Snow day....at home

I just had a really nice Skype chat with Pat.  Usually, the time difference makes it pretty hard to chat during the week, but today was a snow day in Kincardine, so Pat was working from home in his finest red sweatpants and able to chat at 3pm EST.   He will be arriving in Geneva six weeks tomorrow!  (but who's counting...)

Speaking of weather, our spinning instructor was telling me tonight that last winter was really cold in Geneva. They had lots of snow and a big ice storm.  I googled it when I got home, and the pictures from the ice storm are crazy!  Cars are completely caked in ice and the trees have huge icicles.  It must have been really windy and cold for the ice to freeze like that.   I guess I got lucky this winter with the spring-like temperatures!  I am hoping that the early spring trend continues, because I would love to see the city in bloom before I leave in April!

Along the lake during last winter's ice storm. 

Last French class

Tonight was my last French class.  I have enjoyed the classes, but I am looking forward to having some free evenings, and I hope I will now actually get my school work done.  Speaking of school, I heard back today from a professor I've been trying to get hold of at Brock University.  She's interested in collaborating on a Quality Improvement in public health project (that is my MPH capstone project topic), and it looks promising.  We're going to Skype Monday evening about it.  I'll need to find more reliable internet than here at the foyer!

I didn't feel like going out in the cold rain tonight to run, so instead I tried the New York Times "7 minute workout" that my office-mate shared with me a few weeks ago.  It involved a lot of jumping, so I'm not sure my downstairs neighbour is a fan, but it was pretty challenging and not too boring.  It was also possible to do in the 2 square meters of free space I have in my room, and takes no equipment.  It took me 20 minutes, so I may have been doing it wrong.

I am signing up to race at a Masters swim meet on May 4 in Thornhill with Britt (and Aunt Colleen too, maybe?), so I need to get back into shape.  I need to rock that 200 BR and 100 IM : )

Long course

Tonight I swam long course for the first time in many years. Luckily, I have been working my way up to it with the 33.3m pool.  My regular pool is closed for two weeks of maintenance, so I hoofed it over to Vernets in between work and French class. The pool is really beautiful, but it was quite crowded (I think it's busier than normal since Varembé is closed).   There was a swim team using the other half of the pool, and it made me miss the days when I could swim that far, fast and unobstructed by flailing limbs.

Piscine de Vernets

The pool is located in the same building as the hockey rink where the Geneva Servette Hockey Club plays, so I also went to buy tickets for the game this Saturday.  There are 12 interns signed up, but I only bought 10 tickets, because I'm banking on people bailing.  I can always get more tickets, since we're in the "standing room only" section, which actually has bleachers.

Tonight was my second last French class, and there were only three people there.  We got our marked dictées back, which was interesting.  I don't think I would pass grade 12 French if I took it right now.  There was an awful lot of red pen on my page!

I signed up for a ski trip to with the Graduate Institute to Crans Montana on the weekend of March 7-8. It's a pretty good deal, including transport, ski pass, accommodation, breakfasts and dinner. One of the items I need to bring is a headlamp so we can go night snowshoeing, so I think it is going to be my kind of trip! : )

New office-mate

Mondays are always the toughest to figure out what to write about, they are usually very normal. Today, our intern cave got a new addition, another Canadian from Toronto.  She's just graduated from the Masters of Health Informatics program at U of T, and we have some mutual acquaintances in common.  It's funny how quickly the interns cycle through the WHO, after 5 weeks, I am now the one showing a new intern around!

The other girls get back from Budapest and Vienna tomorrow, so I'm sure they will have lots of interesting stories to tell.  I am spending my evening planning my own trips, and avoiding doing school work, as usual.

Happy Monday everyone!

Cheese, Chocolate and Gold!

Today was an action-packed day of road-tripping around Lake Leman.  I was nominated to drive, given my skills at driving standard and on the right side of the road, so I was at the helm of a mini-van full of seven young lady interns.

The first stop was Montreux.  We could not have had a more beautiful morning to walk along the Chemin Fleuri to the Chateau Chillion.  The fog cleared right as we arrived, the sun was shining and the sky was bright blue.

Palm trees (!?) along the Chemin Fleuri

We arrived early, so there weren't many tourists out yet.  It was so warm, that I was able to walk around in just a t-shirt and I even dipped my feet in the lake.  I have now vowed to swim in the lake at least once before I leave (which could be very cold, since I leave April 12). 

T-shirt, in February. Heck yes.

We opted out of touring the inside of the castle, on account of the 12 CHF price tag and the description from someone who'd been in that it consisted of "lots of rooms with rock walls".  We instead, admired the castle from the outside and basked in the sun for a while, before heading back along the trail to the minivan.

Not a bad spot to hang out for a while.  Very tempting to jump in.

The next stop was the Gruyeres cheese factory.  There was an hilarious audio tour, in which a cow named Cherry took you through the history of the factory and the cheese making process.  We got some cheese samples and were able to make some cheese purchases at the shop.  I wanted to buy some Gruyere double cream, but wasn't sure about leaving it unrefrigerated all day, I will have to find some later.  Interesting fact from an intern at Intellectual Property Watch, the term "Grueyere Cheese" is now protected, the same way that Champagne is, and can only be applied to a cheese that is actually made in Grueyere.

Gruyere cheese ageing.

We had to hurry on to our next stop, lunch at le Buro in the town of Bulle.  After much Internet research last night, it was the only bar I could find in the greater Gruyeres area that had a TV and may be showing the game.  Luckily, the game was on, but unluckily, they don't really serve lunch on Sundays.  We had some beers and tapas, and watched the last 2 periods of the game.  I found it entertaining to be the one explaining hockey to others, since I'm usually the one annoying people (read: Patrick) with dumb hockey hockey questions during hockey games.  Thank you to the other ladies for humouring me by adding this stop on our road trip, I don't think I could have missed this game today!  It sounds like everyone at home had a fun time watching the game over breakfast beers.  What a great end to the Olympics for Canada!

Honourary Canadian Kellie and me after the big win!

Next, we had to race to the Cailler chocolate factory in order to make the last tour at 4:00pm.  The tour was not at all what I expected. It was very "Disney", with several rooms with narrated, animated stories about the history of chocolate making and then the process of making chocolate.  The tour ended with an all-you-can eat chocolate tasting room, which you can imagine was both amazing and awful.  We started off trying to try one of every kind of chocolate, but no one made it to the end.  Advice to anyone who wants to try: bring a water bottle full of milk!

All you can eat chocolate buffet. Dangerous.

After the chocolate factory, we headed back to Gruyeres to check out the castle.  The castle and little village are built up on a hill, so there was an amazing view of the surrounding valleys.  We hiked up to the castle, watched the sun go down and hiked back down.

Sunset from the Gruyeres castle hill.

Writing all that out, I can't believe we fit all of that into one day!  There were no significant car incidents, although the reverse gear was up and to the left, which threw me off many times.  Also, I think I need to go on a no cheese or chocolate diet for the week (at least!).

CERN

This afternoon, I went with my friends Julia and Cedric with the Geneva Interns Association tour of CERN.  The public tours are booked ahead 6 months, but we were lucky to get in with some GIA members from CERN.

Our first two tour guides were really great, they were both doctorate students doing research in CERN, who volunteer to give tours on weekends.  One of them said that giving tours really helped him to think about how to explain concepts in a way the public can understand, and also helped convince himself of the importance of the work, as he explains the importance to other.  The concepts of particle physics are not exactly easy to grasp.  They did a good job of explaining things as simply as possible, but it was still a bit over my head.  It is always great to hear people speak passionately about their life's work, even if you don't really understand what they are talking about.

One thing I found striking about the CERN facilities was how outdated and rundown the buildings looked.  Apparently, when budget cuts hit, all the money is spent on the machinery and technology and the buildings aren't really a priority.  I was also surprised at how many people work at the facility.  At any given time, there are 10000 "users" of CERN, researchers and students who use the facility for their research.  That doesn't even include any of the CERN staff who maintain the machinery and run the organisation.

Particle accellerator.

Unfortunately, in the third part of the tour, the ALPHA experiment, the building was really noisy, and our tour guide was really quiet, so I didn't really hear much of his explanations. The project has something to do with studying the properties of anithydrogen, but that's about all I know.

There was a lot of tin foil...

Some of the machinery had quite a lot of tin foil, and looked like it could have been a science fair project, or perhaps even a Halloween costume, but I'm sure it is all there for a reason.

Looking for some antimatter.

This evening, I went all the way to France to get my groceries (only a 15 minute bus ride), because stores there are open until 9:00pm, instead of 5:00pm.  It's crazy to think that little Kincardine has a 24 hour grocery store, but you can't get groceries on Sundays or after 7 on weeknights here. 

Four for four :)

After a rough start to the day (I really shouldn't have eaten dinner last night, apparently my stomach was not quite ready), today actually turned out pretty well.  I had the office to myself today, so I was able to make some good progress at work today.  The up-side of having to accomplish the same task 227 times is that it's quite easy to measure progress towards being done. It reminds me of when I interviewed the Barrie chief of police about his favourite job, and he said cutting grass at Base Borden, because at the end of the day, he could always look back and see that he had accomplished something.

There is an expat website in Geneva called glocals, where people can post activities, events, ask questions etc.  It's where I found out about the running club.  Someone organised an event for Canadians to go watch the hockey game tonight, so I decided to join in.

The sun starting to set over the city.

The event was held at McSorley's pub, which is actually located inside the sports complex with the 50m pool and arena.  The bar was packed with Canadians, a few Americans and the occasional confused Britt.  There were tons of TVs that were all playing the hockey game the whole time.  It was almost like watching back home.  I met lots of new people, including some WHO staff. 

Some new Canadian friends.

I was happy to have even more mail to come home to today, this time in the form of lots of messages from friends at the TNDC bonspiel.  I also had a card and letter from Grannie and a Spain travel book to really start to plan our April trip.  I have been feeling a bit homesick this week, with the bonspiel, and news of new babies (Congrats Nick and Alycia!), and the excitement around the Games that just isn't the same here, so thank you so much for the letters this week, they have really brightened my days.

Feeling the love from home!

Go Canada(ian women) Go!

Let me tell you, being sick and not having anyone to watch the Olympics with makes me miss home so much, but I am trying to make the best of it.

I tried to go to a nearby pub to watch the women's gold medal game, but none of the 3 Swiss TV stations are showing it, so no luck!  So, I am back at home sitting at my desk streaming the brutal RTS feed "sans commentaire", but at least I can watch the game.  The ladies are down 2-1 right now, but there's still some time. It is getting too stressful to watch!

EDIT:  Good lord, that was exciting!  My streaming got behind, so I kept seeing spoilers on facebook before they happened on my screen.  Way to go Team Canada, and congrats to the Swiss team on a surprise bronze medal!  Hopefully the depth in this sport will continue to improve.   Also, I found some new friends to watch tomorrow night's game with, horray!

I listened to some of the women's curling game while at work today.  It seemed like a bit of an anti-climatic win, but good on Jennifer Jones and team on winning gold and going undefeated throughout the whole bonspiel!

I brought this jersey all the way here, so I am going to wear it, even if I am home alone.

Internfluenza

I still wasn't feeling great today, but I went to work after a bit of a sleep in.  My two office-mates were worried about me, since I never arrive after 9:00am.  I guess I'm pretty accustomed to a non-flexible work schedule : P.  So many interns are sick, that people have taken to calling it "internfluenza".

Tonight at French Class, we played taboo, it was great fun!  I really appreciate the enthousiasm of our instructor and the effort she puts into putting the class together.  We do a lot of "role playing" (Alyica would HATE it), where we practice dialogue based on a particular scenario.  It can be kind of awkward, but it gets you outside of your comfort zone of only talking about things you know. 

One scenario was deciding how to re-arrange furniture in an apartement.  My character was supposedly interested in Feng Shui, and the other character wanted to have all the furniture on one side of the room to be able to practice dance.  I couldn't stop laughing, since my partner was this very serious Finnish guy who I really couldn't picture being really into dancing.   He is also the only person I have met so far in Geneva who cares at all about hockey.

Speaking of hockey, things are getting pretty exciting at the Olympics.  I am going to skip spinning to watch the women's gold medal game tomorrow night and try to catch the men's semi-final on Friday with some other Canadians at a glocals event.

Sick Tuesday

I didn't write an entry for Tuesday, because I was too exhausted to even turn on my computer when I got home.  I seem to have come down with the "intern bug", that about half the WHO interns seem to be afflicted with at the moment.  I got home from work at 5:30, slept until the last minute to make it to my 8:00 French class, and went right back to sleep. 

I had a really good meeting over coffee with Nicole on Tuesday morning (before I started to feel ill).  She dropped into my office to say that she "wanted to discuss timelines and how my internship had been progressing", and my office-mates thought it sounded very ominous. It turns out she just wanted to see how she can best suport me and how we can make sure to wrap up the project before I leave on April 11.  We also made some plans for if we are ahead of schedule, or if I may want to continue working on the project after the internship is done.  We also chatted about her experiences as an intern at WHO and becoming a consultant.  It's great to have a mentor who has been in such a similar situation.

Mail!

I have been lucky lately to get some mail from home in the last week.  I love getting mail : )

I received a valentines day card from Mom and Dad that was full of cinnamon hearts.  I didn't realise that they were loose in the envelope when I opened it, so they burst all over the place.  I still ate them, of course.  The letter also contained some decorations for St. Patrick's Day, so I am well prepared for March. 

Pat has been sending me his "paper blog" of his daily activities, which is entertaining.  It reminds me of Creed's Thoughts from the Office. He also has forwarded me some invitations and things from home, which are nice to recieve.

I also received a letter from Barb, which was a really great surprise!  She filled me in on what's happening at the Health Unit, which was much appreciated.

I need to get to work to send my replies, I think I will spend some time at lunch tomorrow writing some letters.

International Potluck

This morning, I woke up to a Skype call with the TNDC curling bonspeil after-party.  It was good to see some of the gang, and to know that the bonspiel went smoothly.   I'm impressed at how late you guys stayed up after a long day, I hope you all got to sleep in this morning!

After chatting, I got to work trying to bake Nanaimo Bars for the international potluck.  It was pretty challenging without any measuring cups, mixing bowls or a real oven, but I think they turned out OK.

Making a mess of the common room.

The potluck went really well this evening, we had about 16 people show up and 6 people paid instead of bringing food, so we raised 60 CHF for the intern scholarship fund.  The intern board is trying to raise money for a fund to sponsor a WHO intern from a low and middle income country who would not otherwise have the chance to come to Geneva.  It's hard for a bunch of unwaged, mostly young students to raise a lot of money, so every little bit helps.  The spread at the potluck was pretty impressive, with Japanese octopus balls (I can't remember the real name), Swedish mud cake, Dutch pancakes, a northeastern Chinese mushroom dish and lots of other food to try.  I am very full, again. We watched the Olympics and chatted for a few hours. It was much better than eating alone at home!  I think I'll try to organise a potluck every couple of weeks if possible.

Lausanne

Two words to sum up my day:  Olympics and Cheese.  Anyone who has ever met me will know that I was one happy camper!

I took the train this morning to Lausanne to visit the Olympics Museum.  I arrived early to be able to see the museum and the city, but I ended up spending 7 hours at the museum instead!  The mountains are much closer to the lake in Lausanne than in Geneva, so the skyline is quite stunning.

Morning view over Lac Leman from Lausanne.

The museum was one of the best that I have ever been to.  I'm clearly very interested in the subject matter, but the exhibits were also very well set up. I think my favourite part were the videos they had for each Olympic Games detailing the historical and social climate at the time. They also had many interactive displays, sort of like those at the Ontario Science Centre sports exhibits.  There was also a special exhibit about the Sochi Games, a Russian cultural exhibition, and they were showing the events live all day on the big screen.

The Olympic Museum!

The first flag using the Olympic Rings

At the museum, I ran in to a group of WHO interns on their way back from Montreux.  They had an extra space in the car and were heading back to Geneva for fondue, so I hitched a ride with them. 

The Brazilians love fondue.

We went to Cafe du Soleil, which claims to have the best fondue in Geneva.  It was pretty amazing, I don't think I've ever eaten so much cheese in one sitting. To top it off, we of course had MORE cheese for dessert.  I wasn't so sure about this one, but man was it good!  As Gabriel put it, "I am going to sleep like a fat baby tonight."

Before picture of the merangues a la Gueyere double cream.

After we got at it.

Valentines Day

Today was a good day!  Helena came to visit us this morning and brought chocolates!  She is very sweet, and I love her Korean-Australian accent.

I had the office to myself this afternoon, and I was able to get lots done.  I met with Nicole and it seems like we are both on the same page with this full text review, which is excellent since we have to review 75 studies together.

I had tea with Sarah, a fellow WHO intern and foyer resident tonight.  She is going skiing this weekend, so she is going to borrow my ski gear.  It's really great to have someone to chat with and to be able to get to know her better.

Tonight I watched some hockey and figure skating on Swiss TV.  I get really nervous watching the Canadian athletes compete.  It's a strange feeling, having nervous energy but not actually racing.  I am really missing the energy of being at the Games in Vancouver.  It's just not the same watching on my laptop as on the big screen at Saskatchewan House.  Tomorrow I am going to the Olympics Museum in Lausanne, and they will be showing the events live from Sochi, so I'm hoping to get a bit of that experience there.

Olympic valentine :)

Vistors Day

I'm a bit behind, since my computer decided to stop working last night, but I wanted to write every day, so I will still do a Thursday entry.   I am proud of myself for fixing my computer, I was able to do a system restore all by myself, and it seems to have worked!  Woohoo!

Thursday was the day of family visits at my intern cave at the WHO.  Rachel's Mom was visiting from New York, on route to a wedding in Israel, and Eleni's boyfriend was also visiting from the US.  It didn't make for a very productive day,  but it was great to learn more about Eleni and Rachel's lives back home. Eleni's boyfriend used to be a swimmer, so we had lots to chat about.  He's a PhD student in computer science, and I think he should enter a 3 minute thesis contest, because he was able to explain his research in a way I actually understood.

Nations by night.

I stayed later at work to go to spin class, and walked home past the Palais des Nations lit up and with flags flying. 

Wine and cheese

This afternoon at work, the cluster I work in had a little snacks and drinks party/ "meeting".  I still can't wrap my head around the idea of having wine at work, but I sure did eat a lot of cheese, and other treats!  The WHO headquarters organisational structure is impossibly complicated and acronym-laden.  After nearly 4 weeks, I still can't tell someone the name of my cluster, department and group without looking it up.

My cluster is Health Systems and Innovation (HIS), department is Health Statistics and Information Systems (HSI), and group is Surveys, Measurement and Analysis (SMA).  I usually just tell people I work in "health equity monitoring", because that is my project and what my supervisor and his staff mostly work on, but that isn't even a real department.

I have been watching some Olympics events this evening, catching up on the women's hockey win against the US and Denny Morrison's silver in the 1000m.  I've got to say that long track speed skating looks like such an incredibly painful sport.  You can really see the athletes suffering on the last lap and some just seem to hit a wall around the last curve.  That's why I found Denny Morrison's performance so impressive, he looked so solid right to the end.  I'm still working on figuring out how to stream Canadian coverage, but at least I was able to watch today on RTS (the French Swiss station) and not in Swiss-German!

(very copyrighted picture that is not mine) Go Canada Go!

French class was much better tonight, we debated the pro-EU Ukrainian protests, a topic I know at least a little bit about.  I also had a coffee before class so I wasn't so sleepy.

8th floor views

Mont Blanc in the distance

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and since my office has no windows, I took some time this afternoon for a coffee on the 8th floor terrace.  It was warm enough outside to be out without a jacket.  The views are pretty spectacular when you can see the mountains.  WHO is up on a hill, so the view is better than 8 floors would normally give.

La Saleve

French class was tough tonight.   We had a debate on the recently passed referendum on limiting Swiss immigration.  I haven't been reading much news since I've been here, and when I do, I read the Star or the CBC online, so I am really quite ill-informed about Swiss politics.  That, combined with my sleepiness from yesterday's night bus and general lack of French skills made for a pretty sad debate performance.  The Swiss system of participatory democracy really is quite fascinating, I really should "do my homework" and read up on Sunday's votes.

OK, after 10 minutes of reading, the vote was on whether Switzerland should put immigration quotas in place for European immigrants.  It was proposed by the very right-wing Swiss People's Party, and no one predicted that it would pass, but the "Yes" side won by 50.3% to 49.7%.  The country was quite divided, with the French speaking cantons and Zurich voting "No", the Italian speaking region and most of the rural Swiss-German cantons voting "Yes".  It's unclear at this point exactly what the consequences of this vote will be because, the Swiss government now has to re-negotiate the freedom of movement agreements with the EU. 

Sleepy Monday

The bus station is only about 500m from my place, so when my bus arrived at 5:30am, I was able to go home for a couple hours of sleep before going to work.


Surprisingly, I wasn't too tired at work today.  I'm moving on to the next phase of my project, so now I have the pleasure of reviewing 150 articles in full text.  It is actually pretty interesting, since the topics are so varied.  Today some of the topics I can remember were access to radiation therapy in Atlanta, infant mortality in Indian states and access to grocery stores and recreation facilities in Appalachia.

Tonight, I even made it to running club in the rain.  I ran with a British doctor who just started at WHO last week.

I'm going to quickly try to catch up with what I missed at the Olympics this weekend and read about the ladies bringing the OUA banner back to Toronto (damn right!), and then hit the sack!

Sunday in Paris

Sunday morning, Laurie and I slept in a bit and had a relaxing morning of eating croissants, drinking coffee and watching a bit of Olympics coverage.  At lunchtime, we hopped on the Metro and headed to Chinatown to see the New Year parade.  Laurie is the master of the Paris Metro.  I think I have now officially celebrated Chinese New Year more than any other holiday.   We had lunch at a Thai restaurant, and I had morning glory with rice, yum!

Chinese new year parade

After lunch, we watched the parade for a while, then Laurie headed home to finish up her project and for some much-deserved relaxation.  I kept on exploring on foot.  I went to the Eiffel tower, walked along the Seine and across to Champs d'Elysees and l'Arc de Triomphe.

The Eiffel tower...in case you didn't know what this is...

On recommendation from my absurdly large France Lonely Planet Guide, I went and got a macaron at Ladurée.  I lined up for about 20 minutes to purchase a single salted caramel macaron.  It was worth it!  Although, Carly's that she made for the cookie exchange were pretty darn good too.  I will have to get lessons when I get home.

Arc de Triomphe

I still had a lot of time until my night bus, so I kept wandering around the city.  I stopped for dinner at a place near the Gare d'Est and made my way over to the Canal St. Martin.  I remembered the canal from the movie Amelie, so I wanted to check it out.  It was very quite and peaceful there at night.

Canal St Martin

My bus left Paris at 11:00pm and arrive back in Geneva early at about 5:30am.  I had two seats to myself on the bus, so I was able to get some sleep.  What a great weekend! 

Saturday in Paris!

I didn't take my laptop to Paris with me, so I am a few days behind on blogging, but now I have lots of interesting pictures and stories to write about!

I left Geneva on an early high-speed train and was in Paris in time to meet Laurie for morning coffee.  I was very lucky not only to get to see an old friend from Major Street, but also to have such a knowledgeable guide who is not only Parisian, but also an urban planner.

My lovely host for the weekend :)

Laurie took me around Montmartre and through some other Paris neighbourhoods, including where she used to live while in University.  We went for lunch a cute little vegetarian burger place, where Laurie saved the day by turning the breaker when the power went out. 

After lunch, Laurie had some work to do, so I went exploring on my own for a bit. I walked to the Louvre, along the Seine to Notre Dame and through the Latin Quarter.  I didn't have enough time to go into any museums, but I did tour through Notre Dame. 

The Louvre.

The weather was kind of strange this weekend, it would be rainy for a half hour or so, then blue sky would come out and, then it would be back to rain.

Awkward tourist pose in the gardens by the Louvre.

I got an amazing crepe with Nutella from a stall in the Latin Quarter and confirmed to myself why I should never ever be left along with a jar of Nutella.  

Notre Dame

I was surprised how many tourists were out and about on a rainy Saturday in February.  I can't imagine how busy things must get on a sunny summer weekend.

Here comes the rain...

As I was walking back to the train station to meet back up with Laurie, I got caught in a bit of a downpour.  Luckily, Laurie had lent me her umbrella for the afternoon.  I almost lost it in a gust of wind, but it protected me from the worst of the rain.  When the mini-storm cleared, I was treated to a beautiful rainbow near city hall. 

After the rain

In the evening, we went to a housewarming party at a friend of Laurie's.  She had also done an exchange in Toronto at York Glendon Campus.  It was great to meet some of Laurie's friends and to have a chance to practice my French a bit.  I was pretty lost in some of the group discussions, but I think I was able to manage OK in one-on-one conversations. 

We ended up spending the night at Laurie's friend Marie's place in one of the closer suburbs to Paris.  Marie had visited Laurie in Toronto for a couple of weeks, and we all went to New College Grad formal together at Ontario Place.  Marie was out of town for the weekend, but I really appreciate her hospitality :)

Parfums de Beyrouth

It's Friday, which means interns dinner out.  This week we went to Parfums de Beyrouth, a Lebanese restauraunt, that some claim has better food than in Lebanon.  Having never been to Lebanon, I can't confirm this, but the falafel was pretty amazing.  Plus, it was only 7 francs, an amazing deal... for Geneva.  "...for Geneva" is something I'm getting used to hearing after anyone mentioning that something is a good price.

Some of the group at dinner.

Today was a great day at work, I was able to meet with my supervisor to go over the work that I've done so far.  I think I'm making pretty good progress, but it is still going to be a lot to get done before I leave.  The time is flying, only 9 more weeks left to go! 

I'm off to Paris early tomorrow morning, so I am going to try to get to bed soon.  If anyone knows how I can stream cbc from Switzerland, please let me know.  I need to watch some Olympics coverage, but it all seems to be blocked here.  Go Canada Go!

Happy new year.... again

So, I have now celebrated the lunar new year 3 times! Tonight we had a lovely dinner in the foyer to celebrate one more time.  There were spring rolls, fried rice, wontons, yum! Therese, the secretary at the foyer made all the food, and Olga decorated, it was very cute!  It really felt like a family dinner, which is especially nice when all of us are away from home.

What a beautiful morning!

I skipped swimming this morning, and was treated to a beautiful sunny walk to work.  Instead, I went to spin class after work in the basement.  I'm really enjoying the spinning classes, and the instructor works us really hard.  Maybe I'll be a better cyclist this summer!  The instructors for the intern classes volunteer their time, so I really appreciate it.

Some of the girls in the common room, sharing dinner.

I have been checking out results from OUAs happening this weekend at Brock, it is really hard to believe that it has been 5 years since I last swam at OUAs!  The times are getting so fast! I'll be cheering from a distance, go Blues!!

French class day 2

I started today off on the wrong foot, with a bit of rec swim rage at lane swim this morning.  It may be my French, but I though that "nage sportive" meant at least moving forwards, *deep breath*.  Maybe tomorrow, I'll just roll with it and do feet first sculling for an entire workout.

Tonight was day 2 of my GIA French classes.  We moved on from winter holidays to food and cooking scenarios. It is pretty awkward to have to play out the scenarios in front of the class, I've never been a good actress.

I'm going to get to bed early tonight to rest up for my trip to Paris this weekend!

Français!

Today, I started my French classes!  It really felt like being back in elementary school, since we started with the question, "how did you spend your winter vacation?".  It was a good way to start and get comfortable.  By the end of the class we were talking about the referendum on payment for abortions and on immigration that is happening this weekend in Switzerland, so I think our conversations did progress.  It's a small group, only 6 of us and our instructor.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the classes.

The classes are on the other side of the river, and it is a really beautiful walk along the river at night.  I didn't bring my camera, so I stole this picture from the Internet to share.

Geneva skyline at night.

At work, I am nearing the end of my list of 872 abstracts to review, and it looks like I'll have around 200 papers to review in full text.  Nicole and I are going to split those, so it should be more manageable.  It's actually really nice to only have one project to focus on.  I thought it would be really boring to spend 8 hours a day working on the same thing, but I find I am able to focus better and get more done, as compared to my job at the HCHU where I am always working on a bunch of projects at once.  It may also be that this is a topic that I know little about, so I am learning a lot as I go.

Regular Monday

I'm not really sure what to write about today, it was a pretty normal Monday.  I went swimming, went to work, went to spinning class and came home.  I'll try to do something more exciting tomorrow to write about!

Almost went to Callier chocolate factory.

Today, I woke up early for a Skype chat with Patrick, then headed to the airport to meet up with some friends for a road-trip to Gruyere and Montreux.  Unfortunately, there was a mistake in the reservation, and it was accidentally made for February 23, not February 2.  We could have booked a car today, but they were going to charge us 300 CHF, plus gas and insurance, so we declined.  We're going to try again for the trip in 3 weeks on the 23rd. 

View of the Cathedral from the museum.

Instead, we went to the old city to the Museum of the Reformation.  It was in a cool old building, and made me realize how very little I know about European history. There was a special exhibit on about the carictures and satire of the church from the 16th to 18th centuries.  We were able to get a museum passport that gets us into 7 museums in Geneva for only 20 francs.

Afterwards, we went for lunch at a nice Vietnamese restauraunt.  It was tough to pay 17 francs for something that would have cost less than a dollar in Vietnam, but the food was tasty and the conversation was interesting.  Laura Armstrong would love it here, so many public health nerds to chat with!

Courtyard at the Museum of the Reformation

Back at the foyer, Olga, the lady who takes care of the building had made crepes for all the residents.  It was nice to have a chance to meet some of the other women who live here and share some tea and crepes (with Nutella, yum!).  I had a chance to practice my French, and also to translate a bit for my friend Sarah from Mississauga who doesn't speak much French.

February

This morning, I got up and went for a run with the Geneva run club.  I was half way between the fast group and the slow group and ended up getting a bit lost, but I eventually found my way back.  The lake is a great landmark to orient yourself.  The rest of the day I spent finishing up a paper for school and doing regular housework things. I made fajitas for dinner tonight, Pat's specialty!

Path along Lac Leman at sunset.

It's hard to believe that I have already been away for 3 weeks.  The time has been going by much more quickly since I have started working. My weekends are already starting to fill up for the next two months.  I booked my tickets to Paris and London today!  I miss Pat a lot, but I think the next 10 weeks will fly by, until we can start our European adventure together.

Flowers in February!? This is not winter.