my adventures in food.

There is definitely truth in stereotypes. The Swiss really do love their cheese. Counting, I have had cheese in some way, shape, or form for every lunch and dinner but 1 since my arrival. But along with the abundance of cheese, everyone knows that the Swiss are known for their chocolate. As I left for the train this morning, my host mom gave me three things: an entire Lindt chocolate bar, a Swiss army knife (because the blade on it will help cut my bread, in case of emergency), and a spoon. Not entirely sure what the purpose of the last one is, but it's always good to be prepared for the unexpected, so clearly all three were necessary.

Our train got into Gare Cornavin 25 minutes before the meeting time because the BAM from Yens only runs once an hour to get us to the train station at Morges to get (eventually) to Geneva, and someone was yearning for a little taste of good ol' America, so we ventured in to the Starbucks next door...and promptly left after seeing that a venti caramel macchiato was 8.90 CHF. That's $9.00. I settled for a thermos to bring home made coffe in the mornings, of which there is ALWAYS a full pot at any given hour of the day. Magic.

We took the bus to the UN (yes, as in the international headquarters of the United Nations) and got through security (somehow, my army knife got through but Chip's regular kitchen knife didn't make the cut (baha, cut...not intentional). Why he had a kitchen knife in his bag remains a mystery) and got UN ID badges. We were a stellar looking bunch. After badging, we 'accompanied' Earl for a 'beverage' in the cafe-they really do love their coffee-and went upstairs for a tour of the reading rooms and library. It was absolutely astounding: over 2 million volumes with 45 kilometers of books in 10 floors of stacks. Just for the UN. And it's pretty cool because even though you can't check out a book, if you order a book on loan, you can reserve it for a month, along with a desk so for that entire month, the desk is yours, and the book will always be there.

After this excursion, my small FSS group of 4 made its way to the ILO (International Labour Organization) and met with the secretary of the ILO AIDS project who casually handed us Kofi Anan's business card as a possible contact-only to say, "oh, my mistake, that's Kofi, you want Jo."

Aaaaaanyway, back to the title, food. Dinner, failure of the day. We made the trek up the hill from the BAM (it's now earned the name 'damn BAM') and I was starving. My host mom is an amazing cook, so the anticipation of dinner every night is always a highlight of my day. Tonight, it was soup avec des legumes. Great, vegetable soup, perfect for a cold evening. False. It resembled a cream of broccoli esque soup with a little something extra-hot dogs. Actually, they were vienna sausages, but it looked like hot dogs floating in the pot. My host father filled my bowl and added a sausage. Bon Appetit. The soup was actually really great, but I foresaw a serious problem. There was only a spoon on the table (guess I should have brought out the army knife?) But apparently it wasn't necessary. I have learned to do as the family does at meal time, and this time they were just picking up the sausages out of the soup and eating them with their hands. So, much as I did when I learned that the napkins on the table were there not for the normal purpose of napkins but rather to tempt us, teach us not to eat like slobs, look pretty, I haven't quite worked it out yet-you just don't use them, I followed suit and pick up the sausage. Problem was, it was covered in soup and quite slippery...I think you can guess what happened next. Plop went the sausage into the soup and plop went the soup on to the table. And on to my sweater. Worst part was, I could hardly figure out how to say what happened in French to try and explain a) what actually happened b) the fact that I am a klutz in life and c) it's a terrible idea to not use knives at the table. Especially when your country is known for them. Also, on the plate of cheese that accompanies most meals, there were sticks of meat that were explained to me to be a specialty of Switzerland but were most definitely Slim Jims. I kept my mouth shut.

Other than tonight, dinner chez Andre is delightful. Lunch usually happens in Nyon where we go to Migros, the local supermarket/superstore (actually a really cool concept the Swiss call social enterprise...0.5 % of the company's income must go back to the community in some way, i.e. the name of the facilities where our French classes are held is L'ecole Club Migros) and buy a baguette (usually still warm), some type of deli meat, and of course, cheese. A sandwich ends up being about 5 CHF, which is a HUGE perk plus, it's what all the high school kids do, so of course we have to do as the cool kids.

Also, per the request and consensus of my peers, I'm going to try to post an Earl Falsity of the day...which shouldn't be too hard.

Earl Falsity #48789: People don't kiss in public. FALSE. Two ads I've seen pretty much don't advertise any product in particular (one was for a train and the other for a phone). They were just giant pictures of two people kissing. And I mean REALLY kissing. And getting off the tram today in Geneva, we saw two teens going at it at a level that would be considered inappropriate even for America. Dear Earl, I dunno if you just need to get out more (which, considering how much he references the midnight to 5 crowd-i.e. the teenagers, is most likely not the case), but people certainly express their affection with more than a bise...