The season formerly known as "summer" is long gone, the way a midwest March hits you with a second coating of ice.

I must be living in a cloud. The sky is white. The air watery. The only time I'm completely warm is when curled under the down douve that came with my room.

Ah, welcome to Switzerland. I'm about 30 minutes from Geneva. On a clear day, I was told that I can see Mount Blanc. France is on the other side of the lake. Last night I watched the sun set in a pink haze over the distant Alps.

It feels like fall here. Everything is hazy. I'm glad for the green on the ground and trees, the splashes of color from the yellow and pink flowers adorning the windowsills and in planters near the driveway. But I miss the sun and the bright blue of the summer sky. The roofs of the buildings here are burnt orange and red, some tiles looking like fish scales. The outside walls are light brown with green shutters. The countryside looks rather like home (especially on cloudy days like today, when I can't see the mountains).

I'm staying in a farming community (no post office, even), in a building that used to be an orphanage years ago. Much of it has been converted to more modern dorms. The loft looks like a page from the Ikea catalogue. The wooden floorboards in my dorm squeak. (There will be no sneaking into the room late at night after finishing homework, no tip-toeing out to the toilet.)

My room is small--smaller than my dorm room when I was in college--and I will share with two other girls. I already know them from last year and our room already has that same smell of that dorm. I recognized it the moment I walked in. Must be the one girls' laundry detergent. If only the weather was warm, I could throw open the windows, let in the fresh Swiss air.

Class begins tonight with coffee and warm words of welcome. I've heard there are between 25-34 students. They must all be arriving later this afternoon. Of those I've met so far, two are from the States, two others from Tanzania and Mozambique. Current events in a highly cross-cultural setting...should be interesting.