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....