The Farmer's Market

All week my alarm has gone off at 7am. Wait, that's not true. All week, the cathedral bells start donging (it's really loud, as if Quasimodo wants to get revenge on the entire city of Geneva) at 7am. About 25 seconds after the bells stop, my alarm goes off.

Generally, I'm a morning person. This week my alarm goes off and I curse the Swiss world. How can it possibly be morning already? When will my system realize that it truly isn't 1am, but in fact, time to get up and get to work.

Naturally, I've been eagerly awaiting Saturday morning. Last night I turned my alarm off and settled in my twin size bed to watch "My Family", my favorite new british television show that airs on BBC Prime every evening at 10:30. I have my choice of three english language stations here. CNN, which blows. MSNBC finance, also blows. And BBC Prime, which I adore. After the show, which was hilarious as usual, I snuggled down and looked forward to a long night's sleep. I even shut my windows to muffle quaisimodo's incessant hourly revenge.

When I awoke, I felt fully rested, light as air and ready to start my day. I flipped over to check the time on my blackberry. Blerg! It's 7am. My jet lag has officially sped off.

Like every good Swiss person, I need to do my grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. If you don't, and you work between 9am and 6pm, then you don't eat for the next week. Off to the farmer's market I go.

Every Saturday morning the street in front of Les Halles is filled with fruit and vegetable stands. The vegetables all come from France and Switzerland, the stone friuts come from the same and the citrus fruits come from Spain. I wandered around the market twice, before decided exactly what to buy. I had 50 chf in my pocket and wanted to be smart about what I purchased. Also, I was terrified about interacting with the people behind the stands with my vocabulary consisting of "bonjour" and "merci". Still, I did it. I purchased a motley blend of heirloom tomatoes, unbelieveably fragrant basil, haricots verts (green beans to the rest of the world), mountain-grown strawberries, wild mushrooms and apricots. Next, I went to the indoor portion of Les Halles. This is where the butchers, cheese-makers, bakers and fish-people set up their stands. This place is chaotic. Little old swiss women with thier push carts hollaring over the counter about exactly what they want and every other swiss person in the world hoarding in to place their orders. I had the balls to order 6 slices of succulant-looking ham (it was 9 chf, so it better be succulant) bread, fresh yogurt and some jelly. My hands full, my pockets empty, I headed home to enjoy my bounty.

I made it through my first week! Beautiful food. Beautiful city. Now I just need to make friends!