Meeting More Americans!

Tuesday 17th Feb

I’m watching the snow fall! It’s not as exciting as the first day and it’s getting to be a little bit of a hindrance. It’s extra cold outside, the ground turns to slush and your hair gets soaked... but still beautiful. I’ve just got back from my first real class and am in the process of making lunch; or putting a frozen pizza in the oven and waiting for it to cook (and it burnt L, I forgot to turn the temperature from the preheat temperature! Damn all you Australians!)
Uni started yesterday and I was up bright and early at 8 in the morning. Went to a language interview at 9 to assess what classes I can take; I get to take any class I want in my faculty J
After the interview me and Allison went into town and just walked around a bit. Did the tourist thing. A guy approached us and asked for money, he gave us a little paper saying he had to support 2 kids and don’t have anything to eat etc so I gave him all the coins I had on me. As soon as he saw we weren’t going to give him big money, he got quite rude and walked off. I had the strong suspicion that he was probably faking because later we saw him and a bunch of other guys walking around asking other people... not to be a dick but they looked like a bunch of druggies. Plus... are there homeless people in Switzerland?

We headed back to uni around 1 to meet Magnus for lunch but half way there he called and said he was in town getting his residence permit, so we had to hop off and go back. That’s the one great thing about Switzerland. Amazing public transport. Trains come every 5 minutes and they’re always on time and since I have a monthly ticket for the cheap price of 41CHF, I ride that train back and forth 10 times a day. We ended up eating in town which turned out not to be too expensive because we got a student discount. After lunch, Magnus dropped us of at Allison’s (in his car!) and went back to his to do stuff for his permit. Me and Allison went grocery shopping and then headed into uni for our first real class; Swiss French Literature. Very boring. We ended up drawing maps all class and locating our home towns on our very well drawn little atlas. I’m not going to take the class and neither is Allison. The course here is really flexible, we can basically take any class we want, so the next 2 weeks we get to just drop in and out and see which ones we particularly like. Swiss literature is definitely a no go. The good thing that came out of the class is we met another American girl named Rachel and ended up going back to her place with Allison for dinner. Magnus dropped over after dinner; for some reason he won’t come during dinner, it’s almost like he doesn’t trust me and Allison to cook so he’s always got to eat at home (he can’t cook either). Now he’s a funny fella and the best way me and Allison could describe him was as a douche. Every time we see him he tells us the 30 new French words that he’s revised that day but then 10 minutes later he’s talking about how to chat up girls. He is definitely a European douche that’s nonetheless hilarious. The four of us just spent the night talking, discussing why capsicum should not be called peppers and why Australian accents are not funny and therefore should not be laughed at. I’ve found that Americans have a hard time understanding me. Don’t anyone dare try to say it’s cause of an Asian accent. But the first couple days with Allison, everything I said she asked me to repeat because she couldn’t understand what I was saying. Now it’s all good. But with Rachel, the same thing happened. I’d say something and she’d ask me to repeat, except now Allison will jump in and say, he said... It’s like I speak a foreign language!

Onto today (Tuesday). Had 3 classes today. The first 2 were pretty boring. French language and French phonetics. I feel like I’m doing Speech pathology and realised how boring the girls’ classes back in Aus must have been. I basically tried to sleep through the first two. The 3rd and last class of the day was French Linguistics. It was at 5 at night and it went for 2 hours so I’d already made up an excuse and told the teach I had to leave an hour early; I just wanted to check out the class first. Surprising thing was I actually stayed for the whole thing because it was pretty cool. Also spoke to a couple of the exchange girls I’d met randomly. Party tomorrow night at one of their houses and it is suppose to be big so organised to eat with Allison at hers since she lives in the same complex.

Came home and made my signature dish, vegies and tuna blend. I know that doesn’t sound appetising but it’s actually surprisingly good with some mashed potatoes. Yes... I can cook. Did my laundry tonight with Jonas’ help but I screwed someone else’s laundry up. The way our system works is you pay with a prepaid laundry card. When you begin the wash, it charges you 5CHF and when you finish, you’re suppose to put your card back into the machine and it’ll refund you 3 CHF; making it 2 bucks to wash cloth. Don’t ask why they don’t just charge 2 bucks straight up. Anyway, I put my clothes in and went upstairs to make dinner cause it took about an hour to wash. I went back downstairs a bit late and someone had already taken my clothes out and put theirs in. This means I don’t get my 3CHF back. When I got back upstairs, Jonas told me I should just try to see if I can still get the money back so I tried. I got the money back but the other guy’s washing stopped midway. I think I ended up taking his 3CHF that he was meant to get after he finished. Felt kind of guilty but it’s a dog eat dog world in Switzerland. Happy day kids. It won’t stop snowing.

First Night Out and Assorted First Week info

Saturday 14 Feb

A quick rundown on what’s happened since Wednesday. So Thursday was my first day in Switzerland with snow. It was absolutely beautiful. The one thing I do love about this country is how picturesque it is. I went down to the lake by the uni and watched snowflakes float onto the water, there’s nothing like it. Granted I did this because I have no friends and am all by my lonesome self but it does lessen the homesickness just a little. I finished up everything that needed doing on Thursday morning, so had the bank account opened, the residence permit done and money all sorted. I bumped into Kelly and ended up going home with her. The lucky thing is she lives just next door; I’ve been popping in and out alot over the past week. It’s strange that it’s only been a week, feels like I’ve been gone for months. I spent the afternoon at Kelly’s, leeching and hanging all at the same time and then went home to Harry Potter. Made my first dinner that night, spaghetti and Bolognese/tuna instead of mince. Mince is not affordable. Actually turned out really good! Ate with my housemate Jonas who I’m beginning to think look more and more like Ian Thorpe. One day when I finally get around to taking photos, you’ll see... on different angles and when he makes certain facial expression, I swear it’s like talking to Ian Thorpe! He’s an awesome guy and really nice, lent me my blanket and pillow and currently, the laptop charger that I’m using cause I have no adaptor -_-
We just chilled the entire night and talked about alot of funny crap, then went on youtube to look up more funny stuff; thank God I’ve actually managed to make friends with the guys I’m living with!
Friday was orientation day. Magnus, the German guy I met on the first day here gave me a buzz so we ended up going to the orientation together. Orientation was good, I met a whole bunch of people, did my ‘prey on those with no friends’ trick that I love to do. Bumped into Alison the American girl I met on Wednesday as well. Afterwards, we all went for coffee, me, Magnus, Alison, her American friend Krista and Magnus’s roommate Tracy. A bunch of French Canadian girls I met during orientation had invited me out that night so I recruited the rest to meet at 9.30 that night before we parted ways and I went home to get ready for dinner with Julie, Julz’s Swiss friend.

Now Julie is fantastic! We had Mexican for dinner and she was so easy to get along with. For some reason I had the idea I was going to be meeting a replica of Julz but the two are definitely different; they do however share one thing in common. They’re both so genuinely and sincerely nice that it’s almost impossible to not love them straight up. Julie and I ended up speaking in French the entire time and somehow I managed; surprise of the century. We were suppose to go out together afterwards but ended up separating; I went off with the Canadians and a whole bunch of other exchange kids and she went to her friend’s place. We foreigners marched ourselves to a bar called Darling. I forgot how much Swiss clubs suck. Everybody smokes, so by the end of the night, you completely reek of cigarette smoke. The music’s terrible, they keep playing random songs...and the Swiss don’t dance. They just all stand on the dance floor and maybe bop their heads; me and Allison were not impressed. We needed to get the hip hop on. We ended up leaving around 1 but unfortunately we’d missed the last metro home so we had to go catch the pyjama buses: the nightlink equivalent. As fortune favours me, it seems I’m the only person whose residence is not visited by the pyjama bus. It goes everywhere... except where I live. There was no way for me to get home and I’d already turned down 2 offers of crashing on the couch, so I thought I’d take the bus with the Canadians back to their dorm and walk back to mine which was about 25mins. Then I realised I’ve only been in the country for 4 days! I don’t know how to recognise streets. I was sure that my frozen body would be found in the morning. Luckily, a guy from Paris got on the bus and needed to go my metro station so we ended up asking him for help and he agreed he’d take me to the place. When we got off the bus, we were about 20 mins by walking from where I lived. And did we walk! It was about -5 degrees and for half the time we walked alongside fields with animals...So kind of like the country. I felt like refugees escaping through the country s. Maybe not worth going clubbing in winter! I got home around 3 am, crawled into bed and slept the day away.

Got up and caught a train out to Renens where Julie picked me up with her dad and took me grocery shopping. Good old Aldi! When I went in and saw the prices of mince, I openly wept – perhaps not so badly. It was 5 bucks! I could actually afford meat again. Everything in Aldi is actually affordable... I may be able to see chicken again during my year in Switzerland. It was an occasion to celebrate!

As soon as I got home, I popped around to Kelly’s to celebrate the finding of a place where we can buy cheap meat! Hanged out there for the arvo then had Magnus and Alison over for dinner and drinks. The 3 of us are becoming a little trio, we generally do everything together. So a quick down on these new people in my life: I find Allison to be your typical American girl next door; she begs to differ. She’s got a boyfriend back home in Michigan, Ann Arbor and she’s really nice. Magnus is a hoot! Haha. It’s difficult to actually describe these people so I’m going to give up J We just ate together and then drank half a bottle of vodka whilst discussing intellectual things... maybe not.

Starting to settle in!

Second Day 11/02/09

Second day was somewhat different. After writing about the first day and eating my not so delicious cereal, I left the apartment and went to the commune police to register and get my residence permit. I unfortunately got there a bit too late (they closed for lunch break) so I ended up coming home and headed into uni to give Olivier my bank details. Outside Olivier’s office, I met a girl named Alison from America and her parrain Alan. It seems Olivier’s office is the place to meet other exchange students. We talked for awhile and Alan told me about an exchange pub where all the foreign students went on Wednesday nights to meet people. We all agreed we might make an appearance that night. After I got home, decided to pop into Kelly’s and see if she wanted to go out for lunch, being way too lazy to actually cook for myself... that and I had no food to cook. Kelly wasn’t home but I met her roommate Becky who happens to be from China and a Singaporean girl from next door; Jessica. It was an Asian congregation. Took the two of them over to mine and they met Jonas. Becky left after a bit but Jessica stayed around and we ended up chatting the arvo away and I forgot to go back and get my Residence’s Permit.
Me and Jessica ended up braving the unknown and went grocery shopping in the afternoon at Coop (Swiss equivalent of Coles, we’ve been told we should shop at Migros instead – Woolworths...It’s cheaper –figures). Neither of us knew how to cook very well so we really had no idea what we were doing and with everything being so expensive; we were trying to budget hardcore. We also had to consider getting the food home by train so the dilemma that faced us... intense! It also turns out the Swiss don’t give you bags with your grocery; either you bring your own or you buy green bags (well these weren’t green, they were red with strawberries). We both ended up buying the strawberry bags but didn’t actually buy that much food, however I am now stocked up on pasta and bread. I went a bit overspending and brought some ham and salami just because I miss meat!! Steak was obviously out of the question, 30 bucks a kilo my ass! Hate this country.

When we got back, her friends (who were also Singaporean) decided to go out for dinner so I went out with them (we were specifically warned against eating out if we wanted to have any money left). I felt like a real meal was in order; having only eaten 2 piece of toast with peanut butter and 2 bowls of cereal since I got off the plane. So 4 Asians went into town and got some Chinese food. Typical. So much for trying to avoid the Asian race in a new country; it does seem like we’re drawn to each other. And the food was so good!! Inferior compared to Sunnybank by far but when you’re that hungry, meat is just good!!! We ended up spending $15 each which isn’t too bad but obviously can’t keep that up. After dinner we decided to go to this foreign student pub by the name of Buzz. Wondered around for a good hour but never found it. And i think Jet lag hit because I just wanted to sleep so around 11 so we headed home and I got into my warm bed. Sleep was uneasy all night, kept on waking up. I don’t know why, hopefully it’ll get better soon! Woke up to a world that was snowing.

First Day and Missin' Home Already

The First day in Switzerland made me miss home so much. The Swiss lack the warm friendliness that I seemed to have taken for granted in Australians. Granted the weather here is also mind numbingly cool and midday day is so gloom, you’d think it was already 5 or 6 in the arvo. That’s of course just the first impression. It’s my second morning here and the weather outside looks fantastic; blue skies, cool breeze, picturesque. My parrain Tobias picked me up from the airport at 7 and we lugged my suitcase with the broken wheels onto a train from Geneva to Lausanne. The suitcase was 26ks but after no sleep for 30 hours and then trying to carry it on and off trains and across a big city was excruciating (damn those wheels!). We spent the morning doing errands. First we found my dorm and dumped the bag off as soon as we can (we ended up taking a taxi which cost about 15bucks for 3 minutes). My other housemates weren’t home yet so didn’t get to meet them later that night. We headed into uni to see Olivier – the exchange program coordinator. We ended up meeting two other exchange students outside his office; Tracy, another Aussie girl and her housemate Magnus who drove down from Germany. Since our mutual common language is English; all our French being a bit rusty, we ended up just talking in English. So guess these 2 were the first friends I made in Switzerland; of course and my parrain Tobias who was a great help and got most of the things I had to do done. We drank a hot chocolate with the two new kids and then parted ways. Tobias and I went back to the town centre and got me a Swiss Sim Card. Good deal, very cheap to call international for me and good texting too. We went and got an adaptor for all my electronic good from a place called Fnac. Bad idea. They only sold one that matched an Australian plug and it cost 35 Francs (it was a world adaptor so it had like everything). No choice... things needed to be charged so I bought it. Got home and it freakin’ doesn’t have the 3 hole. For those of you who know Australia plugs, we have the 2 metal pieces that are slanted at the top with 1 metal piece that is straight at the bottom (that wasn’t a very good description.) But the adaptor only had 2 holes for the 2 slanted metal pieces. This means my phone can get charged, my camera... but not my laptop which unfortunately has 3 pieces of metal!!! Feel like I just tossed 35 Francs out the window and now my laptop is about to die.
Tobias took me to a grocery store as well and the prices almost killed me. I hadn’t eaten anything all day but I decided for day one, I wouldn’t cook yet so I wanted some instant noodles. Instant noodles do not exist in Switzerland. I ended up buying cereal and milk and that was my dinner on my first day in Switzerland and today’s breakfast! Somewhat depressing and definitely missing Sunnybank.
Me and Tobias parted ways after he showed me around town and I caught the metro back to my dorm. Met one of my Swiss housemates; Jonas who’s a pretty cool guy. Coincidently he’s lived in Brisbane for a bit in Fairfield, just down the road from Kim. He showed me some shops on a map and introduced me to our apartment. The guy’s easy to talk to and a good laugh but the saddest thing I ever heard him say was, everyone cook for themselves. My dreams of meeting a housemate who’d cook for me got thrown out the window. I went back to Uni afterwards and opened a bank account and emailed home. On my way back to the dorm, a freak storm (which apparently is not so freaky and quite common here) hit and the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees. I was a frozen man walking by myself; there was no one else on the street. Made me think maybe the Swiss knew about freak storms that hit around 5 and all get indoors. That walk home made me feel so lonely. I got to admit, I miss everyone back home so much; I had so many great friends and so many people around me, why the hell did I leave all that to come here with no friends. Temporary home sickness setting in. When I got home, I unpacked then went next door to see Kelly, the other Australian girl from UQ who’d arrived a couple weeks earlier. We caught up whilst I ate my cereal dinner and she told that the first week will be so lonely until you make some friends, how true. The first night in Switzerland was actually really good, met my other housemates Robert – who apparently doesn’t talk much and has a habit of disappearing quite a lot and Jean (John) who’s this cool Swiss pride guy. He bought over his girlfriend (who happens to be Australian!) and her friends; so we all ended up having a good laugh in the living room. I actually managed to stay awake until 10pm! After the other Aussies left, I grabbed a shower and hit the sack. Kept on waking up all night and I don’t know if that’s to do with the Jet lag or what but not having slept for 48 hours prior, the sleep was absolutely beautiful to me.

Abu Dhabi International

Brisbane 6.07am – Abu Dhabi 12.07am Feb 9th

Just wandered around the airport here and now sitting outside my gate; the wait will be two hours. I forget how uncomfortable flying is; I’m two thirds down and got 7 more hours to go. On the plane my feet swelled up like melons so after I took my shoes off, trying to get them back on wasn’t too pleasant. I also remembered I forgot my French dictionary and grammar book. I knew I’d forgotten something! Ain’t it just the important stuff? I’m the only Asian waiting at this gate to Geneva! I knew it, there are no Asians in Europe!