Here We Go...

Just when I thought my life in Switzerland couldn't get any busier, uni started.

My first week was...HECTIC. Trying to take full advantage of my exchange, I attended almost every French class on offer (only with Hermione's time-turner could I have achieved more) and as many sports classes as I could squeeze in in between. Then, I was faced the difficult task of picking which ones to keep. In the end, I decided on eight. It's two more than I require credit for, but I couldn’t cull more than that, I just couldn’t.

And now, I am looking at my brand new, neatly ruled and brightly colour-coded timetable. It makes me happy.

·      Culture of Peace; Human Rights.

·      Analysis and Practise.

·      Grammar.

·      Linguistics.

·      French Songs.

·      Translation from English.

·      Literature and Culture.

·      And last, but definitely not least, Intercultural Interaction.

Plus one Discofit, one Step, one Rock ‘n Roll, one Salsa and one Pilates class to follow.

Oh, and let’s not forget my weekly Tandem meeting. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a language exchange program. Simple and very effective. For me, it involves meeting for two hours over coffee (or preferably, hot chocolate and rhubarb tart) with a lovely French girl. One hour spoken in English, the other in French: an excellent cure for “Franglais”.

I have also cunningly kept my Fridays and Monday mornings free... It would be a shame not to travel when Switzerland is so conveniently located, don’t you think, dear reader?

So, it looks like I have quite a semester ahead of me. And with a little luck, and lots of chocolate, it may just be my best one yet!

La Gruyère

Last weekend, I got my first taste of the Swiss countryside. And it tasted good. The peaceful village we visited was not too hot or too cold; neither too large nor too small. La Gruyère was just right. 

As our train chugged into the countryside from Lausanne, cities evolved into towns into villages and cows began to outnumber human beings. Ninety minutes and eight hundred (vertical) metres later, we arrived at our first destination: Le Château de Gruyère.

Having spent most of my life in Australia and America, both “baby nations”, flying to Europe was like travelling through a time machine. While locals nonchalantly point to this five-hundred-year-old building and that thousand-year-old cathedral, I marvel, wide-eyed, at history. Firsthand. Not through a television screen, nor on the page of a text book. Walking around Gruyère Castle, I almost expected to see Macbeth standing on the balcony, mid-soliloquy, and to hear J.S. Bach’s music floating through the Baroque-style garden.

La Gruyère is also renowned for its Fantastic Art – a genre that I am a very big fan of. The exhibition at the castle was imagination and creation at its best. The vivid colours and otherworldly creatures wove through the castle like a magic spell, adding to its charm. Simply enchanting.

After lunch, we decided to make the most of the beautiful weather and take a walk through the countryside. Needless to say, it was beautiful. I love being blown away by the little things. Mountains (Australians, you know what I mean). Cows, with big brown spots. The way a railroad curves around a village like in a toy train set... We also made a few new friends. Of the equine variety. They neighed pleasantly in response to our greetings; evidently as multilingual as their Swiss human counterparts.

Next stop: La Maison du Gruyère, fromagerie. A little too commercial for my liking, but still very cheesy. In a good way. I was very impressed by the cheese ‘cave’. Ok, so ‘cave’ translates to ‘cellar’ in English, but it is actually the more appropriate term here. See?

Enough for one day? Not without my chocolate! Ten minutes from La Gruyère, in the little village of Broc is Cailler Chocolate Factory – also known as Nestlé, I’m just a little ashamed of supporting a company infamous for not supporting fair-trade. But I was in Switzerland, standing in front of chocolate heaven... So, I vowed to buy lots of Cadbury once I was back in Australia (huge sacrifice), and in we went.

There was a great tour of the facility – learning the history, seeing the machinery at work, trying cacao beans from around the world, all that jazz – but let’s face it, our minds were only on one thing: chocolate tasting. And it was worth the wait. Cheese isn’t really my thing (don’t look at me like that), but I more than make up for it with chocolate. 

Ok, now I’m eating dark chocolate as I type. But hey, got to get in the blogging mood, right? And I’m sure that’s a technique for good writing!

I am proud to admit that I tried every type of dark chocolate on offer at Cailler, plus quite a few of the milk variety. Truffles, pralines, caramels...nutty, crispy, creamy...
A chocoholic’s dream.  

So, that’s La Gruyère! So sweet. So Swiss.

Love is in the Air

Valentine’s.

Despite having a Valentine this year, I completely sympathise with the singles on this day. I’ve been there. Actually, by bad luck and even worse timing, I have always been there. And being half-way across the world this year doesn’t make it much better. No matter how “happily single” you may be, witnessing PDAs around every corner, watching men rush home with chocolates and roses, and being strangled by the pink and red streamers of commercialism cannot be fun. It’s like being hit in the face by a heart-shaped pillow. Repeatedly. And hard.

Or at least, that’s what I thought when I left my apartment on Valentine’s Day.

I had had a lovely conversation with the boy on Skype earlier that morning, but now, the signs on buses flashed obnoxiously with “JOYEUX ST VALENTIN” and “♥ LES AMOUREUX”. And it seemed that everyone had received the memo to carry around a single red rose. Everyone but me. In class, a project on the tradition of chocolate-giving on Valentine’s Day followed. Was there no end to this taunting? And I even had a Valentine. A wonderful, wonderful one... Or maybe that was the problem? That I knew exactly what I was missing? Well, I was missing it, alright.

But five hours later, I took back every bad thought I had directed toward St Valentine that morning. Because I came home to this:

Of course, I would’ve liked the man behind them, but the sentiment alone had me grinning like an idiot for the rest of the night. Organising the delivery of my favourite flowers (actually, they are white lilies, not Arum...but that’s another story!) from florists offering only French, German and Italian could not have been easy.

After that, I did exactly what I would’ve frowned upon that morning: I plastered a photo of the flowers, complete with a caption of my gushing, straight onto Facebook.

Sorry, my dear readers, I guess love does make you do crazy things after all...

Dreaming of Lac Leman

I’m sick. Not the ‘I have a bit of a headache and sneezed a couple of times this morning’ kind of sick. Well, that technically wouldn’t be incorrect. But, right now, I’m talking about the ‘my head is thirty degrees hotter than the rest of my body, and I’m really glad I bought three boxes of tissues yesterday’ kind of sick. You’d think five litres of water, honey, Lemsip, Panadol, fresh oranges and twenty-two hours sleep in the past twenty-four would help, right? But no, I still managed to miss a morning of uni and a class excursion to eat cheese fondue. CHEESE FONDUE! And being angry only makes my headache worse. 

Maybe I should have taken it easier this first week, but even now, sick in bed, I know I wouldn’t have done it any other way...

When Lac Leman is practically at your door step, it’s hard to resist pulling on your boots and going for a walk by the water. In fact, it is usually too hard to resist. 

Dawn: As the sun creeps slowly over the Alps, everything is tinted by pastel hues. Mist swirls over the lake and obscures the horizon, entrancing and mysterious. It’s almost too easy to believe that the faint splash heard in the distance was made by a mermaid’s tail. 

Morning: The delicious bite of the crisp winter air. I can only relate the sensation to sinking my teeth into a cold, crunchy apple – Pink Lady, to be precise. Rays of sunlight dance across the lake’s surface. The enticing perfume of fresh coffee and croissants from nearby boulangerie stalls lighten my purse.

Midday: The town of Ouchy, with its quaint little bridges and water features, is home to the Port of Lausanne and a wonderful crêperie. Try the crêpes with raspberry jam, or the local specialty Crêpe à la Raisinée. I did, and they made me very happy.

Afternoon: The sunset is spectacular. Every photo taken here is postcard-worthy. The swans are also out to play, but all dressed in white. Ironically, they seem to possess a much fiercer nature than the black ones in Australia. A final glance over the silhouettes of hundreds of sailboat masts against the flaming sky. Magnifique.

So, this is why I have found it so difficult to stay in my apartment!

I will write more about my Swiss adventures next time, dear reader, but now, it’s time to return to my koala-inspired lifestyle... Good night!

A Taste of Beauty

I have finally finished my homework, put my washing in the dryer, and made myself a steaming cup of chai tea with honey. Now, where do I begin?

It has been ten days since I landed on Swiss soil. Jet lag? A little. Snow? Not yet. New friends? Many. Chocolate? A lot!

For the first three weeks, I am taking the Cours de Vacances – an intensive winter language course – at the University of Lausanne (more affectionately known as l’Unil). Along with hundreds of other students, young and old, from Brazil to Korea and Russia to South Africa, I am diving beanie-first into the nuances and intricacies of the French language.

Living in a French-speaking environment has its advantages...and also its difficulties. Sure, it’s exhilarating and confidence-boosting to be able to ask for (and comprehend) directions from a policeman in French. And I love leisurely surfing the French channels on TV. But at the same time, asking the cashier to repeat the sum slowly while rummaging through foreign coins doesn’t make me very popular with local customers!

A few things I have already grown to love about Switzerland?

The precision (unsurprisingly). It is not a stereotype; it is a fact. A bus is “late” if it arrives two minutes behind schedule. No need to fear frostbite here! 

The chocolate. It’s true, even the Swiss “Black & Gold” equivalent is better than Cadbury’s...and much cheaper. Great news for my taste buds, but not so good for my weight!

And the signs. On bus stops, in front of shops, by the road, on top of buildings... In fact, my new favourite pastime on the bus and metro is trying to read every sign we pass. No, not simply reading – savouring. Devouring. Rolling the words around on my tongue, tasting the sounds, hearing the colours they create. A delicious melange of senses that swirl together to create this beautiful language. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have read these signs aloud once or twice...but that doesn’t bother me much. It would be as if I accidentally began singing out loud, or started dancing in the street. It is simply an expression of joy and an appreciation for beauty. And that could never be a bad thing.

5 Ingredients

Lately, I’ve been stuck in a rather tricky situation: having too little time and money but too many picky tastebuds and OCD healthy-eating habits.

So, I decided to draw inspiration from the hugely successful 4 Ingredients recipe series. To avoid copyright issues, I added one more ingredient to my recipes. No, I’m kidding, it was actually the angel on my right shoulder telling me to eat a more balanced diet.

Dice, Rice...Nice!

The 5:

·      Rice

Diced:

·      Celery

·      Cucumber

·      Carrot

·      Onion

Cook it:

1)    Boil rice (please follow the instructions on the rice packet/rice cooker, or else you may end up with a “rice cake”. Yes, I am typing from personal experience)

2)    Heat some oil in a pan, add onion, sauté until golden

3)    Add celery and carrot, a little water, salt, pepper (and optional soy sauce)

4)    Cook until desired softness/crunchiness is reached

5)    Add cucumber, turn off heat after 1 minute

6)    Serve with rice!

Pasta with Yogurt, Naturally

 

The 5:

·      Pasta

·      Natural Yogurt

·      Cucumber (diced)

·      Carrot (grated)

·      Onion (as you wish. Ok, CHOPPED as you wish, NOT a whole onion)

Cook it:

1)    Boil pasta

2)    Heat some oil in a pan, add onion and some salt, sauté until golden

3)    Add cucumber and carrot, turn off heat after 1 minute

4)    Drain pasta and add yogurt (as much as desired, like pasta sauce)

5)    Mix in a few spoonfuls of cooked vegetables – munch away!

Switzerland: Stretching the Mangrove Roots

On January 28^th, at roughly 10:45pm, I took my first steps toward Switzerland. 

After a traditional last stop at McDonald’s with the boy (we’re a classy couple), our glorious three months of summer holidays had come to an end. Walking through the international departures gate with a brave smile, I felt a sense of independence like I had never known. But not in that clichéd, “cue orchestra” sort of way. No, I wasn’t the heroine of some Hollywood movie. I felt scared and alone; walking away from everything I knew and loved. At that moment, the thought of spending six months in a land where I didn’t know a soul and was hardly confident in the language loomed over me like...well, the Alps!

It’s hard to believe that was only three days ago.

Since then, I have walked across the tarmac in Qatar, watched a sunset from Zurich to Lausanne, lugged a suitcase up five flights of stairs, looked over the entire city from a cathedral, eaten a chocolate croissant and spoken more French than I did in all my high school years combined.

My twenty one hour flight passed quickly with the help of seven movies, three (surprisingly good) airplane meals and a comfy neck pillow. The French version of The Aristocats – Les Aristochats – was enchanting and Never Let Me Go left me in a bawling, blubbering mess, much to the horror of my fellow passengers.

By pure chance, I met a lovely girl on the train from Zurich airport who, despite being Australian, had a long conversation with me in French as we traversed the beautiful Swiss countryside. Before she left, she gave me some survival tips and a bar of Toblerone, then continued on her way home to Perth via Paris.

After that, helping hands appeared everywhere. 

A fellow student from my old university staying in the same residence college cooked me dinner. She also gave me a pillow, a blanket, sheets, towels and food for the morning. My Canadian roommate helped me set up my internet, lent me his power adapter, then proceeded to show me around the city and cook me crepes. My Swiss buddy, assigned to me through the university, spoke patiently to me in French and spent hours helping me buy a phone card and groceries... And of course, there is also the wonderful emotional support from the boy half way across the world (Skype is gold).

I’ve never been religious, yet I can’t help but feel like someone is watching over me. Wouldn’t you, dear reader, with all these angels around?

Now, I am typing to you from my neat little apartment in the canton of Lausanne that I share with four others. It is a two minute walk from the picturesque Lac Leman, across which the Alps and the lights of France are clearly visible. Cobblestone streets lined with quaint patisseries and designer boutiques wind upward from the lake, peaking at the magnificent Cathédrale de Lausanne overlooking the entire city. With sights like these, it’s hard to even complain about the cold!

Yep, I think I’m in love...