vegetarian survival kit

Today was amazing.

As I'm slogging through my history homework and packing my stuff for this weekend's move, my dad comes home with a package for me.

It was a vegetarian survival kit, from my amazing friend--and fellow vegetarian--complete with REAL organic peanut butter, vegan jell-o, fake jerky, and nori snacks. Best thing ever.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have the best peanut butter sandwich on the face of the planet. It's gonna be epic.

And Sara... it definitely received an OMG-squealing-jumping-up-and-down kind of reaction:

settling

You know that feeling you get when you're walking around a city, and you know you're not going to get lost just trying to find the train station? Yeah, it's a great feeling.

I won't claim to know Geneva as well as I know the Bay Area or anything, but it certainly feels good to not have to walk around with my nose in a map, or try to find an English-speaking person to get directions from.

We've been here thirty-seven days now (I swear I have not been keeping track, I only counted just now), and it's starting to feel like we actually live here. Mostly, I feel like this is just an incredibly cool, extended vacation, but now that we're all settling into some kind of routine, it's starting to feel like life.

Did I mention that we found a semi-permanent house? We're planning on staying there at least until January... it's a short term rental, and depending on how much we like the place and such, we may stay longer. It's this two hundred year old row house in an eleven hundred year old town called Perroy (which is right near Rolle--where my dad works--which is about half way between Geneva and Lausanne). The house is right across the street from a little market and an amazing bakery, and the town is this adorable, postcard village in the middle of cornfields and vineyards--but only ten minutes away from the decent-sized town of Rolle.

It'll be a bit of a slug for me to get to school everyday, but I don't mind. I'm just glad that once we move in on Sunday, I can stop living out of my suitcase, and actually know where all my stuff is.

It's kinda bizarre to think of two places as home now. I mean, Menlo Park is where I grew up, it's definitely my home, but Switzerland is beginning to feel so comfortable now.

the strange, the new, the exciting

I thought it was time for another one of those "Weird Things About Switzerland" lists. It's also a good opportunity for me to post a couple of pictures from my birthday weekend.

Mkay.

Ten (ish) Things That Boggle Me About Switzerland:

1. The weather. Maybe if you don't live in the Bay Area, you're used to waking up to a thunderstorm, spending the day in full sunshine, and then freezing under a heavy cloud layer as you go to bed, but I definitely grew up in California, and there are really only two seasons there... 50 degrees and cloudy, and 75 degrees and sunny. So let's just say this whole bipolar weather thing is a bit of a shock.

2. Everything is super old. Yesterday, I went out in Nyon with some of my friends, and on our way to the train station, we passed a castle. Like, a legit, ancient, knights-in-armor type castle, just sitting in the middle of the town.

3. Everyone I've met has lived in at least four countries. One of my friends was born in Malta, moved to Senegal, then Virginia, then Brazil, then back to Virginia, then to Switzerland. Because I grew up in the same town, and this was only my second time moving, I am distinctly the minority.

4. In this country of amazing bread, cheese, and chocolate, everyone is skinny. It's magic.

5. You can live in a tiny little mountain town of a thousand people, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cornfields and vineyards, and yet be twenty minutes away from a bustling city. Such as Geneva.

6. They still don't have good peanut butter (luckily, I have amazing friends who send me peanut butter from the U.S. Thanks, Sara!!!!)

7. People who have lived here their whole life think Switzerland is boring. I can't understand it... this place is crazy and bustling and pretty dang amazing. The streets are cobblestones, for goodness sakes! It can't get cooler than that.

8. It's like being on vacation. But for a long, long time.

Alright, I said ten-ish, and eight is definitely ten-ish. Here's a couple photos from my birthday weekend:

The perils of signing up for 4 AP classes in your new school in a different country

The problem: they just might do things differently.

AP European History, say. What they don't tell you is that it was originally called "See How Many Names and Dates From a 500 Year Period You Can Memorize in 40 Minutes."

Or AP Calc. I didn't anticipate a teacher who--while enthusiastic and encouraging--seems to think her students have all already taken a college level math course. Honestly, we are not all blessed with the ability to understand things at light speed.

And forget AP Spanish. It might as well be AP Greek.

This is why I love French 1. It's easy yet challenging. I still can't pronounce anything to save my life, but I know exactly how all the numbers, colors, nationalities, names, school supplies, and French cities shouldn't be pronounced. Oh, and some people in my class can pronounce them just as badly!

There are some good parts about school in a foreign country.

For one thing, that AP Calc teacher could not be entirely fluent in English, and she could pronounce "parabola" as "parab-YU-la." It's amazingly adorable.

And, by the end of the year, I will be amazing at Spanish. And maybe passable at basic (BASIC BASIC BASIC) French.

Oh, and the best part? I will be able to list off seven million plus random names from Euro history.

I might even know what those people did.

a very good form of procrastination

For some reason, the canton of Geneva--which is where my school is--had a holiday today. We were all a little perplexed on why we got a random Thursday off, but no one complains about a day free from responsibility.
So, a couple of friends and I skipped on down to Montreux, and spent a good five hours at the amazing Aquapark:

In short: colorful, frivolous, chlorinated fun. Plus, a lot of adrenaline. And while a more productive way to spend the day would probably be to study for my RIDICULOUSLY detailed AP European History class, finish my essay for Lit, or continue drafting my personal statement, I will once again use my by now worn-out excuse that I'm in Switzerland. How often does that happen??

road trippin it

I will take a moment to apologize for the delay in posting. My mother has been so kind as to inform me that now so many people are reading my blog, it is imperative that I update every single day or else everyone will stop liking it.

OK, moment over.

I don't know what you guys did this weekend, but I didn't do very much. Oh, you know, just your average little road trip through three countries. No big deal or anything.

Actually, my weekend was pretty boss (in this context, boss would mean extremely cool, hella legit, or totally dope. It's a pretty important word... I suggest you start utilizing it. Unless, of course, you don't want to sound like a seventeen-year-old Californian. Your choice). My birthday was on Friday, and we'd been planning for a while to take a trip down to Lugano to visit my friend Alex who goes to Franklin College there. So, on Friday night, after a successful day of cupcakes, discount shopping, Indian food and pear and almond torte, we drove an hour to France to spend the night there. The next morning we headed out through the French Alps towards Lugano.
The drive through the mountains was spectacular. A cross between the Colorado Rockies and Yosemite, but about seven point five times more awe-inspiring, and with really cool highways suspended fifty meters in the air. We crossed into Italy and the landscape flattened, before rising once more into smaller, greener mountains.

We got to Lugano around 2pm, and while I hung out with my friend, my parents explored the town, which they found to be cute, charming, and extremely beautiful.
I spent the day with Alex and her college buddies, and we went out dancing to celebrate my birthday... such a fun day.

On Sunday, we drove back to Geneva via the Swiss Alps. We forwent the ridiculously backed-up traffic leading to the efficient--and boring--tunnel through the mountain, and instead spiraled up and around and over, watching as the Italian section of Switzerland spread out below us. It was pretty incredible. We moseyed through the German section oohing and awing and photo-taking respectively. As the gas in the tank dwindled, we wandered through darling Swiss German towns around the edge of an unknown lake, in pursuit of an illusive gas station. Once found, we bought cheese, salami for the omnivores, and fresh--as in still-warm-from-the-oven kind of fresh--bread at the little 7-11 type convenience store attached to the gas station. I've come to the conclusion that I'm eating far too much bread and cheese--and far too little whole grains and vegetables and all that nonsense--to be entirely healthy, but I think we all still feel like we're on some sort of extended vacation, which means we can eat whatever we want.
I mean, honestly, how many times in your life do you get to spend your weekend in Switzerland?

Pictures to come... my dad is extremely relaxed about uploading his photos. If you want, bug him about it. Haha.

Happy Tuesday!

lost in translation

I finally got a chance today to really use my language skills! Granted, these were my Spanish skills and not my (not-so-impressive) French skills, but it's the thought that counts, right?

After I got back from school, my mom and I headed down to the boulangerie (bakery) in little downtown (if you can even call it a downtown) Coppet, to pick out a dessert for my birthday tomorrow (!). Of course, upon arriving and asking, "Parle vous anglais?" the answer was promptly, "No." (Obviously the woman spoke at least one word... she distinctly said "no," not "non.") After sighing dejectedly, and condeming ourselves to another communication struggle, the woman mentioned she did speak Spanish.
OK, I thought, maybe I could speak to her in Spanish.
Let me just make this clear: you are looking at a girl who has three years of high school Spanish behind her, but really has no idea what she's talking about. I've never actually had to use my Spanish anywhere other than the classroom. So this was pretty crazy drastic for me (not quite as drastic as moving across the world, but you know what I mean).
So, we started up a rather broken Spanish conversation. The baker was actually really good, and I was a little embarrassed by my poor conjugations (and forgetting how to say "cake." Um, duh? Pastel? Good going, Claire), and whatnot, but I managed to actually communicate with her, understand what she was saying, and place an order for a pear and almond tart for four, to be picked up between one and two the next day. It's quite an accomplishment, if you ask me.

Now, I just need to learn French.


**Shout-out to my favorite Summitteers!! Hope you guys are all enjoying the camping trip. Someone in Switzerland misses y'all! :]