I'm Right Here Waiting

Considering I have nothing to do tonight, I think I'll actually make another blog post.  Gasp, I know - I'm actually posting twice in one day?  Well, I thought this would be a good time to just evaluate everything I've experienced thus far (so it'll probably be a lot of emotional marble-jarble).  As we are leaving for a week-long journey tomorrow, I am sitting at home waiting to skype with the fam.  I've asked myself many times - am I homesick?  As of this point, I would have to say a little perhaps if anything.  This experience of living in a new country has been wonderful thus far, though as my friend Dana would say - "this is the Nazi Germany of study abroad programs."  Despite the work we've had and the assignments that are looming upon us, I really am loving this opportunity to become immersed in Swiss culture.  At the same time, that is not to say I don't miss the people back home and other trivial things like food (Chipotle, goldfish etc.).  I actually skyped with Liz today and also chatted with Ashleigh for a bit, and now that I am sitting here all alone with no one to talk to in my room, I'm thinking back and realizing how much really miss my best friends...and Benji...and my family sort of I guess :p
We've attended a lot of lectures where we've talked about the lives of refugees - be it due to oppression or the new phenomena of climate change forced migration.  Being here in this international city of humanitarian organizations makes me really realize how blessed I have been in life.  Every day I walk out of my host family's flat and on one side see the Jura Mountains, and the Alps on the other.  The sheer size and beauty of the Mountains, be it the smaller Jura or the looming Alps, always makes you feel a bit insignificant.  On my daily five-minute trek to the bus stop in my town, I always go along with a huge (probably ridiculous) smile on my face that just seems to be insuppressible when I take in the magnificent view along with the genuine appreciation of life.  Why all this deep stuff?  I'm not sure...but I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of the wonderful people in life - my friends and family members - who have been there for me all my life and believe in me.  Life is a long journey and you can't live with regrets, so it's time to move on and make the best of it!

...oh and in case you were curious about why this is titled "I'm right here waiting," well it's just my current physical state as my family has yet to appear on skype

As dorky as this is - song of the moment (thank you, Molly):

FINALLY DONNNEEEE

....with my first paper due this semester!! Such an amazing feeling :) Yes, it was only 10 pages long but being in a foreign country = very little motivation for me.  Passed it in at 11am yesterday and treated myself to a Starbucks (god it's so expensive here).

Other than the stress induced by the paper, this past week was extremely interesting.  My last blog post talked about what we did on Monday, but our worldly experiences continued on Tuesday and Wednesday at the United Nations.  At the UN we had briefings from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Programme( WFP), United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).  The UNHCR and OHCHR were both extremely interesting organizations to hear about - the UNHCR in particular was extremely interesting, hearing about the work they did really made me want to work for the organization.  Clearly, it can be dangerous and emotionally stressful but I think it would be a very worthwhile experience, helping those out in dire situations.

Desks in the Conference room at the UN

 Anyway, moving along...after the UN on Wednesday a bunch of us went to the UN Library and spent some time working on our papers/catching up on readings for our session on Thursday.  The rest of the week was not too eventful with the paper due on Friday.  Friday we received stipends for our Paris/Brussels study trip (yay money) along with train tickets and schedules.  From Sunday - Wednesday we will be in Brussels and on Wednesday we leave for Paris, returning to Geneva on Friday.  Most of the program is staying in Paris for the weekend - a couple of us are coming back instead and going to Basel!

Of course we celebrated being done with papers last night at Cactus Jack and Fisherman's Pub, and in addition to the fun night, I woke up to a gorgeous day here with sun and temperatures at least in the high 40s.

That place we went to today...

Survived another morning of business casual and meeting at 9am at the Gare Cornivan Bus Stop 8, can you tell how excited I am by life?
I'm still not entirely sure where we went today morning but according to the Google results it was the Rothschild Estate aka Chateau Pregny.  We were lectured about Swiss culture & history - emphasis placed on the military history of Switzerland.  It was really interesting to see the estate and hear about Swiss culture, but I'm not going to lie, it was a struggle to stay awake.  I'm still not used to having these long days of school, college has made me lazy!
Anyway, it was finally a beautiful day in Geneva due to the fact that the wind stopped blowing.  The fun thing we saw was that the Chateau was located right by the US Mission to the UN!

Sign on the US Mission (sorry for the poor quality)

 On our way back to the bus stop and French school we walked past the UN and ICRC again and since I didn't get to take any pictures last time, here are a couple:

Main entrance to UN (sorry for the awkward tilt)

ICRC

Life is....COLD

One word to describe the last few weeks: COLD
Switzerland is experiencing one of the coldest winters - there have been record breaking lows.
The wind that is coming into Geneva is from Russia and is known as the famous "la bise."  La bise moves from north-east and is caused by a high-pressure cell north-west of Switzerland.  It's just our luck that the effects of the wind are the strongest in Geneva since it is located in a narrow passage between the Jura mountains in the West and the Alps in the South (causing a vacuum effect).  Today my host family took me to Nyon (five minutes from my home) to look at the river and the completely frozen boardwalk.  It was freezing out but the ice all over the bridge was beautiful - Pictures to come!
The one good thing about today was the sun peaking out for the first time in a while.  Although the Alps were still obscured by clouds, I was able to take a couple pictures of the Jura Mountains - which I can see from the glass doors in my bedroom.

Red Cross (ICRC) - 02/06

Last Monday, after getting about 4 hours of sleep due to the Super Bowl, we went to the ICRC - International Committee of the Red Cross.  Located across the street from the UN in Geneva, the ICRC building houses offices as well as a library that is open to public use.  We sat through a quick movie about the scope of the Red Cross - it was very interesting, I didn't know the Red Cross did so many things.  After that, we listened to a talk about being a mediator and then about Humanitarian Law.  The topics were highly interesting but it was quite a struggle to stay awake after the little sleep from the night before.

Zürich (02/03 - 02/05)

Last weekend I visited the financial capital of Switzerland (and perhaps the world?)! Our journey began with the train ride from Nyon to Biel/Bienne and then from Biel/Bienne to Zurich - a grand total of 2h30m.

 

View from during train ride

We arrived in Zurich and were faced with the problem that everything was in Swiss German - we couldn't even figure out where the exit was (luckily following the mass exodus of people was the easy solution).  The walk to our hostel wasn't long, but boy was it freezing!

City Backpacker hostel

The rest of the night was spent wandering about Zurich and getting a feel for the place.  We walked alongside the river and found a little pasta place that was only 10CHF for a pretty big meal - luckily 2 out of the 3 people working there knew English.  Some of the tidbits I learned about Zurich from my host family: people in Zurich really like to use English so they won't mind speaking it to you (sometimes in Geneva I feel some animosity), also they think people who speak high German think they're so much better than the Swiss Germans and view them as snobby.

Zurich at night

I actually fell in love with this city instantaneously - even more so than what I've seen of Geneva thus far.  This is probably due to the fact that Zurich still has an old city feeling to it with cobblestones and numerous churches - but at the same time there is so much development and wealth in the area as well.


The next day we got up early and wandered about Zurich, here are some of the cool things we saw:

One of the many churches in Zurich

Famous Bahnhofstrasse (where we could afford nothing)

largest clock face in Europe - St. Peter Church

One of the old streets with viewing boxes

Fraumunster

Springly's famous macaroons

This is how cold it was out...

Me on the bridge with the main parts of Zurich behind me

Grossmunster

After exploring all of the churches we bought a thrifty lunch at the local Migros and spent a little down time at the hostel.  Rachel arrived in Zurich at 1pm and we met up with her and visited a couple more sites - in particular, the FIFA headquarters and the look-out point behind the main building of Zurich University.

Me with the FIFA sign

yep, it had its own street

Jasmine, Sarah, Rachel, Eryn, Moogie, Me and Rachel (the whole Zurich gang)

All of the flags..

Zurich University, main building

View of the city from the top of the hill

Let's just say, it was hard to be out in Zurich for too long every day since the wind was horrible and we all got frozen to the bone.  Our hostel was located on a pretty hopping street so we went out to the bars that night - it was an interesting experience to say the least.  The next morning checkout was at 10am so we all got up by 9:45 and wandered down to the common room.  Before leaving Zurich, we went back up to the hill by the university and then visited the Swiss National Museum.  It was a wonderful trip and I would definitely recommend visiting Zurich to anyone - except it may be nicer to go when the weather isn't so cold.

Swiss National Museum, Zurich

Cusine

The days have been going by so fast and it's been about -8 (Celcius) for the past week...really not fun at all!  Last Wednesday I got a little taste of Swiss culture at a program dinner where we had Raclette, this along with Fondue are two of Switzerland's most famous dishes.

"Raclette is a dish indigenous to parts of Switzerland and the Savoy region of France. The Raclette cheese round is heated, either in front of a fire or by a special machine, then scraped onto diners' plates; the term raclette derives from the French word racler, meaning "to scrape". Traditionally, it is accompanied by small firm potatoes (Bintje, Charlotte or Raclette varieties), gherkins, pickled onions, and dried meat, such as jambon cru/cuit and viande des Grisons.
Traditionally the melting happens or happened in from of an open fire with the big piece of cheese facing the heat. One then regularly scrapes off the melting side.
Raclette is typically served with tea or other warm beverages. Another popular option is to serve raclette with white wine. Local tradition cautions that other drinks - water for example - will cause the cheese to harden in the stomach, leading to indigestion." - Wikipedia

I really enjoyed the meal and enjoyed some warm mint tea in order to prevent any hardening of cheese in my stomach! Next on the list...fondue in Switzerland

A group of us at the Raclette dinner - beginners French minus Maddy & Chris