The Rest of Last Week - Presentations and Partying and Actually Getting Work Done: The Story In Full

The rest of last week (that I didn't already tell you about) was pretty great!! :D
I'll get right to the point...

Wednesday & Thursday were relatively uneventful.
I went in to uni early on Wednesday to pay for the trip to Bern, and then stayed in the library working. I got lots done actually - I should go to the library more often! In the afternoon I had that postgrad translation class I mentioned before, which I always enjoy :)
Wednesday evening I had lots of free time - there's usually an exchange student pub night every Wednesday, but for some reason there wasn't one this week, so I took the evening off as I'd got so much work done during the day (and also I start class at 8:15 on Thursday mornings, which means getting up before 7am uuurrrggghhhh). Thursday was even less exciting. I went to my morning class, I spent the afternoon working towards a presentation I had to do on Friday, I went to bed early. #livingthehighlife

Friday was a very busy day!
I had class from 8 until 12 again (same as Thursday mornings) which was great although I'm starting to get a little bit stressed about exams now :/  This term feels like it's flown by, I don't feel like I've done anywhere near enough classes to do exams in these subjects?? argh!! ... I'm sure it will all be alright in the end... I'm just a natural panic-er hahaha
In the afternoon I did my presentation! It was on the recent passing of same-sex marriage laws in both the UK and France, and how the two countries reacted, and why that was based on societal context. I was super worried because it's a hard class, and the lecturer is quite harsh - but it seemed to go very well! :D
I WAS planning to have a quiet night in on Friday night, as I had to catch the train to Bern on Saturday, but a friend messaged me and invited me out to a club called Bypass, where apparently it was free entry and free drinks all night for girls!
Well, in Geneva, where it's like 10CHF MINIMUM for club entry, and it's rare to get a drink for under 5CHF, you just don't say no to a deal like that.
I promised myself, though, that I wouldn't drink too much (and would let my male friends have my share of the free drinks, bless 'em) and would get the last tram back rather than staying out all night, so that I would be able to get up in plenty of time to go to Bern.
We went in two groups on the public bus, which caused some confusion. I was part of the second group that went, and when we got there, the group that had gone before us weren't there!
What was going on? Did we have the right club? Where WAS everyone?
We found out the next day - at the train station on the way to Bern - that the other group had been turned away at the door because one of them was wearing trainers. To be honest if you'd seen this club you wouldn't be surprised at this! Everyone in Geneva seems to be super rich and this place was like on some other level of class. (they didn't appear to even sell beer. Just champagne, wine, and cocktails - all upwards of 25 francs. yikes.)
Those of us who were left had an awesome time all the same! Here's a picture -

I'm not sure I understand why I look so very excited... but this was the best group picture I could find!

I left early to get the last tram home at around 2am (they run later on Fridays and Saturdays, thank goodness!) and while I got some stick from the others for leaving early even though I wasn't the only one going on the Bern trip the next morning, I am sooooo glad I took the nice cosy warm tram back! It was COLD that night! (On a side note, I think it's a crime to charge five francs per item for a club cloakroom when it's November and below freezing outside....)

I think I'll make a separate post about my trip to Bern on Saturday! This post has already got quite long and I have sooooo much to tell you all about Bern! :D

Hope everyone reading is doing well and had a great weekend!

Charlie xo

Let's just admit that I am not all that good at keeping a blog....

I've not updated in a ridiculously long time, I am so sorry!
I've been sooooo busy and had a LOT of stuff to deal with, both personal and academic! It's been hard enough trying to keep up with friends and family on Facebook, never mind finding the time to upload pictures and write whole blog posts. and then of course the longer I leave it, the harder it is to backtrack!
I'll try my best to update on a weekly basis from here on in, as well as trying to retrospectively fill you all in on everything I've been up to over the last few months!

[Dear Bryn Hafren School: I'm sending you a little something in the post with more details of my life here in Geneva - hope it reaches you soon and you enjoy receiving some proper news from me! :D ]

Soooo... this week so far! It's only Tuesday, and last week I went back to the UK for reading week, so I've not been up to much.
Sunday I flew back to Geneva, and was back home by midafternoon. It's a good thing I had some pizza in the freezer that I could eat, as NOTHING is open in Switzerland on a Sunday!! I had to wait til Monday to get any decent food in the house!
I will admit that going home for the week actually made me MORE homesick... it reminded me of everything I missed. BUT I'll get to see everyone again at the end of this year, and make them all super jealous with my excellent tales of worldwide travel ;D
Monday I had a good long rest, as travelling always tires me out. I don't have class til 6pm on Mondays, so I woke up late, finished the work I didn't get to finish in reading week, and eventually got out the door to class. (It's disconcerting leaving the house for the first time when it is already dark, but at least the sunset over the mountains is usually pretty! I'll have to remember take a photo next time!)
Monday evening's class is actually a postgraduate-level class, but undergrad exchange students are allowed to take it too. I really enjoy this class most of the time. We have two classes with two different lecturers, one on a Monday and one on a Wednesday. We do all sorts of different kinds of translations, from sections of novels to adverts to restaurant reviews, and we even got to do some subtitling work this week. It's a lot of fun, if a bit higher-level than the stuff I've come across before, and genuinely feels like it's specifically preparing me for a potential career in translation! Exciting stuff!!
The only problem with class on a Monday evening is, it ends at 8pm, which means I come home closer to 9pm and super tired. I usually can't be bothered to cook that late at night so I'll eat some pizza or something while finishing off the homework due Tuesday mornings. #studentlife, right?
This Tuesday (today!) was something of a non-day for the first half of the day. Tuesdays tend to be as I don't have any classes at all on this day! I went into the uni building to eat lunch and sign up for a trip to Bern this weekend, sent off some emails and came straight back home to do some work for some other classes.
The best part about today was going to see Thor 2 with some friends from my postgrad class! (although they, too, are British undergrad exchange students.) We wanted to see it in English with French subtitles, but apparently that is the 18h30 showing almost every day ... except Tuesdays. Well ok then.
We were really worried that we wouldn't be able to understand a thing, and had just wasted 53CHF (that was for the three of us, plus the cost of the 3D glasses, WITH the orange 2-4-1 deal - gosh Switzerland would you STOP BEING SO EXPENSIVE?!) on a film we wouldn't be able to understand at all.
But we surprised ourselves! We actually understood around 90% of what was being said, maybe more? It was a bit confusing around the beginning when they were explaining the backstory, we didn't have a clue what was going on... but the rest went very well as far as comprehension was concerned! (although to be fair, Marvel films are very action-based and not hugely dialogue-based... )
Still! An achievement to be proud of - the first film I saw at the cinema, all in French, with no help from subtitles. I am proud of myself today :D
After the film we went to eat in McDonalds - coincidentally, the first ever McDonalds to be opened in Switzerland! That's a thing to tick off a list ;)
They actually had these really fancy things you could place an order on so you wouldn't have to queue! You could choose what you wanted, and your sides and drinks, from a touchscreen menu, then pay with card there and then, and after that all you had to do was take a numbered ticket and go straight to the counter and collect the correct meal! Very efficient - we could do with some of these in the UK!
We sat in McDonalds chatting and eating for a really long time. It was super nice - I'm glad to have been able to find nice friends here :D

I'm in a great mood tonight and feeling positive! I hope everybody reading is feeling good too! :D
Sorry for being such a flake before :( I'll try to keep updating from here on in.
Peace! x

[RETROSPECTIVE UPDATE] Le Weekend - Fri 13th to Sun 15th September

Friday

Friday was the induction session for all exchange students!
Thankfully I'd already worked out where this meeting would be when I wandered round with my parents on Thursday, so the tram journey in and finding where I needed was relatively easy :)
There were lots of people in the meeting, from all over the world! I found the others from Cardiff, as well as some other Brits who had heard us talking and were probably quite relieved to hear a familiar language, haha.
Saying that, there were some people who had arrived in Geneva for a longer stay than mine, who did not speak French at all! I know that immersing yourself in a country completely is the best way to pick up a language but gosh! I couldn't do that at all, it'd be so frightening. It's intimidating enough coming here with YEARS of French study under my belt!
Anyway, the meeting went through everything from accommodation to support networks to social events planned for exchange students throughout the semester. There's some really great things planned, I'm excited!
After the meeting, we went over to another uni building, one of the oldest and original buildings, I think, where there was a kind of mini-freshers fair going on, with food and music and some stalls from different departments of the uni. I had something to drink and chatted with the other Cardiff students for a while - the weather was lovely! I also bought a monthly pass for the buses and trams of Geneva - at 10 francs for a day ticket on the tram, a monthly pass pays for itself very quickly!
In the evening, Jamie, the son of my host family, offered to show me some of the bars around Geneva. We met some of the people from Cardiff (plus one of the other British girls we'd met that morning) in Plainpalais, which is kind of a central area in one part of Geneva. We went to a couple of nice Irish bars, which were apparently where most of the expats would go. I was once again shocked by Geneva prices, but was happy to see that they had Magner's cider on tap - a nice little taste of home :)
We were going to go to a club called Usine with some of Jamie's friends, but by the time we left the second bar, it was around 1am and I was super tired. For some reason, just being in a foreign city is so much more tiring than a night out in Cardiff would be! There's been so many new things to take in, I suppose, and so much to be done... it's not a wonder I was so sleepy. So, home on the tram and straight to bed it was!

Saturday

Today was the day of the much-anticipated lake cruise for the exchange students!
We'd only been told the place we needed to go in Friday's meeting, though, so I didn't really know where I was going. I actually got off the tram a stop too early, whoops! Ended up asking some nice policemen where the Quai du Mont-blanc was (the response: "c'est juste là!" with a laugh) and then running so as not to miss the allotted time... smooth, self.
The cruise itself was lovely! We went right by the Jet d'Eau, Geneva's famous fountain (and got a little damp in the process.) It was a cloudy evening, but I thought the clouds offset the mountains, and made the sky look really big and open.

After the cruise, we all went together to a bar called Bar Seven, which was pretty nice if a little small for all those exchange students! The wristbands we'd been given on the boat gave us some discounts at the bar, but I still spent a lot more money than I expected I would... I think this was the moment when I thought 'Okay, yikes, Geneva's REALLY expensive. But I'm here for six months now, so I'd better get used to it. .... sigh.'
I met some new friends at the bar, too! A British girl who turned out to be in one of my classes, two Italian girls (who I haven't actually seen much of lately - I hope they come to other Erasmus nights soon!) and an Irish girl who is in one of my language support classes. I even met some Japanese girls! I told them I spoke Japanese (in Japanese) and we tried to have a conversation... however, I'd been speaking French pretty much all day, and I found it super difficult to switch from French to Japanese so quickly :( It's like my brain can't handle more than one language at once? This doesn't bode well hahaha! I think I had better find a conversation partner under the Uni's tandem scheme to practice my Japanese with - I obviously want to speak French while I'm here, but losing my skills in Japanese would be a huge shame!
Anyway, I chatted to some people, danced about with some other people.... everybody was so nice! I'm glad I made the effort to break out of my existing circles and meet new friends  :)
I had to rush back in the rain to get the last tram, but overall it was a great night!

Sunday

As far as I remember, Sunday was just spent resting and preparing for the following week - more meetings, the start of classes, and more Erasmus nights out. What a weekend!

Time to catch up...

Hello everyone!
I can only apologise for not updating for so long! My life here in Geneva has become so busy, and then I had a whole load of personal stuff going on, so I've had absolutely no time to put things on here!

I've been doing a whole lot of awesome things while I've been away from the computer, though, and I'd like to tell you all about them!
What I'm going to do is make a post for each week that I've not posted, letting all you know exactly what I've been up to. Where there's a big event with lots to say, or maybe a lot of pictures, I'll make an individual post with much more detail.

Watch this space!
:)
xx

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