I was pretty excited about this trip because not only would it be the 10th country I have ever been to, but I would also be celebrating Thanksgiving almost two months early.
Moorea lives in a student residence at the University of Geneva, and in her time abroad, she's made a number of international friends, including a few Canadians. It turns out that Canadians celebrate their version of Thanksgiving on the first Monday of October, which in the United States is Columbus Day (or Indigenous People's Day if you're in Berkeley). She and her friends decided to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving by cooking a traditional Thanksgiving feast, and she invited me to join in.
Thus, I spent all day Saturday in Moorea's kitchen having a blast and contributing to the cooking of my first Thanksgiving meal outside the U.S. We had the works: Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. Somehow Moorea and her friends miraculously found two frozen turkeys in a grocery store in Switzerland, the only two turkeys that were available in the entire country, it seemed. Moorea wanted to make cranberry sauce, but cranberries aren't really available in Europe, so we made do with these similar berries called groseille. I'm still not sure what their name is in English.
Moorea and I also contributed our own traditionally American Thanksgiving dishes, which apparently the Canadians don't usually eat: sweet potatoes and marshmallows, and macaroni and cheese (which I made with Swiss cheese and Gruyere).
It was really fun to see her European friend's reactions to our food. For the most part, they seemed to like it, since we had no food left over after the meal. At the same time, they seemed pretty puzzled by the fact that we had marshmallows in a dinner dish. They were convince that it should be a dessert. Also, one of Moorea's friends, an Irish guy, had never had mac 'n cheese before, so I got to introduce him to it.
Along with our feast, we had a blind wine tasting competition. Each person brought a bottle of wine, and we put foil over the labels. Then we tasted each wine, rating them for which one was the best and trying to guess which country they were from. There were bottles from Spain, Italy, Australia, Chile, and, of course, France.
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| Wine tasting before dinner |
I must admit, I had no luck guessing which country the wine was from, but I still enjoyed the tasting.
That night, I had so much fun hanging out with Moorea and her friends, especially because it was a great opportunity for me to speak French. Some of her friends were from Belgium and France and since they didn't speak very much English, we were forced to converse in French. I really enjoyed that experience, because just being around them for a few hours really improved my conversational French. I picked up on a lot of colloquial phrases and words that you never learn in school, like "truc", which means "thing" or "stuff" and is pretty much applicable to any situation.
I also learned a cultural difference between French speaking countries. In France, Belgium, and Switzerland, friends greet each other with "la bise", which consists of leaning in touching the other person's cheek with your face and kissing the air. In France, we "faire la bise" twice, once on each cheek. I learned quickly in Switzerland, you do it three times. And it turns out in Belgium, you only do it once, on one cheek.
Other than a few small cultural differences like that one, Geneva didn't seem that different from any part of France I've visited. That's probably because it's a French speaking city. Other parts of Switzerland, where they speak Swiss German or Italian may be much different.
My second day in Geneva, I walked all over the city, trying to absorb as much of it's environment I could in my short few hours there. Moorea and I took a tram over to the UN headquarters, and saw them from outside the gate. Then we checked out the Jet d'Eau of Geneva, a giant fountain on the lake that spews water up 140 m, or 459 feet. We hiked all the way to the confluence of the Rhône river and Arve river (yes, the same Rhône river that runs through Lyon, it starts out in the Alps). Then we walked around Old Geneva. Before I knew it, it was time for me to get back on a train for Lyon.  |
| The confluence of the Arve and Rhône |
I had a really unforgettable time in Geneva. Even though I didn't get to see too much of the city, I had a truly unique experience that you can't get at a museum or on a tour bus. It's those moments, not the touristy ones, although those are fun, that make studying abroad so amazing.
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| Geneva with, the Jet d'Eau in the distance |
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