A Bit of School, A Lot of Vacation...

So here's how it goes - go to class each day, speak French all day, then return home to plan vacations. Basically how it goes each week - this week, after much debate, I decided to return to Switzerland this weekend, this time to Geneva, with different friends - Lauren and Jacque. Yes, I was just near there - but of the options (which we Strasbourg, Lourdes, going alone somewhere else, or nothing), this was the best. And since it's covered by my Eurail Pass, why not? I'm excited to return to the land of mountains, and hopefully this time we will get a peek at Mont Blanc, the highest point in the Alps, which will make the 6-hour each way trip worthwhile. Plus, it should be a fun group! All we need is to buy some Speculoos to make it amazing...
As far as school goes, I have received my tests from last week back and got good marks on all of them - anything about 15/20 is an A and I received 16's. We have another test tomorrow over some grammar which should be fine.
A little over a week til the SFS Proficiency Exam (11:15am on Wednesday the 28th), which is a little scary but I feel pretty confident as I have been reading Le Monde almost every day and could probably do well enough to describe an article given to me and even have an opinion on it.
Speaking of opinions, I had an intense discussion with my host family yesterday about religion. I defended Muslims as my host parents railed against their "endorsement of violence" and "way of life incompatible with Christianity." Hmmmm...it was interesting to hear their view (very similar to many in the US but maybe even harsher) and I think I did a decent job of explaining myself - though they are convinced that the Quran tells Muslims to "kill the infidel," which as far as I know, is a mistranslation. Anyway - it was interesting discussion, and while I am by no means Muslim, I felt like I had to argue the other side a bit. Meanwhile, the Swiss lady living her for the week basically sat out on the conversation. At the end, my host family gave me "homework": an excerpt from a book on "historical correctness," which attempts to correct for biases created over time, particularly about religious wars like the Crusades. So now I have some more reading haha...

Lausanne Tomorrow!

Well today we had our first two tests of the new class - one was expected and consisted of reading an article (about the show "Friends"?) and answering some questions. Not too bad. The other was a pop quiz on oral comprehension - listening to a tough piece and trying to answer questions. Much harder. This class is not the breeze I thought it might be...
After a long day of classes, I went home and worked on getting ready for the trip tomorrow (to Lausanne, Switzerland!!) and attempting to buy tickets for the Eurostar back to London just before I leave in early August. But of course it didn't work - I got so close to booking and then, long story short, my credit card didn't work and I am blocked out of the system. I guess I have to call either Eurostar and/or Visa soon to figure out what's up. Booooo...unneeded stress.
I had a long, 1 1/2 hour discussion with my host parents tonight about many things, including my Polish heritage, my plans in life, etc. It really was great, and now that the kids are gone, it's just me and them and so I can really work on improving my speaking ability. But we are getting a new visitor (who is evidently in her 60s) who is from the German part of Switzerland and is evidently here to learn French as well. So we'll see how that goes...she gets here when I get back on Sunday night.
As for the Lausanne trip, I leave tomorrow at 12:29pm, have 3 hours in Paris to explore a bit, and then go Paris-Geneva; Geneva-Lausanne, where I hopefully will meet MT and her friend Anne Marie (who we are staying with) at the train station around 10:15pm. I plan on bringing only a backpack and no laptop, except this time I think I will actually get a bed, or at least the ground inside, to sleep on. :)
We get back Sunday night around 10pm - in the meantime, I hope to hike a bit in the area, maybe around Montreux in the outskirts of the Alps!! Can't wait! I will update again after the trip!