Bonjour!

So here I am in switzerland. This keyboard is a a french one so some of the letters on the keys are in different places the Y is where the X should be for example.

I left my apartment at 2:00 PM on Thursday and it took me until 9ish PM (Swiss time) on Friday to arrive at the apartment Mike is staying at. He's living with two other Swiss boys who go to the art school here in this town of 10,000 people. The locals look at me funny, I think, because I'm asain and this is a small backwater town. I know almost no french so communicating is a but tough. This is about all the french of know and i might even be wrong on some of them:
Please. see boo play
Thank you. merci
Thank you very much. merci bow coo
Hello. bonjour.
Bye. au revior
With. avec.
I don't know. je ne se qua.
Do you speak english? parlay voo anglias?
Cheese. fromage.
Excuse me. excoos ze moi.
Exit. sortiee
Entrance. entree
Passenger. pass ah ge
Toilet. toillette

Uh, I think that's about it. I know a few more food related words. Speaking of food, it's horrible here. I ate at a grocery store cafeteria yesterday. And there were a lot of people there and it was 10 fracs (1 franc is about 85 cents). Everything is also expensive. The chocolate isn't too shabby and bread everywhere is great. I did get sick from a sandwich I ate for lunch though.

Mike and I spent way to much time trying to figure out how to use a washing machine. You think it would be easy enough since the washing machine only had icons on it.

Oh my flight over to Europe...
I flew into Paris with no problem. My single serving friends were decent enough. There was young German man to my right and older American woman to my left. The woman drank every last drop of her cocktail and wine and alternated betwen the new David Sedaris book and napping. The young man read one of those paperbacks with the embossed gold type on it and listened to his iPod. I tried to watch Love Actually but the screen was too far away and I quit trying to strech my neck to see the movie. I read Vernon Little God and sleep but neither went to well. I was thinking too many other things. I was happy to finally land in Paris 10.5 hours later. I took a shuttle to catch my connecting flight and found out it was delayed. No problem, I thought. Happens all the time. Well, as it turns out there's a strike going on and they can't get fuel in the plane. They don't know when the plane can take off. We all wait. People get upset. Some people leave, the rest of us wait. I see this familiar face at the gate counter-- it's a model but I can't think of where I've seen here. I spent the next half hour trying to remember what ad I seen her in and finally rememberd, Ralph Lauren. She's in a white and blue outfit, maybe it's a bikini. Anyway, she looks younger in person but still unfairly beautiful. I was supposed ot board the plane at 12:20 PM but we didn't get on until 3:45 or so. I was worried that Mike wouldn't be able to fine me. He didn't give an address or a working phone number so I couldn't call. My flight ended up being about 2.5 hours long instead of 1 hour and 10 minutes because we had to get fuel in the middle of in France. Whoopie. I was a bit freaked out that Mickey wouldn't find me, I woudln't find him but as I exited the customs area I saw this very tall man. In a yellow tshirt. In cool fashionable jeans. With no hair. He looked like a cross between Billy Corgan and Matt Damon. Oh, shit. It was Mickey. Hmph. He's been Euroized and I was very pleased to see him.

Ugh, tired of typing. But here's something funny Mickey noted: "None of them have boxsprings or beds. I wonder if it's cultural or they're just poor."