My Week in Geneva (More or Less...)

Monday-I started off my day and my week grocery shopping, though even before that I woke up and went for a run (whoop) I ran to an area of Geneva called Carouge. I'd heard about this section of the city from Melissa who has literally fallen in love with it. It is sort of a more quaint area with cafes and used book stores, and area where it would be fun to just sort of wander. After I returned from the grocery store I had some lunch and finished reading for class. We had a regular class with professor Shain where he informed us of a paper that we had due at the end of the week. After class I began my reading for Professor Krause and got the unfortunate news that since Melissa just found out she had an interview the next day-and Grace had to work on her presentation for Wednesday neither would be free for the original plan of traveling to Gruyeres the next day. Being on gchat though I was inspired to take a trip to Dijon to visit Jane-the freedom of the day stemmed from the fact that our normal Tuesday class had been moved to Wednesday morning this week.

I woke up early enough to catch a train to Dijon that got me there a little before noon. I made my way to the arc de triumph (Dijon style) and read while I waited for Jane. After her class got out in French promptness she met me and we went to flunch for lunch where she was meeting some people to plan her spring break. Flunch-for you 'gaters out there-is basically a french version of Frank Dining Hall but cheaper. We were there for about an hour as Jane planned her upcoming trip to Spain and the Canary Islands (JEALOUS) Afterward she took me on a little walking tour of the city and then we sought out the hostel she was going to be staying in the next week. We walked up and down the street it was supposed to be on for quite a while before we realized that it had been exactly where we thought it was, the sign was just quite small. Then we made a quick stop by her homestay and I got to see where she was living for the semester! Her house was very different from my Montpilley one (apparently designed by a famous architect) but located in the same kind of area slightly outside the centre ville. Dijon over all reminded me a lot of Montpellier just with a slightly less diverse population. But I really liked the city and catching up with Jane as really great! I got back on the train, along with some police and a drug sniffing dog, and made my way back to Geneva. I spent the rest of the night finishing my mountains of reading for my two classes the next day.

Wednesday left most of us feeling very brain dead. We woke up and made our commute to Small Arms Unit for class with professor Krause, then took the commute back to the cite where we had time for a quick lunch and then we had to head upstairs to class with Professor Kott. Professor Kott seemed unimpressed with our ability to remember the readings and has thus threatened us with a quiz next class... we'll see how that goes. After class we all tried to start reading for professor Shain's class teh following day but after five hours of discussing international politics it was fairly impossible so most of Wednesday night was spent procrastinating.

Thursday I woke up at breakfast and went for a run, but on my run it started to snow a little bit. It feel a little odd to be complaining about a few flakes when Colgate recently got blitzed by a massive snow storm (trust me Campus Distributions sent me ALL the emails), but screw it, I was cold on my run! Afterward I did some more reading for Professor Shain's class (like literally until class started) and then went to class where we began by discussing our upcoming Western Trip. When the prospect of an evening in Amsterdam came up, I proceeded to raise my hand to ask if we would have time to go to any of the museums in Amsterdam-this concept was quite a surprise to Professor Shain who eventually overcame his shock and was able to tell me, no we would not in fact have time to see any of the museums in Amsterdam (and I wanted to see Anne Frank!) That evening a couple of us played Kings in the common room of the cite while surrounded by a couple other gatherings of young people one seemingly being a pajama party.

Friday, Melissa, Grace, Elise, Kate and I woke up and got on a train to Gruyeres. It involved taking this little dinky two car train up the side of an Alp but it was very pretty. We got to Gruyeres and had a quick small lunch of soup and coffee (french onion with gruyeres cheese-though for being the land of Gruyeres cheese they skimped a lot). Then we went to the Cheese factory museum (kind of similar to the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Oregon) On our way in we got samples of 6, 8 and 10 month aged cheese (I say age because it sounds a lot more appetizing than 10 month old cheese), the tour consisted of an audioguide with Cherry the Cow as your guide. Yes. Cherry the cow (she was born during the cherry season you know) and you get to look down into the giant vats where they make the cheese. Then we made our way up the steep hill to the town of Gruyeres. We went up to the Chateau de Gruyeres where we first viewed the Audiovisual Spectacle, this narrator was a man who was "the spirit of history" apparently the spirit of history is really an old man sort of dressed up in a court jester suit. Then we toured the castle which was really cool. It was furnished like it would have been back in it's prime. When we got toward the top we looked out the windows to see many, many Swiss soldiers-a clear sign of a neutral country. After the castle we went to, I believe, every souvenir shop in the town of Gruyeres. I got a teeshirt that looks like the swiss flag. Then we hung out in the church (it was a little early for dinner and there weren't any cafes or anything around) Then we went to our fondue dinner. We had fondue with potatoes, bread, and little cocktail pickles and onions. It was SO good. After dinner I ordered a coffee which came with cream so thick it was almost solid, then we got dessert, raspberries with the same super thick cream and a mirangue (a Gruyeres specialty) We sat at dinner for about 3 hours and then caught the train home very dairy heavy.

Saturday was paper day. Having worked on my paper very little during the week I had a bit to do so I woke up and worked and worked and worked. Then when I was almost done I took a break to watch The Office, however while watching my computer decided to freak out at me. I spent the rest of the night until dinner trying to fix it. It still wasn't finished when I ate dinner so after dinner I tried to skype home but my computer was still being very broken. Luckily since then it's been working QUICK KNOCK WOOD IF YOU'RE READING THIS!!!

This coming week is our western trip. We are going to Strausberg, Luxembourg, Den Haag, Brussels and Paris. Strausberg and Luxembourg will be new for me! We will also be traveling as a whole group so that should be interesting... but exciting!

What I'm Worried About: My poor computer!!

What I Miss: Having my entire wardrobe-especially my shoes

What I'm Happy About: That Mom had a really Good Vacation in Mexico and Dad had a good (busy) week at work!