Mar. 29 – First Day of School!

Well, no classes today, but it was my first time meeting all the other exchange students. I must say, I was a little disappointed. I expected the exchange group to be more multicultural. There were about 100 exchange students and only about 10 of them were visible minorities. There are plenty of students from Canada and they’re all from Western or York or Queen’s. There’s one guy from Western who looks like Clark Kent (TV Superman) haha. He’s cool though. It would have been really great to meet someone from the West Coast, but I don’t think there was anyone.

Interesting, though, that all 8 Asian students besides myself managed to gather themselves into one group by the afternoon of the first day. I could slowly feel myself being sucked into this vacuum as they approached me and started talking. At this point, this is the situation and this is how I’d like to keep it: I know them, they know me. We have friendly chats, but I’m determined to not spend my time hanging out with them. Don’t get me wrong – they’re all nice, but I’m on exchange. I don’t want to envelop myself in one social circle.

As for the rest of this limited multiculturalism, there’s also ONE student from South America (Peru) and ONE student from Spain. The rest are European. There’s nothing wrong with this either, it would just be nice if there was more of a mix. A big chunk of them are German, because supposedly this school has a really good reputation in Europe, especially in the German-speaking parts. They went on about their ranking and reputation in the welcome speech, as I’m sure our Dean would at Schulich, but it was extraordinarily boring.

There are German classes for everyone this week who isn’t a native German speaker. I have class every day this week from 8:30-10, 10:30-12, 1-2:30. It’s hard to wake up that early because we have social stuff every night too. In the afternoon, we usually have something planned by the university, like introducing us to the library or lectures on history, etc. In the evening, we have social events planned for us by the Buddy System.

Here’s “My Itinerary” for the semester:

Mar. 29 – Drinks and snacks at Café National
Mar. 30 – Bowling night
Mar. 31 – Pub crawl
Apr. 7 – Meet-Your-Buddy
Apr. 8 – Unofficial HUGE House Party (with more to follow!)
Apr. 15 – Zurich Nightlife Tour
Apr. 30 – City Tour Bern (the capital of Switzerland)
May – Opera/Theater in Zurich
June 3 – 5 – Summer Trip to Locarno!! (Italian part of Switzerland, very Mediterranean and gorgeous)
June 15 – International Dinner
July 5 – Farewell BBQ

Oh and of course, all the trips that I will do on my own! My semester is not even 3 months long! They gave everyone one of those nice shoulder/work bags that fits your laptop and there was tons of stuff in it. It’s nice enough that I think I’ll actually use it!

Contents of free bag:
1 Knorr pepper sauce for 2 (mmm…with steak!)
1 Knorr sweet and sour sauce for 2 (mmm…with stir fry!)
1 Ovomaltine muesli (like cereal)
2 Lipton Mango Iced Tea
1 portable mini-radio
1 desk calculator
1 box of Lipton tea
1 bag of instant noodles
1 packet of Kleenex
1 mini Nivea Regenerative Night Cream
1 mini Nivea Natural Booster Anti-Aging Night Cream (do you think they’re giving samples to the wrong market?!)
1 Knorr jar of seasoning
1 travel-size toothpaste
1 mini Nivea Shower Gel
1 mini Nivea Shampoo
1 Nivea deodarant
1 sample Dove Shampoo & Conditioner
1 CD-RW
and of course, the obligatory condom

That’s a lot of free stuff, especially the bag itself. If I remember properly, back in Frosh Week, we got some highlighters, pens, coupons, keychains, and pillowcases. Well, I do use my pillowcase. BUT, I haven’t even gotten to the best free stuff yet! When we went to the Café National at night, the announcement was that the International Exchange Office sponsored all of the students with 1500 CHF to spend on food and alcohol!!! I’ve never heard of a school paying for its students to drink, but ok, I’ll take it! It was so much fun! I ordered a beer, because I figured that I might as well get used to it while I’m here, since that’s what everyone drinks. Another surpise: I actually liked this beer and I drank a whole one on my own. I think that’s a first hahah. Well, I didn’t get drunk cuz I didn’t feel like it, but it was still a blast lol.

I met everyone that lives upstairs now – 2 French dudes and 1 dudette from Peru – all very nice and fun. It turns out that I DO remember a little French and I can sometimes understand if they talk slowly! I was so proud of myself hahaha. It was so cool at the restaurant though, because we had like 7 people at our table, but people would just switch from English to German to French to Spanish! Hopefully I will be semi-fluent in German and French by the end of this. There’s no way I can even hope to include Spanish heheh.

The Illusion of Comfort Provided by Flat Shoes

Flat shoes are supposedly “in” this season. They look SO comfy and cute. Style, without the pain. Or, so they all want you to believe. Today, I wore my new white flats and they were the 2nd most painful pair of shoes that I have EVER worn! I was walking funny after 5 minutes and bleeding after 10 minutes and then really limping for the rest of the night (including up the stairs on the way home, in the rain). Sexy, huh? There is now a moderately-sized streak of blood on the inside of my white shoes and a large, bloody blister on the back of my right ankle. Ugh. Another few minutes and it would have been the same for my other ankle. I should’ve known to have brought band-aids for new shoes, even if they were flat.

In case you’d like to know, the most painful pair I have ever put on are my bright turquoise strappy stilettos. I still love them, I just can’t wear them for more than 2-3 hours at a time, even if I’m sitting down. Last time, I wore them for about 6 hours and I really wanted to cry for the last 2.