Bits and Pieces

Surprise, surprise...I'm behind on my blog. So, here's a little picture post with what I've been up to this past week. Last weekend was the music festival called "Label Suisse," which I went to on Friday night with a bunch of Herve's friends while he was away playing Chinese emperor. Prune, Antoine, and I (in the picture) started off by seeing Gotham Project and then later in the night we were joined by Fabienne, Sylvain, Helena, Mathilde and Mermoud. I had a fantastic time and though Herve had jokingly told his friends to babysit me while he was gone, I almost felt like Antoine really was: he walked around with me for almost half an hour trying to figure out when the "pygama" bus was leaving and whether it could take me home (the last metro home is around 12:15, so I would have had to leave really early if not for the pygama bus) and then later at night took me to the bus stop, and waited for another 30 minutes for me to get on the bus even after we were sure we were in the right place and the bus would come.
The next night, I hung out with some exchange students I had met at the EPFL welcome day and we saw a little of Label Suisse and what we thought would be a pyrotechnics show (but turned out to be more of a little country fair for kids). Hanging out with the exchange students was fun, though they were so much more lost and disorganized than Herve's friends and we ended up just riding back and forth on the metro 4 times in one night.
On Sunday, I had some time to catch up on work and relax before having a picnic with the exchange students by the lake in Ouchy. In the picture, I'm with Alejandra, an exchange student from Mexico, who I met at the life sciences orientation, and her friend Elizabeta, an exchange student from the Flemish part of Belgium.
On Monday, which was a national bank holiday, I started off the day with a delicious brunch at Fabienne's apartment that Fabienne and Antoine had prepared. They had made crepes, croissants, a yogurt parfait and it was probably one of the best, biggest, and longest brunch/breakfasts I had ever had (we got there at 11Am and stayed until 3PM). After "brunch," we took a walk around Lausanne for a few hours and headed home. More pictures coming later!

An emperor and his make up artist

On Thursday, we had a pretty chill day as we finished up our shopping and unpacking for good. The evening was really fun though: after Herve had recuperated from his pent up, manly frustration with shopping for groceries and home supplies all day, we headed out to Prune's goodbye dinner (she was heading out to Scotland on Saturday). There were a lot of the same people as Monday night, but I also met a cool, slightly older guy named Sylvain, who was finishing up his studies as a composer and musicologist. He was hoping to someday write music for movies, but in the meantime he wanted to come to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music (so right bye MIT)! Also, I met a random person I knew in the middle of Lausanne for the first time at the restaurant we were at. It was an Australian dude who I had met in the corridors of the neuroscience building on my way to a lab interview. I was knocking on the doors and to be let in since I didn't have an access card and he opened the door; after a few words in French, I heard a decidedly English accent, and so I asked him if he spoke English. He replied in French, "no, I speak Russian." I was totally confused because I was pretty sure I could distinguish an English accent from a Russian one, but I believed him and said we could speak Russian. He looked exasperated then, and answered with a heavy Australian accent, "no I lie, I'm Australian but I tell all the Swiss I speak Russian not English so I can actually practice French...but you speak Russian so I fail." In any case, we talked for a little and he became one of the maybe 5 people I knew outside of the people at Prune's dinner. Needless to say, seeing him at the table next to mine a day after meeting him was pretty weird.
Herve and I left the farewell dinner early to go to a party with the political science association of UNIL that Herve is a member of. It was at a bar just a few streets down from the one we were at. Herve told me before entering that we were about to meet people he had had classes with almost the whole year and that they all knew his name, but that he could barely remember any of them. We sat down strategically next to one of Herve's best friends from boy scouts, Etienne; Etienne then went around introducing me and saying everyone's names loud and clear, pretending that it was just for my benefit as Herve nodded along sheepishly. We had a great time, but the only problem was that Herve was leaving for a weekend boy scout trip the next morning, hadn't packed yet, and had hoped to get back early (and 12:30 AM didn't exactly count).

I should probably explain what is meant by "weekend boy scout trip" here. If you're imagining a nice little hike through the mountains, you're totally mistaken. If you're imagining a complex war game involving around 200 children running freely around a forest looking for treasures, solving problems, and fighting other "warriors" with maybe 10 "warlords" (Huns, Vikings, Maya, Ancient Chinese Empires etc.)" aged 18-22 organizing the whole event, then you're right exactly. Herve was the Chinese Emperor, so Thursday night was spent miserably trying to make Herve look like a Chinese Emperor, or at least Chinese, or at least like an Emperor. Eyeliner and mascara are powerful tools, but I think before Herve would truly look Chinese I'd be an African warrior princess. Also, I think Herve got Chinese emperor confused with Japanese Geisha, because he first came out with his face all covered in white powder. Before that, he had been designing a Chinese flag, a war chant, and a tea ceremony. Anyway, I've posted some pictures of Herve the freckled Chinese emperor on Thursday as well as over the weekend, his little brother Simon (Massi tribe, dressed in red and with red stripes on his face). Here are the links!
http://www.mesphotos.ch/Gondwana2010-ouverture/IMG_0388
http://www.mesphotos.ch/Gondwana2010-peuples-mings/IMG_0254

Settling In

Tuesday and Wednesday were busy as Herve and I finished up some basic settling in shopping at IKEA and the local grocery store. And on the right are the pictures of our studio (and some pretty epic yoga-themed magnetic poetry).

Wednesday night was also really fun as Herve and I went with some of his friends (Antoine, Fabienne, Mathilde, Mermoud, Prune, and Elodie, so almost the same people as Monday night) to see one of the best and most thought-provoking movies I've seen in a long time. It was called "Les Hommes et Des Dieux" and it was about monks living in Maghreb and how they and the local muslims deal (or struggle to deal) with the rise of a radical and militant islamic group in their area. It is based on a true story and it won a bunch of awards at the Cannes film festival this year (for good reason); when we left the movie theater, it felt like 10 minutes before anyone spoke, and after that we stayed at the movie theater just talking about the movie for at least 20 minutes. I would describe it, but just as I think about how to summarize it best, I can already feel myself failing. Here's a summary I found online (it's also fails pretty badly, but at least I didn't waste time writing it):
A monastery high in the mountains of the Maghreb, some time in the 90s...
Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers.
But violence and terror are slowly taking hold of the region. Despite the ever-growing danger that surrounds them, the monks' resolve to stay - whatever the cost - grows stronger day by day...
Anyway, I'm slowly catching up with this blog, and I'll write a little more about the weekend and the start of classes soon!

Arrived in Lausanne!

Truth be told, I arrived in Lausanne on Monday morning, but I've been crazily busy since then, so let's just pretend i'm writing on Monday. Coming to JFK airport on Sunday evening put an end to a lovely, but busy summer in Connecticut: I was working full-time at a great internship with Alexion Pharmaceuticals in Cheshire from late May to the middle of August and enjoying living with my family and Herve and seeing friends from high school as well as visiting Boston to see MIT people a few times. My flight over wasn't the greatest. When we had been seated in the plane for a few minutes, the captain told us in an exasperated voice, that it seemed we would have a 3 hour delay because only one flight lane was open at JFK due to weather conditions. After about 5 minutes (just enough time for everyone to text whoever was meeting them in Geneva), the captain returned to tell us that he was as confused as us, but it seemed that JFK had played a big joke on us and we would be able to leave in about 20 minutes. Overall, we left about an hour late, but we arrived in Geneva at the exact minute that we were scheduled to arrive. Flying with Swiss should have been a fun time since they had great food, delicious free cocktails, and a comfortable plane all around- I didn't feel really well and got a little sick, though, which ruined the experience. By the time I was in Geneva, though, and saw Herve waiting for me, I felt tired, but better. I passed Herve most of my luggage and he gave me a really pretty rose in return (a fair trade I think); then, we were on our way to our apartment near Lausanne. Most of Monday was spent unpacking, getting various IDs and passes that I would need, and resting. Monday evening, though, Herve managed to drag me out to hang out at one of his friends' houses in the center of Lausanne, despite the fact that I hadn't slept in about 36 hours. I ended up not regretting it at all, and had a great time. I was a little lazy with my French, but most of Herve's friends spoke English really well, so I could fall back on English whenever I didn't feel like thinking. I'll go ahead and introduce all of Herve's friends now considering I've seen them pretty much everyday since I arrived. We were at Mathilde's house, together with her boyfriend Nicholas Mermoud (who just goes by Mermoud), Antoine and his girlfriend, Fabienne, Prune, Helena, Julia, Elodie, and then Herve and me. I had met Mermoud, Mathilde, and Antoine last summer, and those are probably Herve's closest friends. Mathilde is a quiet, but really interesting, sweet and beautiful girl with long brown hair and dark eyes; her mom is an artist and she herself loves art and is studying art history at unil (University of Lausanne). Her boyfriend, Mermoud is the quietest of all-he has an intellectual, brooding air about him and he never talks much when there's a lot of people. I've hung out with him for a few days now though, and he is really awesome. Antoine, though, is the fun, loud, joker of the group and it seems like wherever he is, there's a good time to be had. His Swiss-German girlfriend, Fabienne is the only one who might match him with how funny, warm, and outgoing she is. The two of them were both so welcoming to me from the first moment I met them that they immediately put me at ease. Prune was also a really sweet girl and I'm sure I would have become good friends with her, except that she is leaving to spend a semester in Scotland (or "Ecose" in French). Elodie, Helena, and Julia I only spoke to briefly but they also seemed like great girls. The night overall was quite different from what I'm used to: the parents were home, and we were all sitting in the living room drinking white or red wine and nibbling on some chips with guacamole. What was really weird for me though, was when one girl took out her cigarette case and then almost everyone but Herve and me began to smoke in the middle of the living room. I knew people smoked a lot in Europe, but I was still taken aback when they started to do it in the living room. The overall atmosphere was relaxed and fun though, and I was sad to go.