Last weekend, well last Friday through Tuesday, was Carnaval de bolzes in the basse-ville (old city) of Fribourg. It's basically a huge event where everyone dresses in ridiculous costumes and the old city comes alive with street vendors, themed restaurants and bars, disguised bands playing concerts, confetti, parades, burning Rababous, kids, and drinking.
Friday there wasn't a whole lot going on yet, so I went to a friend's party which had a million girls and no music and someone who got out of proportionally angry with me for something stupid. Then some of us went to Irish but the music was no good, so I left in less time then it took us to get our shit together and get over there. Not a great night but whatevs, I also managed to scare Lauren from ever going number 2 again. Long story...
Saturday day I got to sleep late which was wonderful and went on a run in the afternoon back to the hill/mountain where I found the most beautiful view of Fribourg with the cathedral and all of the red roofed houses and the big bridge and the mountains. Along the way I saw a bunch of concerts for carnaval that I could hear all the way from my window. My goal is to be able to run up that hill without having to stop before I go home. I feel so out of shape because it shouldn't be so hard, but I think between the slope, the length, and the high altitude, some of my shortness of breath is explained. Big bummer I don't have a picture of this but I don't run with a camera!
Saturday night was the first major night of carnaval and Rachel and friends took the free after 7 train to Fribourg to participate. All I had bought for a costume was a mini-party hat that was sparkly and blue with fringe and a strap for my neck that was a little too small. It was the cheapest hat I could find at the costume store - 1.50 CHF - so it was money well spent. As far as clothing goes, I could really only fit practical items in my luggage so I just decided to layer random clothes and wear heels I had never worn before (bad idea). We all put face paint on--I did mine myself! with party balloons, birthday cake, and stars. All night I went around saying "Je suis la fete!" which translates to "I am the party!" and I think that was a pretty sweet, makeshift idea. Around 8 I picked up Rachel and friends from the train station, and they had already been drinking on the train (yay legal drinking in public!) and we walked them back to Beauregard to get ready. I left them alone with the face paint, which was a terrible idea because they decided to be teenage mutant ninja turtles with facial hair--who knew teenagers could grow facial hair!
However Rachel felt bad for looking funny and an authentically Swiss girl fixed her face.
Everyone had pretty sweet costumes. I headed out with the visiting Americans to the old city, and along the way we took pictures with elves, James tried to speak French with people, and my shoes gave me blisters, especially walking on cobblestones downhill.
At night everyone that lives in the old city opens up their medieval basements called caves and turns them into bars or discotechs. We had a lot of fun cave hopping and dancing to classics such as 99 Luft Balloons and some oldies I forget at the moment. We also hit some themed restaurants and bars complete with live music and full grown adults in the most impressive costumes.
We ended up buying hot wine and dancing to the Guggenmusik band in the middle of the square. It was incredible. Then those Rachel n friends had to haul ass back to the train station to catch the last train out so their ride home would be free as well.
In the 10 minutes that followed I couldn't find anyone, but then found all the Erasmus and Americans I knew all at once. By that time the preparations were wearing off aka you know what I mean, and the blisters on my feet were killing me, along with the cold -- I was super cold because the party does not wear a jacket. So we went to a few more places, danced a bit, and I headed home. Dan carried me on his back most of the way because of my feet, which is quite a feat (no pun intended!) because the hills here are MAD steep, i will never complain about Tufts again, and obviously he had been drinking, and im not super light so all in all, very impressive. It was kind of funny as well because people along the way kept asking us if they could get a ride too.
The next day carnaval activities lasted all day. We only really went to see them burn the Rababou, because really what else matters? It was a pretty creepy ordeal. They played the story of the monstrous Rababou on loudspeakers in a very disturbing voice, pausing frequently to lead a chant in an even more disturbing voice, "OO OO RA-BA-BOU!"
Until they set the giant creature on fire and played happy music as he burned to death. There were firecrackers in his head so that was pretty cool/loud, I'm surprised they've pulled this off every year without burning down all the buildings.
Next day was take 2 of double header economics lectures, futsal, and fussballtennis. The second econ class I hadn't had the week before, but when I went this time the teacher had a ridiculous Bernois (swiss german) accent, and for the first 15 minutes I thought he was kidding. But he wasn't. It's kind of hard to understand him, but also hilariously funny... too bad I can't do an impression via this blog. We had to get groups for presentations in this class and I only knew one person, and neither of us are native french speakers, so we are with 2 other randos and hopefully that will work out.
The next day, Tuesday, was the last day of carnaval and also Mardi Gras. So we HAD to go back to the old city that night for the best night. That morning while waiting to talk to a teacher I met a fribourgeois girl who was super friendly but made this disgusted face when I said I was from America. Then she asked how I was taking my courses in French if I am from the US, and I told her that some of us learn more than one language--she was very surprised. Then before we went out I tried to go to another session of futsal, but I was super intimidated when I arrived by big Italian looking men slamming balls against the walls and giving me the "what are you doing here?" look when I walked in. After making all the effort to get down there and never before backing down against boys when it came to soccer, I left defeated and biked into the middle of no where to get me back in a better mood for carnaval. That night, I did a make shift version of "the party" with less colorful face paint, aka Lauren's eyeliner, but after some fondue and cheap vodka we headed down (this time in more comfortable shoes).
There was the same set up in the old city, but it was way crazier and a lot of fun. I ended up staying really late and finishing my carnaval experience in the Mouton Noire (Black Sheep) which is the place to be for carnaval.
It was like a medieval dungeon bar, and we had met up with some different spanish kids, one of which was wearing a full body unicorn suit. Very impressive.
On the way back, a taxi drove into me and Dan hit the taxi with his fist. That was a weird experience. I'm okay though.
The next day I had 3 classes in a row which was a bit of a bitch, but the 3rd one is a French lit course that may replace my English course making my weekends Thurs-Sun and all my classes in French. Keep your fingers crossed. The third class was my church class, and you'll never believe it but my professor is a monk. Frere something and he wears the monk clothes and has the monk haircut... only in Fribourg. They all freaked out too when I said I was an economics student from the US and everyone wanted to know why I was in their class. Oh and also the woman next to me was at least 75 years old.
Thursday I went to class forgetting that it was canceled. Then I spent the day buying stuff for Graham and I and also a sweet Swiss Army Knife, that I figured was a necessary purchase if I'm living here for a semester.
Graham Rogers came in for the weekend, but couldn't call me when his train arrived because of phone issues so had to find an internet cafe and IM me. Luckily, I am always online. That night I made him dinner and we talked with Isabel and then him and I went to get delicious chocolate gelato--gotta love that Italian influence--and took a night time exploration of the city. We explored for a good hour and a half, going through the old city, under a bridge, up a switch path, on a highway, over a suspension bridge, up stairs, and by the cathedral. Only sketchy part was there was a guy chilling under a bridge in the old city, so I made Graham talk loudly with a manly voice... dunno if that did anything, but it made me feel better.
Next morning we were up at 530am to get to Jungfrau to ski Grindelwald. First thing I did was unplug my ipod and got fucking electrocuted. I have these two very white and puss-filled burns from one second of contact that sent vibrations up my entire arm. Definitely woke me up though.
Graham also left his ski boots on the train, luckily though we remembered them before it peaced out! There were lots of clouds in the morning, and the beautiful powder stashes had warmed up then cooled off making them variable and crunchy. So we stayed on piste mostly. We started exploring this bowl and to our surprise we were creating avalanches below us due to the re-warming up of the snow. We then noticed a lot of slide paths around us. Comforting, right? We got the hell out of that bowl, and I started noticing that there were avalanches all over the place, I guess that's what level 3 is.
Then the sun came out and softened the snow, and opened up the breathtaking views of Interlaken that I still can not get over. We didn't stop for lunch since we had filled our pockets, and skied all the way till 4:30. We made better decisions though about any off-piste skiing.
That night we went to Kasia's apartment to party a bit, Graham being the only boy, and after some Swiss wine, we went to go out but Graham realized he was exhausted so we went to bed instead. He lucked out because Mary was gone and got her whole room/bed. The next day, since the avalanche danger at Verbier was high again due to more unseasonably warm temps, we decided to stay more local and ski in the pre-alps if we'd have to stay on piste anyway. We got breakfast and then missed the bus to Charmey by exactly 1 minute, so decided to ski at Schwarzsee which was a little farther. It was a warm blue bird day, and the pre-alps have a surprising amount of terrain, steeps, trees, etc but just are a little lower in altitude. We found some sick fresh tracks off a T-bar -- this mountain loved T-bars which didn't really work with our height difference.
Later we decided to follow some tracks into trees that lead us, as usual, to a cliff face. Graham scouted it out and we eventually side stepped down the cliff. I had to go second and naturally one of my legs got stuck on a mossy outcropping. It took me a good 5-10 minutes to get out of that one without tumbling all the way down into the forest below. We made it out alive and did some bowls/jumping the rest of the day. We were ready to go on the 5pm bus which didn't come, so we took one after waiting an hour--so much for Swiss efficiency!
On the bus all we wanted to do was nap, but these two obnoxious Swiss German boys were literally spitting on my face and stepping on our feet. All the father did was physically abuse the older boy instead of controlling his kids.
After we got back we dropped off our stuff, took a quick shower, and headed to Lausanne to meet Susie Petlick and Katie Houstle who were visiting there and not Fribourg for who knows what reason. Lausanne is supposedly beautiful, but was hard to see at night.
I was the only one there who spoke any French, so that was fun and we went looking for a not-so-expensive restaurant. We ended up at an Italian one where the waiter refused to respond to me in french, douchebag. Then we explored Lausanne and asked people to take pictures of us. We ended up in Ouchy on the coast of Lake Leman, where we played on the playground, since Susie didn't feel embarrassed doing so at night. We also saw some swans that were flipping out.
Then we came back and Graham left the next morning after breakfast... sick weekend though!
Sunday I had to finish my oral presentation. That's enough about Sunday. Then yesterday, monday, I had my econ/futsal/fussballtennis and I definitely improved at fussballtennis, not great yet but way more consistent. And it doesn't hurt that the instructor is beautiful. Then I stopped by Marta and Ester's to say hi, but I did not participate in Crazy Monday festivities because of my presentation.
This morning was the presentation and I wrote an 8 page, single spaced script and made a powerpoint with bullet-points so that people could at least understand something. My partner wasn't totally prepared, and I had a lot more information, but I'm not so sure a lot of what I said was understood. Isabel, Allison, and Mary said my accent got better with time, but I think it was just the shock transition between my native french speaking partner and me that they were like wtf and then got used to it by the end. Unfortunately we didn't use any images from the Quattrocento which is bad considering our theme was the use of shadow and light in the Trecento and Quattrocento... hopefully since we were the first presentation he will go easy on us.
Whew that was a lot.
Obssss:
-I have bad luck with electricity: electrocuted myself, melted my boot driers, broke both my adapter and converter, all within 24 hours.
-Avalanches are for real.
-I still have almost no real Swiss friends.
-Swiss students go home Friday and come back Sunday since they live super close, party monday.
-University of Fribourg's reputation is a party, alcohol, and drug school--I was unaware of this.
-The Swiss aren't always as efficient as they're cracked up to be. It's a very high standard.
-Dairy and chocolate make up 95% of the diet here.
-A percentage of the funds for every major construction project must go to an artist to build an outdoor exhibit.
-They take notes on graph paper neatly and with cursive writing, and if they make a mistake they use whiteout (my notes look like chicken scratch next to them)
-Swiss Italians know Italian, French and German fluently, Swiss Germans know French and German, and Swiss Romands know French. In order of necessity.
-Professors will critique your work in front of the class.
-They open their windows in the morning no matter how cold it is to air out their room and probably also their duvet.
-There are fountains on almost every corner.
-The food here is fatty-er but the people are thinner.
-I haven't watched any tv since I got here or gone to any movies since they're so expensive.
-For people with French knowledge: when someone sneezes its "sante" not "a tes souhaits" and instead of "de rien" for thank you it's "service" and 70/80/90 are "septante, huitante, et nonante" not "soixtante-dix, quatre-vingt, ou quatre-vingt-dix" which I think is a better system (Napoleon chose that extended way of saying numbers)
Till next time! Missing everyoneeeee...
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