Emily (Germany) Geneva and other random happenings

I'm starting to learn that Freiburg is the best city in the world. Honestly. When I leave, even for a day, I just want to be back in Freiburg. Props for picking the absolute best city, IES!
Anyway, we went to the UN in Geneva on Thursday and Friday. We heard a number of different speakers. A couple were pretty enthralling, but a couple were brutal. We heard the Slovenian ambassador to the UN (Slovenia holds the EU presidency, so he mostly talked about that). We also had someone talk about human rights. It was remarkable that the woman made something so incredibly interesting so incredibly boring. She just droned on and on, it was really unfortunate. The other woman also talked about human rights, but she was personable and entertaining. On Friday, we had someone talk about the UN's involvement with refugees. He was by far the most interesting. He's a lawyer and was a very good public speaker. The guy after him talked about the WTO and didn't change his pitch at all. All in all though, I have very good notes and learned a lot about the UN and how it tries to do so much more than Americans seem to give it credit for, but of course it's very bureaucratic and doesn't have the ability to get that much done. Meh.
I was a bit disappointed in Geneva. It was just extremely expensive and snooty. IES took us out for dinner at a Cheese Fondue restaurant. I've never been so disgusted in my life. It smelled completely awful and, though I was starving, I could hardly choke down my overcooked pasta. I ended up drinking too much wine because it was the only thing that would block out the smell for more than two seconds. I just kind of held it against my nose. Most of the Americans who did participate in the fondue thought it tasted better than it smelled, but still would have preferred something else. I DEFINITELY would have preferred something else. I would have gone somewhere else (it wasn't required) but the prices for anything was at least 40 Swiss Francs. That's $40! For dinner! After dinner, a huge group of us went exploring for a place to dance. Nothing was open on a Thursday night. We ended up in Geneva's ghetto. So, basically, it was the snootiest ghetto I have ever seen. There was all this cool graffiti and everybody was speaking Spanish. There was supposed to be a valentine's day party somewhere over there, but apparently the club is run by illegal immigrants. Perfect. It was really bizarre looking for this place, but at least we got to see the city because we honestly walked through all of it.
I woke up Friday morning and turned on CNN, only to hear about the NIU shooting. I was really freaked out because CNN had almost no information available. I didn't have a way to get in contact with any of my friends at NIU so that was in the back of my mind all day. It's all so scary.
We had some free time after our lectures, but me and a few of my friends were so tired from walking around so much the night before (and had already seen the city) that we just got lunch at a grocery store (only $10 for a meal instead of $40!) and sat at Starbucks sipping a $5 cup of tea. Ridiculous town.
We all got back to Freiburg on Friday night. I slept so well that night, it was amazing. Yesterday night, I went out to a local brewery with a few friends, including Paul who goes to Beloit with me. He was talking to this guy who had worked as a miner all over the world. He was an American and was there with a man from Eritrea. The American scared me a lot and had incredibly evil looking eyes, so I made conversation with some other people. Paul asked him where he most wanted to work and the guy said "Wherever I can make the most profit." It soon unfolded that he's in the blood diamond industry and has most likely exploited and killed entire communities. Needless to say, I felt sick and had to leave. Disgusting.
Now I'm working on an outline for a paper for my Muslim World class. The paper isn't due until April, but my professor wants a detailed outline with our topic question already. If only I had actually had time to do some research at the library, but he sprung this on us the day before we left for Geneva. Great. I'm writing on the EU's involvement in Afghanistan. But only because it was one of the least depressing things I could write about.
Well..... this turned into an uplifting entry. I'm really very happy, but my liberal arts education has made me pessimistic and disgusted in the world.
On Friday, IES is taking us all to go skiing in the Alps. I haven't been skiing in like five years, so this should be interesting. I'm the only one that I'll be skiing with who's skied in the Rockies, though, so that should be an advantage. Northern Wisconsin is nothing compared to the Alps. Then on Sunday, we're going on our second trip. We're going to Budapest, Prague and Krakow. We're also stopping for an afternoon in Auschwitz because it's on the way. Hopefully the people are a lot more respectful than they were in Dachau. I'm meeting up with John in Krakow and he's going to show me around the city. Hopefully this trip with be fun. This is definitely the one that I'm the most excited for.