Geneva, Switzerland!

I just came back from my first big weekend trip - to Geneva!

It was amazing :)

Our original plan (not sure if i mentioned it before) to go to Switzerland, was to go to Geneva, and to Zermat. Although it turned out it would cost us more than 100 euros just to get to Zermat and back from Geneva, so we decided that it wasn't worth it (unfortunately, but it's still somewhere I'd really like to go in my lifetime!).

We left early Saturday morning, and came back Sunday evening. Virginia and I ended up staying with my Step-mom's cousin Caroline (who I had met once or twice briefly before). She was amazing :) She met us at the train station in geneva, and took us back to her place in Carouge (an adorable suburb of Geneva) to drop off our things.

We spent the day with Caroline wandering Geneva, seeing all of the sights, the University, the Old town, a really ugly russian church, the Jet D'eau, the Un buildings (including the WTO and UNICEF). We saw almost all of the parts of the city, which was fantastic. And of course we did some shopping too :) Caroline showed us the best and cheapest place to get chocolate is from the Grocery Store. It was the most gigantic chocolate section I have EVER seen. Maybe if you see me at christmas, I may have some swiss chocolate to share with you!




- Outside the United Nations Building! Could you tell?









Caroline took us to a really cute restaurant called the Cafe du Soliel for dinner, where we had a traditional swiss meal - Cheese Fondu. It was extremely delicious! We weren't really sure how to go about ordering and such, luckily the waiter was very helpful, and guided us through the evening. He recommended the cheese fondu (your table comes with a gigantic pile of bread for dipping) and dry meat. Also he gave us some water for before the meal, and recommended a nice dry white wine for the meal, as you aren't supposed to drink cold water after eating the melted cheese, as it causes the cheese to harden in your stomach....... nevertheless it was a fantastic experience, and I am now definitely a fan of cheese fondu :)






Eating at Café du Soleil!









The next day, we decided to tackle the Saleve. A mountain just outside of Geneva, and actually in France! We took the bus as far as it would go (just to the edge of switzerland) then walked into France to the mountain. It was a beautiful ride up the Telepherique where had amazing views of Geneva and the surrounding countryside. We took a nice hike up the rest of the mountain as well. Where we saw Paragliders take off. It was a fantastic day. It got a little foggier throughout the day, so we decided to go back down once we couldn't even see each other.







At the top of the Salève overlooking Geneva :)















All in all, it was a fantastic weekend in Switzerland, the only bad thing is now I just want to see more of it! Caroline was showing us her pictures from other places she'd been.

It's really too bad I don't have unlimited time and money......

Here is the link to the rest of my pictures, or just click the title of this post and it will take you right there!

I just figured out how to put videos on, (in April hahah) so i've come back to update some posts with videos I've taken. This one is of Paragliders jumping off the Saleve.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=17606&id=1642740063&l=954db93d6c

Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been the hardest weekend yet here. It's hard to have everyone at home celebrating something together, all of your friends and family get to see each other, when you're stuck in some foreign country that doesn't even celebrate Thanksgiving! These last couple days were a bit tricky, with everyone at home being so excited about the first big weekend back home. Not to mention all of the delicious food that comes along with the Thanksgiving weekend!

But of course, there is no way that I could miss Thanksgiving altogether! So Virginia and I created our Own feast! We declared Saturday "Canadian Thanksgiving in France" Because grocery stores aren't open here on Sundays, and we have a full day of school on Monday.

So on Saturday, we got all dressed up, made Thanksgiving signs to post on our table in the Kitchen (letting all the french students know what the heck we were doing hahah). We went to the grocery store and got all of the things we needed for our Canadian Thanksgiving in France!

We lucked out because it seemed as though most of the french students had gone home for the weekend, so while we were creating our masterpiece in the kitchen, we were the only ones there! People only starting coming in as we were finishing up, and asking lots of questions about thanksgiving. Everyone know Thanksgiving in the States, and were wondering how it could be Thanksgiving already! We had to fill them in that we liked to have ours a little earlier in Canada :)


Here is what we ended up making!

Caesar Salad
Fresh Baguette and Butter

Pre roasted Chicken (from the grocery store because we don't have an oven in res :( )
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Steamed Carrots and Green Beans
Homemade Stuffing

Apple Pastry
Fruit Tart
Chocolate Ice Cream

And voila! Our slightly modified Canadian Thanksgiving in France! We also carried on the thanksgiving Tradition of eating Waaaaay too much, But we did take a break between dinner and dessert to take a promenade de digestion down to the river. Although I would have much preferred to be spending it with my friends and family, think it was a pretty successful THanksgiving away from home.

One thing I learned from this whole thing though, I'm SO glad to be coming home for Christmas :)







- Virginia's sign, and a mini gourd!

















- us sitting down to our delicious meal :)













- Our plates weren't big enough to hold everything so we had to use them all!















- The aftermath :) and two full Canadians :)

Virginia and I on the Saone River :)














Roman Amphitheatre in Lyon












The view from Basilica at the top of the Hill in Lyon












French Parking skills :)

















Automatic Pizza Maker (I have yet to try this anomoly)















Musee des beaux Arts in Lyon (GIANT paintings)

October Already!

I cannot believe that it's October already! The weeks have just flown by so far. It's also hard to believe that I haven't had a full week of classes yet! (this coming week will be my first FULL week)

Classes are going well. I have a few classes JUST for exchange students, so the profs know that we ALL are learning french, and are here to improve our language skills. Those classes are very simelar to home, and are going perfectly excellent.

My other classes are a little bit tougher. About half of my classes are french litterature, taught by a french prof, to (mostly) french students. They don't consider (on a regular basis) that they need to speak a little slower than normal for the international students. Those classes are a little more difficult to keep up in, but I will definitely be learning a lot there!

Those classes are also pretty tough classes for the french students. They have three classes they have to take, where they do a 25 minute presentation for each class, and then they study for the final exam for ALL THREE, but only write ONE! (they don't know which one until the day of though).

LUCKILY the french profs remember us international students here. We don't have to do the presentations, or the final exam :) Which is EXCELLENT:) Instead we write a 10 page essay for each of these three classes, and that constitutes our final exam for each class.

In other news, Virginia and I went on our first out of Lyon outing today! We went to Vienne for the Day, which is a small city 20 minutes by train away. We managed to go for less than 10 euros there and back! We left in the morning, and then just wandered around the city! (it was pretty small, so very difficult to get lost) We found touristy things, and bought a 6 euro pass for all of the museums in the city! We went to a roman amphitheatre, an architectural museum, which had roman ruins (of houses and communities) we went to some churches, climbed lots of stairs, had an excellent picnic lunch, and ate some french pastries! All in all it was a very successful day!

In other travel news, Virginia and I have also booked train tickets to go to Geneva, for the end of October! We had originally planned to go to Zermatt as well, but found it was MUCH too expensive to go there as well in the short amount of time that we can go for. Hostels are also booked for this weekend which is pretty exciting I think :) We're going October 24-25, so check back after then for details about my trip!!

Lastly, Virginia and I JUST booked a flight to ROME! I'm especially excited about this trip, although I have awhile to be excited. It was cheapest to go in December, so we've booked our flight from December 4th to the 6th. I'm sure I will be mentioning it more, as my excitement grows! We have A LOT to pack into 2 days there, but I think we can do it, even if it means buying some Gelato for extra energy!

By the way, anyone who has ever been to any of the places I'm going to, or may want to go to, please reccommend anything to me! Places i should go, things i should see, places i should stay? Also if you think i should try and visit any places around europe mention those too! I'm always up for suggestions!

Link to my Vienne Pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16221&id=1642740063&l=e091c287c2