In Geneva, even during the weekdays, everything is closed by 8:00pm, and on Saturdays all stores are closed by 6:00pm.
In the school, all of my classes are in French, which was very difficult at first. But having the other language of music, I have been able to integrate into the community pretty fast, because we can improvise and play together even if we can’t understand each other’s words very well! There are students here from Mexico, Russia, Poland, France, Greece, Chile - and, of course, Switzerland! I am the only student from the United States studying in the early music department, so other students are helping me with my French, and I am helping them with English in return. I am the first person from the United States that most of the other students have met. Sometimes we don’t understand each other’s points of view or we just can’t find the words to explain ourselves; but when that happens, we all ask other people to help. For instance, I tried to explain why it’s important to play music by women composers to someone from France, and we needed a friend from Mexico to translate my English into Italian, which both of them can speak, for him to understand me! And sometimes in classes, a teacher will ask me how to pronounce a word in English. Now, just since September, I have come to understand French very well. I’m still working on my own pronunciations, thought!
Even though I’m a very shy person I’ve tried hard to immerse myself in the Genevan way of life. I went to the Christmas Market in the Parc des Bastions in December, and I’ve explored along the rivers Rhone and Arve. And I’ve learned how to work around the early closing times for shops.
