And so it begins...

First of all, I'd like to give as much credit as possible to all those business travelers who travel around the world like it's nothing. Dad? Ravi? Ya, that's for you. I have never been so tired upon arriving in Geneva at 7:30am. Although many had informed me to pop some pills and sleep on my 8 hour flight from DC, I barely slept 10 minutes. It didn't seem to be a problem until I sat down at the airport and realized that I still had a whole day ahead of me. Reminder to myself: pop the pills next time. The only good part of staying awake was that I was able to see the sunrise from the airplane as we flew into Switzerland. The mountains were just peeking over the clouds...here is a little taste of my first Alps sighting:

After getting picked up at the airport, we were off to the hostel for our three day orientation before going to our homestays. I could barely see straight at this point, but they were still throwing papers at me and asking me to sign my life away. It was almost torture. All I could think about was when I could eat some real food and when I could hit the hay (and I'm pretty sure it was only 4pm at this point hahaha...I was struggling). The next couple days were all very similar, mostly full of logistical things, i.e. showing us how to use the trains, the tram, where we meet, etc... nothing too exciting. However, we did get a tour of Old Geneva (La Vieille Ville), and it was absolutely beautiful. FREEZING/SNOWING, but beautiful.

I didn't really feel like things were going very well until Friday night. It was the last night at the hostel and everyone decided that it would be best to just buy a bunch of wine and stay in because we were meeting our host families early the next morning. We all gathered in one of the rooms and basically just chatted and got to know each other. It was the first time I felt like things were going to be OK this semester :)

When Saturday finally came, I couldn't wait to get out of the six-person room at the hostel. So, they put us on a bus again with all of our baggage and brought us to a hotel where we were going to meet our host families. It ended up being a very stressful, open house kind of reception. All of the students waited anxiously to see which family was going to walk in next. The funniest part of the whole thing was "la bise". Although I have already been exposed to this European greeting from my previous experiences with FAIS, many of the kids on my program were freaking out, especially the boys. We were hysterically laughing when one of them said: "Am I supposed to kiss my host brother???", and then another one said: "Wow, I just realized that you don't actually kiss their cheeks, yikes, that would have been awkward". Haha. Let's just say... it was all very entertaining. With all that said, everything was fine and everyone survived "la bise", myself included. My host mom walked in and found me almost right away. Her name is Renate, and I am her 10th (!!!!) student. She speaks English, but insists on speaking to me in French since that is one of the reasons I'm here. I didn't argue.

So to finish this post, I'm just going to give you a little taste of what my homestay is like. Since I'm Renate's 10th student, I pretty much have it AMAZING here. She lives on the main floor and then I basically have the basement. The bedroom is great with a desk and a bathroom connected to it. The only bad thing is that I don't get any signal down there because I'm basically underground. I think I'll get over it... BECAUSE I do have one window and it looks out to a little vineyard, and really it's a great set-up. Anyways, Renate is retired, but she is one of the most active retired people I have ever met. After getting settled, we ended up going for an hour walk around her town, Rolle. She told me to tell her if she was walking to fast... I told her that I was used to it thanks to my mom and Hadley (they've trained me well). On Sunday, after letting me sleep in, we promptly ate breakfast and left for the mountain. She packed a nice little sack lunch which we ate once we reached the lodge. We walked for about an hour and a half in the snow on the cross country trails. Everything was covered in snow and there were families everywhere. It was beautfiful, and I was only just a little bit cold. For the most part, it was a reassuring first weekend. I was afraid that having a single, retired host mom was going to get a little boring, but I'm not worried anymore.

Ok. I think that is it for now. My next post will most likely be about my classes and maybe some random adventures. I guess we'll just have to wait and see... A bientot!