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September 10, 09
Thursday

Two weeks here. What a nice place.

Woke up, ready to inspect my ankle. It's a lovely swollen fat mess.

I biked to pick up Oleann, which was something she didn't like. I don't think she understood at first why I was riding and I tried to explain to her that it was because of my ankle. I have to walk a total of 60 or so minute a day picking her up and taking her to school.

At school, during lunch, I met up with Nadine, another au pair from the German part of Switzerland. We walked back to our houses together which was nice.

For lunch, we had cordon bleu. I guess for now she can get her wish of cordon bleu Thursdays.

I walked back from school, after dropping Oleann off, with Nadine. It is so much better doing the journey with someone, I was grateful.

I rested my foot during the pauses and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There are a lot of guns in this movie.

That evening I had two events to go to. First I went to my first French course. I'm taking the classes through the Migros School. They had already had one class. It's quite the expensive course to take but I think it's worth it if it gets me ahead on my French. It's held in Nyon. On the train ride there I ran into Secil and got to chat with her for a bit.

I had to pay for part of the class, right then and there. That was a bit difficult. While there I met another American, from Utah, and that was refreshing to hear the American accent. It was also encouraging.

I walked into the class to see that everyone already had the textbooks. I had to buy mine next Tuesday.

The course will be every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:10-9:50 and I have to catch the train at 10:53 so I will always have about an hour to fill in the city.

We learned about foods and what kind of food goes best with red and white wine. I'm still not sure if it's the right class for me. I have to learn my very very French basics and it seems as if everyone has learned French before... yet the course is A1 so I don't know what could come before A1.

Nationalities in my class include New Zeland, Poland, Germany, Canada, Sri Lanka, England, and Columbia. I'm the only American, that I know of.

After the class I went over to the Link Au Pair meeting. I knew it would be already over but I figured some people might still be hanging out. On the walk over, through the streets of Nyon, I returned a call I had gotten from an unknown number during class. It was a guy named Silvan who had gotten my number through someone in my youth group in Sarnen. He offered to take me to a youth group the next night. I guess I have plans now, Friday night. 7:30, some person is picking me up at the train station.

I got to the meeting and had time to meet a few people. Link would be such a great resource, it is, but I'm so busy. I hopped on the train home and met another au pair who lived in my village. Stefanie. But she is only here till the end of September so I don't think our paths will cross much. She offered to give me a ride on the back of her motor scooter, and I would have taken it, but when we got to Arzier there were two other au pairs, one of which I knew, at the train station. It was Nadine with a car! So I got a ride from her, quite handy. The other girl was from Zurich.

I got into my room and within 5 minutes I heard a tap on my window. It was Alice, so we went for a walk, despite my ankle, and then went to her house at around 12:20 to look at plane tickets and she showed me a bit of her family and trip to China. That was great.

Then I went to bed, on exhausted, tired little Maggie.