Five years later...
Five years ago, in 2005 I went to Switzerland for three months on my first exchange program. My exchange partner Joëlle, had returned to Canada twice to visit since the exchange, but I never made it back to Switzerland...until now!
On Friday April 9, I flew into the Geneva airport where Joëlle met me. We spent the day in Geneva and saw the Red Cross Museum and then got a guided tour of the UN. It was pretty amazing to see all of the big conference rooms in the UN and learn about what types of meetings occur there. It is the biggest UN headquarters in the world. I really liked the room for conferences on Human Rights because the ceiling was so interesting; it wasn't really beautiful and I would probably find it distracting to actually have a meeting there, but it portrayed a good meaning I think. It looks different from every place in the room and so it is supposed to symbolize not being judgemental and trying to empathize with others.
Since I have been here I have gotten to eat all of my favourite Swiss foods again: fondue, raclette, fondue Bourguignonne, assiette Valaissane, apricot pie...and I got to try some new things! Snails, frogs, and horses. And all of the horse meat here actually comes from Canada, so although we don't eat horses in Canada, Canadian horses are eaten in Switzerland.
And of course Swiss chocolate! Joëlle, myself, and her parents, went to Fribourg to visit the Cailler chocolate factory - delicious!! At the end of the tour (which was kind of like a ride at Disney world) we got to sample all of the different types of chocolate, and then we were given a free chocolate bar.
The reason that I came during this time actually was to see Milow, a Belgian artist, perform at a music festival Caprices. Five years ago I went to that same music festival in the mountains of Valais to see the Servant, a British group.
I did a lot of tourist things and got to see a lot of places that I didn't get to see my last time in Switzerland (thanks to the wonderful organization of Joëlle), such as Ballenberg Museum which is a huge outdoor museum. It is like the Greenfield Village of Switzerland. There were old houses and exhibits from all over Switzerland.
I also got to see all of my friends that I hadn't seen in five years which was really nice. Joëlle and her boyfriend Loic hosted a party for everyone at their flat on Thursday. We talked, we laughed, and we played Taboo.
All in all, it was a great trip and I'm glad that it was able to be extended a little bit (due to the volcanic ash halting air traffic).
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