My Love-Hate Relationship with Switzerland

I didn’t expect my host mom to return until Monday night, but she got back early Sunday night and we had dessert together since I had already eaten. We had some coupe de Danemark, which consisted of a bar of dark Swiss chocolate melted in a saucepan with a little bit of milk, poured over two scoops of vanilla ice cream until the ice cream is swimming in sauce. It was très delicieux. Monday’s class consisted of Earl telling us for an hour a half what was expected for our Cultural Drop-Off assignment and Independent Study Project. For the cultural drop-off, we have to interview 5 people in the next week to gain a Swiss perspective on our topic of choice for the independent study project. The interviews don’t have to be in a formal setting, but that doesn’t really make it much easier to think of a relevant place to go, as I have to find something Swiss that has to do with pro-poor development and public health? I don’t know, I really love that the program is relevant to my major and I can study whatever I want, but at the same time some aspects of it seem really awkward and almost pointless. We’re pretty much expected to walk up to random people, tell them we’re students doing research, and hope they’ll talk to us a little bit about our topic. That afternoon I was pretty bummed out from falling asleep in morning class and dealing with all the work we had to do after getting back from Rome. Not to mention I was feeling really homesick, I don’t know, after being in Rome and Lugano and relaxing like I was on vacation I was ready to go back home.

It’s really just the little things that I miss, the things that are familiar and that we don’t really think about. Errands that should be really simple aren’t – for example, I ironically misplaced my check card in Paris after purposely putting it aside so I wouldn’t lose it. I called my bank and had no problem requesting a new card. Two weeks later, I still haven’t gotten the card, when they told me it would arrive by the end of the week. So I call the bank again, using what little was left on the phone card I had since for some reason I can’t get through when I dial a 1-888 number on my cell phone. For some reason, my pin number didn’t work when I put it in, so I got put through to a person who said she couldn’t verify my identity since there weren’t any recent transactions on my card, and I shortly afterwards got disconnected since my minutes ran out. They don’t exactly have CVS’s here, so I had to go to a couple of places until I figured out where you can buy another phone card, and when I finally called my bank back again, the woman asked for my last transaction again, which I didn’t have with me. Then when I tried to sign on to view what my last transaction was, I wasn’t able to because apparently my online banking had been suspended with my telephone banking. I called again for the third time today, this time using my checkbook to report my last transaction, which apparently doesn’t match with what’s on their computer. The woman suggested writing a check somewhere so I had a recent transaction I knew of, so I went to the bank to try and get my check (written in dollars!) changed to Swiss francs, but the freaking banks close at 4:30 and 5:00. Even when I do get the check written, assuming I find a place that takes American non-traveler’s checks, I’ll have to wait another week before calling the bank so I know it went through. I can only hope that the case isn’t that my card didn’t get properly cancelled, someone else found it, and is spending my money. That would be true hell.

Tuesday we had an organization visit and class, there isn’t anything exciting that happened that I remember. Wednesday was another waste of most of my day, and frustration with being foreign and with the Swiss way. I arrived in Geneva around 9am, and went to a library in Old Town that had wifi, only to discover that it didn’t open until 10am. The next closest wifi venue on my list was Palladium, so I went there not really knowing what it was or if it would even be open. It wasn’t of course, so I decided to go to a place I had been to before and knew had wifi, at the Parc de Bastions. Well the bust stop I was at was a major stop for different lines, so there were actually three or four bus stops scattered around the block, and it took me longer than should have been necessary to find mine. I get to the Parc and decide to check out the University of Geneva library, which is right there, only to wander around three floors of classrooms. I walked back outside and found the actual library, then spent another 15-20 minutes trying to pick up a non-secured wifi, then finally finding out that the login and password for the library were posted on the wall.

I met up with Beza for lunch and we vented about how the group dynamic has become clique-ish, which in a way makes life more miserable but isn’t that big of a deal since I know I have friends in the group that I can depend on even when other people are being stupid. Then I went to a seminar I read about at the Univ. of GenevaAnalyse Économique de la Production Educationelle. I took the bus to the address indicated on the flyer and found myself at the actual University of Geneva, which was pretty cool but kind of intimidating because I always got the feeling that people could tell I didn’t belong there, but whether or not that’s true or it was just in my head I’ll never know. The event started at 16:00, or 4:00pm, which somehow in my head translated into 14:00 or 2:00pm, so I first off showed up at the classroom early and walked into a class that was in session. I went to the Econ department to try and find a professor I could interview for my cultural drop-off, only to be informed that I could not be helped I was not enrolled in the university. At the seminar, I walked in and felt that the entire room knew each other, and wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to be there. Turned out the seminar was a student presenting her thesis, and it was open to the public including her family and friends I’m guessing, and four professors sat at the front of the room taking notes and giving comments afterwards. The whole thing was in French, another challenge, but I got some information from the fact that her PowerPoint was written out and displayed. library titled

I guess the crisis more than anything for me is not feeling a sense of belonging, especially from not being familiar with how the simplest things are done sometimes. On the one hand we are learning – the first week or so we tried to buy produce and didn’t know that you’re supposed to weigh it and print out a little sticker with the price, and the cashier couldn’t ring it up without that. Now I know how to buy produce in Switzerland. But that’s not to say there aren’t things I still love about Switzerland – as the days get shorter, the sun is just setting when I’m taking the train home, and the mountains look absolutely magnificent. I now know (ironically) why our national anthem speaks of “purple mountains majesty,” as the mountains across the lake are purple set against the sky turning all shades of pink and blue. Mont Blanc looks really cool too, with parts of the snow shining pink and others in the shadows a light blueish purple. Not to mention that I can always look forward to my host mom’s cooking, including rosti and cordon bleu. Right now we have new neighbors moving into the flat upstairs, they’re Korean and don’t know any French! The husband told me that they lived in the Philippines for 3 months, and that he’s a plastic surgeon. LOL, my host mom is explaining the washer/dryer to them but since the last tenant upstairs only spoke English and German they bought a German washing machine. Oh, the international world. But anyway, that’s my life so far, my frustrations with and my continued love of all things Swiss… à bientôt, with love from Mont-sur-Rolle!