...knock knock?

Hi. Remember me? That one girl, who used to post some things about her life in Switzerland?
I'm back :]

As some of you know, I was away in the US for an epic, month long trip, auditioning for a bunch of different college ballet programs and visiting some other colleges. It was a pretty incredible experience; I literally traveled from New York to California. I experienced everything from 0*F in Des Moines, to 65*F in Menlo Park. I went to four new states, and saw the Midwest for the first time. I had a really amazing time.

I've been back in Switzerland for two weeks now, and am dying under a Matterhorn sized pile of schoolwork, and the impending doom of exams. Spring is finally beginning to creep into the mountains, though! It snowed a couple days ago, but today it was a beautiful 10*C. I was ready to go picnicking or swimming, but I noticed there were still copious amounts of ice around the fountain across the street from our house, and decided to wait another few weeks.

We're planning to go to Paris over Easter, and I am *so* incredibly excited. My French teacher--whose French, not Swiss--has been teaching us about Parisian culture all year, and I've been dying to go (not to mention that I am completely and utterly in love with the movie Amelie, which may or may not have had some influence on my desire to see Paris). We'll only be there for about four days, but I know it's going to be amazinggggg.

Here's some photos from the past six weeks...

Sunset in the middle of Iowa

Iowa is proud to be the location of the World's Largest Truck stop.

Somewhere in Colorado/Utah (on Amtrack)

Utah/Colorado

Utah/Colorado

On the train from Des Moines to Salt Lake City (27 hours!)

The Botanical Gardens in Des Moines (it was 0*F outside, but felt like summer inside)

Salt Lake Union Pacific Depot

Amtrack station in Grand Junction, Colorado... after nearly 20 hours on a train, with 8 more to go!

More posts soon folks, I promise!

chilling in the Alps

No pun intended.

OK, I lied. The pun was totally intended.

Anyways, yesterday we spent a gorgeous day hiking in the Alps. We drove about an hour and a half to a little town called Verbier--it was the perfect little Swiss Alpine town. Honestly, it looked like something off of a postcard, and it was obvious that during ski season, this town was bustling. We took a ski lift up to the top of a mountain--I may have gotten unnecessarily freaked out when it randomly stopped, with us dangling way too far above the ground for comfort--and then spent a good two hours gambling down--I also may have gotten unnecessarily excited at the snow on the first hour of the path. It was beautiful. Can I repeat that? Beautiful. Like, beautiful to the point of ridiculousness. Beautiful to the point that about every five minutes we would just kind of stop and look around us and stand there with our mouths hanging open. Beautiful like this:
(view from the top of the mountain)
(view from part way down)

And honestly, this doesn't really do it justice.

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:

oh, Genève!

After an extremely relaxing and lazy morning (and early afternoon), we headed into Geneva. We had to stop by the airport in order add my mom as a driver on our rental car--which took longer than anticipated, most likely due to the incompetence of an American company such as Hertz (hehe)--but then drove straight into the city.
I'd say the only disappointing thing about Geneva is the vast amount of shops, boutiques and stores--I can't possibly visit them all in only a year! Très tragique!
However, it was an incredibly spectacular day. Having been warned of the frigid Alpine temperatures in Switzerland, I had come prepared to be bundled in scarves and coats from September to May. It seems that the Swiss (or at least the Swiss weather) are taking a leaf out of California's book, and it has been in the high 80's to low 90's F since we've been here.
We only had time to walk along the water front for about half an hour before we had to head back in the direction of Versoix--but we managed to take some dazzling photos before leaving.
We then learned that all businesses in Switzerland close down at exactly six on Saturdays, and do not open again until Monday morning. Reaching the Co-op just in time to squeeze in, grab some microwaveable dinners, pay, and run out just before they locked us in, we doomed ourselves to unappetizing food and no cellphones (our next planned errand) for the rest of the weekend. Ah, well. We're new at this--can you tell?

many things that boggle me about Switzerland

1. Peanut butter is advertised as "American food," and the only kind that they sell is Barney's Best, which is like Skippy, but gross.
2. Their teabags are strange.
3. They don't have coffee, just espresso and diluted espresso.
4. Everyone's really nice.
5. They all seem to think I speak French. Even the tourists ask me for directions!
6. It is such a small country, yet still seems to have sooo much space.
7. All the stop signs say "STOP" in English.
8. All the mens' shorts are so short.
9. My new Swiss bank account doesn't automatically have ten trillion dollars in it.
10. You can't smile in official photographs...

More to come. :]

taking photos has never been this challenging

Today was an adventure.
Not strictly an exciting, courage-inducing, risky type adventure... more of a long, walking required, hilarious and slightly embarrassing adventure.

Today, we registered for residency in the canton of Vaud. For those of you reading who are ignorant to the ways of Switzerland (only kidding... that was me a few months ago), cantons are like small states--more the size of counties--and all immigrants have to register soon after arrival. So, we traipsed up six trillion flights of stairs in the unusually hot Swiss weather. Next, we struggled to communicate with the woman behind the desk, who spoke very little English, until she summoned her colleague--who spoke slightly more English. We filled out a long and tedious form that was translated rather poorly from French, and then, after handing over passports, birth and marriage certificates, were told we needed to also provide three passport size photos.

So, we began our adventure. We wandered through tiny, darling streets until we found the supermarket, and dished over 16 CHF for six photos each at the instant photo booth. The photos came out appallingly badly, but we were in a rush to get to the bank, so we headed back towards the registry anyways.

Upon arrival, we were told that we were not allowed to show teeth in our photos. Apparently, all official photos in Switzerland must be taken with a "neutral" expression (at least that explained why the photographer barked at me in French when I smiled too widely for my school photo), so we had to go back to the photo booth, pay again, and take this time, even more hideous (and hilarious) photos.
At least this time, they were accepted.