First Day In Geneva City (In Which I Actually Have To Speak French Oh No)

So today was my first full day in Switzerland!
It's weird to say that. I feel like I've been here a lot longer than that?
I woke up later than planned (still exhausted from yesterday) and went out into town with my parents, to get to grips with the way the city is.
I'm staying on the edge of the district called Carouge, which is very artsy-looking. Lots of old buildings and cute little cafés and bars. Can't wait to explore this area properly with some friends! :)

On the river side of Carouge is a small-ish centre commercial, where there was an Orange shop, so we went in to go find a phone for me for the few months I'm here. This was the part where I ACTUALLY HAD TO SPEAK FRENCH and I was super nervous because a) I've not actually done any French since April which is when my exams were, b) it turns out I actually know very little practical French. I could conjugate a hundred verbs or have a debate on politics, but I doubt I could even order a taxi..... and c) there's a very big difference between speaking French in a classroom with your teachers and friends, and actually using it in real life with a total stranger...!!
But it actually went ok!! Yes, I made a few (extremely basic...) grammatical slip-ups, because it wasn't at all like writing an essay or having a debate in class. I just didn't have the time to think through exactly what I wanted to say and how I was going to say it in Absolutely Perfect Degree-Level French.
I mean, it was kind of complicated! I had to discuss with the shop guy about contracts vs pay-as-you-go (they call it 'prepay' here) and how I couldn't have a contract because I'm leaving in February, and it would be nice if I could get international calls too, and no I don't have my visa yet, and I'd like something as cheap as possible?
I must have done something right, because I now have a shiny little phone for 25 Swiss Francs  (about £17) with some credit on it to use, and cheap international calls and texts!
Super proud of myself :P
I've set it up, too, which I'm also proud of considering the instructions were also all in French, and I've never been good with phones. (I'm fighting the temptation to change the phone's menu language to English... but I know I should keep it in French. It's a good learning tool!)

After that we had lunch in a little Swiss-Italian restaurant. The food was FANTASTIC (best spaghetti carbonara I have had in my life) and extremely filling (they gave us second helpings, woah) but also rather expensive. That's normal for Geneva, though - everything is expensive, almost prohibitively so. My host family and I have come up with a new adjective - 'Geneva-cheap', which means expensive by global standards (particularly Welsh standards - trust me, I come from London, you guys have it good!) but as Geneva goes, pretty darn cheap.

The afternoon was spent working out the tram system and finding out where my university buildings were.
The Uni-Mail building, on Rue de Pont-d'Arve, is where the School of Translation is based, so all my lectures will probably be there.

The front of the Uni-Mail building

Some pictures from the inside of the building.... I'm actually loving the rainbow! 

Views from the top of the building (6th floor) - my department is on this floor! 

We were going to have dinner out in the evening, but we still hadn't really recovered from yesterday's LONG day, and walking about had made us all sleepy.
So we walked about a little more - discovered the main university building and found out that the University of Geneva is 450 YEARS OLD. Woah. There appeared to be some sort of equivalent to Freshers' Fair going on, with a band playing, and flyers for local clubs and events. I picked up LOADS - I want to check out as much as I can while I'm here :D The son of the family I'm staying with is about my age, and he's recommended a lot of good places to go, too. 

A lot of stuff to do...!

We then wandered over to the old town, which is old-fashioned, cobblestoned, and pretty - totally different from the flashy, modern, metropolitan city centre with its trams and glass-fronted buildings - to have some fruit juice and coffee, before I said goodbye to my parents for the next three months. 

Somehow saying goodbye here feels different to saying goodbye in Cardiff. I don't know why - here is an hour on a plane, Cardiff is three hours in a car - there isn't much difference between here and home. I'm away for the exact same amount of time. But, like everything I've experienced here so far, it's new. It's different. 

But I can see myself really loving it here. 

I'm excited all over again! 

I'll leave you with this lovely quote I found on a café sign in Carouge today - 

                                        Love yourself, and life will love you! 

All Safe & Sound In Geneva

So yesterday was... exhausting, to say the least! I was far too tired to post anything last night, so let me tell you about in in retrospect.
Our flight was at 7am, so we had to get up at about 4:30 to wash, check in, have breakfast, and get on the plane in time. And of course, because I was so nervous (and because there's some sort of law in the world that means that things like this ALWAYS HAPPEN) I couldn't sleep at the airport hotel.
So I ended up getting on a plane to Switzerland with roughly two hours of sleep. That was fun. (I dislike planes. They are impossible to nap on.)
Upon arriving in Geneva, we took a train and then a tram to the hotel my parents were staying in, courtesy of the free public transport tickets provided by Geneva Airport! (with three large suitcases and three small ones, which was a struggle.... I promise I tried to pack light!)
We freshened up, had lunch, and then went to meet the family I'll be staying with for the next few weeks.

Let me explain a bit about this -
In Geneva, there is a horrible, horrible shortage of accommodation, particularly for students who only want to stay here temporarily. As student halls go, there's something like 1,000 applicants for every TWO places, which is ridiculous (and more than a little bit scary when I was applying...).
Thankfully, I got my application in early, and I was able to get accommodation in a nice flat provided by the university. HOWEVER, due to the shortage, I can't move in until October.
I only found out about this in August.
And so began a last-minute panic to find somewhere to live before I moved in this September. (I'm making the whole thing sound terrible - it's really not so awful, I just enjoy the drama!) One of my Dad's old friends from 30-odd years ago, with whom he is still in contact due to the magic of Facebook, used to live in Geneva, and he asked her if she still had any contacts in the city who might be able to find me a room somewhere.
Miraculously, someone DID come through for us - a lovely British family who, coincidentally, live a very short distance from the student accommodation I'll be moving into later.
Their house is gorgeous, and they're providing me with food and conversation and advice about the local area. I honestly can't say how grateful I am to them for their generosity :)
I've completely unpacked now and have settled in quite well. I can easily see myself getting along well here in Geneva!

But that was yesterday. A post about today's adventures will be coming soon - with pictures! Watch this space.

So This Is a Thing That is Actually Happening....

In an hour or so, my parents will get home from work and then we'll drive to Luton airport.
Our flight isn't until tomorrow, but the airport is at least an hour's drive away, and the flight is at 6:30am (ouch) so we're staying in a hotel at the airport so the early morning won't be quite so painful...

Even though it's so near, and even though I've had almost all my things packed for at least a week, it still doesn't feel real. Flying out to another country to live for 6 months, is so different from anything I've experienced before, that I just can't picture it. Moving to Wales was another thing entirely - I can drive to Wales in 3 hours. There's also no language barrier (at least not in Cardiff...) and I'd visited the place twice before I packed up all my stuff and moved there.
This is new. This is SO new.
I don't know any of the place names or how to get there, I don't know when or where any of my classes will be, I don't know anyone there, I don't know what trams I need to take to get to lectures, I don't even know if I can speak French well enough to get by!
But I can't back away from it now - and there's no way I'll let my nerves stop me from having this once in a lifetime experience. I'm just gonna have to step straight off into the unknown on the good faith that it's gonna be AWESOME.
I thought this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was very fitting. He talks about men specifically, but I think this could apply to anyone regardless of gender (particularly year abroad students...)

Une fois pris dans l’évènement, les hommes ne s’en effraient plus. Seul l’inconnu épouvante les hommes. Mais, pour quiconque l’affronte, il n’est déjà plus l’inconnu.

Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men. But for anyone who confronts it, it is no longer the unknown. 

                                                            ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,  French writer and poet


 Time to confront the unknown, then...! I'll see you all on the other side! :D

First Post!

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