Saturday, September 28, 2013

Quick Update

Just a quick update! I had every intention of writing a post about my last couple of weeks touring UN agencies and going to cow festivals (okay, one cow festival) but I ran out of time this weekend and I'm leaving for Morocco tomorrow! I won't have a lot of access to wifi while I'm there so no updates until I return to Switzerland in two weeks. Hopefully your not shattered by this news, but if you can hold on for just a bit longer I promise two jam-packed-study-abroad-adventure posts the weekend I get back.

Until October,
Mary

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Lucerne, Bern, and Bears

Sorry I haven't written in so long, I've been incredibly busy (and a little lazy during my free time). I can't believe here I've already been here a month, surprisingly enough I've gotten into a pretty regular routine. I've also had the chance to explore some cities in the German part of Switzerland, which is fantastic. It is strange how different the Swiss French and the Swiss German cultures are. I just got back from a weekend trip to Lucerne and Interlaken, both are very cool cities with incredible views. I don't think I've been to a place in Switzerland yet where you're more than 40 km away from a mountain at any point in time. I'll tell you more about the trip in a moment, but first I have should probably write about the last 2 weeks of my life.

View from the scenic train in Lucerne 
Our second week lecture topic was migration. We started the week off by watching a movie called "Vol Spécial" followed by a discussion with the director of the movie, Fernand Melgar. It is set in a detention center in Geneva and follows the lives of the undocumented migrants whose applications for political asylum were denied, as they wait to be sent home. While the detention center is one of the nicest in the world, the men are locked up for years at a time, unable to leave or work and living under strict curfews within the center. Some of them were unaware that they were in the country illegally. Eventually, since most of the men refuse to leave on their own, they are forced to go back to their country of origin on a "special flight" where they are tied up and escorted by police. At the end of the documentary one of the immigrants dies of suffocation during transportation to the special flight. The movie highlighted the violations of human rights in the immigration system and definitely painted an ugly picture of Swiss politics that I had never seen before. We also learned that for a person to receive political asylum in Switzerland, they have to apply in the country, meaning they are illegal immigrants until their application is approved, which could take years. Mr. Melgar was incredibly inspiring during his talk, explaining that while he knows the film seems biased he felt it was important for someone to speak for these men. It turns out PBS aired the documentary this summer, I would definitely suggest you watch the movie if you have a chance. It convinced me to focus my ISP (the research paper I have to write at the end of the semester) on migration.

Mountain goats in the Jura 


Later that week we visited local NGO's. I visited an organization called Mercy Ships, which was created by a Texan in the late 70's. The program sets up hospital on an old cruise ship in ports of developing countries, mainly in Africa. The headquarters is in Lausanne, so a group of us got the privilege to chat with some staff about their operation. The crew of the ship is comprised of over 400 people, who are all volunteers and pay to stay on the ship. They stay in a country for 10 months and perform free surgeries on a few hundred people. They do very specific types of surgeries, like removing giant tumors, fixing bowed legs, repairing cleft pallets, and removing cataracts. Although most of the surgeries are basic procedures in Western countries, the health problems that cause them can be life threatening in a developing country if they go untreated. It seems like an incredible organization. I've included the link in case you want to check their website out: http://www.mercyships.ch

View from the Jura 
After the trip to Mercy Ships, part of our group went to visit CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). I wish I could tell you more about it, but I got lost somewhere between the words particle and physics. As our guide explained they don't actually do any nuclear research anymore, but it is where the biggest discoveries in particle physics over the past few years have come from. It is very possible that I fell asleep during the lecture they gave on what goes on at CERN, but I was very awake for the tour which crosses the French border multiple times. We got to go to one of CERN's space command centers, where we saw Samuel Ting. Mr. Ting, runs the command center and won the nobel prize for physics in 1976. We also got to see the particle accelerator, which is 100 meters underground. I could try to explain what it is used for but I would fail miserably, so I'll just leave you with a picture of me standing next to it in a hard hat.
Particle accelerator 
One night my host mom, Gudrun, took me to a park in the Jura mountains. It was an incredibly clear day so the views were amazing. The park was huge and it had a ropes course that spread through the woods probably about the length of 4 football fields. We spent about an hour strolling through the park looking at the gardens, the views, and the animals in the petting zoo. As the sun started to left the park and went to a restaurant to eat some Malakoff. Malakoff is a swiss specialty, which is basically fried cheese. It's sort of like a mozzarella stick but so much better. Apparently it was invented in Vaud, the canton I'm living in, so naturally it had to be accompanied by some wine from the same canton to make it a truly local meal. All I can say is, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to eat American cheese after this trip.

View of Mount Blanc from the Jura 

Last Wednesday, my group went to Bern, to learn about development policy. We started off the morning by meeting with a representative from the Swiss Agency which focuses on global food security. After the lecture we toured the city. It was so nice to hear German for the first time since I arrived in Switzerland. It felt pretty cool when the whole group turned to me to translate their lunch menus. Even though we only had the afternoon to tour the city, we were able to see the federal building, Einstein's house, and Bear Park during feeding time (home of 3 actual bears). The city was beautiful and it reminded me a lot of Bremen.
Sad bear 


Group picture in Bern
As I mentioned earlier, last weekend I went to Lucerne and Interlaken. I left Friday afternoon with my friends Edgar and Amedee. I was put in charge of booking the hotel, unfortunately I have lost that privilege for all future travels. It turns out I booked a room for three in an old jail-turned-hotel. The lobby was very nice but our room was about the size of a single in the 3's (those of you from St. Mike's will get the reference, for the rest of you the room was tiny). We made do with the tiny accommodations because the hotel was right in the pedestrian zone of the city. On Saturday, we spent most of the day touring the city. We decided to hike up to a castle where we got the most amazing view of the landscape. I think it's safe to say it was the best view I've seen so far. I think Luzern has been my favorite city so far.
The castle we hiked to


Typical Study Abroad Picture

Hanging out in the lobby because our room was too small

On Sunday we took a scenic train to Interlaken. It was totally worth the 15 Francs (thanks to the 1/2 pass I mentioned in my other post). We got a bit of a late start, but luckily we went through the mountains before the clouds hit. By the time we got to Interlaken it was rainy and we were all tired. We couldn't see the Jungfrau (one of the tallest mountains in the region), so we decided to grab lunch, explore the city for a bit and then head back towards Geneva.

Amazing view from the scenic train 

As for my French, it hasn't really improved at all. In fact, I think I'm going to start speaking with my host mom in German after my French classes end so I can at least become make progress in one language while I'm here.

Another view of Lucerne from the Castle
Becky (my roommate-extraordinaire) is coming to visit this weekend!

Á Plus,
Mary 

Monday, September 2, 2013

Je Parle Américain

This week has been a flurry of long lectures, hopeless French lessons, and biometric scans. As boring as that may sound, I've really enjoyed it so far. Mainly because the biometric scan brought me one step closer to getting my Swiss residency card (and it made me feel like a spy). I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with the idea that I'll be living in this crazy place called Switzerland for the next 3 months.

Our lectures last week were on public health, health systems, international health regulation, and anti-aging medicines. 3 of the lectures were taught by Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger, who was commissioned by the UN to advise on the field of anti-aging medicine. She has also done a TED talk and wrote two books. The lectures were really fascinating and it was exciting to have the opportunity to learn from such a distinguished professor.

The title of this post was really a nod to my French classmates. I never realized how tough this language is; at this point I've had 12 hours of French instruction and I can now count to 100 and tell you my name. Other than that I'd be tempted to throw my hands in the air and say, "Je parle Américain" (I speak American), as one of my classmates so eloquently put. I hope that after 5 weeks of this intensive language study I'll be able to say a bit more, but for now I think I'll stick to writing these posts in English.


View of Lausanne from the Cathedral

On Friday, the group went to Lausanne to get biometric scans for our visas. We got to spend the whole day touring the city, which is gorgeous. We met our home-stay coordinator, Christina, at the train station in Nyon in the morning. When we arrived in Lausanne we toured the cities largest cathedral. We climbed nearly 500 steps of a winding staircase to the top of the cathedral. The view was breathtaking. You could see the entire city as well as Lake Geneva and Alps off in the distance. All I could think of while I toured the cathedral was how much work went into the church in the nearly 100 years that it took to build it in 1170. It reminded me of the cathedral in Ken Follett's book "Pillars of the Earth".
After visiting the cathedral and doing our biometric scans, we had lunch on the lake front and visited the temporary Olympic Museum. The real museum has been under renovation for 2 years, but it re-opens in November. I've heard they have one of Michael Jordan's shoes on exhibit, so I will definitely making a trip back to see the full museum. As my friend Rose says, "anything for MJ". 


Lausanne Cathedral
A bird carved out of a carrot at a
Chinese Restaurant on Friday
                 
                                                                   
                                                                                                    
On Saturday, I went took the boat across lake Geneva to Yvoire, France with my friend Edgar. The boat ride was about 25 minutes and cost 13 Francs with my 1/2 Pass. The 1/2 Pass is a card you can buy that cuts the price of all travel within Switzerland. It was about 200 Francs to buy a pass for the year, but since Swiss travel is so expensive, I expect the pass to pay for itself by October. Anyway, back to Yvoire. It is a medieval village that has turned into somewhat of a tourist haven. We only spent about 1.5 hours there but we had enough time to check out the village and its famous "Garden of the 5 Senses". As always, the views from the shore of the Alps were incredible.
Yvoire Castle from the Garden
View of Switzerland from Yvoire

On Sunday, I joined my friends Amedee and Edgar in Nyon to go swimming. We found a really cool public swimming area, where the locals were laying out in the sun and drinking wine from the snack bar. After swimming we found a nature trail and walked around the outskirts of Nyon, before grabbing a bite to eat at the local kebab restaurant. We also went to check out a church service that was conducted in English. It was pretty cool to see the community of English speakers with all different types of accents in the middle of a village in Switzerland. 

Amedee and me swimming in Nyon


Today was back to business as usual. We had a research methodology lecture in the morning and our usual french lesson in the afternoon. I ate lunch at the castle in Nyon and the views were the clearest I've seen them since I've been here. It seemed like everywhere I went Mont Blanc was in full view!
The view of Mont Blanc in the sunset from my terrace in Sygny

À demain!
Mary