Le Commencement du semestre

Disclaimer: Alright, when making this blog I had no idea that so many people would be reading it, so there are a few things I want to clear up from the previous post. I did not only meet cool Spanish girls, I also met cool Polish, Czech, British, Swiss, Swedish, German, Turkish, Italian, Belgian, etc people of both genders and they are all awesome. One more thing, Dan is a good skier and we shred the steeps together.

Moving on... It's getting harder and harder to keep up with this blog, with so much going on that I want to write about but so little time to write it in! Now I even have classes and homework on top of it, so be happy I am sacrificing my free time to fill you in!

Mmm so last Friday I still had no voice but went out drinking and dancing again, first at Beauregard (a student apartment complex) then at Irish again. The music was much better this time and there were more people, but the girls I was with had to huddle closely in a group while sketchy looking men circled around us. One thing I've noticed is that Swiss boys will openly stare but are too shy to do anything whereas Americans will come up and start dancing with you whether or not you are interested.

On Saturday it was cold when I woke up, but I decided it was a good day to bike from Fribourg to Bern (the capital) which my friend said was about an hour and fifteen minute ride. So I'm biking on my sweet purple bike up and down mountains and it's so beautiful. Along the way, I realized why the dairy products here are so good... look at how built these cows are!















The whole time I'm biking, I'm doing so along this clear stream and there are random Swiss chalets scattered around the hillsides and it's just so peaceful (except when a car zooms by an inch away from you going 80 kph).




















I get to Bern in just under an hour and a half, my feet completely numb, and then I get lost for another hour. I got lost for an hour just trying to find the city center! I almost got on the autobahn in the process, and ended up walking through a local community's carnivale celebration where everyone was dressed up, even the band.















Then I got through the carnivale and was still lost, and stopped at a gas station where no one spoke French or English only German. They found me someone to talk to with my little German and he basically told me to take the bus with my bike, but I said just tell me how to bike there and he pointed in some direction and then I figured it out. An hour later I was in Bern's city center and bought a pair of jeans--which was difficult because I have no idea my european size, but it was fine and then I walked around looking for Swiss army knives, but by that time it was past 4pm and everything closes in Switzerland at 4 on Saturday. I window shopped until 7 when I was free on the train, (although my bike was not, I had to buy it a ticket) and came back to Fribourg.

The next morning Dan and I got up way too early again (this time, being sick did not help and I was not feeling it) but many beautiful train rides later and one train ride later that went up the side of Grindelwald--only the Swiss would build such a steep train--we got a bluebird day of skiing in virgin powder. Interlaken (where Grindelwald/Jungfrau region is) definitely has the most amazing views of any place I've been in Switzerland.















The entire time we were there we kept finding new trails with amazing powder stashes and the weather was just perfect, I was in such a great mood. We even hiked up a bowl and got such fresh tracks... it was an EPIC run, no question about it.




















Monday was the first day of for real classes, and unfortunately I have an 8am in Perolles which is a 30-40 minute walk, but luckily only a 10 minute bike ride. It is a 3 hour 3rd year economics lecture, and the guy started out with "I'm going to be teaching this class in English" and when everybody else but me freaked out he said "Je vous plaisante" which means just kidding. The rest of the lecture was in French which I was surprisingly able to follow, except I had trouble taking notes and listening to the next thing he was saying so there are a lot of holes in my notes. Everybody else in the class had a pencil pouch complete with all necessary scholastic items, graph paper, and a friend--it was so lonely! There were 2 breaks where everyone either ran to get a coffee or a smoke, and I had no one to talk to and no one sitting next to me. After that lecture I felt super alone and unhappy.

But then I decided to play futsal, and was (as usual) the only girl who showed up. There were also a bunch of characters, but I made 2 authentically Swiss friends and felt a loooot better. My afternoon class was canceled which was awesome, so I chilled until I had to go back down to Perolles to place FUSSBALLTENNIS! They legit have a soccer tennis course, and I was the only new person but I feel like I got better really quickly. By the way, especially for Indo people, fussballtennis is basically a developed country's verious of takraw and it hurts wayyy less because we wear shoes and use soccer balls instead of barefoot with that ball of I forget what material. I made some more Swiss friends, which was sweet. After that though, my groin killed for 3 days, not a typical motion I use.

After fussballtennis I rushed home to eat/shower/get ready for the first Crazy Monday of the semester! We all started in St-Justin hanging out for awhile which was a lot of fun and met more people and then headed to Cafe Populaire (or Popu) which was reeeeally crowded and we were kind of late so we got in maybe 2 dances before the lights came on and it was time to head to Irish. There was a mass infront of Irish and we were sardined in it for a good 45 minutes, I barely had to stand up on my own and I met a lot of people very awkwardly. We finally got in and danced and I never made it to stop 3: Rock Cafe, which is super sketchy anyway. Long day.

Tuesday I had an art history class "Ombre et Lumiere" where I actually was with some people I knew but unfortunately I got assigned to the very first oral presentation which is in about a week and a half. Sucks that I have to teach the second class in art history when : A) I've never taken art history B) French is not my first language C) I have no idea how they do oral presentations here... so that's not stressful or anything. I'll let you know how that goes...

Tuesday night me and Olalla and Cristina and others trekked to Perolles to do African Dance. On the way there the bus came before we could buy tickets, so the whole time I'm about to wet myself worrying that Control will come on and I'll be fined 100 CHF and be taken to jail. So I make them get off with me in a couple stops and walk through the rain. Then the teacher doesn't even show up (don't tell Isabel that!) so we take the bus back, this time with a ticket but on the wrong bus so we end up having to walk anyway.

Wednesday I spent a lot of time in the Art History library where my partner ended up being as well. Although she ignored me and when I saw her read an email from me did not respond. She eventually saw me and we discussed our project in French and after 3 hours I sent her my 4 paintings to study from each breakthrough in Italian Renaissance art and she comes over and says I picked good images so she'll just use them too. I'm like okay thanks, way to make me do all the work and not find any paintings... She's cold and definitely Swiss.

Then I had a belgian litterature class and a church class that was canceled. Although I am a little concerned that the church history class will be 3 monks, someone studying to become a priest, and me, a Jew. But I figured why not take a class like this when I'm in the epicenter of Catholicism in Switzerland? We shall see.

By the way I'm sorry I don't have photos for all of these things.

That night our program went out for cheese fondue! Authentic fondue moitie-moitie which has two types of cheeses Gruyere and something else that I forget. We learned the proper way to dip the bread and potatoes and were told only wine and hot liquids - no cold water unless you don't want to be able to shit for days (it will congeal the cheese). I didn't understand the idea of using small pieces, so I was shoving hot, cheesy masses of food in my mouth.















I felt that for a good 24 hours. The next day I had a class in English, which is unfortunate and a result of Tufts' strict guidelines, but at least 5/6 are in French. It's actually a phonetics and phonology class and my teacher has a British accent and as it turns out I am the only native English speaker in the class (not even the teacher is!) so it will be very cool because I will serve as a comparison between UK/American dialects. Guess I can't skip my Thursday morning class :o(

Then I went on a bike ride to these paths I had seen to go run on. They were steep and on the side of a cliff and covered in ice, so I decided to run somewhere else (good call, Jen!). And met up with them later and ended up running on these amazingly beautiful paths by streams and mountains and fields, etc, for like an hour. Unfortunately there is no leash law so I had to pretend to be brave near dogs (I'm still scarred from the dog attack) but they seem way more chill when unleashed, so so far so good! Switz is gorgeous, and I can only imagine how pretty it will be in a couple months. I came back just in time to bump into some ACP girls for a meeting, I guess I was destined not to miss it.

That was last week, this weekend is Carnaval de Bolzes! So I will write about that next time I get a chance... I am enticed by the fire crackers and music I can hear through my window.


Observations:
-Everyone in my classes is old enough to be the professor
-Swiss people treat emails like snail mail, very frustrating to wait days for a short response.
-Everyone uses facebook chats, skype, and texts but not calls because they're so expensive.
-Everyone in my classes has a little pencil pouch with different colored pens, pencils, whiteout, rulers, calculator, and other school supplies.
-People knock on the desk when class is over.
-In my longer lectures that have breaks, everyone runs outside to get a quick smoke.
-The portions are huge, but doggy bags are taboo.
-The Swiss (and really all Europeans) know English grammar, American politics, and American history better than we do.
-It is way too easy to resort to English.
-Iberia airlines keeps screwing me on booking a flight to Madrid next month.
-I am finally meeting Swiss people!

Ciao!

Le fin du cours intensif!

Whatuuppp

Aight, much has happened since the last time I posted. We had two weeks of intensive language courses in French, supplemented with German classes and orientation ones. Basically every weekday we were in a classroom together with white walls and uncomfortable seats and teasing views of the alps and just the 9 of us and whichever teacher from 9 am until 5:30 pm... it was brutal! We also had a "term paper" in French on a research topic that was 8-10 pages--how much bullshit is that? Two weeks is no where near as long as a term and this thing is not even graded. Anyway... the course did definitely fine tune my French and refresh my German so I guess it was okay. All of us were going a bit stir crazy though and every one in turn had a major freak out in class; good times.

Last week, I took my bike and explored and went to a nearby village called Marly and along the way I saw all of these buildings that were basically crumbling they were so old. The whole time I was thinking how beautiful it will be in the spring. It was sweet though I found an old entrance into the side of a mountain. I also realized that biking up mountains is difficult and biking down them is fucking scary.




















I went out last Friday first to a party in our basement then to an Irish club. When I was invited to the party, I asked whose room it was in and was so thrown off when they said it's just in the basement... No hiding behind closed doors! How weird to be legal. I drank my first bottle of legally purchased wine (the label was like an old Spanish pirate map!) and met all of these international Erasmus students. One came over to introduce herself--Ollala a girl from Spain--realized I didn't know anyone, and made me meet all of her friends! Everyone just assumes we are Erasmus too, and I don't bother correcting them.




















Irish has a bar downstairs and a dance floor upstairs. So we went up and dominated the dance floor. Half of the floor was Swiss and the other half Erasmus and unfortunately the Swiss are not very into mingling with the foreigners, but they still did their fair share of staring. It's kind of hard to dance to techno music, but there was some apple bottom jeans and justin timberlake so we made it work. They also played Infinity and that song about over the rainbow, so high, and that spanish song that are staples at European clubs. By the end of the night (around 3 am) I could barely swallow my throat was so dry from dehydration / second hand smoke / singing, but the dancing was worth it. I walked back with two of my friends, and these Turkish guys that were with Erasmus were like oh, you're leaving? And followed us home. THEN i go up in the elevator right, and one of the Turkish guys doesn't get off with his friend so I'm like you live on the fourth floor too? And he mumbles noo 2nd, and then the doors open and he lunges at my face, which I fortunately dodged and had to run to my room and slam the door when he followed me out of the elevator. Moral of the story, stay away from Turkish guys (more on that to come).

Then I get to sleep in for the first time since I got to Fribourg and wake up at noon to a message from Rachel asking if I wanted to explore Geneva with her that day. I figured why not? And caught the next train to Geneva. (I love that I can wake up and take a train to Geneva.) It was grey but Rachel led me to all the toursity sites like the lake, the flower clock (probably better in the spring), the chess park, the old city, and the UN. I was surprised that we only took the bus in the wrong direction once and only got really lost one time too--good job, Rachel!

So we decided to play a game of life-size checkers in the park, and of course I'm dominating her when she makes a bad move and this old man barges in with his umbrella, shouting at us in italian. He pretty much kicked her off and continued to talk loudly in italian to me about where I could/couldn't move as he quickly checkmated me (I didn't even know you could be checkmated in checkers!). It was hilarious though, I felt so helpless.
















Then we found our way to the UN and stayed there just long enough to take a picture and get out, so that we could get back to warm up our feet--mine were wet and obviously on their way to frostbitten, of course.




















We got back to Rachel's dorm building slash ex-brothel and hung out with Helaina/made some dinner. Then I caught the train that is free for me after 7 back to Fribourg. On the way back when Control went through checking tickets, I had my feet up on the seat and I hadn't signed my demi-tarif temporary pass, so she got angry at both of those things and made me show her my passport and other stuff and being American didn't help my case.

I made it home though, and tried to get to bed early to wake up at 5:30 am the next morning to get fresh tracks at Verbier! Verbier is an enormous ski resort in the Valais which is in the south of Switzerland. My friend Dan and I took the 6:26 train--really three trains and a gondola--to Verbier after it had snowed the whole day before. The avalanche warning was only 2 out of 5, but I was still nervous and had him teach me all the safety things you need to do in case you get caught in one. That was comforting. The snow was absolutely incredible though, they had 8 inches of fresh, dry, fluffy powder on top of a ridiculous base and the top of the mountain was above the clouds in the sun and there were blue skies. The top 2/3 of the peaks are above treeline so it's just one big sea of whiteness (gotta watch out for cliffs tho). Off-piste skiing was incredible and we got fresh powder all day. Each run top to bottom takes about 50-90 minutes which is incredible if you think about 3 minute runs top to bottom in Vermont. The powder was up to my waist at times.




















We took this rickety old tram that only had one car up to an unpatrolled/unprotected peak. I was super nervous the whole way up, but then I realized that I'm not scared of skiing in the steeps with waist-deep pow so the way down was fine and actually really amazing. Dan however basically rolled down this run, haha.
















We went in for lunch which was ridiculously overpriced. You think lodges are overpriced in the US? Think again... How about 12 CHF for a small bowl of smelly soup? Then a big fog rolled in and the lack of trees/unmarked hazards made it difficult to ski, so not wanting to waste our day there we headed lower into the glades and again got fresh tracks in steep, wide open tree trails. It was incredible. Then when we were taking our last run, Dan starts screaming and I have no idea where he is. He doesn't ski with a helmet so i'm pretty sure I'm going to have to carry him out on my shoulders, but somehow he managed not to die. Basically he skied off a ledge into a large tree trunk, Kennedy-style, and ricochetted off with only a lot of pain and bruising. When I got there his skis were implanted into the tree and all the lower branches were missing. Close call. He bought a helmet yesterday.















Too bad there wasn't one of these around:















I don't really remember the order of how things happened this week, so I will just tell stories as they come to me. We learned the origin of Fribourg, but since we learned it in French from a guy with a heavy fribourgeois accent, this is what I think happened: Some rich guy named Berthold IV made a pact with the devil, but didn't pay him back so the devil got pissed off and when he came to fight, Berthold turned into a dragon as big as the Saint-Nicolas cathedral is today and kicked the devil's ass and then went to Freiburg, Germany, picked up a bunch of houses, came back and dropped them in the Sarine river and that my friends, is how Freiburg came to be in Switzerland and Germany! Woo! Apparently they have this big carnavale every year to celebrate where people get dressed up and they burn shit down, im pretty sure that's next week.
















We walked around the German side of town and up the funiculaire railway steps, which are steep and many. I guess the point of this anecdote is that the railway is run on sewer water so its good for the environment but smells terrible. Speaking of the Swiss and energy efficiency, the washers and driers here are much more energy efficient than in the US so they take way longer to dry... and you also have to put them through like 4 times so in the end I'm pretty sure they end up using way more energy, who knows.

On Wednesday night, even though I wasn't feeling so good and was super tired I went to an Erasmus event. First I went with Olalla to her other spanish friends' appartment to chill, which was really nice and I met a lot more people and a British girl (native English speaker! who gave me her perspective on the Swiss, but I think I will leave that out). Then we went out to a club called Spirit Club, and again I forgot my ID and almost didn't get in but I was able to use a mixture of American-accented french and innocence to get in and it worked. The British girl bought me some tequila to welcome me to Switzerland, very nice. Then fiiiinally a dance party arrived and I ended up staying at the club till like 330 am dancing mostly with the spanish girls who are so much fun and so friendly that I almost wish I studied abroad in Spain. This kid Carlo that I met from Italy bought us all a bottle (super expensive), so we were allowed into this exclusive lounge with cool things hanging from the lights and trendy black leather chairs.















I got Carlo and his friend to walk me home, but that did not prevent two more Turkish boys from sexually harrassing me. For real, I am staying as far away from drunk Turkish boys as possible. They just seem to love following me home and doing creepy/unnecessarily forward things that make me have to literally run away from them. Anyway, going to bed at 4 then getting up at 8 for French was a terrible idea and I had no voice for like two or three days. Whatever, it was worth it.

We had to register for classes this week since they start Monday (which is weird because I will be registering for next semester in like 2 weeks). And classes here are based on ECTS credits, the majority of which are 3 ECTS and you need to take at least 30 for Tufts to count your term abroad. As it turns out though, Tufts being the cocky POS that it can sometimes be, doesn't give ANY credit to anything less than 4 ECTS. So after doing all that research I couldn't take any of those classes, freaked out, and had to start all over again. Now I am doing these ridiculous discussion-based classes, with oral presentations, research projects, and written/oral final assessments. All in French. There goes my easy semester. Boo.

I went on a run after it snowed up this mountain which turns out was not the best idea. Every step I took I slipped farther back and it was on the side of a cliff. Scary shit, but it was beautiful and will be even more beautiful when it is dry and I am not fearing death.

I have chocolate 3 meals a day here. I think I may have died and gone to heaven. I'm still getting used to processing it in the morning though, it's very rich especially with whole milk and my lactose intolerance which is coming back again with angst. But there is sometimes this chocolate muesli that I put hot milk into and the chocolate shavings melt into the milk and the chocolate squares and grains... it just tastes like rich and delicious hot chocolatey cereal.

The rest of my stories begin with Friday/this weekend so I think I will save them for my next post. The most interesting things seem to happen over the weekend. Plus I need to go to bed to wake up at 530 to ski at Jungfrau (which in English translates to Virgin) in Interlaken. Holler.

New thoughts on Swiss/Switzerland:
-Girls wear pants to workout inside, making me the immodest American girl. Isn't it too hot though?
-Migros (this crazy conglomerate grocery/electronics/restaurant/pharmacy/etc) owns this country.
-I'm still waiting to make Swiss friends.
-It is legal to drink in the streets!
-There are clearly 3 strong and independent cultures (French, German, and Italian) so it's hard to generalize over all 3.
-Fribourg looks the same as it did in the middle ages--I saw it at a museum.
-They love fountains.
-1,001 Things You Didn't Wish You Ever Knew About Avalanches
-They are definitely Euro, you should see some of males here.
-They are generally thin and dress well.
-Dogs and other animals are allowed in public places like trains, buses, and restaurants.
-There are signs EVERYWHERE! Unlike boston, it's nearly impossible to get lost.
-They are cold at first, but I hear they warm up after awhile... I'll update you on that.
-They don't budge on the sidewalk, even if they are taking up the entire width.
-J-walking = attempted suicide. They will drive faster.
-They have orange m&ms!
















So I guess these posts will usually be this long, because I probably won't update unless I have plenty to talk about.


Happy valentines day!!

L'Arrivée!!

Salut!

This entry is really long so definitely feel free to read it, but otherwise just skip to the pictures or list at the end.

I'm finally settling in! I flew into Zurich Saturday and spent the day jet-lagged while trying to keep my eyes open to meet the people in my program -- there are only 9 of us. Until I got to take a sweet shower and nap in a hotel that was pretty tripped out... the entire place had a cow theme and we had wall murals in our room of cows and gophers on giant car phones from the 90s. Also, I think a sister of someone from my high school was staying in the room below me. Small world. But hey, there was toblerone chocolates on our pillows.

The rest of the day and part of the next was spent touring Zurich which was kind of overcast, but it was still a very a cute european city. The first night, the program treated us to this Swiss German meal at a really nice sausage-y restaurant. My first, or maybe second faux-pas: standing in the aisle as an angry waiter screamed "Achtung! Achtung! Achtung" then gestured rudely at me when I heard her and moved. But anywayyy, since they were treating us i decided to go all out and get the "must have while in zurich" a veal and mushroom dish that was about $35 US dollars and some wine (legally!) so my meal was over $40... I was nervous about ordering it though so every time we've eaten out since then people find the most expensive dish on the menu and want me to order it. HAH not when im paying! Especially in Switz, everything here is waaaaaay overpriced. I needed a towel and they were at least 30 CHF which is like $26 US. (I was very happy to find a hand towel in my dorm room.)

The next morning we took a train (which left EXACTLY on time, crazy swiss with their great watches and promptness) to Lucerne, which is a pittoresque city on Lake Lucerne. It was snowing, but really beautiful. I saw more rivers and mountains and older looking buildings, with crazy-ass bridges and swans in the river while it was snowing. We were treated to dinner again, but this time with a price limit... ho well, it was totally worth it. Our french teacher who is like 24 has been with us this whole time and she is awesome and always teases me about this and the fact that i said her 17 year old brother was "just ripe" which he is. We went to a pub in Lucerne and a club after and that was chill.

The next morning we went to Berne which is right near Fribourg, but still not quite. And we went to the bear pit, which I was worried about considering my history of animal attacks and the fact that I packed a baloney sandwich in my purse so my scarf smelled like baloney and was wrapped around my neck. Luckily the bears were sad so no animal attacks to report just yet.

We finally went to Fribourg after that so we didn't have to deal with bags anymore and could settle into our dorms, which by the way are ridiculously nice! We all have big singles with one connected bathroom for 2, and they clean both once a week. The dorm is mostly international and I met some kids that have shown me the night life here, which so far has been clubs that are hot-boxed with cigarette smoke and people speaking 935384768754 different languages. Although I've been assured it gets crazier when students are around and that I should get ready for Crazy Monday. The first night we went out I invited the group and all of them decided to come so we awkwardly drank our 2 Franc Tuesday beers in a circle standing up clearly American, but it was still good. The next night I decided to go out with the kids who've been here again but by myself and we got a table and it was much more chill (until this kid Dan got in a fight with a belligerent canadian about politics). The only problem is that me and all the clothes i wear out smell terrrrible from the smoke. Hm, maybe I will have to repeat the same going out outfit if I don't want to do laundry all the time.

During the day we have language classes basically all day in French and German, which is great but all I want to do is explore and ski and be outside! These all end next week so that'll be good. I've been interacting with people in French which is also good, but it's frustrating that half of the university speaks german!

I took a run exploring Fribourg the first day we were here and I ran along the Sarine River which runs through the old city and it was beautiful and somehow I ended up running by an abbey from the middle ages and through what smelled/looked like fresh horseshit, but it was beauuuutiful. I can also see the Swiss alps from my window and everywhere in the city.

I think all that's left is that I bought a used bike today and was already nearly killed because the breaks are kind of shatty and here is my list of thoughts so far on the swiss:

-They're always on time and angry if you are not.

-Do they exist? (Most people are home now between semesters so I've met mostly other international students)

-They have great dairy products and CHOCOLATE.

-They still know I am American... gotta work on that.

-They do 3 "bises" instead of 2.

-They take 1 minute showers.

-There are more clocks than people.

-They all wear black.

-They are way expensive.

-They only go skiing if the sky is blue and the snow is deep.

-Even their trash is stacked neatly and bundled.

Don't worry, my posts won't always or maybe ever be this long.

Feel free to comment here or email or skype or whatever! stay in touch!

Jen