Moi, Je Suis Fatigué

Sorry about my last post's quote completely disappearing. In French quotations are two << >> marks on the side of the quote.. but of course my American blog thought I was trying to write something in code. What he did say was ``Are you Ruth?``

So yesterday was a long long day. PA took me driving around the area. He showed me the bus stop in my village, the train station in Villaz-St-Pierre (the nearest stop), and the one in Romont. We drove around Romont and it is great. It was built on a hill and there are a lot of old buildings and a church. He told me that you can tell when you are in a new village if you see a new steeple because every village has a chapel. And honestly, there is no other way to tell because all the villages run into the others.

At the station in Romont I had a passport picture taken and got some train passes. One was paid for by AFS and I think it gives me a half price fare anywhere in Switzerland but maybe only for a month (it was pretty confusing..) so I can get to orientation or other AFS events. Actually it might be good for the whole year because they are going to send me a card with my picture on it in the mail. I'm not sure. The other ticket was one that will take me from Villaz-St-Pierre to Fribourg for language school.

After getting my train information (sort of) figured out we headed to PA's mom's house. Two of his sisters live in the same cluster of houses, which used to be a farm. At the house there were 3 little girls awake and one taking a nap. We hung out for a few hours and two of his sisters dropped by. One of them had a 3 month old (girl) baby, the other was the mother of the sleeping one. It was a little overwhelming but fun too. I think all the kids were afraid of me except the newborn and the oldest, who was around eight.

Then we headed home to take the dog Lucky on a walk. There are sheep here but I'm not sure if Lucky rounds them up or not. There are also cows. Everywhere. I can hear them mooing outside my window.

Afterwards PA took me to Fribourg. We drove around and he showed me a lot of the schools here. There is a big university as well as many high schools and private schools. Fribourg isn't big compared to Minneapolis, but it's really nice. It has every sort of store I might need or want, and it's très chic. We got out to walk around and PA showed me the train station so I would know where to meet the other AFSers for language school tomorrow. Then we ate kebab which is not what we think of in America. It was actually more like a gyro but they use veal instead of lamb..and called it Dürüm.. and it was quite delicious. And I tried Rivella. It's this Swiss boisson gazeuse that tastes sort of like Smarties candy but I actually liked it. I looked at the ingredients and it said something about milk. Yes, it is derived from milk yet tastes a little like Smarties. In fact I just looked it up and it is made from milk plasma. Hum. I am not sure if I liked it or not but I guess I would try it again.

Since Jess was hosting some kind of bachelorette party for one of her friends, PA and I needed to hang around Fribourg. We went to see Le Chevalier Noir at the local theatre with Laura (Jess's 18 year old sister) and her boyfriend. I had already seen the movie but this was good because it was dubbed in French and I would have been completely lost otherwise. Then we drove home and went to bed.. and that was my day.

Some things I have noticed here...
- It is cold compared to Minneapolis at this time of year. I am freezing because I went from 90F to maybe 50F or 60F. There was frost on the grass when I looked out the window this morning. I am now a convert to slippers.
- There are flies everywhere!
- Everything is way more expensive. I mean I know that's to be expected but it makes me feel stingy, haha. For instance, a Dürüm is 8 Fr, a Big Mac meal at McDo is 12 Fr, 4 liters of milk (a tiny bit more than 1 gallon) is 5.5 Fr. The cheapest alarm clock (smaller than the palm of my hand, analog, with just a beeper) was 5 or 6 Fr.
- The cartons are weird here. They look like the ones soymilk comes in but you have to open the side.
- Milk isn't refrigerated until you open it, and it's 3.5% fat