Adventures, Departures, and Everyday Life

This morning I was walking to the bus this morning like I do every weekday morning, and I had this moment of pride that made me smile. Because I'm surrounded by other UN interns who have left their everyday lives to come here and do this, I usually forget that it's unusual and special. But you know what? It's really cool that I have the opportunity to work at a UN agency, that I had the guts to leave my super comfy life in the U.S. for a while, that this isn't the first time I've had the courage to leave home for an extended period of time (this is my third time living overseas for at least three months), and that I'm on track to have a career doing work I'm passionate about. Especially at age 26, I feel really proud of all that (or at least I did in that moment on the sidewalk this morning--I mostly don't think about it).

I've been on a bunch of weekend adventures since I last posted, as you may have seen from Facebook. Some highlights:

• Visiting Gruyères, the village that is famous for a certain type of Swiss cheese (you'll never guess what it's called!)

• Visiting Chamonix, the quaint French village that is famous for housing the tallest mountain in the Alpes [spelled with an "e" here because these are French Alpes, and they're snooty like that], Mont Blanc

It was really really cold at that altitude

We got to watch a guy in a wing suit jump off the highest cliff to glide down (and down and down and down...)

Going hiking in the French Alpes near a town called Passy

It seriously looked like a scene from The Sound of Music

And a fluffy French mountain kitty emerged from the wild dandelions

The views were pretty breathtaking (I'm not just talking about Elye)

• Going white water rafting and single-handedly pulling Corey (who is twice my size) into the raft after he jumped off a cliff into the river (sadly, there are no pictures of this moment)
• Going to "Caves Ouvertes", an event where all the wineries open up their tasting rooms for free (and pour tiny, tiny portions) and then hanging out by the lake in the evening and then going to a street food festival at night

So I guess you could say I've been keeping busy, but I generally feel pretty chill. I am a super huge fan of my intern friends, who are always up for new adventures and usually do all the planning for them for me (haha).

Unfortunately, every two weeks, some interns leave and others come. It's a constant rotation of meetings and departures. Last week, Corey left me (it was on my calendar as "Corey leaves FOREVER", to give a sense of how much of a loss this was for me). He had weeks of "going-away" activities, but then everyone here still seemed surprised when he left. The rafting was part of his going away tour, along with a party, a lunch with our department, some gifts, etc.

Now that he's gone, I've taken over his desk (the one good thing about having the office to myself), which has two monitors rather than my previous setup with only one. Research is now much easier, plus Corey doesn't distract me with his humming, sleeping, or thoughts about evaluation, politics, and life. Or with coffee breaks, or lunches together. :(

Apparently there will be a new intern coming soon, so we'll see how that goes!

In the meantime,

Things that are making me happy:

• Cooking and baking new things
• Having some quiet evenings at home
• Working out regularly
• Taking the stairs at work (which is actually a big deal, since it's 12 flights)

So many things...

Hello, whoever still reads this blog (most people I've chatted with lately have admitted to me that they do not...but I suppose the purpose of keeping this blog in the first place is to allow people I don't get to talk to as much to know what's going on in my life).

I have discovered, after emerging from several weeks of mild gloom, that my mood is very largely dependent on the weather. We're back to gloomy weather, but just knowing that the weather is responsible when I feel less-happy-than-usual helps (which is good, since we're about to have about 3 more weeks of rain). In the meantime, I'm starting to hit that 3-month point where, much like when I was on study abroad, I start to find my pattern and settle in more deeply to my life here.

What does that look like? you ask. Well I'm so glad you asked, because that's why I write here.

First of all, it means that I am being more proactive about engaging in activities I enjoy. Because my flatmate is living in Zurich the majority of the time (he's been coming home for weekends, but I'm on my own during the week), I don't have to feel guilty about spending lots of time in the kitchen. This means I'm cooking more complex meals, baking things (!!!!!), and generally feeling inspired again about feeding myself happily and healthily.

I did an acro workshop last weekend with my friend Eric, and I helped demonstrate most of the moves he was teaching because his co-teacher wasn't able to come. The weather has generally not been great for acro, and we don't have a room reserved Sunday/Wednesday evenings anymore, so my acro time had been greatly diminished. Through the weekend (12 hours of acro in 2 days), I got a better idea of what I should work on to improve my handstand abilities, my acro abilities, and my overall health. I also based a guy who weighs more than 1.5 times as much as me in a thigh stand, which inspired other small girls to base him, which was really fun. Sunday morning of the workshop, we spent about 3.5 hours acro-ing outdoors in the sun by the lake:

In the second picture, you see the Jet d'Eau, which is a classic sight of Geneva. It's literally just water being shot super super high, and the wind and light catch it prettily.

Last night I went out with some of my favorite people to a fancy fondue restaurant (a trademark of Switzerland).

Here you see three flavors of fondue: going clockwise starting at the top, there is tomato, herbs, and mushroom-and-bacon

Les Armures has apparently fed at least one American president (though I don't remember which)

Us.

This weekend I am going exploring with these same lovely people; we're planning to go to Gruyères, a beautiful town that houses the famous Gruyères cheese factory. Amazing Swiss cheese. We're also planning to go to Chamonix, which is on the border of France, Switzerland, and Italy, and which is home to the stunning Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain of the Alps. We're hoping to do some hiking around there.

Corey will leave me soon to return to Michigan and work on his dissertation, so I am trying to spend as much time with him as possible before then (which is fairly easy since we share an office). I think we're going to go white water rafting the weekend after next, which is his last weekend in town, and we're cooking dinner at my place next week.

Geneva is SO BEAUTIFUL.

Things that are making me happy:

• Making delicious food
• Feeling more comfortable with all the people in my life
• Talking to family
• Drinking lots of tea
• My new pillow (bought it two weeks ago and my sleep has improved dramatically)

Month 3, let's do this

I guess a lot has happened since my last post. I've had some bouts of homesickness, but I seem to be back to my natural state for the most part.

One bout of homesickness was brought on by Jeff being sick. He got a sinus infection weeks ago and got mostly better with antibiotics, and then he got a stinging sore throat. He was feeling mostly better, though, when we chatted for the first time that week on a Thursday afternoon. We had a nice long chat, and he was energetic and sounded good; he was on his way to play soccer. Then the next afternoon, I got texts from him saying he had gotten really sick the night before, had gone to urgent care, had a 101 fever, and was diagnosed with bronchitis. And then he didn't respond to any communications from me for 6 hours. I was overwhelmed with guilt for not knowing that there had been anything wrong, and for not being there to take care of him, and I could easily imagine how crappy it would be to feel so awful and not have your partner there for comfort.

Jeff slept almost all of the next two days, and that Saturday I went up to Lausanne with two intern friends for le Rallye du Chocolat, which is like a chocolate festival/scavenger hunt/contest thing. There was free chocolate! It was delicious!

For some reason blogspot is rebelling and not letting me post photos, though.

After consuming our fair share of chocolate, we still had several hours before our train home, so we bought some hot cocoa (which came with a free truffle, of course) to brave more of the rain and find our way up to the cathedral. It was impressively old (construction began in 1170) and pretty lovely, but there wasn't much information about its life, so I can't really say much about it.

Then we went to a nearby history museum. It was pretty weird, like they got a lot of stuff and then didn't know what to do with it. There was an "Ancient Egypt" room in the basement with old-looking artifacts, but none of them were labeled and there was no information about ancient Egypt to be found. The next room was "Ancient Japan", which at least had its artifacts labeled, but no information. Then "Ancient China", which was the same. We worked our way up through the floors. The best part (in my opinion) was a giant pile of bars of soap that were stamped with the word "THREAT". I really wanted to know what it was about, so I looked around all over and finally found a tag hidden not-so-nearby in a corner. It explained that this was participatory art, in which participants going through the museum could take a bar of soap home with them and "experience washing the threat away". Cute idea, but I don't think many people had taken soap because the explanation was so hidden. Also, the bars of soap were about the size of a brick, so I joked that the real experience would be never being able to wash the threat away because it's so huge. We all took soap anyways, though.

After the long day in Lausanne, I was ready to crash, but instead I went to a Passover seder at my distant cousin's house. Passover is an important Jewish holiday, and my family in California always does a big dinner the first night. This seder was very different from what I was used to, but I loved it. The prayerbooks (Haggadah) were mismatched, some of them Hebrew and English, some Hebrew and French, some Hebrew and Russian, and one that was all Hebrew. My cousin is Israeli, and her husband is Russian, and their kids speak French as a first language and English as a second. The readings from the Haggadah were thus in a wide variety of languages, some of which almost no one understood, and their eldest son added to the hilarity by reading in funny accents. The meal was fantastic--matzoh ball soup, chicken, lamb, roasted potatoes, green salad, gefilte fish (a weird Jewish specialty), and chocolate covered matzoh for dessert. I didn't get home until almost 2 am.

The previous week I didn't see much of my flatmate, but on Friday he told me that he had gotten a job in Zurich, and they had asked him to start on Monday. He's keeping the flat, so I don't have to look for a new place (thankfully), but he left on Sunday afternoon. I've been pretty much living alone since then, though he's coming back for weekends at least for the first month.

Last week I attended a conference about evaluability and the SDGs (which is very related to one of the projects I'm working on). It was co-hosted by the ILO and UNEG (United Nations Evaluation Group) at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). As it turns out, WIPO has gorgeous facilities, so I was envious the whole time. I went back on Thursday night with another friend for a free apero and concert in honor of World Intellectual Property Day. The concert was great, An American Symphony, and the lead-in was pretty funny, with high-up people in WIPO talking about why intellectual property law matters ("We would still have scientific and technological progress without intellectual property, but intellectual property promotes progress.").

Yesterday (Sunday) I participated in a May Day march, along with interns from the Fair Internship Initiative, formerly known as "Pay Your Interns". It was cold and rainy and windy, but I had a good time.

Today has just been cooking, baking, doing laundry, working out, and preparing for the week. I'm looking forward to next weekend, when I'm enrolled in a workshop that will be 12 hours of acroyoga in 2 days.

Things that are making me happy:

• Remembering that summer is just around the corner, despite these chilly rainy days
• Cooking and baking successful things
• Skyping/FaceTiming with people while I eat dinner (Thanks Dan!)