The country has three big regions that each speak primarily one of these languages: French, German and Italian. Each region is very distinct culturally and socially, so it feels like you are traveling internationally just by going to a different city! Geneva is in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, but it is also a very international city. About 60% of the people here are from other countries, and you can hear all kinds of languages being spoken everyhwere you go. For instance, today, I met someone from Russia! It is always cool to see how people communicate in their respective languages.
Switzerland is in Europe, but it does not use the euro like many other countries on the continent. Switzerland uses the Swiss franc. Today, the exchange rate is 1 Swiss Franc= 1.02 American Dollars, which means that these two currencies are roughly the same value! This makes it easy to go shopping since I know that when, for example, a pizza costs 15 Swiss francs, that is roughly 15 American dollars. The Swiss use paper money, but theirs is much more colorful than that which we use in the United States. They also use coins, with higher denominations compared to those that we are used to. For example, there is a coin worth about $5. Fun fact: Switzerland is the only country that uses the Swiss franc as its currency!
