In response to a mandate I've received from some of my friends to "get a Swiss boyfriend" while I'm here:
There IS this really tall, adorable guy in Ferenkeh & Esther's young adults group. He speaks almost no English, just bits and pieces, but his English is still INFINITELY better than my literally nonexistent Swiss-German. Sorry to let you down, but mostly we just joke around, and get confused, and I laugh it off, and he smiles so cutely. His name is Florian, (but since everybody here shortens their names) he goes by "Flor."
Everyone satisfied? Males exist here, (lots actually,) and I am finally beginning to describe them to you.
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I went with my host, Ferenkeh, to a university in Geneva this evening to attend a conference where the special guest was an important guy from UNESCO. Sounds cool, right?
Before we left, I asked Ferenkeh what I should wear; (I had just gotten home from class.) He advised me, "oh, just whatever a student would wear." So I stayed in my slightly ripped jeans and fitted Tshirt. We arrived at the university in Geneva, and the "conference" was more of a meeting in a nice classroom. Everyone else was dressed in buisness attire. I was DECIDEDLY the youngest and most unofficial-looking person in the room.
After the high-up man from UNESCO had been given an incredibly impressive introduction recognizing his incredibly impressive background, he took the stage and said that now that we'd heard about him, he wanted to hear about us. He then had us go around the room and introduce ourselves.
You may think, "oh, that sounds sort of cool. He wants to learn y'all's names!"
No. What the invitation to "introduce yourself" apparently means over here is to 'take the stage' yourself for a few minutes and describe to everyone where you're from, (geographically as well as job/experience-wise,) where you are now, where you're heading for the future, and why you're at this meeting.
And make sure you sound as official and awesome and geniouslike and bighearted as possible.
Crap.
Um, do you want me to talk too?
Somehow I scraped through the introduction phase well enough to gain a couple smiles from around the room and Ferenkeh's approval. Yay. At least nothing to draw any more embarrassment in this direction.
After the entire conference-meeting was over, we left the classroom and drinks were served, and Ferenkeh and I met one of the youngish guys who works at the University and was in charge of setting up this event. He discussed some specifics of the school with Ferenkeh, and then just talked to me about traveling around in Switzerland, living here, and learning the language. He said (with his adorably Belgian accent), "Christine, you must know what they say. The best way to learn the language is to get a boyfriend who speaks it!" And then added a couple minutes later that he would be glad to show me around Geneva anytime... just to pop him an email. *Wink.
Oh Christine, please for heaven's sake, no blushing, no blushing, blushing is not allowed, Christine, Christine! You are too old to keep this embarrassing habit up. Stop yourself. Now.
Ugghhhhdsjklfjdk.
Dork.
Christine, you are a dork.
