Fun Times in Lausanne

Much to my surprise we've had regular opportunities to socialize.  Mostly on the weekends of course, but usually at least once per week the courseload is slow enough to allow us to head for a drink on our way home from school, usually on a night when we've just had a presentation.  George's apartment was even big enough to host a houseparty.  Here are some of the highlights.  I promise I'm working hard.

Ashish (India), Tanveer (Pakistan), Ajit (India)

The White Horse

Celebrating the end of a project.

From the party at George's house.

Roberto (Peru) teaching me salsa.

Me, David (Czech Republic), Roberto (Peru)

Girls Night Out

Vamshi and Rachna (both Indian)

Bei (China) and Ley Hoon (Singapore)

Day Trip to Luzern

The first weekend of February I scheduled all my group work for Saturday so that I could leave Sunday completely open for personal activities. I realized I hadn’t left Lausanne since in the 4 weeks since I arrived, and I really needed a change in scenery, so I headed to the town of Luzern, about 2 hours away, with my classmates Vamshi and Roberto. The change in landscape and the feeling of going someplace I’d never been to before really lifted my sprits – I really could have been going anywhere as long as it was outside Lausanne – because the majority of my days at school were spent trekking the 10 minute walk from my apartment to school at 7:45am and back again at 10pm.

Luzern was quaint, picturesque, and cold. It was still very much winter, and it was even colder there because it’s more northern. We walked around the town, stopped to have lunch (fondue!), walked around some more, stopped to have a gluhwein (hot wine), then caught the train back at around 6pm. The only problem with traveling on Sunday was that most of the shops were closed.

Being out in the cold all day probably wasn't a good idea, because two days later I got sick. : (

Sleeping on the train ride there.

The famous covered bridge.

Crossing the bridge.

Me and Roberto (Peru).

Me and Vamshi (India)

The town square.

Fondue!

It was the weekend of carnival, so all the shop windows were decorated with outlandish caricatures.

That were very realistic.

Some of which were downright creepy.

Sleeping on the train ride home.

That's what friends are for.

Mountain Outdoor "Leadership" Session

During the 4th week of school we had one of those "leadership activity" days where we spent 8 hours outdoors in the snowy mountains of Switzerland, about 30 minutes drive from Lausanne to work on team-building and leading during tough situations and all that kind of stuff.  While our groups of 7-8 people worked through the tasks of the leadership games (such as creating a 20ft wide equilateral triangle with rope while blindfolded or navigating a 5-stage ropes course with all 8 people on one lead rope) the coaches filmed us so that later we could see how we reacted during tense situations. After dinner we had to review the videos and discuss within our team our emotional responses both during the actual tasks and after seeing the video. My group started at 8pm and finished at 1:15am, making it an incredibly draining, long, Wednesday. The videos were remarkably interesting and funny to watch, however, especially the blindfolded exercise, and for many days afterwards I found myself laughing out loud when I remembered the best bits.
The day after we started class a half hour late, at 8:30, and the extra thirty minutes of sleep was extremely welcome. We spent the whole day discussing our experiences from the outdoor exercises, in three different kinds of sessions – one with just my teammates, one with my teammates and our coach, and one as a presentation to the rest of the class. In the afternoon we had to give written and verbal feedback comments to each of our teammates (both positive and negative), so after a marathon session of hearing critical comment about ourselves and giving critical comment to our colleagues the emotional exhaustion emanating from the dungeons was palpable and distinct.
That night around 50% of the class headed to the White Horse for release.

The 90 of us awaiting instruction.

Warm up exercises.

In this exercise we had to cross a "minefield."  They gave us 3 poles, 1 piece of rope, and a large bucket of water and told us to move ourselves and the water across the forbidden "minefield."

We look like we're hoisting the flag at Iwo Jima.

Stephanie is an avid rock climber so she was sent across first.

This exercise was a ropes course.

We were only about 6ft off the ground, but we lost points if any part of our body touched the ground.

Stephanie was the anchor.

This was the large snowball I'd ever rolled in my life.

Warming up with hot food.

Reviewing the video at the end of the day.

Good laughs.