Overdue and Fondue

Coming abroad has been like some crazy crash course in living. Nearly every day is about dealing with the unexpected with all the excitement and unpleasantness that it entails. I have been hesitant to post recently because I'm not sure what it has all meant. But I think I'm about overdue now



My past weekend, I went hiking around Lac du Bourget with a group called HASH. It's a neat international group that does runs and walks together irreverent of everything but camaraderie. I was invited by Louise, my mentor, and her friend Deidre. True to Geneva form, it was a group of all kinds of characters and nationalities. Unfortunately the walk was a lot more strenuous than planned, and we ended up barely finishing the trail in time. Somewhere along the way I rolled my ankle, and I'm paying for it this week. The views were undisputably spectacular though. The trail followed the curve of the lake and every so often we would hit a clearing right on a cliff overlooking the lake. If it's possible to overdose on pretty scenery, that's what I did. After a while I was like..."Oh here's another nice view. It looks much like the last one."



Sunday I spent a lovely day with my co-worker and friend Nejma, husband Peter and their 4-year old son, Karim (an unending source of entertainment for me). Since my foot was out of action, the family took me on a train to see the alps and mountain animals. Switzerland has got this outdoor thing down pat. They've started building Mongolian-style tents on the top of mountains, so that families can stay the night in them bed & breakfast style. You go up to the top of the mountain and you see pregnant women, 4-month old babies, grandpas...everybody! My favorite thing to see on the green hills was a flock of sheep being kept in by sheepdogs. They were so far away that they looked like a bunch of white beads being repelled by the black magnet sheepdog. It was still hot when we got back down, so we went to cool off by swimming in the lake! There's something exciting about swimming in a big expanse of water...but I get scared after a while and don't swim out too far. ^^



Then it was back to the work week. Patrice, one of the guys from church, invited all the new visitors to experience fondue yesterday evening. After all the hype, I still found fondue really interesting. People say it stinks and you won't like it, but I didn't think it was bad at all. Basically fondue is a pot of melted cheese and Kirsch which you dip your bread in and eat. It's cool how the cheese cools off the minute you pull your bread out of the pot. I'm not big on cheese, and it's not the most healthy meal. But it's essentially bread and cheese; the same concept as pizza, nachos and a lot of sandwiches. Afterwards we had a bunch of fruits for dessert to feel healthy again.