Another Week

On Monday all the students in my grade went to Fribourg on the train. We had the first one and a half hours of classes and then the second hour teachers walked with us to the train station. After they saw us off (probably to make sure no one went home instead) and the twenty minute train ride we got to Fribourg.. Bérénice, Andréanne, and I were going to see Spanish and Art in the afternoon, so we had the whole morning free. We went to a department store to get fabric for Andréanne who is making a cape as part of her Carnaval costume, then looked around at the other costumes they were selling (very much like a Halloween costume display in the US, except less spiders and witches) and picked up some small items for Bérénice.

Afterward we went to the Migros Restaurant.. here in Switzerland the two main supermarkets are calls Migros and Coop. Both of them have restaurants in larger places (shopping centers in bigger cities.) Usually the restaurant is on the top floor of the shopping center while the supermarket part is in the basement. "Restaurant" isn't exactly the right word though.. think IKEA cafeteria. It's exactly the same concept except there is usually more choice, such as a pasta selection and a menu where the food is made when it's requested. And usually there is a portion where the food is priced by weight or by plate size. I ate a sausage with onion sauce, french fries, and some green vegetable that was a bit like broccoli but I had never seen it before. It was good.. I will definitely miss Swiss food.

After eating and sitting in the Restaurant Migros for a really long time talking since the meeting was scheduled around 13h50, we went to the collège. It was pretty funny- neither Bérénice or Andréanne knew how to get there, or to the Migros, and so they counted on me to guide them. I had visited both places before (with language school at the start of the year) so I knew where to go. On the way up the hill to the collège I crossed my exhange friend, Fernando from Paraguay, and we talked for a few minutes. We were very nearly late for the Art meeting though.. in the building where we went, the first two floors were all connected to each other, and there were several staircases between the first, second, and third floors. However each staircase (stone spiral staircase, I might add.. the part of the school we were in was built in 1660) led up to a different third floor room, and they didn't connect to each other. Does that make any sense? Hopefully it does. So anyway, we took the wrong staircase twice, but luckily we were just in time for the meeting in an attic-ish art room on the top floor. Basically the teacher just described what the students who choose art as there options do for their three years of school there, and then we saw a short film made by previous students.

After that was the meeting for the Spanish option. We found the room fine, and then waited around for the teacher to be ready. She was quite strange and I had a bit of trouble understanding her because she mumbled and had a Spanish accent. But basically she said she didn't know what to tell us and that she didn't know why they gave us a day off of school to "ask questions" about the options since no one ever asked any. She's perfectly right too, no one really learned anything in our day off.

We went to the Fribourg shopping center after the Spanish meeting and ate crêpes with Nutella because we still had some time left. And then afterward we came back to Romont on the train and got home around five.

The rest of the school week was standard.. On Wednesday in art class we worked on our drawings of observation of wine bottles, which was challenging but enjoyable. On Thursday we had a Chemistry test that I THINK I did okay on but there were a lot of problems in a short period of time so I didn't really get time to check answers or anything. In geography we are learning a bit about the different types of geography (human, urban, transportation, etc..) and that is pretty interesting.

Yesterday was Saturday and I didn't really do anything during the day. I cleaned my room again. Seriously, I'm going Swiss. In the evening we went to the Soirée de Gym in my village which was.. sort of lame. But everyone thought so, including Andréanne and Béatrice, who were in it. They say it's the worst one they've ever been in. But it was enjoyable watching my host mom's routine (a somewhat modern dance to Swiss alpine music in which there were a bunch of guys aged 50 and up wearing ridiculous red pants) and my host sister's jump rope routine. After they set up tables in the gym and we drank some coffee. Mine had caffeine in it so I didn't get to sleep until around two in the morning.

And then of course this morning I couldn't sleep in for some reason.. I woke up around nine. My host family left soon after to go to church, and then I took pictures of our kitchen to show you all what typical foods I eat here (see next post.) For lunch we went to the village restaurant with José and Tata since it's Nicolas's birthday next Saturday and we wanted to celebrate. Everyone except Andréanne ordered the same thing, l'entrecôte (rib-eye steak) which was served with a sort of thyme and mustard sauce, cooked vegetables, and pommes allumettes (French fries that are thinner than usual- "allumettes" is the French word for matches.. though they aren't that skinny.)

And now, I'm going to go take a walk outside since the sun is shining and it's supposed to snow- AGAIN- tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Il faut profiter du soleil!