Two Saturdays ago, Claudie took me to Geneva and Fernanda, a Mexican girl who lives in Aix-les-Bains, came along with us. The goal: buy chocolate to send back home for the holidays. The train schedule was really spaced-out, there was either a train at 6:20 am, or 12:30 pm. Because we wanted to get back early enough to do the other stuff we had to do, we took the 6:20 train and got into Geneva around 7:30. It was really cold in the morning, but it warmed up fast! Because nothing was open when we first got there, we walked around and visited the town. Apparently, there was Switzerland's biggest road race that day, but by the time they started we had already moved on to the main old town district and were loading up with chocolate. We had to go to the bank and change money because Switzerland isn't a part of the E.U. and they use the Swiss franc, not the euro. I already had a ten franc bill that the Swiss exchange student, Jason, had left me. So I brought that along, and it was worth roughly 8 euros which isn't bad at all! We started out changing a little money because we didn't want to have extra, but we went back within twenty minutes to change more. Also, because I already had 10 francs I spent less, so I was borrowing money to Claudie and Fer before we had the chance to go back, operating like a real Swiss bank. (It's true, they have whole streets lined entirely with banks!) We went to a supermarket and bought about 5 kilos of chocolate... a little over 10 pounds, I think... Anyway, it was a backpack full and it was heavy! (But worth it.) We didn't have enough francs at the register so we payed in part francs/part euros and there was a huge line behind us because we had to figure everything out. It was really funny (for us)!
Anyway, Geneva is gorgeous. The architecture is much more German than French. Also, they were about to celebrate (well, now it's been celebrated- it was Sunday, December 12th) the Marmite. It was when the Genevans (?) fought against Savoie, my region in France and of which Chambery was the capital, who were trying to annex them. The French soldiers were trying to scale the walls at night and all the Swiss soldiers were sleeping. But, an old lady was awake and saw them so she took her pot of scalding hot vegetable soup (called her marmite), and threw it down on the soldiers trying to scale the soldiers, foiling their surprise attack and ultimately defeating them!
Anyway, I can't load photos now for some reason... but I will try back again later and have a whole post with just the photos.
Also, this is the last week before vacation and in a little less than one week (next Wednesday morning) we leave for Germany to spend Christmas with the first host family of my host sister when she went to Monday was Claudie's birthday so I made chocolate cookies but because the grocery stores here don't have the same things as in the U.S. I had to improvise on the recipe. They turned out really well and the recipe is now an official secret that will be passed down in my family from generation to generation and guarded like a precious diamond. Also, I just got back from rock climbing and today we learned the technique of climbing up cords. We didn't use the wall at all, because when you're putting all the holds onto the wall you have to climb us simply the cords because you've taken down all of the holds (I don't really know this word in English, but the rock structures on the wall that you grab onto...) It was really fun but really hard and I now have a ton of blisters. It had to be done though because Saturday we're taking down all of the holds and redoing the walls at the gym. I'm really excited!
Happy Early Holidays!!!!
