Melissa and I are back into the routine of Swiss life after our exciting Christmas with the Johnsons, and their all too soon departure on December 29th. We unfortunately both spent the time right after they left moping about our quiet apartment with colds. Melissa didn’t have to miss any work though because the university was closed until January 4th, but we did miss going out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Instead of going anywhere exciting we stayed home and watched TV. At Midnight we heard explosions coming from every direction, and went to our window to watch and listen to amateur fireworks and firecrackers go off for about 5 or 10 minutes. Swiss civilians can definitely put some small July 4th displays to shame!
As part of our never ending new year’s resolutions, we are both still trying to improve our French. Last Tuesday I was able to convince Melissa to try the conversation exchange method for the first time with me. Our rendez-vous was at a Lausanne bar neither of us had been to before with a French lady named Camille who I met online. Camille said her English level was intermediary, (the same level I said my French was at), but we quickly found out she was much more modest. When she opened her mouth to speak, her English was near perfect. Melissa and I both struggled to put together more than a few sentences at a time in French, but made a good enough impression that we all decided to meet once a week, and explore the different bars in town.
The last bit of news is that winter has finally arrived in Switzerland. Two weeks ago, the mountain towns and ski resorts finally had enough snow to open up all of their runs, and this week, we finally got a bit of snow down here, near the lake. It started with some big, fluffy flakes on Thursday, and on Friday January 15th we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow! Despite the snow, the temperatures seem to hover just around a balmy (compared to Minnesota) 32 F, so it won’t last too long. Melissa and I went for a long walk today to enjoy the snow while we can and made it all way down to the lake- below are a few pictures we took along the way.
