Lausanne & La Dôle

Friday afternoon we went to the town of Lausanne - about 30 minutes form Nyon to apply for our Swiss stay permits.  Lausanne, the capital of the canton of Vaud, is the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee and recognized as the Capitale Olympique.

Castle in Lausanne

Following the official business we visited the Olympic museum located right on the water.

Fountain at the entrance to the Olympic Park

Bunch of us in front of Musee Olympique

Prototype 2012 Olympic Torch

Among those honored, of course my favorite - Roger Federer

USA/Canada hockey

The rest of my Friday was rather uneventful - came home and hung out with my host family.  They have been wonderful and really making sure I feel welcome in their home.  I went to a little gathering of my host dad's friends on Wednesday during which they played instruments and I was able to listen to them while just sitting back and relaxing.  We've eaten all sorts of food - all sorts of cheese (of course), really good home-made apple juice, tiramisu, mussels, veal (I think?) and different types of bread.  I've eaten so much bread, meat and cheese since coming here!

Saturday morning I got up at 6am for a trip to ski in the Swiss Alps!

Train/Lift pass for the mountain

We took the little red train up into the mountains to La Dole - a peak in the Jura mountains in Vaud (our county in western Switzerland) that rises to an altitude of 1677.2 meters (little more than a mile). La Dole is the second highest peak in the Swiss Jura - however, we had about six people in our group who ended up taking a lesson since they had limited skiing experience, thus we were on the easier side of the mountain for this excersion.

For our whole day pass + skis/boots/pools + helmets + lunch, I paid about a grand total of 60 francs - amazing deal!  Sarah and Chris convinced Carolyn and I to go to the top of the mountain for one run, really thought I was going to die part of the way down but it was insane and I'm glad I can say I did it once.  Another fun thing about the mountain that it was right on the French/Swiss border so sometimes while skiing you crossed over the border into France!

Swiss side of the border

French side of the border

We got back to Nyon around 4:45pm and then all rushed home to change and return to Nyon at 7 to celebrate Jasmine's birthday.  Dinner was at a little Italian restaurant across from the castle in Nyon (which I will finally remember to bring my camera and take a picture of) called La Puccia.  The rest of the night was divided between Cactus Jack and the Fishermen's Pub.  Fisherman's Pub was really crowded and fun since most people there were young-ish and spoke English (it's a Canadian owned pub).  Got back home and finally settled for the night around 12:30pm after a great Saturday in Switzerland!

Carolyn, Katie and I at Cactus Jack

The United Nations

This first full week in Switzerland was quite something.  During the morning Monday-Wednesday we had classes in the SIT building (in our teeny tiny little classroom), the afternoons Mon, Tues and Thurs were spent in French class.  I now know how to say things like: how are you (comment ca va?), conjegate one verb, how to say the alphabet etc.  Now I can sit at the dinner table and understand a little of what my host dad says - I think we should make it a trade-off and I should teach him English :p

Anyway, one of the really interesting things we did this week was visit the UN headquarters in Geneva.  All of us received passes to the library so we can use it for research throughout the semester, in addition to this we will attend two briefings at the UN during the semester.

Official UN Library Pass

The UN grounds were very impressive (we spent the majority of our time in the library though) - imagine our surprise when we saw Peacocks strolling about the grounds!
Side note about that: "The Palais stands in the 45-hectare Ariana Park among majestic trees many of which are over 100 years old. The City of Geneva has made the park available to the UN for its offices for as long as the UN exists. The park was originally owned by the Revilliod de Rive family whose last descendant bequeathed it to the City of Geneva. One of the bequest's conditions was that peacocks should roam freely on its grounds. It is not unusual to see peacocks dancing in full splendor in the Palais grounds. The park also contains a 1668 chalet brought from the Gruyere district to Geneva for the national fair of 1896."- http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600581D0E/%28httpHomepages%29/BCE0EBD8DCE4470C80256F040067307C?OpenDocument

Day 1 & 2: Bonjour la Suisse!

Hellooo Geneva!!
We arrived in Geneva Wednesday at 8:45am (CET), my first impression - cold and dreary...
After meeting up some of the people on my program, we spent the couple of hours before meeting up in a coffee shop in the Geneva airport.
Our Geneva experience began from here - we all loaded onto a coach bus (storing our massive amount of luggage in the undercarriage of the bus) and headed off to the Youth Hostel we have been staying at for the past few days.
The rest of Wednesday was mostly relaxed – after a quick orientation during which we received transportation passes and student ID cards, we wandered about the city and discovered some shopping sites where we could all get phones.  Luckily, my Blackberry works with a Swiss pay as you go sim card! Dinner was in the food court of this big shopping center called Manor – there was lots of great food.

The Famous fountain in the center of Geneva

Geneva has been great so far, though a bit intimidating due to the language barrier, but hopefully I will be able to pick up some French fairly quickly.  There are about 6-8 of us who know no French at all out of about 28, so we are all in the same situation.
On Thursday we had an orientation about some guidelines and the usual harassment and health information that’s always discussed at the beginning of the academic year at the SIT office on Rue de Monthoux.  After this session we wandered about a little bit and tried to figure out the phone situation for some people and then went back to the SIT office for a session with a counselor.  Following this, we went to lunch at Manor (again) and then headed over to Old Geneva where we had a two-hour walking tour.  Old Geneva was great to see – there were a lot of old buildings from the Huguenots and we saw the main squares, a big cathedral, and the house of Jean Jacques Rousseau, along with many other things.  It is so impressive to see all these historic sites and the amount of history European nations have.  Our day concluded with a dinner at a Pizza place near the hostel with the entire group.  Following which we all went straight to bed after an exhausting full day in Geneva.

Plaque on the home of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Albert Gallatin - Swiss Born, US Secretary of Treasury and founder of NYU

First school in Geneva

Remains of original city wall found when building a new parking complex

World's longest bench - 126 meters (413 feet) in length

Reformation Wall - William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox

Statue of Henry Dunant - Founder of the Red Cross and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with Frederic Passy

Occupy in Geneva?

University of Geneva

Friday, the second full day here, began with a session on the academic schedule and information about our ISPs (Independent Study Project).  It was fairly intimidating to hear the amount of work that we are going to have but part of the program involves trips to both Paris and Brussels – I am definitely looking forward to that!  We had an hour break in which we went to a little coffee shop and had some café (there was a cute Swiss guy running the place).  After this we had to attend a session with the Home Stay coordinator to find out more about our families.  It was very exciting to hear about everyone’s families – my host mom is originally from Germany and luckily speaks English (in addition to German, French, Dutch and some Spanish).  Tomorrow morning we will finally meet our families and be able to go home – I can’t wait to finally have my own room, more access to the Internet, and the chance to finally unpack!  The last planned event we had today was a trip to the French school we will be studying at.  We all had to take written and spoken tests – luckily for those of us who didn’t know any French, we only had to take a quick 2-minute speaking test.  It was pretty horrendous but I can’t wait to learn some French!  The night ended with us taking a trip to one of the pubs in Geneva, where we were able to interact with some of the locals and just hang out a bit.

Alex, Me and Rachel at the Pub

Well, that is all for the first few days.  I’ll write more soon – au reviour!

4 days to go...

In four days I will be leaving to spend a semester abroad in Geneva, Switzerland! Therefore, I thought it was time to begin the stereotypical blog for my abroad adventures :)

I will be spending four months in Switzerland on an SIT study abroad program during which I will be taking part in a home stay and learning the language of the region (in Geneva this is French).  My family lives in Signy, Switzerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signy-Avenex) - which is about 30 minutes away from Geneva, so in the mornings I will have to take a bus to Nyon and then from Nyon to Switzerland.  Knowing no French, the first few weeks of this program will probably be a little difficult for me but I am looking forward to the challenge.

Even before I began college I knew that I wanted to study abroad, though at the time I thought I wanted to go to England, and I am extremely happy that this dream is becoming a reality!  Make sure to regularly check on my blog to keep updated about my adventures (I promise the posts will be more exciting than this)!