Genève (if you're local)

Hooray for Switzerland! We spent the first few days in Geneva and it was wonderful. Rainy, but wonderful. We staying in a hostel, which was actually pretty nice. It was like being in Lee all over again. Ah freshman dorms.

The first day was a bit of a blur thanks to jet lag. We had orientation in the mornings, tours and exploring in the afternoon, and then passing out at 9 PM and waking up at 3 AM. Still, it was very fun. Although when I took the oral portion of the French placement exam I couldn't remember how to conjugate verbs in the past tense (even though I review verb tenses earlier)... awkward. So I just tried to use sentences that only used imparfait. Wooooow. SOMEONE'S a little rusty.

We went out for our last night in Geneva because we were relatively well adjusted to the time difference at that point and, well, it was our last night in Geneva. All 28 of us crammed ourselves into a very crowded and very entertaining bar. I would love to say we were super suave and blended right into the scene, but that would a downright and really terrible lie. We stuck out like American students who were studying abroad. Whether it was due to local's low expectations, people being super friendly, or my general inexperience with bars the other people were happy to talk to us and answer our questions about Switzerland. And they put up with my butchered French, which was very nice of them.

Well, this has been a rather dry and rambling post. My excuse is I'm tired. We moved in with our home stay families today (more on that later) and the traveling as well as the new setting has all been very exciting. Do you realize how much concentration is required to have the simplest conversations?  Very little. You don't even think about it. Do you realize how much concentration is required to have the simplest conversation in French with people who are fluent (and speak very quickly, I might add)? Because I had no idea. Good grief, every little thing has to be painstakingly processed in order to understand. Gives me a good idea of how well I know certain aspects of French, which is not very well. It's exhausting. Mentally. Makes my brain hurt.