Getting Into the Swing of Things!
Well hi everyone! I’ll cut down on the chit chat and jump right into the review of my last 2 weeks because I have a lot of ground to cover!
Saturday, February 25th:
A few of my friends and I decided to brave the train and take our first excursion out of Geneva to the neighboring town of Lausanne. I went with my two Finnish friends Nea and Fanny, and my Belgian friend Reyhan. The train ride was surprisingly fast (only 40ish minutes) and the views from the window were beautiful. The only “bad” part was the weather. My first week in Geneva it was nothing but sunny skies and warm breezes, I didn’t even have to wear a jacket my entire first week. But similar to Utah, the weather took a drastic turn my second week and has been cold ever since. It was nice and windy in Lausanne but we still managed to have a great time!
Because it was cold I really wanted some hot chocolate. Switzerland is famous for their chocolate so I was excited to try some. We went into a chocolate shop and all ordered a chestnut hot chocolate. We were all handed our cups and my first thought was “this is very small” and at that exact same moment, my friends start talking about how big the cup is! Hahaha I guess the stereotypes of American portion sizes are true. Now, in the US if you order a cup of hot chocolate you’re probably going to need to wait a minimum of 5 minutes before drinking it because it will be WAY to hot when its handed to you. But you never wait the allotted time and take a small sip immediately after it lands in your hands, and you burn your tongue. You then regret that choice and tell yourself that you need to wait, and the rest of the hot chocolate is dulled in flavor because of your now burnt tongue. So imagine my shock when I take my tentative sip that I’m expecting will burn my tongue and find that it is just barely luke warm. It also tasted like it had no sugar. My friends all take their sips and begin to talk about how great it tastes and how much they appreciate that “it’s not too sweet” while I stood there mildly disappointed reminding myself that its actually problematic how much sugar I normally have in my hot chocolate back home and this is probably much better for me haha.
We continued on and Nea bought some post cards in a local shop and asked the worker where a good crepe restaurant would be. After climbing an extremely steep hill (for anyone going to Lausanne make sure to pack really good hiking shoes because it is extremely hilly and has a lot of cobblestones) we found the crepe place and they told us it would be a 2 hour wait. We wandered around for 2 hours taking in the sites.We went to the top of the Cathedral that overlooks the town and it had the most beautiful view.
At one point I needed to use the bathroom so we found a public restroom. In most of the EU you have to pay to use any bathrooms. You can use them in restaurants if you order food, but if you are just out on the street and need to use the bathroom you will have to pay to use a public bathroom. Switzerland is not a part of the EU which means you don’t have to pay for their bathrooms (most of the time, but if you’re in a train station or somewhere really big then you will) so we found ourselves the local loo. When I first saw it I was extremely confused because I saw someone come out of it so I knew it was empty, but the door was locked. There was this super big noise coming from inside the bathroom and there was a glowing “X” next to the door showing I couldn’t go in. Turns out it was self-cleaning. After someone finished in this bathroom the entire thing was sprayed down, which sounds nice in theory because its “getting nice and clean” but once that is done and the door unlocks for you to go in… everything is completely soaked! The floor is entirely flooded with water that is slowly draining. The entire toilet seat is wet along with everything else in the room. It ended up being really funny but also extremely inconvenient because the toilet seats are so high that you can’t really squat over them easily if you’re short like me, so I ended up bumping into a lot of things in my attempt to use the bathroom and got wet all over! For now I am sticking by my opinion that Asian squatty potty bathrooms are honestly the best public bathrooms there are. I know that might be controversial, especially if you have never used one, but it was far easier than the soaking wet mess here and you don’t have to pay for them!
When it was finally time we went back to the restaurant and the crepes were AMAZING! I had an egg, spinach, and cheese one to start and then we shared a couple different dessert ones.
Overall it was an amazing day and I would highly recommend going to Lausanne. The buildings were very “Swiss” looking, much more than in Geneva, and although there were a lot of steep hills it had some beautiful views!
Tuesday, February 28th:
As a student here, I have access to a lot of free things. There are tickets to a lot of local cultural events that you can sign up for with your student account. My friends and I thought we would go out for a sophisticated evening at the opera. We dressed up in our fanciest clothes and took our seats in the very middle of the theater. We all had absolutely no idea what it was going to be about and had done no research before hand. It was titled “The Return of Odysseus” and the first half was honestly really boring. The singers were amazing but the story line was a bit dry. They had the words translated into French and English projected on the walls so you theoretically could follow along, but like I said, it was a bit boring. The first part was 1hr and 50minutes. Then there was a 30 minute intermission. We take our seats for the final 50 minutes and nothing could have prepared me for what we saw next.
For context: during the entire first act, there were about 20 men on the stage all dressed up in suits and I kept waiting for the moment that they would all sing together or do a dance or something. Only 3 out of the 20 men sang and I kept waiting to understand why there were randomly 20 men on the stage doing nothing. They literally just stood there 90% of the time.
In the second act though… it became obvious why they were there. One second the main character Penelope is singing about being tempted to love again and the next second all these men start taking off their clothes. One of them unbuttons his shirt, the second completely takes off his shirt, and the third takes off his shirt and pants and is just there in his underwear. Meanwhile, all the men at the back of the stage are slowly taking off their clothes as well. I’m sitting there extremely confused wondering what the heck is going on. The next thing I know there are some fully naked men on that stage! I am sitting next to my Finnish friend Nea and I turn to her to see if she is as shocked as I am because there was absolutely no warning about this in the program or anything! She is clearly surprised as well but not nearly as much as me. She turns to me and says “do they not have nudity on stage in the US?” UM, well I can’t speak for all of the US but I can say with 100% surety that they don’t have it in UTAH! Then, as if its not crazy enough, the main guy Ulysses starts violently killing all the naked and half-naked men. There was blood spurting up from everywhere and they were all spitting out blood and it’s all over the stage and I am just sitting there with my eyes wide trying not to burst out laughing from how absolutely absurd this whole thing is! THEN IT STARTS RAINING ON STAGE. There is water pouring from the ceiling making the whole thing an absolute mess and these poor actors are just lying there soaking wet playing dead for 40 minutes covered in blood and water.
When the entire thing was over and we walked outside I laughed for a good 5 minutes. I went with Nea and Fanny and another American girl named Davida who is from Washington DC. Both Davida and I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no warning that there would be nudity while Nea and Fanny were much more concerned with the amount of violence there was.
Every time I think about it I can’t help but laugh! But now I know that I should read up on any type of performance I go to while in Europe! Hahaha
Friday, March 3rd:
Nea, Fanny, Anna (from Germany) and I decided to go to France for the afternoon. Groceries in Switzerland are extremely expensive and a lot of local people do all their shopping in France because its only a 10-15 minute bus ride away. We toured around a city called Annamasse in France and if you are looking for a cute town… this is not the one to visit. We all kept joking that it didn’t even have a “French vibe”. It was very industrial looking so I wouldn’t go there for any sightseeing purposes, but the groceries were significantly cheaper. We stopped by a local cafè and I tried my hand at other hot chocolate. This one was AMAZING and I will definitely be back for more!
I had the opportunity to go to the stake institute! It was entirely in French, but there was someone kind enough to translate for me and I ended up having a wonderful time. I always enjoy getting together with other YSA’s and learning about the gospel.
Saturday, March 4th:
My friends Kajol (from India), Naima (from Istanbol), Anna (from Germany), and of course, Nea and Fanny all went out for traditional Swiss fondue! Fondue is only eaten by locals in the winter months so we figured we had to do it now before it hits the months when it’s only served for tourists and the prices are higher. We went to Auberge de Savièse and it was wonderful! We ordered 2 pots, one was a traditional one with alcohol in it, and I went with the non-alcoholic one. What’s funny is, everyone ended up liking my pot the best because they all said the other one had too much wine and it made the flavor bad. We had it with bread, potatoes, and fruit. I highly recommend it and have to say that Swiss cheese really is as good as everyone says it is.
I ended the night by going to a Swiss hockey game and it was a great time, I was very surprised at how full the stadium was. I was only slightly disappointed at the lack of fighting, the games in the US are far less civilized and all the games I’ve been to in SLC involved some sort of physical fight on the ice and multiple penalties. But the Swiss were very respectful and I don’t think anyone was sent to the penalty box during the game. It made it slightly less exciting, but I still had a wonderful time haha!
Tuesday, March 7th:
Before arriving to Geneva I looked up “service opportunities in Geneva” on google because I always enjoy helping out and meeting new people. I also feel very blessed and privileged to have the opportunity to travel to such amazing and beautiful places and really enjoy giving back to Heavenly Father in small ways by serving his children wherever I am in the world!
I arrived to the soup kitchen at 8:30am and cut hundreds of pieces of bread. There were about 15 volunteers from around the city who all come together every week day to serve over 300 people a free lunch. We meal prepped for a couple hours and at 11:30am they opened the doors to everyone. I was put on table cleaning duty and wiped down the tables once someone was finished eating to allow for another person to sit. I had a great time talking with the other volunteers and learning about this amazing organization that provides free meals. The government provides the soup kitchen itself, but all the food is bought with donations from big companies and corporations. The volunteers consist of people like me who just want to help out, but also refugees that have been given stipends and are asked to volunteer a couple of times a week as part of their agreement for being in the country and to help give them something to do as they learn French to eventually get a job.
My biggest tip for anyone who moves to a new location would be to volunteer- especially if you move abroad. There was one volunteer in particular who married a Swiss guy and moved here and currently isn’t able to work because she doesn’t have a work visa yet. So instead, she volunteers every day of the week to give her something to do, a reason to leave the house, and a sense of accomplishment. How great is that?! She is doing so much good for the community she is a part of and is able to have a routine and purpose in her day, which I think is the key to happily living abroad. Going on vacation is one thing, but if you are going to live somewhere that is completely unfamiliar to you and especially if you can’t work or have a big language barrier- you need to find some way to feel useful and give yourself an opportunity to think about others. I truly believe that doing service is one of the best ways to help relieve your stress and brings real happiness into your life!
Friday, March 10th:
I went on a tour to one of the most extensive luxury watch museums in the world- The Patek Philippe Museum. There is a cool club at the university that organizes these kinds of events and activities and we were able to get a private tour. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about watches and walked away completely mind-blown at how much people are willing to spend on a watch. All I’m saying is… if I had 24 million dollars to spend, a single watch is NOT what I would spend it on. But to each their own I guess.
If you are into luxury watches or just find history fascinating I would say this museum is worth your time. They have head sets that you can use but I would highly recommend a private tour because the workers know everything there is to know and its a lot more fun to be able to ask your questions to someone that can answer them!
Saturday, March 11th:
To end the week I went to the Cailler chocolate museum. It is a Swiss-made chocolate that was founded in Switzerland and is made here as well. It is one of the only chocolates to use real milk instead of milk powder and it makes the chocolate very creamy. I took a chocolate-making class and I was able to make my own chocolate bar and a little animal mold. I then went on a tour to learn all about the history of Cailler chocolate. The tour itself was pretty fun, but I think I would have been slightly disappointed if I only did the tour. I would recommend doing a class and a tour if you were to go, you also get 50% off the tour if you do a class, and the class comes with the chocolate that you make as well as a really nice apron that you get to take home. I was really happy with the whole experience. As a chocolate addict, I went a bit overboard and ate close to my body weight in chocolate by the time I was finished… but it was some of the best I’ve ever had and was totally worth the stomach ache I had for the rest of the day!
Well that’s all I have for now! Thanks for tuning in, I can’t wait to see how the next couple of weeks go! Au Revoir!
Culture Shocks and Interesting Discoveries
So many women here carry flowers. I don’t know if it is a common gift or if they are just buying them for themselves, but I pass at least a couple of women a day that has a bouquet of flowers in their hands on the bus.
There are no “snack” foods here. I have found exactly one granola bar that I like and that is it. They don’t really do snacking at all so unless you want to munch on an apple or some grapes, you’re fresh out of luck. You won’t find a cracker aisle with cheeze-its and goldfish, and forget about fruit snacks and cookies. It’s chocolate or something healthy, have your pick.
It really really stinks to miss your bus. It also really stinks to have your bus canceled. Both of which happened to me this week.
The milk taste’s weird and I don’t really like it.
Chocolate croissants are way better than Chocolate bread.
French is really really difficult to learn.
If you want to buy groceries in Switzerland… don’t. Go to France instead.
French hot chocolate is much sweater than Swiss hot chocolate.
