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!

"I'm leaving on a jet plane..."

It has been a very long journey getting to Lugano, but so well worth it. 

After my mom dropped me off from checking my bags, I was finally on my own.  I would like to boast at this moment at how well i was able to navigate my way through security and all the way to my departure gate, but that does not mean that it didn't go without some difficulties... Of course my hiking backpack had to jam the conveyor belt while it was being x-rayed... that wasn't embarrassing.  Not only was i sweating earlier waiting in line to check my bags, but now i had everyone staring at me because i was THAT girl who slowed up the line. Needless to say, my sweat glands were full throttle.

After getting through security, i was feeling good about getting to my gate. I followed the signs all the way to gate D but low and behold... its not the acccctualll gate. its a fake gate. A "gate" that is really a shuttle that has to take me ALLLL across the airport to ANOTHER place. I found the real gate after i got off the fake gate.

I was making good timing, 2 hours early before our flight left. I got 200 Swiss Francs (switzerland money) from one of the kiosks in the terminal. And the swiss francs(paper money) are very pretty!! pinks, blues, greens, golds!

The plane took off on time at 5:40 something.  I have only flown twice before to NYC so this flight was a little different... and long! 8 Hours! Luckily i had a window seat and i sat next to a girl i knew and liked. Since we left at night, it was very cool to see all of the lights of DC from the plane. It was actually pretty spectacular and I can only describe it as being like a Light Bright board (google if you dont know what that is). I got motion sickness and the damn dramamamamaine didnt really help at all. When we were flying over Europe I was trying to see all the lights and noticed that there weren’t as many clusters or very bright lights at all! It was very confusing because I expected that when we flew over Paris that I would see a lot of lights. but I couldn't see anything! I later realized that it was because we were flying over clouds... woops.

We touched down at 7:50 something AM (swiss time). I got my bags back quickly without any complications.  I did notice, however, that many many people were just staring at our group. I guess i would too if i saw 43 college students all walking around an airport together not knowing where to go or what to do. We are sooo0o american. After everyone got their bags, we met our Professor and Director of the Program, David Brinberg, and we got on a huge charter bus to take us to Lugano. This was a 3 hour bus ride. After our 8 hour flight. yep.

Even though i was exhaused, I was taken aback because it hit me that I was finally in Europe! We drove all through the country.  There was a little bit of snow and a LOT of mountains.  Now, I thought that I knew what mountains looked like, but these MOUNTAINS made the mountains in Blacksburg look like ant hills.  Literally, the mountains were sharp, pointy, towering, filled with snow, and you couldn’t even see the tops of them because they broke through the clouds!!  Incredible. The first American thing I saw was a BP station.. but someone informed me that BP gas stations aren’t really foreign.. whatever. But the REAL first American thing I saw was a Burger King. And it was literally in the middle of nowhere- country- side Switzerland.  Another surprising thing was all of the tunnels we drove through.  I think we spent more time driving through tunnels than we did actual roads. LOTS OF TUNNELS.

We finally got to the Montarina (where I am staying) in Lugano and it was absolutely beautifully amazing!! I have seen pictures, but actually getting here and being here was even more beautiful and amazing.  The villa is right on a river that overlooks mountains and houses and civilization that I could definitely get used to! (check pictures on facebook!) The bus didn’t really drop us off right in front of the Montarina Villa, but instead… down at the bottom of the most annoying steep dumb hill.  Now, imagine 40 girls with two 50lb bags, a hiking back pack, and a purse, marching up this hill in our designer boots and coats. I know what you’re thinking…Good work out.

The place I am living at is beautiful.  We are spoiled. We literally have this entire “house” like villa with 22ish rooms. There are 3 floors. The 1^st floor has a dining/common area, a kitchen, bathroom, shower, check in desk, and 5ish living spaces (I live on the first floor!) Levels 2 and 3 are solely living and bath.  These rooms are gorgeous (check facebooK!!!!!). I have a twin bed with a temperpedic-esk mattress, it’s wonderful.

This was just my trip getting to Lugano, but I will have so many more details to come with my traveling I will be doing!!

Ciao for Now!!