village. Imagine the Swiss countryside with endless rolling hills where large green fields only seem to end at the base of the mammoth Swiss Alps in the distance with a little red train cutting through it all. I live there.

 My house!

The view from my room-C'est magnifique!

I experienced a bit of culture shock switching from speaking English with the other American students to almost exclusively Français with my homestay family. Although my host mom is from Zürich, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, she is now fluent in French and very good at English, which is nice for me as the rest of the family speaks mainly French and only un peu d'Anglais (a little English). Needless to say, my French has improved drastically in the last week I have spent with them and I could not be more excited. I even watched Mean Girls in French with my host sisters last night, and have to say, it's still funny in French. I'm glad the Swiss appreciate Tina Fey's humor as much as I do. I saw Titanic in their movie drawer, so you all know that it's only a matter of time before I'm quoting the movie in both English and French...Get excited for that. Tu sautes, je saute, tu te souviens? (You jump, I jump, remember?)

On Saturday night, I went to a party with Caroline and had some Swiss culture shock again when everyone kept kissing me hello. They kiss three times on the cheek in Switzerland, and with the first kiss on the left side. I made the mistake of thinking it was the right...That could've ended badly, but luckily disaster was averted. The party was similar to an American house party, only minus the drinking games. They wanted me to teach them beer pong, but alas, my host dad picked me up at midnight (back to feeling 13 years old again) and there was no time. La prochaine fois (Next time). On Sunday, my host dad and sister Caroline took me to Lac de Joux, the biggest frozen lake I've ever seen, for some ice skating. There were hundreds of people there, ice skating, skiing with parasails pulling them across the lake, and even sailboats that somehow glide across the ice. It was a sight unlike any other. We were going to stop in France on the way back home, but silly me, I had forgotten my passport in the house. Yep, France is that close.

There is so much more for me to add (I haven't even talked about this past week yet!) but it's time for dinner and I think this post is much too long already. I hope you all enjoyed reading about my first few days in Switzerland and stay tuned for updates on more exciting adventures to come! A bientôt!