Paris Part 1: Oui Oui!

Okay so I am finally posting this blog about Paris – especially for my mother because she likes to email me every 30 seconds asking about my blog update. HERE YOU GO, LOVE!

First, I would like to say that Paris was more than what I expected it to be. Amazing, breath-taking… they don’t call it the city of love for no reason!!

Getting to Paris was a hassle.  Me and my girl friends had been warned before that it takes about a good month prior to traveling to work out trains to get to paris because they fill up so quickly. About three weeks before we go to paris, we go to the train station in lugano (a 2 minute walk) and figure out arrangements. We were in the train station communicating (I would say “talking” but its hard to “talk” to someone who does not speak English well and my Italian is slightly rusty… go figure) with the person for about an hour until we finally we able to get a cheap, 3 changing train ride to paris!!

Paris is not cheap. Paris is expensive. (obviously… if its not cheap than it has to be expensive). Originally we were going to try and cram 19 people into an 8 person 1 bath apartment. Yeah… you think we are crazy but until you travel on a budget… you MAKE things work. Luckily, we were able to find another apartment near us so we ended up splitting up (thank god… 1 bath for 19 girls? HA!!! That would have been a fun 4 days to blog about…). The apartment I stayed in was very nice, quaint, and cute. 1 bunk bed, 2 futons, and 2 lofts.  We fit 12 people into the 8 person rather comfortably. The only problem that we faced was the shower situation….

[[[[[[I have never actually experienced a “cold shower”. Ohhhh this was more of a FREEZING shower. After 4 nights of staying in this apartment, I was lucky to score 1 semi warm shower. The rest were freezing. ICE. Like, I couldn’t not breathe because I was that cold. I know I talk about having an unusually high temperature that always causes me to sweat profusely in any circumstances… well… this was a different situation. I did not enjoy this shower one bit. Anyway.. that is my ranting on the showers. Other than that, we had free coffee so that was nice, I guess.]]]]]

Okay, now that that venting session is done, I can now start to tell y’all about the best days ever in PARI!! We were very lucky to be traveling with one of the girls on the trip that actually is French and speaks fluent French!! So thankfully we had a native so we did not get too ripped off and taken advantage of because we are just “silly americans”.

SITES: The Louvre, Notre Dam, Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Moulin Rouge

LOUVRE (pronounced: loov)

The Louvre is a really cool, big, musueum filled with a lot of art. The main thing it is known for is, of course, the Mona Lisa. Now, I had heard that the Mona Lisa is one of the most disappointing pieces of art to see, and I had no idea why. Well, let me tell you why.  After standing in line for 30 minutes, luckily getting a free ticket into the museum (its free after 6pm), making our journey all around the Louvre to find this masterpiece, we finally come up the a room filled with people. I suspected we found the Mona Lisa because of the people surrounding this wall. I was confused at why everyone was staring at just a wall… but then as I walked closer… I realized they were not just staring at a blank wall. You see, the Mona Lisa is the size of a sheet of loose leaf paper. It is the smallest, most DISAPPOINTING thing I have seen. Yes yes yes, I saw the Mona Lisa, but not gonna lie…. It looked the same as all the pictures and replicas on the internet…. And that’s all I have to say about that.

When we came out of the Louvre, we came across a rather frightening thing. We witnessed a black male chasing away and hitting at 2 young girls!! We were shocked at what we had just seen because they black man literally was swapping at these 2 girls as if they stole something from him??? We were sooo confused until we experienced something that made us realize why he was chasing and yelling at these young girls… On our walk from the Louvre, 3 girls (about 8-12 yrs old) came up to us with papers in their hands indicating that they were deaf and they wanted donations to this organization.  We soon figured out that this was a very popular scam that is placed around Paris.  Not only did we see these girls approach us at the moment, but we had children come up to us 3 other times with the same scam of being deaf and trying to distract us so that people could pick-pocket us!!! It shocks me how a human being could manipulate children that young to pretend that they have a disability in order to carry out this scam… disgusting.

Anyway, the next cool thing we saw was Notre Dam!!! All I could think about was the movie the Hunch Back of Notre Dam… obviously. Hahah Again.. another disappointing architectural site. Ive seen one church, ive seen them all. It was a very beautiful church: tall ceilings, nice art, cool stuff all around. Again, Notre Dam is just one of those places I went to just to say I went to it.

Onto…. THE EIFFEL TOWER!!! Not going to lie, once we got to the Eiffel Tower… it hit me so hard that we were actually in Paris! What a breathtaking thing to see in real life!! Absolutely amazing. You grow up learning about such a dramatic symbol of Paris… and actually being in the presence is completely gratifying. My favorite part of the entire trip to Paris, was drinking wine underneath of the Eiffel Tower for 2 hours in the park. So many people are in the park (both days we were there) – everyone just sitting and picnicking and listening to the performers… it was perfection.

Versailles was another spectacular place to go it. I do not know necessarily the purpose of this gigantic, beautiful palace… but it was gigantic and it was beautiful.  I think Marie Antoinette lived there at some point??? Anyway, it was about a 45 min train right to Versailles and worth it!! Before you actually get to the palace, you have to walk about ¼ mile up what I like to call their “driveways” at the time. You could see the golden gates approaching –( I wanted to walk faster, but naturally… everyone in Europe thinks building rods made of cobblestone with huge spaces in between is the best thing to walk on and you definitely wont sprain your ankle…) We get to the gates and the palace is MASSIVE!! OH MY. This was something I’ve never imagined before but only really seen palaces like these in like.. Disney animated films or something. We could have paid 15 euros to go into the palace… butttttt I am broke and I had to save some money so I could eat escargot later. We skipped the tour of the palace, but we were able to go to the gardens in the backyard (look at the pictures on facebook, most beautiful acres of land in the entire world).

Moulin Rouge. Well.. there isn’t really any too significant about the Moulin Rouge other than the fact that we love the movie and we just wanted to see the real thing in person. Again, another disappointment from the French… its just a building with a cool miniature ferris wheel type object attached to it. Still, I love the fact that I can say I went to THE Moulin Rouge. “Voulez vuco shea avec moi, ses swa” hahahah…. Dirty.

That's all the main sites for now!! Soon to come: all the juicy cool stuff having to do with paris!! 

• diversity
• they all hate americans
• starbucks incident
• sex shop on every corner
• men calling out rude gestures
• small bars - not a big clu scene
• crepes
• longchamp
• dinners outside
• escargot

the suspense must be killing you.. hehe.

Schnitzel, Spaetzle, Brats, OH MY!

BERLIN!!

Our itinerary for our second 10 day break: Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest

Berlin was the start of our 10 day adventure – german is in my blood so I knew this was going to be a good time! Mind you… we had to take an overnight train to this fantastic place.  For all of you who do not know what an overnight train is… listen up! Basically it is a normal train.  Think harry potter compartments within the trains. In the carts are bunk bed attached to the wall – 3 beds stacked on one side and 3 on the other. Did I mention that the compartments are the size of a normal sized pantry and that there are 6 girls with 6 luggage that need to also be fit in the compartments??? This was what you call a “clusterf*ck”. Ohhhh I do not like traveling with girls. By this time.. it was late, we were all hangry (anger caused by hunger) and lucky for us, we were all sinked up… and by sinked up I mean since we have been traveling all together, apparently this causes girls to start having their periods at the same time. I do not need to farther explain the excitement of traveling to Berlin… but I am very happy it is over.

We get to berlin and we get to our hostel which is quite nice, Wombats. If you recall earlier, we stayed in another Wombats when we went to Munich. This hostel reminded me more of a hotel – very clean and we had our own showers in our room!! (this is called en suite… I think). Since we were there pretty early, we decided to go out and see a couple of things – we were located right in the middle of Berlin so most of the attractions were close by (and by close, I mean that there are only 3 things to see really…)

FOOD

The food in Berlin was amazing. I was so happy to step outside of my comfort zone and order something besides a burger!! There is this thing called schnitzel – I am not quite sure what it is, but its basically like… fried meat. I think the meat is like.. lambbbb orr venison? I have no idea but it was delightful!! The second thing that is super German to eat is spetzle. OMG I love spetzle.  It was the most amazing thing I have eaten in a while. Spetzle is literally… mac n cheese with a german twist. And I love mac n cheese. It was basically fancy mac n cheese with peppers and onions and it was very deliciously awesome. I ate both spetzle and schnitzel at this beer house which I cant remember the name of (of course) but it was located near the train station.

The germans also love their bratwursts.  Brats on brats on brats. Currywurst (brats with curry) bratwurst (hotdogs basically)  There were shops everywhere over berlin selling them, so it was a quick, cheap lunch to get for the few days we were there.

For some reason… Europe does not believe in the art of eating Mexican food.  I have been craving Mexican since the 4^th day I have been in Europe (January 9^th). That is a long time, btw.  It was our mission (and when I say “our” I mean… “my” mission..) to find a sit down legit Mexican restaurant.  And we were successful!! We ate at this amazing Mexican restaurant 3 min walk from our hostel.  Now, It was either because I was craving Mexican, I was starving, or it was just simply delicious… but the food was amazing. I miss queso (cheese) sooooo much. I miss burrioes.  I miss having to unbutton my pants after dinner because I ate too many rice and beans. Thank GOD that the germans have some Mexican flavaah in their blood that they were kind enough to grace me with a meixcan restaurant.  YUM.

PLACES TO SEE!

So the biggest things to see in Berlin are: The Berlin wall (duh), checkpoint Charlie (the place if you wanted to get from west berlin to eat berlin, you had to go through this checkpoint to cross the other side), and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The berlin wall was awesome. Definitely something I was very fortunate to see!! The part of the wall we saw was the famous place where there is graffiti on the one side (west) and then actual act on the other side (east).  What an experience!!

NIGHTLIFE!

Berlin is known for their crazy nightlife and they like to stay up until 6am because apparently that’s normal. I am known for being crazy but not at night.. and I like to go to bed by 1am if I am going out… berlin and I did not match well together. BUT – the clubs were cool and fun with good music and good company.  I am getting old… I can barely hang with these young people anymore!

Berlin wasn’t as cool at Munich (refer to my time in Munich) but it was still great to be able to eat some of the best food I have yet! Next stop, PRAGUE!

CIAO FOR NOW!

I AMsterdam

AMSTERDAM!

Well, I know what everyone’s perception about Amsterdam probably is – weed and the red light district. Annnddd you are absolutely correct. Hahaha, but really though, Amsterdam was actually a very pretty city.

This is going to be a short post because 1. We were only in Amsterdam for 2 nights 2. There is not much to do in Amsterdam 3. I will be skipping over many details

I know I said previously that London was the coldest city… I was lying. Because AMSTERDAM was FREEZING. The high was 20 and the low was 9. Degrees. Fahrenheit.  Brrrrr. We got to Amsterdam around 3, and we were already exhausted from the previous days in London, so we just chilled in our hostile (which was VERY nice btw. 30 euros a night, Hostel Van Gogh. BEST SHOWER I HAVE HAD SINCE I HAVE BEEN IN EUROPE). We were located in a good spot in Amsterdam, right near some restaurants and fun night life and about a 25 min walk from red light district. We got some dinner a bit later and went out that night. That’s about the most excitement I can blog about at this moment.

The next day, Saturday, we went to the Heineken Museum!! It was very similar to the Guinness Factory but it was BETTER! It was better because it was more interactive, we got more free beer along the way, and I did not mind the taste of the beer either! I definitely would recommend doing the Heineken Beer Tour if you are ever in Amsterdam! After the beer tour, we went to the Van Gogh Museum.  Personally, I thought it was a rip off because 3 of his biggest pieces (starry night, and some other famous ones) were not actually innnn the museum. But I guess it was still cool to see a bunch of Van Gogh art work. Wish I could have posted pictures but you are not allowed to have cameras in the Van Gogh Museum. After the museum we went back to our hostile and got ready again for the night. And we went out and it was fun (hahaha… I know, soo0o detailed).

The red light district is literally an area of roads with nakey women in the windows. There is a main road which I guess all the really good places to go are. You are not allowed to take pictures of the nakey women or else they will chase you down and break your camera or they will through a cup of pee on you. I kid you not. 2 min is all you need for the red light district. Btw they call it the red light district because literally, the windows are lighted by red lights. Clever.

That was Amsterdam – it was cool to say I went there but I don’t really have the urge to go again.

FUN FACTS

There are so many coffee shops. And by coffee shops I mean weed shops. You can buy weed, brownies, cupcakes, space cakes, cake, and other marijuana stuff in these coffee shops. If you want to go to an ACUTAL coffee shop you have to go to a “café”.

The Dutch are the meanest people we have met yet, right ahead of the Germans. The Dutch were rude, non-smiley and had a weird language that was too harsh and I just did not like them. Rude.

They should change the name from "Europe" to "Nothingisfree"

1. There are no free refills...

2. Water is more expensive than wine

3. You have to pay to use the bathroom -- .5-1 euro normally

4. There is no in-between with being starving and full or have-to-pee-so-bad-my-blatter-is-going-to-burst to comfortable. Literally, we are go go go that we dont have time to snack or to pee (apparently) So when we do get "hungry" we are STARVING and when we have to pee... let's just say I need to start packing more underwear with me on these trips...

10 points to USA on these topics -- atleast we got one thing right. free refills and supersized everything!! woo hooo!!

CIAO FOR NOW

Are your from LONDON?!

PART 2 of Hogwarts .. i mean LONDON!

The next day in London was also filled with many many activities to do! This was the actual “cultural” part of the trip and we had to see the BIG things. Like… BIG ben, parliament, the London eye, Westminster abbey, and the British Museum!!

So every major city we go to in Europe, there is a company that does Free Tours of the city we are in. If you have read my other blogs, you can see we have done these Free Tours in Munich and in Dublin. These free tours are walking tours and they take you to popular places around the city you are in, but the down side of these tours… they take FOREVERRRR. Literaly… 4 hour long walking tours. And I am allll for walking and getting that exercise in, but sometimes I just need to sit down and have a chocolate bar and just chill a little bit. SO the girls and I decided we would have our own personal walking tour!

To get around London, the best, easiest, and cheapest way to travel is the Underground! It’s just like the subway or metro in DC. So we got our Oyster cards (they are little cards that are like mini debit cards. You put money on the oyster cards and you swipe them to get through the gate things… like a subway system whatever.) Thank GOD I am travling with directionally functional girls because I literally would be LOST most of the time without them (shoutout to Kira and Katie!! – these girls are like our personal GPS system… but in human form.) SO we started off with traveling to see Big Ben. To my surprise…. Big ben is actually connected to parliament! Who would have thunk it?! Well, Tour Guide Kelly filled us in (my one friend Kelly was travling with us and she brought her Kindle while we were exploring London so every time we got to a new destination, she would Wikipedia the place we were at and then tell us allllll there is to know about that place. That’s why we called her Tour Guide Kelly. AND she talked in a british accent! 10 points for Kelly!) SO big ben parliament and Westminster abbey were all literally in the same square so we did not need to walk far at all (thank you baby jesus). Right around the corner, about 3 streets over, is the London Eye. The London Eye is basically a huge ferriss wheel that is decked out and really big and cool and if you buy tickets (14 pounds – I did not buy tickets because I can just google a bird’s-eye view of London…. And I am on a budget. I’d rather buy an invisibility cloak than spend my money on the London eye). SO next on the stop was the British Museum. Before we hit the British museum, we ate at a restaurant nearby…. Of course it was an Irish pub. I ordered a cheeseburger.

The British museum was large and in charge. And it was a huge building that kind of resembled what it would be like if you were inside of a very large marble. The ceilings were cool looking and it was just large and round. The only great thing about the British museum, beside the fact that it has a lot of cool old things from all over the world, is the Rosetta stone. The RS was a lot smaller than I thought—about the size of a 42 inch plasma tv.  It was nice to say that I visited this museum, but to be honest… we have visited so many museums, they are all starting to cluster together (annnnd we go to ANOTHER museum in Amsterdam… more to come on that later). So we ended with the bristish museum and made our way back to the hostel to get ready for the evening! Unfortunately.. we were in London during the weekdays… so we attempted at going out but there was NOTHING happening. All the “bars” and “clubs” closed early at midnight or 1, but we couldn’t even find these places in the first place so it didn’t really matter. London was not as poppin’ at night time compared to the other places -- that doesn’t matter because I am on these traveling trips for the culture aspect… right?

SO London was a pretty wicked place to be! We had a good time even though it was FREEZING – the coldest place I have been so far!

CIAO FOR NOW!

FUN FACTS

There is NO Mexican restaurants ANYWHERE in Europe. We thought that London would be a good place to find Mexican food and we wasted probably an hour a day walking around trying to find a Mexican restaurant. Even though we couldn’t find a Mexican restaurant, we found out they had CHIPOTLE!!! And of course we ate there… twice.

Pigeons I think where originated in Europe. Specifically LONDON. I swear, I have never seen so many dirty birds in my life. 

Excuse me, where can I find Platform 9 3/4?

ATTENTION: this is just Part 1 of my London blogging. Part 2 in theaters soon. (probably later today)

We finally arrive to the place where Hogwarts exist! And it’s okay to ask where Platform 9 and ¾ is!!! Well… I think so atleast.

After landing in London Gatwick airport, we had to get on a bus ride to take us to our hostel. Of course, the first experience we have on the bus ride is not necessarily a favorite of ours… Us being Americans, and girls, we tend to be quite loud wherever we go. All. The. Time.  So being our normal-volume selves, we are chatting away! This drunken old man in the very back of the bus did not seem to like this. He stumbled his way up to my friend, Kira, and told her that we had to get off the bus because we were too loud. Kira wasn’t havin’ this – she went to the bus driver and complained -- luckily the bus driver was on our side and told the man he needed to pull it together or get off the bus. 10 points for AMERICA! After our interesting 40 minute bus ride, we finally got to our hostel around 930pm. At this point, we were all so tired and hungry and tired and cranky and HANGRY (anger caused by hunger). We walked to a nearby Japanese restaurant and nom’ed our little hearts away. Back to the hostel we went and passed out. (I promise -- the next couple days were more exciting! READ ON!!!)

The next morning we had a big day ahead of us – Changing of the guards, High Tea (tea party), and Wicked! We started off in the morning with breakfast at the hostel before we set out to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards.

After the 30 minute walk through London, we had to make a couple stops along the way for 2 main reasons. 1. We were lost and had to ask directions from every other person we passed by. I didn’t mind asking for direction because all the British accents are so WICKED AWESOME!! 2. There are Starbucks for dayyyys in London. Literally. Just like ‘murica, there is a Starbucks on every block. Also, they refer to major intersections of roads as “Circus” So we walked through Piccadilly Circus and a lot of other Circuses.. Circus’s… Circi? along the way (I think when they refer to places as “Circus” it is like amurcans referring to places as “Circles”…. Makes sense because every single “Circus” was literally just a circling of roads in a big open area….) Finally, we made it to Buckingham PALACE!! Unfortunately, Prince Harry was out of the country so my proposal to him will be on pause until the next time I visit London.

So, the Changing of the Guards. What is this? It is literally what it says. The guards rotate in and out every other day, and apparently it is really cool. False. It was kind of boring. But in theory… I guess it was nice to see it happen. There was a huuuuge crowd outside of Buckingham Palace just to see the changing of the guards (COG). Buckingham Palace is very beautiful too btw. All big and old looking with gold-rimmed gates. Definitely not Hogwarts but more like a Gringotts (if you do not follow Harry Potter, then stop reading now because I WILL be referencing everything HP from here on out). So all of us girls and guys are standing with the crowd surrounding the gates and roads outside of B-Palace waiting for the COG (changing of the guards, keep up!). Finally we see some horses and a long row of men and women marching in these long navy blue dresses (uniforms, but they look like dresses) and they are swinging their arms all big and they have big, tall, poofy black hats on (think of Marge Simpson with black hair, that’s what the hats looked like). They all walk inside of the gates. From then on, it was kind of hard to see what was happening, but I am guessing they were “changing of the guards” hehe. So thennnn it kind of turned into a little band show (think high school band). Another set of men and women in uniforms marched up the street toward B-Palace and was basically a marching band. They all walked inside the gates and set up their stands and instruments and just started playing music (about 20 band member). The first song they played…. LET IT BE by the Beatles. HAHAH! I was cracking up. They WOULD be playing Beatles songs. But it didn’t stop with that. The next song they played… wait for it… James Bond Theme song. I am NOT making this up. Whhyyy were they playing James Bond Theme song outside of B-Palace? I have no idea, but I liked it nonetheless. So that was B-Palace and the changing of the guards and it was kind of cool but kind of boring at the same time – all in all it was nice to see my future home where I will be getting married to Prince Harry next year. Invitations will be sent out shortly!

After B-Palace we went back to our Hostel to get ready for HIGH TEA!!! High tea is basically a tea party!! And of course me and my girl frands wanted to do this because we were in LONDON! So off to High Tea at 4pm. We got to the place, and it was sooo pretty and nice inside – quiet, clean, modern, fresh and quiet.. and quiet. Remember what I said earlier about us girls being loud… mhmmm. Well it didn’t matter because we were looking really good and tryna have some tea and crumpets! They sat us at our booth and already had the table set up. We had a menu and could choose which tea we could have. I asked the waiter what the most popular tea was and it is the Rosebud tea. I got that one. It was delicious! The way the tea pots are made, they literally put rose buds and other herbs into this small cylinder within the tea pot and then pour hot water over it and it filters through all the herbs and rose petals.  And we had tea! Other girls had peppermint, jasmine, and more rosebud. Right after our tea was poured, they brought out 4 tiered-platters (there were 11 of us girls there). Each platter had 3 tiers: 1^st were tiny sandwhichs (salmon, ham, curry, another meat) 2^nd was biscuits and jam, 3^rd was desserts – macaroons, brownies, and other british treats. We finished the platter in about 5 minutes. We are hungry girls who don’t eat much and when we have the opportunity to eat… we EAT. All this experience only cost 11 pounds! It was fabulous.

So tea time was fabulous and what better way to end our day then to go see Wicked on Broadway! Excuse me.. its not actually on broadway and I made that embarrassing mistake. 10 points from Gina. Because broadway isn’t in London… It’s just called Wicked in London I guess. Specifically Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I have been to broadway shows before, 3 to be exact, but Wicked has so far been my favorite show yet!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! AMAZING! We got into the theater, all 20 of us (20 peopl went to London but I was mainly with 6 girls the entire time. One of the people was able to get a group discount for students. 17 pounds per ticket!). Lights went out and the show went on. If you do not know what Wicked is about, google it because it would take me days to write you out the story line.  We ended the night with wicked and made our way back to the hostel – we had a biiiiggg day tomorrow with site seeing!

So that was my first night and first full day in London. More to come soon! But I have to go to class and “learn” now… because that’s what I am supposed to be doing on a STUDY abroad program… right?

PART 2 of LONDON will be posted SHortly!!!!!!!!! 

Fun FACTS!

David Beckham posters are EVERYWHERE. I didn’t complain… he was super sized.. so everything was supersized.

People still think I am Brazilian

Starbucks everywhere

The Dublin Jail...

I just found out is called  Kilmainham Gaol. 

BTW, London and Amsterdam post will take me a while... hopefully should be posted by tomorrow!!!

DUBLIN? More like PUBLIN!

Dublin

**this text is in green because...welll... it's IRELAND!***

Off to Dubcity!! I was so excited to go to Ireland, mainly because I know my mother is obsessed with Ireland and it’s cool to make her jealous sometimes.. hehe jk. Anyway, this was the first time I was traveling via PLANE in Europe.

The cheapest flights you can take around Europe are through this airline company “Ryanair”. Tickets to Dublin were about 20 euros (not too shabby!).  Now… I am not a fan of flying in the first place, and when I found out that Ryanair is a cheap airline it did not sit too well with me because I wanted to make sure we were going to be flying safe and sound. Basically… Ryanair is the Greyhound’s of airlines in Europe. They may not have the best service but they will get you where you need to go. Ryanair is very strict about weight limits for checking bags. Bags HAVE to be no more than 15 lb or else you have to pay 40 extra euros. Me and the group of girls I went with went to go weigh our bags on the weigher-thing and low and behold… every single girls’ bag was overweight. NOT MINE! Because I am efficient. And I am too poor to try and spend an extra 40 dollars, excuse me EUROS, on a 15 lb bag.  Not to boast… but I did check my bag at 11.6 lb. BOOM! All the girls’ bags were about 17-19 pounds. So, right in the middle of the airport in front of the checked baggage area…. There are 5 girls on the ground pulling out shoes, clothes, ANYTHING, that would make their bags less heavy. I stood and watched them while eating some oreos (that Ryan shipped to me previously. Oreos here are either too hard to find or else way too expensive…). I am smart and definitely and an experienced world traveler by now!

We finally land in Dublin!! At this time it is about noon and we checked into our hostel --- The Four Courts --Bunk bed style, very cramped. Oooooh 6 girls trying to get ready in a 15 by 9 room….. yep. I already have a sweating disorder, but when there are 2 hair-blow dryers, 3 straighteners on, AND girls going in and out of the shower which then turns into a sauna…. Melting does not describe how much I was sweating. Let’s just say the Niagra Falls is located in two places… Canada and MY BODY. It was a worthless cause trying to apply makeup. Anywaaaaay after we got situated, we had to grab a quick lunch because I had to make my tattoo appointment at 4pm!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was by far the best experience ever!! (Getting my tattoo) !!! So we got to the tattoo place, Zulu’s, on time. It was a standard tattoo/pericing place… all the artists were tatted and pierced up. I checked in at the desk and the guy was just asking all of us where we were from. After we told him that we were from Virginia, he was silent and responded “Really?! Ha Ha Ha, I am from Alexandria, Virginia!” TALK ABOUT A SMALL WORLD! We flew all the way to Dublin and we meet someone from Virginia! I knew everything was going to be good from then on. I went to the tattoo place knowing that I wanted to get a 4 leaf clover. My mom is born on St. Patrick’s day, and it seemed only fitting to get a FOUR leaf clover (family of 4 – Lorraine, van, phil, and me and also for good luck) because I was in IRELAND DUH! I did not have a specific design in mind, but I had a good feeling the people of Dublin had some clovers they have tattooed before. I was right. My original artist, Duane, was backed up, so they placed me with Sean instead. BEST DECISION EVER! I was very lucky to have Sean because Sean is the tattoo artist for Green Day AND Xenophilius Lovegood (from HARRY POTTER!!). I was literally in good hands. Before I got my tattoo, I was feeling very jittery and nervous. Alexandria guy told me that if I wanted, I could have a beer while I got it done. Well… I sure enough took him up on his offer. Me and my girl friends all drank a beer. I got on the chair, was drinking my beer with one hand, my friend Katie was holding my other hand, and all of a sudden I felt a razor blade carve my skin (it wasn’t aaccttually a razor blade. But it felt like it!) Luckily, the tattoo only took 15 minutes!! Sean was done tattooing me before I could even FINISH my beer… such a shame ( I was drinking Budweiser…). SO that that was my tattoo! 15 minutes of pure pain for the best everlasting European souvenir!! You’re welcome, Lorraine.

After the tattoo, we all went back to the hostel and got ready for the evening. In Dublin, the best street/area to go to at night is this place called “Temple Bar”. Temple Bar is this long street filled with pubs and great live music! This was by far my favorite place I have been so far in Europe. Every single pub had live music with someone playing the guitar and someone singing. Btw, I thought the Germans could drink. HA! The Irishmen will drink the Germans under the table! I realized it is only acceptable to be drunk at 10am on 2 occasions. 1. If you are in Ireland/ are Irish. 2. If you are at a football tailgate. It didn’t hurt the fact that we were visiting Ireland during the biggest rugby matches Ireland was playing all weekend! Such a good time with good music and good friends!

The food was all pretty “normal”. I think Ireland and London definitely take on a lot of American style restaurants. Nothing particularly stood out. But the one thing I did have for the first time was FISH AND CHIPS! (btw… fries in Europe are called chips… EVERYWHERE. Sooo if I want fries I ask for chips and if I want chips… I still ask for chips. I don’t know.. its confusing. Luckily they know what I am asking for when I ask for fries) So the place we went to was the famous fish and chips! Literally, famous. They had a plaque on the wall of alllll the famous people that had eaten in their tiny tiny shop. From Sandra Bullock to U2 to Brad Pitt’s parents. It was cool. And deliciously fried.

All day Sunday we did a walking tour of Dublin. We were able to see this old castle place, Trinity College, Christ Church, this other old building, some green grass, annndd some cathedrals in the mix. Me and the girls broke off half way because we wanted to go see this really old jail. (Gah I wish I paid more attention to the history and what the names of everything is).. anyway, the jail was so cool!!!! The tour of the jail was about an hour and the tour guide was such a character. He as this old guy that looked like santa claus, but was legit and he knew his jail history. Sooo after the jail we went by St. Patrick’s cathedral and then walked back to our hostel to get ready for Super BOWLLLLL That night, there was one pub open specifically to cater to the American Football lovers (americans.) We watched 15 minutes of the super bowl. Go Giants!

On our last day in Dublin, we went on the Guinness Factory Tour! (beer). It was wicked cool! It was a self-tour and they walked you around 5 levels of how they make and produce beer. Only 4 ingredients! Water, barley, hops, and yeast. Something about a fermentation process and something else about letting it sit for a couple day…. Idk. All I know is that we got free beer on the way (not really free because I spent fricken 12 euros on this tour…). I have never had Guinness before… and lets just say the tour made it sound like it was going to taste amazing. False. Lies. Erroneous. Guinness tastes like Sh*t. I am sorry. But that is some nasty stuff. But I drank my beers anyway because I wasn’t letting that 12 euros go to waste. Oooohhh it was yucky beer. Then again… I’m not a big beer girl anyway. I like Natty Light….. you can see how mature my taste buds are. But once we got to the top gof the building, we were in a 360 cylinder room of glass overlooking all of Dublin! THAT was worth ATLEAST 9 of my 12 euros…. The last 3 euros went to the cute boys that were everywhere and the wonderful accents. (love ya ryan)

Before we left for our second flight on Ryainair (yes… another 30 minutes spent on the floors while girls tried to make weight… again) we stopped at this local shop that would print out the meaning and history of your last name on a scroll of parchment. So…. I decided I would step in and ask the man to look up the meaning of Weisner (my mom’s maiden name). Low and behold…. He had some info on weisner and it all came up in about 6 paragraphs. What makes this place extra special is that you can put designs and fun pictures on the background of the text. You see, my mom is obsessed with Ireland.  Some people may even say that she wishes she were Irish. (She really does wish she were Irish.  She wants to be Irish like I want to stop sweating the Niagra Falls every day) I thought it would be quite comical to have the man print off the history of the “weisner family” WITH a picture of Ireland as the background. Clever, eh? More like hilariously brilliant! What makes this story almost perfect is that I was then going to see if he could change the name from Weisner to… “O’Weisner”. I mean, nothing screams Irish like putting “o” in front of it! Sadly enough, the computer system wouldn’t let the change. So I settled with the history of the german name “weisner” with an Irish flag in the background…. LOVE IT!

Dublin was a great time! Even though it was rainy, the Irish accents definitely put everyone in a better mood. So far Dublin has been my favorite place and I would love to go explore other parts of Ireland in the Future!! Next stop, LONDON!!!!!

FUN FACTS!

1.       Irish accents are great when you can actually understand them. Some of these irish accents were so think, I may as well been in Germany because I could not understand them!

2.       Irish people are the nicest people I have met so far in Europe. It’s probably because they love their irish accents as much as I do which puts them in a good mood.

3.       Guinness is disgusting

4.       Even though predominately catholic (98%), there is no official catholic church in dub city

5.       Cheers!

Dachau: Concentration Camp

Disturbing does not quite capture the concentration camp at Dachau.

We arrived at Dachau in the morning around 10pm. Before you actually go into the concentration camp, there is an information building out front.  We went in to see how much the tour would cost (if it would cost anything) but found out that the next available tour wasn’t for another 2 hours.  We decided we did not need a tour leader, because the entire concentration camp is filled with information boards in all locations that you can read and learn about what happened (you can see this from my pictures on facebook). So we began walking into the concentration camp.

When stepping through the gates into the concentration camp, I did not realize how much of an effect it was going to have on me. The very first thing you saw was a huge open area. In the open area, the Nazis would gather all of the prisoners for morning roll call or just for punishment activities.  Almost everyday, the prisoners would be forced to stand in lines for hours. Just standing.  If a prisoner could not stand for that long and collapsed, the prisoner would be hanged (hanged up my his wrists for hours).

After walking through the open courtyard area, we walked through the barracks area.  There were dozens and dozens of barracks back in the 40s, but the concentration camp only kept 2 standing.  Inside the barracks was where the prisoners slept. Seeing the wooden bunk beds was… I can’t come up with words. After reading some of the postings, we also learned that certain barracks were used for certain medical experiments.  Barracks 3 5 and 7 were all used for experimentations on prisoners (malaria, hypothermia, twins). It was quite disturbing.

The most disturbing of the entire experience, though, was going to the extermination house, the gas chambers. It was quite cruel the way they made these gas chambers seemed like shower rooms. Basically, they made the prisoners believe that they had been lucky enough to win the lottery of being able to shower. In the first room, the prisoners were informed they were taking the shower. The next room was where they took off their clothes. The third room was that “shower” area… which was really the gas chamber. The fourth room was for incinerating the dead bodies. I literally walked through every single room, and my chills and goose-bumps never went away the whole time I was there.

The whole concentration camp felt so unreal. Just walking on the ground made me think of hundreds of prisoners that walked on the same ground.

FACTS

Currently, a convent and a church holds regular service ON THE CONCENTRATION CAMP. Even though it was a very strange concept for me… I guess in a way it is nice to see good being used in a place that such tragedy took place.

Dachau was primarily used as a labor camp, not an execution camp like Auschwitz

Munich, Prost!

Munich was a blast! Again, you have to forgive me for this blog post because 1. I am writing this 1 week after I went and 2. I get so excited and my words and sentences sometimes don’t make sense and 3. I am too lazy to reread what I wrote and look for mistakes. With that being said, me and 36 of us begin our trip to Munich, Germany!

We left Lugano on Friday (Jan 20) at 2ish. This was my first train ride ever, so I did not know what to expect.  Naturally, I ended up getting motion sickness on the first train ride because it was a “tilt” train… literally felt like I was on a roller coaster. We had a transfer in zurich for another train to get us to Munich, and luckily, this was a normal train and I was able to nap a little bit on second train ride to Munich.

After 8 hours of traveling, we finally go to Munich! And of course… the weather was not in our favor.  It was snowing/raining/FREEZING. I was very smart and I packed some cute snow/rain boots.  Everyone else ended up ruining their designer boots while on this trip. Sucks for theemmm. Anyway, we arrived in Munich and thankfully our hostel (Wombats) was located 5 minute walk from the rail station. Wombats was very very nice. Nicer than the Interlaken hostel.  I stayed in a private room with 5 other girls. There was a shower in our room, so we did not have to share with other people on the hall.  This type of hostel was kind of like a hotel-ish feeling.  Very clean very organized. By this time, it is 11pm and most of us want to go out and explore the night life. We met up with the other groups of people and we all went out to a club about 10 min walk from our hostel. What was the name of the club? I have no idea.. but it was a lot of fun! They even had a coat check which I was so happy about because sometimes when we go out at night time, you have to hold your coats. SO I give this club an A+.

The next day, Saturday, was when we had all of our day planned with a walking tour of Munich and a late night beer tour of the town. We woke up around 8am so we could get to our walking tour at 10am. Again, the weather was shitty and it was very cold and snowing and raining. I did not mind the weather too much only because I was dressed appropriately with now boots and a heavy coat.  The only thing I was annoyed about was that I had to get over the fact that my hair was not going to be pretty.. no matter what.  So we met our tour guide and she was AWESOME! What a little fun person!! Her name was Diana and she had so much energy and was funny so she made the tour of the city much more enjoyable dispite the fact that everyone was freezing. Most of the tour she just took us around to major architectural buildings and also talking about the history or Munich. The walking tour was supposed to last us 2 ½ hours, but some of us were way too cold that we stopped it short and decided to get lunch instead.

Even though we left the tour early, it was so nice to finally sit down inside and have a great lunch. Right away, me and the other girls ordered hot chocolate and some food. One of the best things about Germany is the fact that everything is not nearly as expensive as it is in Switzerland.  My meal (hot chocolate and this mac and cheese stuff) only cost 8 euros which is really good. After we ate lunch we went shopping and walking around Munich some more

The shopping was a great time. Munich is basically a tiny square filled with tall buildings and lots of shops. There was so much shopping that had to be done. Unfortunately, I am on a budget and I like to spend my money on important things (like food) so I did not end up spending any money on clothes. I did, however, get some souvenirs for some people (beer glasses and shot glasses).

There was this very weird incident that occurred during the day and during our shopping.  All of a sudden we hear this big commotion and hundreds and hundreds of police EVERYWHERE in the middle of Munich.  We found out that there was actually a Neo-Nazi rally happening.  We had been told earlier that day from our tour guide that neo-nazis sometimes have rallys in the middle of town, so it was ironic that there happened to be a rally that same day.  **Google who the neo-nazis are because I will have a hard time trying to describe it in this blog.** The rally was crazy because there were hundreds of cops surrounding the neo-nazis (for their protection) because they are such a radical group, normal sane people hate them so much for what they stand for. So picture this – about 50 neo-nazis in the middle of town dressed in all black and waving these flags.  Police were surrounding the neo-nazis from the on-lookers.  The neo-nazis had microphones and loud-speakers, so they would try to preach to the crowd.  Every time the neo Nazis started chanting, the surrounding crowds started blowing whistels (like lifeguard whistles) in order to drown out the neo-nazi chanting. It was a crazy scene.

The most thrilling part of Munich was obviously the beer tour!!! The beer tour basically consisted of going to different restaurants/pubs and drinking beer. We had already bought our tickets for this tour (12 euros).  We all met at the train station to meet our tour guide. Once we got checked in and situations, we had our first beer of the night right outside the train station.  They gave us this beer first because it was in a bottle and we had to walk 15 minutes to the first restaurant and we were supposed to drink the beer on the way to stay warm. We got to our first location and everyone got the popular beer (cant remember the names). It was delicious. But then again… I think Natty Light is delicious soooooo…. Haha! Our next place to drink beer was at HOFBRAUHAUS!!! This place was so awesome because it’s a huuuuuuge beer hall. If anyone has been to the beer hall in busch gardens.. its like that but BETTER! Tables and tables and tables of people all drinking Liter sized beer oooooh myyyy it was soo cool!!!!! Every 30 minutes there was a mini “show” of people playing the tuba and some other instruments. All of the waitresses were dressed in beer girl outfits. Everything was on POINT! I of course drank my entire Liter beer in 15 minutes. True signs of a Hokie. After the beer hall, we went to another restaurant and had another beer. We ended the tour at our hostel (convenient) and had jager shots.  We did not get back from the beer tour until later (1130pm) so many of us were too tired to go out clubbing.

The next morning (Sunday) we had to catch a 45 min train ride to Dachau. The next blog post will be about Dachau. For now… CIAO!

FUN FACTS

Munich is so much more affordable than Switzerland

Germany loves beer

Everyone still thinks I am Brazilian

You cannot “fist pump” in Germany because it looks too much like the Nazi sign and you will get fined if you do that.

To cheers a beer, you say “Prost!”

FAMILY DINNERS

Every Monday-Thursday, we have "family dinner" in one of the adjacent bulidings to the Montarina at 7:30pm. Each night we get a salad (sometimes), main course, and dessert.  Here is a list of some of the dinner combinations we have had so far!

• Lasagna and icecream (my favorite so far!!)
• Pizza and chocolate mousse
• Pork chops and chocolate brownie
• Chicken and Rice and sorbet
• Chicken Cordon Bleu and pie/flan-ish ...ew
• Gnocchi and "sweet cheese" (like this weirdish whipped cheesecake without the crust.. ew again)
• Pork (again) Mashed potatoes and Creme Puffs!

To save money, we can bring our Tupperware to dinner and save the extras for leftovers for lunch the next day! All the skinny girls who's meals consist of air, they normally don't finish their plate so I mooch off of theirs and take the rest so i can have them for leftovers!! 

I have also decided to keep track of my weight while I am here. If you haven't already noticed, I have lost a good amount of weight in the past year, and I would like to track my weight while being here. I have heard horror stories of girls in the previous years of gaining weight while being here, but i have also heard of girls loosing weight.  I hope to either stay the same, or look even more like Kim Kardashian at the end of this trip. With that said, my roommate and I had our "house dad" (Julien) go find us a scale that we can keep in the main room. Also, many girls here actually do work out on the regular, which is a good thing because I like to be surrounded by positive influencers! 

So far, I have lost 1 lb! wassuppp

Ciao for NowWwW

Interlaken: Because sledding on the Alps is such a great idea.

This was our first weekend trip and we are off to INTERLAKEN! SO much to say so littlee time, so if this post seems all over the place, it’s because I sometimes have a hard time with putting my excitement into words.

We had class (Italian) on Friday, Jan 13 until noon. Luckily our teacher let us out early because she knew we were going on a weekend trip to Interlaken. Originally, we were planning to buy a train ticket to get to Interlaken, but because the entire group (44 of us) were going on this trip, we rented a charter bus for the weekend instead (60 francs per person). So our journey begins with our bus ride to Interlaken at 2pm.  What was supposed to be a 2 and a half hour bus ride, turned into a 4 hour bus ride.

This bus ride was going smoothly and everything was going fine until we hit driving up this mountain.  Btw, driving up these Alps is possibly one of the more scarier things I have done… they barely leave any shoulder room, and you are looking off the side of this mountain and you could literally take 1 wrong turn and DIE because youre on a frickin mountain… crazy. We were so close for getting to our destination (about 5 kilometers out… yeah, kilometers because apparently these Europeans don’t use miles.) and all of a sudden we hit some bad traffic on the mountain.  We had no idea what was the hold up, so naturally we assumed it was car crash. We sat in traffic for a good 1 ½ hours … and it seemed only necessary to open some wine to make the time go by quickly – drinking wine and playing family feud in a charter bus with a driver that speaks german and doesn’t know how to speak English. It was an interesting combination of events. We finally got to the hostel (Balmers) at 6:10pm, but we had to be on another bus at 7pm because we scheduled a night-time sledding. We were in a hurry.

This was the first hostel I have ever stayed in and it was quite nice. I didn’t know what to expect of hostels but apparently we had one of the nicer hostels (about 30 francs per night). There were 3 buildings/sections of the hostel with 3 floors each. The floors are basically long hallways with public showers and restrooms and about 5 bedrooms per floor. Each bedroom could have been anywhere between 6-18 people per room. Me and 5 other girls shared a room, bunk bed style, on the first floor. The main building of Balmers had a nice restaurant area and lounge (we got free breakfast woo hoo!). And at night time, they have an underground club/bar (so much fun! i will talk more about this soon).

So after we checked in, we had to get goin’ because we were going night sledding!! We left the hostel and walked to the bus station. The bus took us up even farther on this huge mountain (mountains be errywhere!) about a 20 min bus ride. After the bus ride, we had to get off and take a gondola ride (a ski lift thing) even FARTHER up the mountain.  At the top of the mountain, we got off the gondola and went to this restaurant place where we got our fondue! The fondue was awesome! Cheese on cheese on cheese on bread and potatoes – the cheese was different tasting because they actually made it with wine so it had this bitter taste to it.  Needless to say.. some of us may have had a drink or 2 because it’s such a good idea to be intoxicated when we are about to sled to our demise….

After the fondue, everyone was just so excited in general to start sledding so we sprinted to get our sleds (small plastic things) and started sledding. This was a terrible idea. We should have probably listened to our sledding instructor instead of running straight past him.  When I say “sledding”, y’all probably think a short 30 sec ride down a little hill. HA. HAHA. This “sledding” was unlike anything I have ever done.  It is an estimated 30 minute sledding down to the bottom of the mountain… We all started off sledding and nobody knew how to sled swiss style… but it was very dangerous.  People were sledding into other people! So many bruises!! It was quite scary at some points because the route down the mountain was so narrow… you could literally sled off the mountain… literally. It was pitch black, foggy, and you couldn’t see 10 feet in front! I am having such a hard time at describing this sledding experience because… it’s just so hard to put into words how scary, exhilarating, dangerous, fun?, and extreme it was. Let’s just say, that apparently night time sledding is one of the more dangerous activities to do in Switzerland... but obviously the Swiss just want to have a laugh at us silly Americans while we struggle to speed down a mountain.

                1 girl sled off the side of the track and had to hike back up the mountain to get back on the right track -- Another girl hit a pole and had a terrible groin bruise -- Another girl was hit by an incoming sled and did a flip in the air… just sayin.  But I survived!! BUT I WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!!!

The sledding trip ended around 11:30pm and all of us were obviously exhausted. We got back to the hostel and PTFO (passed out).

The next day, Saturday, a lot of people did different things. About 10 girls went paragliding, 20 people went to the World Cup Skiing competition (about 1 hr away from the hostel) and the rest of us stayed around town and explored. I was part of the latter. I really wish I could have paraglided but it was just a little too out of my budget – but what I hear from the girls that went, it was amazing!! Me and some girls walked around the park and watched the other girls who went paragliding soar through the air – pretty neat! (Oh btw, it was really cold in Interlaken – about 25 degrees as the high.)

While walking around Interlaken, the girls and I noticed some interesting things:

• 1.       There are a lot of Asians in Interlaken. Why? I have no idea.
• 2.       I think the country’s mascot is a cow or something because I swear… we saw so many cow souvenirs … it was strange.
• 3.       Many people in Interlaken speak English!!
• 4.       Interlaken is part of the German speaking area of Switzerland  (there are 3 speaking sections – German, Italian, and French)

• 
  

We decided to do the European thing and have a 3 hour lunch at a local pizzeria – I had the most delicious tortellini in the entire world of tortellini food evaaaa!! (17 francs)

After our day trip, we all got back to the hostel (around 5:30pm)and started to get ready for the night of clubbing!! Luckily, the hostel we stayed at is also a club at night time – talk about convenience!! I will not go into too much detail about clubbing, but basically we all had a great, fun, intoxicated time! 

That was my trip to Interlaken… nothing too exciting, but definitely a good start of figuring out how our weekend trips will be.

Fun Facts!!

• 1.       Everyone in Switzerland thinks I am Brazilian – I don’t’ mind… they can think what they want 
• 2.       The bouncer at the club said I looked like Pocahontas
• 3.       For a 2 night trip, I packed my entire hiking backpack… I have no idea how I will pack for a 10 day trip with that thing…
• 4. street sweepers make 40,000 a year
• 5. Swiss people are required to retire at the age of 65

Next weekend (Jan20-22), I am off to Munich and Dachau! Munich should be fun – we have a planned walking tour of the city and a night-time beer tour of all the cool places to drink beer. Dachau will be much more depressing and profound (concentration camps) so we will only be there Sunday morning for the 2 hour tour.

CIAO FOR NOW!

Gandria

Piacere!

The weather here has been absolutely wonderful since I have been here! And by wonderful I mean it has been upper 40s and sunny, and with my sweating disorder, that is wonderful weather!! Not to mention the workout I get every day walking to and from class…

Yesterday, many of us decided to walk to a nearby town, Gandria (right near italy!).  Brinberg (my professor/director) gave us very vague directions on how to get there -- and me being as directionally savvy as I am (can you hear the sarcasm?), it took us a little longer than expected.  He told us the walk there would be about 45-1 hr long walk, which was completely okay because I needed to get my workout in for the day anyway. So, after class at 12:45pm, me and a group of 7 started off on our journey to Gandria.

The walk was absolutely gorgeous – I know I have pictures posted, but the pictures do not actual capture the beauty of this country.  We stared off walking in the right direction, but surprisingly we got a little lost on the way. Luckily our detour was not too bad, we just walked a little too far on one road that we should have. Thank God everyone here speaks English or else it would have been so hard to get back on the right track (sarcasm.. again). There are some pictures on my facebook, but basically the way we took was walking around the side the mountain that is shown in the picture of “the view from my room”. The weather was perfect 50 degrees.. the river was gorgeous.. perfect.

Because I knew we were most likely going to be taking pictures of Gandria, I decided I should look a little Kim Kardashian (aka look good) just in case someone snapped a photo of me.  This was the worst decision ever because they the TRAIL we took alongside the mountain was, of course, a dirt and rocky trail. My boots were definitely not made for walkin’.

After a good hour of walking, we finally reached this beautiful SMALL town, Gandria. We went to the nearest restaurant and it was by far the most beautiful restaurant I have ever eaten in.  The restaurant is literally built on the Cliffside of the mountain that overlooks the entire river and mountains. We were seated at the back of the restaurant on the full glass-windowed balcony that hangs off the side of the mountain.  Some of the girls got gilato, I got pasta, and we all had the most delicious sangria. The pasta was the first time I have had pasta here and it was outstanding! Definitely exceeded my expectations of pasta.  I could literally taste all the freshness of it and I could tell they hand made the pasta and pesto sauce. Perfecto!! Not to mention the old Italian man who owned the restaurant absolutely loved us!! But who wouldn’t, no?

On the way back from Gandria, one of the girl’s back and neck went out. She has always had problems with her muscles and she has a weak neck and basically she was stiff from head to toe and in so much pain. She didn’t have any muscle relaxers on her, so we stayed with her and walked allll the way back to lugano with her. So sad L

So that was my mini trip to Gandria!! Very cool to be able to walk on the side of the Alps and overlooking a beautiful river! Tomorrow (Jan 13) we are off to Interlaken for the weekend!!!  And I think I may be going PARAGLIDING (about 130 francs)!! When in Rome?! Or… INTERLAKEN hehehe.

Ciao for now!!!

FUN FACTS:

1.       No tipping at restaurants

2.       No tax!!

3.       Everyone here drives a hatchback 

wEiRdOes!

These Swiss people are WEIRD! haha not really, but here are some things I have noticed that are different from the US norms:

1. They eat their meals for a looong time: lunch can be for 3 hours while dinner can go on for 4. Meals are not a "refueling station" like they are in the US -- they are more like a time for socializing and enjoying the company.

2. They don’t drink many fluids with their meals

3. No ice in drinks

4. Small glasses that they have if they even do drink water or a beverage at dinner (refer to #2)

5. Water is 4 francs

6. No free refils

7. If you order water, it comes in a wine shaped glass bottle

8. They always ask if you want sparkling or still water

(clearly you can tell that i drink a lot of water and it irks me that these people dont)

9. There is no take out/carry out. They looked at us weird when we asked for a box for our leftovers after we ate dinner... but if I am paying 15 francs for dinner... imma take home everything! Once, i even took home the glass 1 liter bottled water... it was 4 francs!

10. Condiments (mayonnaise, ketchup) come in a tube …. Like a toothpaste tube

That's all the weird stuff I cant think of now! I am sure I will be randomly posting about more norms and customs I am not familiar with!

Diva on top of the World

LUGANO

After all of us got situated in the Montarina, Brinberg (our director/professor) took us on a walk into the center town of Lugano. This was by far the most amazing, beautifully aesthetic, WEALTHY place I have ever been.  I knew Lugano was a very wealthy city, but actually exploring and seeing everything, I highly underestimated its worth. All of the alley ways and walk ways are made out of cobble stone (I have decided I will never be wearing heels). Because Lugano is literally on a mountain that looks over a river, there are long, steep hills, curves, and stairs (I hate the stairs!). Walking through the center of Lugano was incredible, I definitely felt like a tourist because I was taking pictures of everything but I didn’t care! Here is a group of 40 American students all gawking at everything Lugano has to offer – no wonder all the locals always stare and laugh. The best way I can describe the center town of Lugano is basically a stony point and short pump had a baby.  But it is 503492 times bigger, nicer, more shops, more people, more money, more restarantes, just more!  Its basically a bunch of shops and places to eat. And these stores aren’t just standard Targets or Walmarts… we are talking about all the big time fashion name brands: Swarovski, Cartier, Swatch, Hermes, and a lot of other fancy stuff. I always feel underdressed when I walk around because apparently, wearing fur coats is the thing to do! I swear, every other old woman (by old I mean, 70s), have fur coats and fur hats with too much blush and lipstick on.  Another weird thing is everyone has a dog, and by dog, I mean a fake tiny little dog. Everywhere! But these dogs don’t bark, thank god. They are like a different breed of dog... like Lugano blooded dogs. These dogs probably eat better than I do.

There is an ice skating rink right in the middle of the town next to a BEAUTIFUL park that overlooks the river. Friday night there was an ice skating performance… very random. Then again it wasn’t that random now that I think about it because apparently lugano likes to celebrate random holidays throughout the early months that lead up to their big festival throughout Europe called Carnivale (I will talk about carnival more in late feb, early march).

FOOD AND DRINKS

Do I really have to explain this part? Obviously, the food here is absolutely amazing, but very expensive. A normal lunch will cost about 15-20 Francs and a dinner can cost 15-30 francs.  Luckily, we have found some hole in the wall places that serve cheaper lunches (6-10francs – oh and the franc is 1.05 to the dollar). There is a fantastic deli “kabob” street restaurant in the center of town where they serve different types of deli sandwiches for about 8 francs – they call these sandwiches “kabobs” and I call them sandwiches. All of the restaurants are either pizzerias or pasta places haha.Their pizza is awesome, thin crust, not much sauce, personal size (except its an actual size pizza… not very big. Most of us split a pizza for 2) I have been craving Mexican food but I don’t think I will be having any of that anytime soon. We have so far seen 2 Burger Kings which is kind of cool I guess.

We get served dinner as part of the program every Monday-Thursday night. Dinner usually consists of a 3 part meal: salad, main course, dessert.  The salad is really just carrots and corn with some type of dressing on it. Our main course will alternate pasta meat pasta meat (apparently the “meat” isn’t really… meat. It is a combination of meats. Brinberg did tell us that it WASN’T: bear, dear, rabbit, cat, dog, or anything too weird. It is probably just pieces of cow chicken and pig mixed together…. Yum.)

Wine is a big deal here in lugano. They sell wine and beer from little kiosks in the town center.. but it’s like heated wine or something. I haven’t had it yet, but I want to! A half bottle of wine at most restaurants is about 15 francs and a whole bottle (what I am used to) is 30-35 francs. But if you go to a wine store, wine can cost as little as 4.50 francs (classy stuff right there).

The local grocery store is called Migros – since we only get dinner 4nights a week, it is cheaper to buy groceries for some of the meals. The grocery store is very similar to the ones in America the way they are set up and run, but it is much more expensive.  Frosted flakes cost 6 francs, milk is 4 francs, bananas are 3 frans per pound (they don’t use pounds sooo idk what the other version is), deodorant is 7francs, mabeline mascara is 17 francs! Thank God He blessed me enough where I smell and look good 24/7…. Jk, I definitely already stocked up on utilities in the states before I came here. Also, the cashier rings up the food and items the same way, except there are no bagging people – you bag your own groceries – and by bag I mean TRIPLE bag because their plastic bags are so thin.

I went to my first bar ever last night, a place called Coyote Ugly (it’s a bar for americans haha). It was a lot of fun but drinks were very expensive, about 5 dollars per shot. I made friends with the bartender, her name is Junie (a cute 25ish year old swiss), and she gave me specials of two for $5 shots. We did not stay very long because the next morning we had a 10am 10mile hike up and down the Swiss Alps…

MT. SAN-SALVATOR

Brinberg told us a couple days ago that we would be taking a “stroll” up a mountain. First of all, this mountain is not a mountain… this mountain puts the Appalachian mountains to shame. And naturally, it is a great idea to hike these mountains. It all sounds good in theory – “Yeah! Lets Climb this Mountain!” ….. this is the first and last time I will EVER hike.a.moutain.  I will like everyone to know that when leaving the Montarina to go to the mountain, we did not get a bus ride… a train… no…no we Walked to the mountain. About a mile walk to the bottom-most part of this mountain. Not only was the walk to the mountain tiring… but my feet had been hurting already from the days we had been walking in Lugano!! Anyway.. we carry on. We start hiking up this one trail on the mountain and at first I thought.. “hey, this isn’t so bad. I can do this” I was very mistaken.  3 girls dropped out of the hike 10 minutes in. Oh, did I mention this was a 2 hour hike UP the mountain?! This hike was miserable. Not only was I scared for my life because we were walking up this sharp rocks where there were cliffs on atleast one side at a time, but Brinberg (hes like 60 yr old) was literally sprinting up this thing!! It made me feel really good about myself when I saw a 80 year old swiss man run past our entire group… he was in decent shape… so we are hiking up this mountain and slowly, people start falling behind. NOT ME! I kept thinking “kim kardashians ass, beyonce’s abs, eva mendes, Victoria secret model” – that was enough motivation for me.  It also didn’t hurt the fact that I was beating all of these skinny bitches that are on the trip with me. MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU FITNESS!!! Throughout the 2 hr hike UP, we rested about 4 times. I was using strategy, see not only was I winning in the race/I was in the first group champion, but the quicker you get to a rest area, the longer you have to rest because we have to wait for the rest of the strugglin' stragglers to catch up ( these strugglers were all dressed completely inappropriately mind you – fashion scarves, ray ban sunglasses, cute sweaters…. Shoo those girls are CRAY) I was getting my workout on, sweating a storm… it was probably 40 degrees up on the mountain and I already was in my t-shirt… 40 degrees in a sweaty wet tshirt = cold. I decided that I will create a new weight-loss program and all you have to do is one thing… Climb a Mountain. Enough with my ranting – we finally got to the top of the mountain and the sites were incredible. We saw all of lugano, the alps, parts of Italy. Beautiful. You may ask, “was it worth the hike?” I am still deliberating. As of now, no. but it makes for a hell of a story! The walk down was another 2 ½ hours but it wasn’t that bad since it was all downhill. We got to the bottom and luckily there was a bus waiting to take us back to lugano. Definitely an experience I was very fortunate to have.

School starts tomorrow at 9:30am. Next weekend we are off to Interlaken! Cant wait! So much to do, SO LITTLE TIME!!

Ciao for now!