A Journey of a Lifetime: Crossing the Pond: Geneva, Switzerland!

Hooray! New country! But it was no small feat to get here! Our original flight wasn't going to leave until 9:45pm monday night, so it was already going to be a late night, but then our flight was delayed until 1:15 am. At first, we were upset, but then many of us either looked at it as extra sleep time or a time to get to know someone outside of normal time. Me and 7 other girls decided that it was girls night, so with our meal voucher from the airport, we went to the nice restaurant in the terminal and had a lovely italian dinner and great conversation! After that, everyone was pretty much just hanging at our gate. When the time came, we got on the plane, settled in and most of us (including myself) knocked out until we were woken up for breakfast at the end of the flight 7 hrs later. Once we landed we were rushed through the London airport in order to make our connection, then it was a 2 hr flight over to our final destination: Geneva!

Check out those Alps! Our last few moments in Atlanta!

Yolanda(The Netherlands) and Anna(CO) were my flight buddies to London! We had a great time sleeping together

At our pick-up location we were greeted with traditional Swiss horn players which was beautiful and very different. This week I was hosted with Amilee from New Jersey who is one of my closer friends here, so it was very exciting! My family was amazing. I was living with a single older lady named Monique who spoke the sweetest French, but also spoke English. Her daughter Viviane is an UWP alumni who wanted to host but just didn't have the room, so we were kind of co-hosted. Viviane lived in Colorado for 7 years after she traveled and her daughter was even born in CO, so she requested to have a Coloradan! I felt so special. Her daughter Iris is 12 and acted as an awesome translator when her mom wasn't around at times. She also has a baby Chloe who is a bundle of energy! They brought Amilee and I home to a wonderful late dinner of fresh bread, homemade soup and some kind of meat pie. I knew I'd love Europe!

Wednesday was a very stressful day because we had a show right after all our flying. Energy was low at the beginning of the day, but rehersal was awesome and the show was even better! The audience was not what we expected, so that was great!

Monique, Iris, Viviane and Amilee after the first show :)

This was actually in Statesboro, but I forgot to get a roommate picture!

Thursday was another awesome show. Since we have made a country transition, we added a song from Switzerland called "I'd Sing For You" by Bastian Baker a Swiss singer. It's such a cute song! Look it up if you have time :)

Friday was a Regional Learning day/Class day. The first half of the day, some of us got sent on the train (my first train ride!) in small groups to do a scavenger hunt-type thing of places, but my group gave up pretty quickly and just explored the city on our own. I love Geneva and would love to go back! Then that afternoon we had class. Amilee left to visit friends, so for the weekend I was alone, but it was just fine because Monique was great!

Tara(CO) at la Lac de Monde

How we get on a train....

Larissa(NH) by the lake

Saturday was class again for half of the day, then we had an interesting workshop on values and how people ranked things like family, freedom, health, equality, etc. It was so interesting to see how gender, culture, country and any other factors played into the ranking that students had. That night I went over to Viviane's house and spent time with her and a friend just talking and having a good night. We watched "The Voice" French style. I didn't understand I word of it, but my favorite French artist, Garou, was a judge, so I was still entertained!

Sunday was host family day and it was great! We went to this cute little restaurant that translated to "My Cousin's House". I had a whole baby chicken to myself and tried European apple juice, which is like American sparkling cider. Then that evening Monique took Iris and I to the Swiss circus, which was amazing! It was like a simple Cirque du Soleil! I was so amazed the whole time. This family was so great to me, and I really do think I'm going to love Switzerland and the rest of Europe! Next, off to a German-speaking city in Switzerland.

My host sister Iris