The Beginning

Bonjour!!!

Yea, that's about all the french I know. But it's really all I need, for the most part.

So! It has certainly been a collection of adventures so far. The flight over to London was ok. For any of you who have flown with me before... there was LOTS of turbulance (sp?). And you know how much I just LOVE that. Yea, so basically I almost had a mini-melt down on the plane. But I held it together.

We were a bit delayed out of Heathrow because of the PLANE CRASH there that I'm sure you've all heard about. Elyse and I arrive in Geneva and checked into our sweet hotel. Caitlyn was supposed to arrive at 11:15... but apparently our flight had been the last one allowed out of Heathrow. So it was interesting to try and find out which flight she was actually able to get on, and finally get her back to the hotel with us. After we settled a little bit, the three of us headed into the city area of Geneva on the train. It was soooooo pretty! Gorgeous old buildings, THE LAKE, expensive shops, and lots of good people watching. We tried getting dinner, but everywhere we went was SOOO expensive! Yea, welcome to Europe. Well, we ended up at McDonald's. DON'T judge me.

After dinner we decided to head back to the hotel. This is the beginning of Adventure #1. We got on a train that we THOUGHT would take us back to our hotel. After 2 stops, we realized we were on the wrong train. We got off at... some stop. Looked up the timetable there, and found that the next train going back to the city wasn't for another 45 minutes. "Let's get a taxi", we figured. Yea. That was like trying to hail a cab in Sudbury, or Durham. It was clearly not going to happen. So we waited at this sketchy ass station for the next train. Over an hour after we had planned, we got back to the hotel to go to bed.

Yesterday was our travel day to Bulle. We took a train to Romant, then a mini-van-taxi picked us and three other people going to Glion. Apparently the driver thought I would be fun to talk to. Mind you, he spoke no english. And I speak basically no french. That was interesting. I smiled a lot and nodded and hopefully didn't agree to give him my first born.

Welcome to Bulle! We got to "campus" around 1:30. Checked in, got our room assignments, etc. Caitlyn and I are on the second floor, 2 doors down from each other. Elyse is one floor below us. The rooms are nice. We have our own bathrooms! Whoo! And people who clean them! Would you like a picture? I'm sure you would.
So that's my side of the room, very naked, very unpacked. My roommate, Aura (like "Oww Ruh"), has the other side. She's from Mexico and very nice. So the picture is taken from our little hall, with closets behind me to the right, and the bathroom on the left immediately when you walk in the door. I'll put a more complete set of pictures on facebook.

I say "campus" because it's not really a campus. Not like UNH, at least. There is one building that has all the classes and dining room. Then, about 200 meters away is the residence building. And that's it. Both buildings are in the middle of like, a huge apartment village. It's very strange. At least I shouldn't get too lost.

I went down to Caitlyn's room to visit, and we decided to set up her iPod speakers. This is the beginning of Adventure #2. We plugged in what we THOUGHT was a converter, then plugged her speakers into that. After about, 15 seconds, Caitlyn sees smoke. She unpluggs everything and opens the window so that we don't set off the alarm. Whoops! Aparently it wasn't a converter, just an adapter. You live, you learn, right? But not only was there smoke, it had also blown out the whole room. No outlets worked, no lights. So we had to go downstairs and talk to this guy George (he had shown us around earlier. Nice, cute, and from Sweden) about it. We just said that the lights didn't work... they didn't need to know about the smoke. George said he'd take care of it.

At that point we had to meet with Michael Nash. He's a professor here, and basically our advisor while we're at Glion. He's this older man from London, who knows everything about everything. He greeted us and was so thrilled to have his "three americans" here (that's what he, and almost everyone else, calls us). He took us on another tour of the school, helped us with our computers, and then toured us around Bulle. It's an adorable town, with little shops and cafes everywhere. But, it is definately small... and very removed from everything else. But that's how most of Switzerland is. Lots of open space and rolling hills in between insanely beautiful mountains.

Speaking of mountains, would you like to see the view from my window? Right-o.Amazing, isn't it? That is looking towards the south-east sort of, and away from the center of Bulle.

We then returned to our rooms to unpack some more, and then Caitlyn's roommate arrived. Her name is, Vennie (I'm not sure if that's spelled right), and she's from Mexico also. Her two friends, Carlos and Francisco, live in the room in between us.

Caitlyn, Elyse and I went to dinner around 6:15 (it was only served 6-6:30... yea). Dinner was pizza and salad, which was just fine with me. After we decided to walk into town to pick up a few things. On Saturdays, most stores close at 4, but a couple places are still open. On Sunday everything is closed.

On our walk back, we went through this little park, that had a sort of... maze. This is the beginning of Adventure #3. There were bridges that you walked over that we ground level, and then dug into the ground is like a cement maze. There are 2 slides, also. I'll have to get a picture of that. It was very fun. I decided to go down one of the slides. Got stuck and dirty. But it was fun. Then I thought the maze part was too creep to walk through, so I walked on top of the maze walls. Got stuck. Had to get Caitlyn and Elyse to help me down. Then we couldn't find the path back down to the sidewalk (though this park was really no bigger than... our downstairs, or the distance from The Knot to BNG). We thought we were going to get arrested for walking on the grass. After about 10 steps, we found the path. It sounds lame now that I'm typing it, but it was definately an adventure.

The rest of the night was just spent socializing and unpacking. Auda went to Geneva for the night with some friends. Unfortunately, as exhausted as I was, I couldn't sleep. It's 9:30 now, and I've been up since 6:30. And I'm getting sick because I'm not sleeping. Whoo! Good times.

Had my second melt-down this morning. I couldn't figure out how to get on the internet, and lost it. But now that I have facebook... all is well.

I will hopefully be writing here often. Though I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading these. I miss everyone so much, and can't wait to hear from all of you.

.love and chocolate.