My first week of classes is coming to a close.

I fought my way into a seminar yesterday (Contemporary Middle East) that was supposed to be 25 people but 100 of us showed up. After an hour of debating we got it down to 40, and I'm in.

Then I freaked out about why I couldn't get into a locked classroom for my next seminar only to discover that it starts next week. Great.

Next week is my real first week, though, because this week we didn't have our Smith Center classes; they decided to be nice and hold off a week so we could class shop at the other institutions. Also I'll be starting my internship sometime next week. Essentially, next week is when I start the rest of my semester.

Tonight, though, I leave for Spain! Three friends and I are going to Madrid Thursday night - Saturday morning and then Barcelona Saturday afternoon-Sunday night. It's costing me an arm and a leg but hey, it's Spain!!!

I have to run in order to get everything done for that, but I promise to post about it when I get back. Since I won't arrive in Geneva until late Sunday night, don't expect anything until Monday at the earliest. Adios!

Yesterday I had my first class at the University of Geneva (UniGe), called "La Suisse Politique" (Swiss Politics). The class is taught in French and there are roughly 150 students. The professor is really sweet and bubbly and honestly looks like she belongs at Smith. I wish she spoke a little slower, but she actually tries to engage the class with questions regardless of the size of the class. There is also a seminar attached, and we get a choice of two. One is more economics based, which is a bummer because the TA seemed nicer and spoke more slowly, but I'd rather take the government-based one with the TA who talks too fast and has an Italian accent. The material is a lot more interesting to me. I need to look at the syllabi to make a final decision, but I'm really not in the mood for an economics class in a foreign language.

I'm supposed to start my internship and tutoring at some point today, but neither has gotten back to me as to exactly what time. So here I wait, writing a blog post and watching TV on my computer.

We celebrated the end of orientation by going to a restaurant in Carouge called La Bourse where we had fondue and raclette! Unfortunately we had to choose one or the other, and since I've had fondue before I opted for raclette, a Swiss cheese. It is very yummy and you eat it with potatoes. The professors came with us and I sat next to Geneviève, my French teacher from orientation and the Assistant Director of the program. She asked me to explain American scholarships to her, which is very complicated in the first place and even more so when you try to do it in French.

The next day we got up early and went to Gruyère and Lausanne. There were 8 of us and we caught an early train out to Gruyère, where we went to a cheese factory. The town is absolutely gorgeous, right in the mountains: 

We walked around the town for a bit and it was so cute. The walk up to it, though, was a really big hill covered in ice, so some of us fell (and the others laughed lol).

Then we came back down to go to the cheese factory, which was actually a little lame. They gave us cheese to try (yes!) and each slice had been aged a different amount of time. Super yummy. The tour, though, was an audio one given by a cow named Cherry, which made us all burst out laughing. We were supposed to be able to watch cheese being made, but there was no one down there! The workroom was empty, and there were just videos on little TVs showing us what normally happens.

So we hopped on another train to go to the Maison Cailler, a chocolate factory, which was way better. The beginning was a little stupid, I'll admit: it was another audio tour through a series of rooms that showed you the history of chocolate and the Cailler name. After that was done, though, we got to taste cocoa beans and then chocolate itself! There was a whole room dedicated to chocolate tasting:

And there wasn't anyone there telling you "one a piece," you could have as much as you wanted! So, naturally, I stuffed my face. The chocolate, honey, and almond one was the best.

After drinking a gallon of water (chocolate makes you so thirsty!) 4 of us hopped on a train back to Lausanne, right on Lake Geneva. The city is on a giant hill, though this one was not covered in ice. We wandered around for a bit and took pictures with the spectacular view from the top:

The whole day was so great, yet so exhausting, so today I'm just kicking back and figuring out my class schedule. After all, classes start tomorrow....

Orientation is coming to a close, which means tomorrow I have a test (oh yay). It also means I had my last classes today (oh yay!).

Just another general observation about Geneva: people will run you off the sidewalk. Everyone walks every which way, and when they're in groups they really don't care enough to move over for you.They'd rather run you into a wall or onto the street. It's quite rude and I really can't understand it because generally the Genevan people are quite nice.

Today was a balmy 5 degrees Celsius, which means I actually didn't have to wear a hat or gloves for the first time since I got here. I almost didn't know what to do with myself.

Tonight I have an interview with Residence Life for the House Coordinator position in Dawes next year. I'm a little nervous but it's not exactly something I can prep for since I have very little idea of what they might ask me. This is when my ability to think on my feet comes in handy.

Yesterday we went to the USA Mission in Geneva. It's basically an American consulate but since there's already one in Bern, they can't have two. Therefore it's a mission. We basically had different people talk to us for 3 hours but it was really nice and I learned a lot about the State Department and how people got jobs there and what they do. Also, a Smithie who was supposed to be in the Geneva program is working at the Mission because she got an internship there (and obviously opted for that instead of study abroad). It was nice to have someone from home greet us!

I've got to run and make myself (or just my upper half) look presentable for my skype interview with ResLife. More soon!

I love and hate my grammar class (mostly love, but honestly, who likes class?). It's great because I actually do learn stuff, mostly connotations and phrases that I wasn't aware of that make me sound more like a francophone. On the other hand, we oftentimes go over grammar that I already know, and my teacher loves going over vowel sounds with us, specifically the difference between "u" and "ou." I can do it just fine when she just writes it on the board and asks me to say it, but once I have her repeating the sounds for me over and over I lose it. It's incredibly frustrating.

Ironically, though, I encountered someone today that I wanted to do the same thing to. The Genevans (and possibly French speakers in general, I'm not sure) have this fun way of saying "law" that sounds like "low," and it always takes me about 5 minutes to realize what they are actually trying to talk about. We went to the Uni Mail library today, and our guide was telling us about the droit (law) section and I wanted so badly to correct her. Unfortunately that's generally frowned upon.

Something that made me laugh today: when walking home from grocery shopping with my roommate, we saw a little boy on the side walk peeing onto a car. It was just too funny not to laugh at, because it's just so ridiculous! Everyone in Geneva is so uptight (in the best way, but still) and buttoned-up and formal and then there's this little boy, peeing onto a car in broad daylight. So hilarious!

I haven't posted lately because there hasn't been much going on besides classes, but the last two days had interesting things to tell you all about:

Friday: I had an interview at FIACAT (The International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture) with Nathalie, but I was quite flustered because I had left late and then gotten a little lost. I never realize how limited I actually am in my French until I have to have a full conversation, so I was a little ashamed of myself on that end. She offered to switch to English but I declined because I'm here to work on my French; I just wish how much I need to work on it wasn't evident in our first meeting. Sigh. Anyway I got the internship, and I will be starting the week of the 20th. For the next month or so after that I will be going to meetings at the UN to take notes and writes resumes of what's going on at the Human Rights Council. After that is over I will be doing research on funding and creating information sheets for use by the ACATs (all the smaller groups that make up the FIACAT). Then Nathalie will be going on maternity leave in June so I'll be all done!

Saturday: We went as a group to Yverdon-les-Bains, a cute little town about 45 minutes by train from Geneva. We went to the hot springs there, and essentially spent 3 hours lounging around in hot water, sometimes outside. It was very odd to be warm in the water but have the cold wind attacking your head. That's why we spent most of the time in the indoor pool, which also happened to be kiddie pool, and I never realized how loud Americans are until we're with Europeans. I think we were louder than all the small kids and their parents put together, so we got stared at quite a bit. Afterwards a group of us stayed in town for about an hour and took a tour around the Chateau d'Yverdon-les-Bains. This is the view from one of the windows, showing the church in town square:

Here was a sign in the museum that I thought was awesome: ("Vaudois: If we were the first this time! Woman assumes all the work. Give her the rights of a citizen of Vaud and Switzerland. Vote twice "Yes")

 The chateau also had a small fashion museum in it. Here are my favorites:

This morning we went as a group to get our residence cards. After presenting my passport twice, some paperwork, getting my picture, fingerprints, and signature taken, I officially will be a Geneva permanent resident.... in 10 days or so.

I really wish I had more fun stuff to report but a lot of the mundane school work and weather aren't worth writing about. Tonight I am going to start looking into which classes to take at the University of Geneva, so look for a post soon about that.

I have such exciting news!

1) Whilst procrastinating on doing my homework this morning, I checked my email and found a message from Genevieve, the Assistant Director, saying that a woman she knows needs a native English speaker to tutor her two daughters. Since everyone except 3 other girls and myself were in class, I had a head start so I immediately started calling the woman, who didn't pick up because she was working (duh, me). Anyway after playing phone tag all day I finally got ahold of her but she was going into a meeting. Still, I got to explain why I was calling and she said she would call me back or message me tonight or tomorrow. Yay for finding a paying job!

2) I checked my email tonight and found an email from Anna Botta, our Director, which was her correspondence with Nathalie from FIACAT saying that she would love to meet me on Thursday or Friday at the office to discuss an internship! I emailed her back saying I'm free all Friday afternoon and would love to go meet her. 

3) I'm starting the application to be HC of Dawes House next year so I can live in Dawes again in a huge single and be on House Council again and speak French all the time (again!). I have references ready to say nice things about me (one actually recommended me for the job in the first place) so as soon as I send off the application I can start thinking about the interview. I really hope I get it, I love Dawes!

Today was such a great day for jobs, apparently! I'm excited to start the interviews and move forward!

THE SKY IS BLUE TODAY!

For the whole week I've been here the sun made an appearance for only one afternoon, and then for yesterday. I woke up this morning and opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by the sunlight, which was at first disorienting and then made me really excited! The city is so much more beautiful in the sunlight.

On the other hand, its been absolutely freezing since Wednesday. For instance, today is -9ºC, which is 16ºF. We've had to cancel trips to outdoor destinations simply because of the cold, and yesterday was so cold that our heat was off in the building all day because the system stopped working (kind of ironic, huh?).

The wind is what's making it so cold. It's coming from Siberia or somewhere up there and it's so strong that you can hear it from inside. I heard it while trying to fall asleep.

On the bright side, because yesterday was also somewhat clear I finally saw Mont Blanc! It's absolutely gorgeous and really does tower over the whole city. I couldn't see all of it because there were some clouds but I took a picture:

In case it's difficult to find the mountain in the picture because of the clouds, it's off the left between the trees and the cloud line.

I'd like to share with you all the funny things I've observed in Geneva (this will probably be repetitive for those of you who have already been abroad).

• Cars do not always stop for you.
• Public transportation has the right of way, not pedestrians.
• There are a lot of smokers, especially young people, and they are not at all shy about getting very close to you while doing it.
• To use a normal shopping cart, rather than a basket, at the Coop you have to pay a franc.
• Geneva has a lot of stairs. I now understand why handicapped people have a really hard time in Europe.
• Less preservatives in the food means that its healthier but it also goes bad really quickly.
• The Genevan people always look perfect, and many women still wear stilettos regardless of the snow and ice.
• The sidewalks are cleared of snowing using (what looks like) windshield cleaners.
• Some of the trees look like the whomping willow from Harry Potter: 

The most interesting things that have happened lately were the orientation field trips, so I'll tell you all about those.

On Tuesday we went to the Red Cross. After looking at pictures of the current and past presidents and general secretaries, we were brought into the main conference room. We were given a short history of the Red Cross and shown a four-minute film about what the Red Cross has done in the last year or two. Then we were stuck listening to a senior official discuss the website and learning platform for an hour. He evaded questions, clearly had no idea how to set up a new user, and failed to explain to us why we should use the learning platform unless we were planning on actually working there. It couldn't have been a more boring experience (I realize I said the field trip was interesting above, but I meant interesting from your point of view, not mine).

Today, though, we went to the United Nations! We had to wait out in the cold for about 20 minutes, which wasn't fun, and then we lost two students, but once all that was over.... We visited the library (yay libraries! yay nerdiness!) and the museum (only two rooms, but very interesting), then we went on the general tour. The three conference rooms we were shown were huge, and one had a really great artistic ceiling. We also ate lunch there, which Smith paid for, and it was really yummy!

I'm sorry this post is so short, but I will write another soon.