My Last Few Weeks in the CH

The week after getting back from London was mostly spent working, as I only had a couple weeks left to finish my Independent Study Project. Friday I went with Ria, Erin, and Orlando, to a Christmas market in Montreux that was absolutely amazing. We chose to go on a most beautiful day, with the sun shining and it being totally clear across the lake, so we could see all the magnificent mountains. I’ve already put some pictures up, but they had some garden sculptures from Ice Age, a Village du Bucheron (Lumberjack’s Village), and tons of little chalet booths selling stuff. We saw tea, jewelry, toys, and more. Some of the more interesting things were tea balls that opened up into flowers after steeping in water, a booth of just all kinds of honey, and of course I can’t forget the abundance of mulled wine that was available. One of my new loves from being in Switzerland is wine, mulled included. Anyway, we had fondue for lunch, took beautiful pictures by the lake, and even found a statue of Freddie Mercury, who apparently had a recording studio in Montreux.

The weekend was also rather Filipino-themed, as I made adobo for my host mom and our neighbors that turned out delicious despite the fact that they don’t have regular white vinegar here, and I ended up using the next best thing which was vinaigre aux épices (spiced vinegar). I did more work Saturday then went to a Filipino Christmas party I had heard about from the person I’m working with at the Mission. A bunch of people from the program came with me, and we got to see some pretty traditional karaoke-type performances (traditional at family gatherings, at least), children’s performances (my mom told me Filipinos like to showcase their kids), and some traditional Filipino lantern-dancing too. One of the coolest performances was of a group of hand mimers, which is basically hard to explain but you must watch the video I found of an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-WWwiUfD7M
Unfortunately the food wasn’t terribly amazing, but I did get to have pancit and some Filipino desserts. Later in the week my host mom proved to be amazingly resourceful, using the rest of my adobo sabow (sauce) to flavor pasta, cook fresh mushrooms in, and cook with lamb. She insisted that there was no reason to waste it. I was pretty amazed at how many other delicious uses you can put adobo sauce to.

This week we started our Independent Study Project presentations, so I’ve been hearing about the research everyone else has been doing while trying to finish my own paper. I had raclette tonight with my host mom and our neighbor, and I am sure going to miss Swiss raclette and fondue. My host mom likes having raclette (which is melted cheese poured over boiled potatoes) with fruit, which I thought was different but tried it and I guess it wasn’t bad, just kinda weird. Anyway, the week is whizzing by and going by slowly because we’re actually doing stuff, and I’m awaiting my parents’ arrival on Sunday!! Christmas is in just 20 days, yayyyyy!

Nearly Done

So last week I went to London, and now I’m back in Switzerland to do a large chunk of work before being done with the program. I guess, now, writing this, I realize how quickly the program really did go by, and can’t believe that I only have 3 semesters of college left! At this point, I’m really eager to be back home, to see friends and family, and have that familiarity that you just can’t get in a foreign country, no matter how much you love it.

The weekend before London was mostly one of work, although I did go with Ria and Erin to see a concert at Victoria Hall. It was only 10 CHF, and we saw the Suisse Romande Orchestre and heard some piano from Jean-Yves Thibaud. I left for London on Thursday, and within the first couple days Beza and I had done gone through all the big touristy stuff. We had lunch in Notting Hill, but unfortunately missed the market, and walked through Hyde Park. Our first day we walked Oxford and Bond Street, which are big, busy shopping streets. It was the first place I saw more American stores I could count, which was less exciting but at the same time a nice comfort. Bez and I both missed going to Borders and reading magazines in a café, so we got a relaxing dose of that when we found a Borders on Oxford Street. Bond Street had wonderful Christmas decorations up, including some fake soap-sud snow coming down over the street corner.

Thanksgiving dinner was spent in the dorm kitchen of an American student attending the London School of Economics for the year, who cooked two turkeys!! It was an interesting mix of American and English students, who didn’t really know what the holiday big deal was but were more than eager to join in the eating festivities. One guy, Chris, was really interested in the fact that we were Americans, and wanted to know all about America. We started talking to him, and one of the first things he said was, “So, tell me about America. Fat kids.” We thought it was kind of funny more than anything, and true anyway, with all the obesity and unhealthy foods we have back home, but I guess you get stereotypes everywhere.

I myself was guilty of it, as I had to keep telling myself that I wasn’t in the middle of a Harry Potter book while in London. Since it was my first time there, my only impressions of the city came from Harry Potter and movies like Love Actually and Notting Hill, which I probably don’t have to say romanticize the city quite a bit. Either way, it was still pretty exciting riding the Night bus and getting off at King's Cross, and hearing our tour of Shakespeare’s Globe with the added bonus of a British accent. Although I must say, Beza and I felt pretty dumb when we couldn’t understand what the one kid Chris was saying half the time he was talking to us, due to his fast talking, strong Southern London accent, and arsenal of slang. It was still English, after all.

Among the other typical London things we did were Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the British Museum, Covent Garden, Picadilly Circus, and Regent’s Street. We also walked by the Bank of England, Royal Exchange, Hay’s Galleria, London Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and the Imperial War Museum. Some of the stuff we wanted to do was ridiculously expensive, no thanks to the sucky exchange rate of the dollar to the pound (a pound buys you more than $2). We made sure to get some delicious Indian food at Brick Lane, complete with men standing outside the restaurant trying to convince you to come inside and offering you deals like free drinks or naan (I freaking love naan). I got to meet up with Alisha, my best friend from elementary school in Texas, as she was visiting a friend from school studying abroad there that weekend (a break from Alisha's own study abroad in Spain).

I was really hoping to see Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, but again it cost more than we were willing to pay. I blame Mr. Hight for making me interested in British history… we did go in to an Anglican mass, which was weird since I’m used to doing things the Catholic way. Can’t forget going to see the Queen at Buckingham palace, and getting the token London phone booth pic. We made our way to the National Portrait Gallery, but decided against going to the Tate Museum of Modern Art, which my friend Nicole described as toilet and refrigerators displayed as art. We also saw a bit of Trafalgar Square, and tried to go to the London Dungeons until we found out that it cost 20 pounds each. The Burrough market was supposed to be really good, but we missed it too unfortunately.

By the end of our 5-day trip, Beza and I had seen “everything,” and decided to watch a movie, since we both wanted to see American Gangster and really missed going out for a movie. This again shows that one of the reasons I liked London so much is that it felt close to home, with people speaking English, American stores, coffee shops on every corner, and real bagels. There were also tons of shows that I was dying to see, but I guess it’s left as my ambition to go back and see one. Not only did they have the usual Broadway-esque shows like Wicked, Hairspray, and the Lion King, but some others I hadn’t heard of like Dirty Dancing and the Lord of the Rings. Talking to some of my GW friends I saw who were studying at LSE, I saw a lot of resemblances between LSE and GW, such as the dorms in the middle of the city, expensiveness of going there, and just the experience of being in the middle of the city. Taking the tube was an everyday occurrence, just like taking the metro in DC is, except the tube in London costs a lot more and gets stiflingly full at rush hour (okay, so maybe it’s not that much different from DC in that aspect) – with the addition of the lady saying “Mind the Gap” and taking the Picadilly or Circle Line instead of the Red or Blue line.

Overall, I really liked London, and am thinking of going back to LSE in the future for grad school maybe. I found out they have a one year Master’s program that sounds pretty great to me. Oh – and I almost forgot, it didn’t rain the whole time we were there! Since I’ve been back, like I said, I have lots of work to do, finishing my research and writing a report for the program, in addition to preparing a presentation for next week and missing home more than ever. It feels so close yet so far, but I can’t wait to be back in the States. I know I’ll miss Switzerland when I get back, with it’s amazing chocolate, cheese, and tranquility, but it’s just all the more reason to come back one day :-) See you all soon!

Markets and Pumpkin Bread

The weeks have become rather unexciting, with days spent mostly in the library doing research or at least pretending to half the time (the other half of the time I actually am working). I went to a conference at the UN that, in conjunction with my research in services trade, has somewhat put me off to working with big organization. I suppose every business has its territory of jargon that you eventually get used to, but it seems more and more like all people at big international organizations (and sometimes even small organizations) do is talk and talk and research and have seminars and discussions and write policy papers but never actually do anything. A lot of my service research has been centered around the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), which is all about negotiations and commitments and disputes and for someone who went into it not knowing anything about it there sure is a lot of legal jargon and many other things that don’t translate into English at all for me.

I had an interview with someone I met while at a WTO conference, a British ex-pat (I know appreciate the concept of ex-pat much more after having lived abroad for a few months) married to an American and living in Spain. He’s an independent consultant specializing in the GATS and basically helped me understand what I’m researching in a bit more human terms. We talked at a café and ordered hot chocolate and a snack, and since I requested the interview I tried to pay at the end but he insisted since “a lady never pays.” I was pretty excited about the whole British way of talking and his own sort of charm and the whole accent and “chap” sort of talk… at the Christmas Market we went to today it was at an English church and everyone there was from the UK, being surrounded by all the British accents made me pretty excited to go to London on Thursday!!

Yesterday night Ria, Erin, and I made pumpkin bread with the canned pumpkin they had each received from their parents. I used a Mihalik recipe and Erin had her own as well, but I didn’t know that my recipe made massive amounts of batter (supposedly two loaves but it seems those must be pretty big loafs) – all in all we made maybe a couple dozen muffins, a loaf, and also filled a heart-shaped cake pan with batter to make some pumpkin bread-cake. It was pretty amazing, let me tell you, and afterwards we watched Blood Diamond since Erin’s dad brought her movies when he came to visit.

One of the things I love about my host family is how I get the German and Swiss culture – my host mom was born in Munich (I think), and is half-Swiss, half-German. So she knows all these German and Bavarian specialties that I get to try in addition to the Vaudoise (cantonal) and French specialties. All in all I’ve had everything from knodel and spetchzli (German) to Cordon blue, raclette, fondue, a number of different sausages, and a bunch of fruits and vegetables I haven’t heard of. I wonder whether my mom thinks in German or French. I would speculate German considering her phone and washing machine are in German, we usually watch German TV (just now there were some people playing music and in like full out lederhosen and other German things), and the other night when she was making a cake she was talking to herself in German about what to do next even though the recipe is in French!

I know going to be an utter failure at keeping my posts short, but considering I only write them once or twice a week I figure it makes up. Today I went with Erin and Ria to the marché au puces (flea market) my mom’s been working at preparing all week, and wandered around the outdoor market that had been set up in Nyon as well. Then we went to Geneva for a Christmas market I had seen a flyer for, hosted in a church as well by a British community. There was mulled wine (delicious stuff, very spicy and wintery/fall-y), cakes, and English books galore (I bought 4 for 12 francs, it was pretty exciting). Downstairs they had tea and cakes and lunch plates of South Asian and African food, which we had for lunch and tasted delicious. Alas, I stop here to watch little German kids singing on TV, kids who speak other languages are cuter for some reason. Je vous souhaite une bonne journée!

Shorter by demand

So I’ve been getting feedback after practically begging for comments, which people aren’t leaving primarily because my posts are apparently too long (as Boris said, “You like to include every detail”), and because you have to log in to leave one. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve done much this week since getting back from Barcelona, mostly relaxing and researching.

I’ve obtained a research assignment with the Philippine Mission to the WTO. I emailed the person I talked to for my cultural drop-off asking if I could do interactive research with him, so now I’m working on profiling different industries within the services sector. I’m not sure how interested I am in services but I took what I could get, and at least this way I’ll learn whether or not I want to work in it. It seems like a sector that’s been growing a lot recently, as it apparently makes up 2/3 of the world’s economy and is pretty important to development, since it encourages education and training of employees.

The weekend was pretty uneventful, after attempting to go out in Geneva Thursday night with friends and, in short, failing miserably, I’ve been pretty discouraged against going out. Current cravings are Movenpick pistachio ice cream, cucumber salad, and a nice long relaxing bath (with Lush bath bombs!). Tonight I invited my friend Ria over for dinner; my mom made potatoes au gratin served with ham, yellow pumpkin, and salad. For dessert we had coupe Danemark which was amazing (vanilla ice cream served over homemade chocolate sauce). It’s been kind of trying not seeing people every day, but so far I’ve had human contact with at least one or two other people from the group on the train or at the UN library.

I’m hoping and thinking that the month will pass quickly, as I only have about a week and a half before leaving for London over Thanksgiving break. After that we have a week to finish our papers and a week of presentations, and my parents are coming! I’m definitely going to miss speaking French, hanging out with my awesome host mom, and the amazing views all over Switzerland, but I can’t wait to be home and see everyone again. A bientot!

Mas Aventuras a Barcelona

Monday we spent exploring Barcelona since we hadn’t seen much of it and that was our last day there. In the morning we stopped in a bakery and I got some fresh squeezed orange juice – probably the best fresh OJ I’ve tasted ever! I noticed that OJ presses were pretty common in bakeries though, which I thought was pretty cool. There was a market we checked out right off of Las Ramblas called Mercat de Boqueria (in Barcelona they speak Spanish and Catalan, which is I guess a dialect of Spanish but sometimes Orlando would talk to people in Spanish and they wouldn’t understand him because I think they spoke Catalan). It was a really cool find, and they had fresh squeezed juices and meats and fruits and veggies and candy and dried fruit too. I tried a juice made from cactus fruit and coconut that looked interesting… it was sweet but while I was drinking it I couldn’t decide if I maybe had a little bit of an allergy to the cactus fruit.

After that we made our way over to the Barria Gotic (Gothic Quarter), saw some pretty buildings, and went into the Catedral, which is by far THE most beautiful church I have seen in my life. It even topped Notre Dame. The part where we walked in was kind of a courtyard, with palm trees and a garden in the middle. Then I went inside the church and walked around with my mouth hanging open. I don’t even know how to describe it… they have a massive organ, and these beautiful I guess altars around the sides in gold and painted and just… amazing. We caught the end of a Spanish mass in the chapel, and I decided to get Communion. Afterwards I kneeled down at a bench and saw Beza had followed me, and I was really confused at first because I knew she wasn’t Catholic and didn’t know why she got Communion. She said she was still spiritual and could pray, which was of course true, so we stayed till the end of the mass and were leaving when a nun stopped her and started talking to her in Spanish. Beza of course doesn’t know any Spanish, so Orlando came over and we found out that Beza had forgotten how to ask for just a blessing and had taken a piece of the host and not eaten it. The nun wasn’t really mad, just concerned that she had taken it, and brought us up to the front to return it to the priest.

We left the church and walked to the Arc de Triomph, took some pictures and walked a bit further. Beza had been craving empanadas, but we’d had trouble finding them because I guess they’re not all that native to the region. Well when we walked by a store that said it had empanadas, we went inside and all got some for lunch. They were delicious… After lunch we walked to the Sagrada Familia church, which is still under construction so when we got there there were cranes everywhere, but it still looked huge and amazing. We sat down in a nearby park to figure out our next plan of action, and while we were consulting the map some lady walking her dog started yelling Bolso! Bolso! Orlando took off running and Beza and I weren’t sure what was going on since it was all happening so fast. We both thought something dangerous was happening like a drowning baby or a bomb and that Orlando had run towards the danger to save someone, but it turns out the lady was screaming Bag! Bag! because someone had snuck behind Orlando and taken his backpack. Luckily with everyone screaming at him and watching the thief left the bag and walked away, and Orlando got all his stuff back. Lesson learned though, even though I had been warned before going to all the big cities – Paris, Rome, Geneva – about pickpockets, Barcelona turned out to be a place that truly is a dangerous pickpocketing zone. So beware! Now we’re all pretty paranoid about it, and from then on we had someone watch guard every time we consulted a map or something similar.

We continued our adventure of churches, thievery, and sightseeing towards Les Punxes and La Perdera, hoping to see some Gaudi artwork and architecture. Les Punxes turned out to just be a pretty building, which you couldn’t really go inside because people lived there. La Perdrera was really cool looking, I’m not sure what the style of art is called but I really liked it. We didn’t go inside because it cost money, but we snuck into the gift shop to look at pictures and snapped a couple of shots from the window. Casa Batilo was also nearby, this building covered in mosaics, but again it cost money so we just took pictures and didn’t go inside. From there we took the metro to Porta Olimpica, and saw some pretty fountains and sculptures and the beach of course. I liked feeling sand between my toes again, although unfortunately we arrived at the end of our day again and it was pretty dark and cold.

We looked for dinner and Orlando needed to get cash at an ATM (PS in the future traveling with traveler’s checks is a hassle because you have to find a place to get change, and then they charge you up the wazoo to make a commission… I found one “Exact Change” place but I couldn’t tell if they just jacked up their rates to make a profit, and also an American Express official dealer that only charged a flat rate of 5 euros for change… so I don’t know if it’s better to pay the bank fee and conversion fees or have to look for places where you can exchange traveler’s checks! The only advantage about traveler’s checks is they’re protected by your signature but debit cards are protected by your pin). Anyway we found an ATM on our search for dinner and someone had left 50 euros!!! I figured that kind of sort of proved that I had good karma coming to me from being robbed, even though I lost 100 euros and Beza insisted on claiming the money since “she found it” (we were all together). She agreed to buy us dinner with it though, so I got some yummy paella and sangria again without having to pay. Later though we went to Hard Rock Café because Bez didn’t want paella, she wanted to go back there, and I ended up buying some Hard Rock shorts. I was on the edge about getting them until I found out that with my coupon and 20 euro or more purchase I got a free guitar-shaped shaker! LOL anyway Beza got dinner at Hard Rock and then we headed back to the hostel to call it a night. The flight back to Geneva was happily uneventful, mostly I was glad to hear French again and to come back to my bed in Rolle. My host mom made pumpkin soup for dinner served with an omelette and veggies. It’s interesting how they don’t really eat eggs for breakfast, but as a lunch or dinner… I’m also really starting to like vegetables, which I figure is really good for me. That’s all till tomorrow, folks! Don’t forget to leave a loving comment ;-)

Todo es possible en la vida

Sunday morning we set out to go to Montserrat, but I first got robbed. We went to the Metro and Orlando and Beza got gypped by some guy into paying 3 euros for a Metro ticket, but I was smart and bought mine at the machine for only 1.25. Then, somewhere in between looking at the Metro map and walking to our train, my little purse-wallet went missing! We backtracked and I hadn’t left it anywhere, so my conclusion is that someone took it from my bag. Luckily I still had other valuables like my phone and camera, but I had forgotten to leave some of my newly changed euros in the room and ended up losing about 100 euros and a credit card. I filed a report with the police and we continued on to Placa Espanya, where there was supposedly a train that could take us to Montserrat. The worst part of being a foreigner is not having simple things you’re used to having. After I got robbed it was hard calling home because my phone wasn’t working – I had refilled my Swiss SIM card before leaving, but it didn’t go through immediately and after I went negative the account was frozen. I tried using Orlando’s phone, but it didn’t work, and I tried using Beza’s phone card, but first had to find a public phone, which isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be. I finally ended up calling collect and woke my parents up at 3 in the morning to tell them to cancel the credit card, and had to borrow money from friends the rest of the day.

Montserrat is a mountain about 60 km outside the city, with a monastery at the top and a famous boys choir and the Virgin Negra. Before going there we passed through a town on the outskirts of Barcelona, which was very nice and local too. Beza and Orlando got lunch at the Pizza Hut, and I got a chorizo sandwich at a restaurant nearby. We took another train to Montserrat, then a bus to get to the actual mountain part. The church was one of the most beautiful ones I had seen so far, and the view from the mountain was amazing as well. We took a cable car up to the top, which was kind of unnerving because it was just one little car going up a cable from the base to the top of the mountain. Since we had spent some extra hours searching for my lost purse, we missed the 1pm showing of the boys choir, and the 6pm showing coincided with our last cable car to the bottom, so we didn’t get to see the choir boys.

For dinner we went to Hard Rock Café for some good old American rock music and some good old cheeseburgers, BBQ, and steaks. Afterwards we chilled at Las Ramblas for a bit and Beza and Orlando started talking to some Gambian people, which kind of sketched me out since I’m very anti-talking to strangers but we learned about how they were migrants and had worked all over Europe. When we got back to the hostel I got some computer access and went to sleep. The three of us were staying in a mixed room (ie, coed) with a couple of girls from Paris. It was really weird how hearing French was familiar and nice after walking around all day and only hearing/speaking Spanish.

I’ve also noticed that Barcelona was by far the most “globalized” city of all the ones I’ve been to so far. Paris had its share of McDonald’s and commercial stores at the Champs-Elysees, such as Niketown and Zara. Rome had McDonald’s on EVERY corner, as bad as Starbucks are in major US towns. Every city of course has its token Starbucks – Geneva only has one, and my host mom hasn’t even heard of it. But in Barcelona, we saw not only Starbucks and McDonalds, but also Pizza Hut, KFC, and Burger King. Not to mention a few other US companies like Mail Boxes Etc. It was cool though to see the links between Filipino and Spanish culture, since Spain ruled and influenced the Philippines during a large part of its history. You could already see it somewhat just in the language. I don’t know much Tagalog, but I do know there are some words that are similar if not the same, such as maiz and when my dad would say “Ven aqui” to my brother and me when we were children. But I noticed the connection even more so in Spain with the food! They have their version of embutido, flan (actually the flan was exactly the same), chorizo, adobo (not in Spain but I’ve heard of it in Mexico), paella, empanadas, ensaimada… just talking about it makes me hungry.

Playing Tourist

I got home on Wednesday and didn’t do anything much, mostly just relaxed because I was starting to feel like I was getting a cold. Thursday Erin and I played tourist in Geneva because we didn’t feel like starting on our papers and hadn’t explored Geneva yet. We met up with Orlando for a lunch of Chinese food then went to the Musee Ariana, museum of ceramics and pottery. They had a cool temporary exhibition known as the forêt du verre, forest of glass with trees and schools of fish and sculptures all made of glass. Took the train home and had dinner, which I think was sauerkraut traditionally eaten with a peace of smoked ham and a piece not smoked.

Friday morning I went into Geneva and found Beza, who had left her camera at a restaurant the night before and was back to get it. Didn’t do much else that day, mostly stayed at the library to send emails and catch up on TV shows. Beza and I had a delicious kebab lunch, and I went back to the library some more. We did buy our tickets to London, and will be there Thanksgiving weekend! I’m excited because I’ll get to see a friend from GW and my best friend from Texas, who I haven’t seen in years and who will be visiting the same weekend.

Saturday Orlando, Beza, and I left for Barcelona! Once we got off the train and were walking into the airport we came upon a group of people standing around and a policeman, and he suddenly (quickly) said something to the effect of “Cover your ears!” and everyone covered their ears and cringed, and it was really scary because we had no idea what was going on. Beza dropped her stuff and ran into the nearest shoe store, and Orlando and I froze and covered our ears, then we heard a quick gunshot-like noise. Afterwards we were waiting to see what happened and Orlando was quick to go to the front and see what happened, but Beza and I stayed behind until we knew it was safe. Turns out someone had left an unattended suitcase, so they roped off the area and shot at the bag in case it was a bomb. I didn’t really understand how shooting at a possible bomb was a good idea, but I guess it’s somewhat controlled, even though you don’t know how strong the explosion could be. We again learned the wonders of having a US passport, as people would look at it and know to talk to us in English, and we had to wait while officers looked more closely at Orlando’s Costa Rican one. Flying sick is never a good idea, and my ears failed to pop after landing until two days later.

We got into Barcelona around 5:00pm, and took a bus from the airport to the center of the city. Our hostel was located off of Las Ramblas, a big pedestrian walkway with stores and vendors and trees covering the whole thing like a canopy. We found a place for dinner after settling in and got paella and sangria, which was delicious but apparently somewhat touristy, since all the restaurants off of Las Ramblas had “Menus Turisticas” of paella and sangria for a combined price. Then we walked to the beach and walked along the Mediterranean Sea, but it was nighttime by then so there wasn’t much to see beyond the beach.