Let the studying begin!

It's a beautiful day in Lausanne today, but I can really start to feel the fall coming on, it was only 8 degrees when I left the apartment this morning! Skies are clear though, and I think we got up to about 16 degrees this afternoon. I spent my last weekend of holidays with my boyfriend here in Lausanne, and I have to show you where we went to eat on Monday, it was beautiful and I would recommend it to anyone staying in Lausanne even if only for one night! We had pasta and pizza which were both so good :D

 LE WATERGATE RESTAURANT
http://www.water-gate.ch/

After this idyllic finale to my holidays, classes have now since Tuesday officially started and my first three days are complete! To be honest the "rentree" was completely chaotic for me-- it's a new system of classes and schedules and groups and professors and information desks and people to contact and registration forms to fill in. The Erasmus program also brings its own administrative fun, so that's basically all I've had time to do this week so far!

Today though, brings new hope for a slightly less paper-work-filled existence, as I have now sent off my "arrival attestation" for Brussels, then gone to the "controle de l'assurance maladie" where all they did was look at my European health insurance card and then made me fill out a form... it took me ages to find this little office as well... but it's done! Third, I went to the "Bureau de controle des habitants" which I found by asking at the police station handily positioned at Flon so I didn't lose myself too badly in the vast network of shopping and walking streets in the area. The office building was huge and very hard to miss when I found it, and a very helpful and happy man behind glass made me a whole file with copies of my apartment contract and my Erasmus contract and whatnot, also accepting my wrong-sized  passport photo for which I was very grateful :) . So it's now a relief that I don't have to go back there for another month or so before my ID card and official residence permit will be ready.

Otherwise having actually started studying has been quite good- I like having a schedule for my day, and my schedule is definitely busy so it's not like I'll have tons of time to just hang around... but who am I kidding? I am doing my 3rd year of medicine here. Nobody said that would be simple. I will have my official schedule available on the university network website tomorrow morning as well, after having sorted out a series of problems with it with the help of the very nice ladies manning the faculty office. Again I have to comment on the niceness of all the Swiss people I am meeting. They all seem so welcoming and happy to help-- I really don't understand why they're being stapled as being "closed" and "hard to get to know"...?

I am getting quite ready for the weekend now though-- I have to get started on some school work, and the weather forecast for Saturday (really crappy) will probably let me do that without feeling too guilty that I'm staying inside :) Anyone with fun weekend plans they want to share?