Switzerland was wonderful. It was great to be back there and see everyone that I hadn’t seen in far too long. On the one hand there was so much to do because I was only there for 3 days, not even, but on the other hand it was kind of relaxing because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in everything I wanted to do into 3 days, so I didn’t really try. So it was pretty low key. When we first got there we mainly just relaxed at the Candaux house. Games were played (clearly) and lots of good food was eaten. The next day we went to Gruyère. Some of you may have heard of Gruyere cheese. It’s delicious. It comes from this tiny town in Switzerland, which is quite close to where we lived. Gruyere has a bunch of little “chalet” style restaurants and they all serve: soupe de chalet (the best soup in the world-it has lots in it: cheese, cream, macaroni pasta, onions, spinach, more cheese, croutons-it’s incredible), fondue, and fruit with double crème (this is essentially really thick whipping cream that’s not sugary). I really love all of this food. It was difficult to decide between the soup and fondue, but ultimately I decided on the soup (we decided to make fondue at the house the next night, and the soup was all you can eat). I obvisouly also got raspberries and double crème for desert. Best meal ever.
Here's soupe de chalet (the picture does not do it justice), and me eating raspberries and double crème:
That night I met up with Laura, my best friend in Switzerland. It was great to see her family-especially her younger brother, who Laura and I always hung out with and who always had a crush on me. The three of us reminisced and laughed a lot. Then we, along with some other friends, went to a bar in Lausanne (all my friends can now drive, so the opportunities are now endless). It was basically me, Laura, another girl who’s name I simply do not remember, and a whole lot of silly Swiss boys, and it was a lot of fun.
Here's a picture of Laura, me, and Jonathan (Laura's brother):
On Sunday we ate lunch at another family friend house where I thoroughly enjoyed kicking it with the three boys, ages 13, 11, and 4. I watched them play Lord of the Rings computer games and then we started watching Shrek 3 in French (I was dragged away about 15 minutes into the movie, and I was pissed). That night we had one of my dad’s ex-students/my friends over for dinner, which was fondue. And of course we played more board games afterward.
It was a very short visit as I left early the next morning for Paris, but all in all, a really great one. I’m definitely going back; I realized how much that place meant to me and how much I missed it. Plus it only costs about 25 euros for me to go there, round trip!
So Paris was a blur because I was there for barely 24 hours, but the trip was well worth it. I got to see all my friends who are studying abroad throughout Europe, and for the New Year at that. In terms of what I did… well, it’s pretty ridiculous, but to be honest I spent more time at Pigalle (the essential Red Light district of Paris) than anywhere else. During the day on New Years Eve, Karyn and Andrew and I just sort of aimlessly walked around the city and ended up spending a lot of time on Sex Shop Boulevard because we thought it was so hilarious and ridiculous. (We also went to Notre Dome and walked along the Seine, okay?) But while we were there we came across the “Museum of Erotic Art” and the three of us plus Miles, Jake and Alex, ended up legitimately going to this museum on New Years day. Yes, I know: we chose sex art over the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. But most of us had already been to both of those at one point and none of us had been to Paris’ very own sex museum, so, you know. Some of the stuff was interesting but I think we all felt kinda gross afterward. After that we walked around in the cemetery in Monmartre, which was creepy and pretty. For New Years itself we all went to the Eiffel Tower, drank and were merry, and watched the fireworks. Pretty epic.
However, being in Paris made me realize how happy I am in Lyon. I really hate Parisians, I really do. Paris is a beautiful city and I’d like to spend more time there for sure, but fuck Parisians. Before Karyn, Andrew and I ended up walking amongst the sex shops I asked this chick at McDonalds how to get to the Monmartre cemetery and she made a huge fucking deal about how I slightly mispronounced the French word for cemetery. At first she acted like she didn’t understand me, which I think was impossible, then she said it herself, very slowly and enunciated as if she was talking to a 3-year-old, and then she had the gall to tell me to repeat the word after her, correctly. Then she said that in order to get to the cemetery we had to take a bus, and explained what we should do. Something didn’t seem quite right with this as the cemetery was supposedly very close to where we were. I finally found a map: the cemetery was two blocks away. And I’m the idiot who can’t pronounce cemetery…
On the 1st (of tha month… wake up, wake up, wake up…) I met my parents back in Lyon. I did various relatively touristy things with them, and I think they really liked the city. One night we had dinner with my host family and everyone got along really well. I was happy that my real family and host family got to meet each other. On the 3rd, Karyn, Miles, Alex and Braden arrived! They overlapped with my parents, who left early on the morning of the fifth. We didn’t do many touristy things while they were here, which was nice, actually. It was good to be able to just kick it with good friends; it’s something I really miss about college at home. Come to think of it, it did really remind me of hanging out with friends at U of O; we even played a drinking game to Harry Potter 5 (take a drink every time someone says ‘Harry,’ take two for every House name mentioned, and chug whenever the dementors are sucking life) one night, and Apples to Apples another.
Since they all left things have been relatively uneventful. I had exams all last week, and my last one is tomorrow. I’ve been doing a lot of teaching, watching some Battlestar, reading some books my parents left me. Here are two exciting things of note, however:
1. We will finally, finally, fucking finally have internet at our apartment by the end of the week: after trying everything we could for two months, we finally had a man from the internet company come to our house to figure out what was wrong. He did some things and made some calls, and the result: we will have the Internet in a maximum of 96 hours from yesterday. So, basically Thursday/Friday. It could even happen before then! I suppose something else could go wrong, I’m even sort of expecting it to given our luck with this, but if a guy came to our house and checked it out, this is as legit as it can get, right? Sigh, I hope so. Anyway, if (knock wood) all goes well, I will soon be on Skype regularly, so if you don’t already have it, download that shit! We can talk fo freeee.
2. Sarah, Rachel and I are leaving for an epic journey to Amsterdam and Berlin next Thursday! We’ve bought all the tickets and booked all the hostels. I’ve never been to either city and I’m incredibly excited.
