have you ever heard of cheese fondue?! maybe i'm just not very cultured, but before coming to switzerland i had no idea it existed. natasha, my french teacher, first told me about it and i was like "a huge pot of bubbling cheese, for real??" yep, like a chocolate fondue fountain, except swap the chocolate for cheese.
fondue is one of switzerland's famous dishes and is traditionally served only in the wintertime. now, i understand why, because by the end of the meal everyone was sweating. besides the fact that you're eating bubbling hot cheese it is also recommended that you drink either hot tea or wine with it so the cheese doesn't harden in your stomach and make you sick. weird to think about, i know!
just look at how beautiful it is! basically you just take the utensil on the far right (the one that looks like a marshmallow roaster) and you tear up pieces of bread and poke them onto your stick.
now, to apply the cheese, you don't just dip it in, you have to swirl the piece of bread all the way around the outside of the pot at least once or twice if you want to do it right. you then have a tiny piece of bread swamped in gooey, smokin' hot cheese. i dipped mine in a little pepper.
fun fact for you: there's actually white wine in fondue! so, i suppose if you felt like eating the entire pot you could possibly end up intoxicated, or maybe just in a cheese coma. probably just a cheese coma, though. the first few bites are really weird, but it grows on you and starts to taste better. or, maybe i was just getting drunk, who knows?!
each four-some of people got their own fondue, talk about a ton! my group of four girls managed to polish off about half of it and that was all. fondue is not a 'light' meal, one would have to go work for hours in the mountains milking cows to burn that off. actually, the best part of the whole fondue deal is when you finish it and get to the bottom, you take this tool that looks like a paint chipper/scraper and literally chisel the hard, baked on cheese off the bottom. by this point the cheese is super crunchy and tastes a little burnt. definitely the best part... if you can get to that point!
cheesy photo while eating cheese...it only makes sense!
today was also exciting because we were introduced to the campus, a few professors, and the rest of the exchange students! yay for meeting people my age! everyone seems really fun and excited to travel together and explore. other students are from japan, ukraine, greece, belgium, poland, germany, russia, i can't even name them all. there are 20 of us and it seems like 20 different countries are represented. so interesting! i happen to be the loner representing the us of a!
here's a typical conversation between me and basically anyone i've met thus far:
"oh, you're from the US...like from new york?"
"no, i'm from iowa, it's in the midwest."
"oh, so, what's the closest big city that i would know of?"
"minneapolis?"
"hmmm...never heard of it."
"kansas city?"
"nah."
"okay, ever heard of chicago?"
"yeah, so it's close to there?"
"well, it's about 7 hours away."
...and of course my cheesy "last, first day of school" selfie that i took by propping my phone up in the cupboard and putting it on timer. it was awkward, for sure. i actually feel awkward even looking at it. haha.
this is definitely not what i ever imagined my first day of 16th grade to be like. i never thought i'd be in geneva, switzerland, or running out of my apartment to catch the train to school either! its crazy how fast things can change and how exciting life is.
the fact that it's been in the upper 70's and 80's and i've been able to go to the "beach" of lake geneva the last few days and swim/catch some rays also makes me extremely happy. but...i'll stop making you all hate me back in iowa. sorry for your luck. :/
catch ya next time!