Bonjour?

Hello, everyone! I apologize for not being able to update this earlier, I have received some angry Facebook messages. However, as you may have assumed, I am safe and sound in Switzerland! I also forgot my camera on the day we toured Geneva, so I snapped a few quick photos today to have something to post. 

So, I arrived without difficulty early Wednesday morning. Although I thought I was going to be embarrassed by the amount of stuff I had, I actually I have close to the smallest amount. Which, for those of you who have seen my body bag of a suitcase, is completely ridiculous. It became extremely problematic when we arrived at the Youth Hostel in Geneva, where we stayed for 3 nights, and I was sharing a room with 5 other girls and minimal, minimal floor space. Except after we moved our stuff in, there was no floor space. Nothing like tight living quarters to forge fast friendships! 

Most of the past few days have been spent in orientation sessions, discovering that all of us chose the Nazi Germany of study abroad programs. Our program is proving to be as intense as they promised! We only have 8 weeks of classes, so we have to learn a lot of things in a short amount of time. All of us have our morning class together at the SIT office (up six flights of stairs, watch out for my stellar glutes when I come back), have an hour and a half break for lunch, then will go to French class from 2-5 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. We have Wednesday and Friday afternoons off. Although it will be hard and I’m not looking forward to doing an independent study project on my own for the last 4 weeks of the semester in a country where I don’t speak the language, we spend many days at the UN actually participating in international organization activities. Neat! 

Which brings me to my next point. The program description failed to mention that EVERYONE in Geneva speaks French. And many people don’t speak English. So... it’s been a little rough, as French is close to impossible to understand. AND everyone here talks extremely quietly. It’s not a joke that Americans are notoriously loud, because we’ve been traveling around in a herd of 30 for the past 3 days and have been hated by all parties on all the public transportation we have taken. But, I’m not alone. There are about six others who have had zero French background themselves, so at least I’ll have other people to learn colors and animals with. 

It’s a pretty mixed bag of people on the program, but I enjoy it! I’ve already found very good friends, I would say, Sam (picture)  especially. 

I moved in with my homestay family today! They too speak French, but English as well. The family consists of a Swiss-French mother, a 13-year old who speaks the fastest French I’ve ever heard, but also speaks English, German and Italian, and a step-father from Egypt who also speaks French and English. I’ve only been here since noon, and this post is already extremely long, so I’m going to just end now. 

I forgot my camera on the day we took the walking tour of the city, but this morning I snapped a few from the hostel window!