Leaving in 10 minutes...ah!

I'm sitting at my computer, leaving in 10 minutes when my host dad will drive me to the Nyon train station. I'm pretty much all packed and about to head downstairs. It's so crazy that I wont be back here for awhile, but at the same time I've come to peace about it. It's been an awesome 3 months but I'm ready for new adventures and new things to come.

Get ready Croatia!

Germany and last night

Sorry again for the late update, its now Friday November 20.

I went to Germany this past weekend. It was such a fun weekend, definitely in my top 3 of the trip. I don't feel like writing about everything that happened. But lets just say it was a great weekend. It was so fun to see Jonathan, his family was totally great especially his twin sister Maria who's awesome. I learned a fun new drinking game, went bike riding to get milk at a farm, went into a big energy wind mill, and learned some German.

This past week has been hectic, I've basically just been at the UN library every day trying to get my paper done. So far I have 1 3/4 pages single spaced out of 15, so not bad as its due on Wednesday.

Annddd its my last night at my house :( We're leaving tomorrow morning for Croatia for the next 2 1/2 weeks. Then we come back to Geneva on December 7 for one night, then I fly with Annie and Megs to Dublin the afternoon of December 8. So I do get to come back to Switzerland, but its my last night with my host family. It's so out of control crazy that the semester is basically over. I go home in exactly 3 weeks which is to insane to even consider. Its been such a great semester and I'm bummed to leave for sure. But I had the best time and am leaving with awesome friends so I can't be too upset.

Ok, its only 10:15pm and I am exhausted. I'll update more tomorrow or the next day in Croatia. Hugs and love.

Amsterdam :)

hello loyal followers, i hope you all have been doing well. This past weekend, Annie, Megs, and I went to Amsterdam. Last week was fairly uneventful, just a lot of work...just like the next few days will be. But anyways.

We left at 4:30am on Thursday from Annie's house in Nyon to walk to the train station and meet Megan. We had an easyjet flight at 6:30am and got into Amsterdam around 8:30. It was absolutely pouring and cold and we had the entire day to occupy ourselves as we couldnt go to the house we were couchsurfing at until 6:30pm when the guy got off work. We walked for only a few minutes and went into the first cafe/restaurant we came to to eat breakfast and where we proceeded to spend 2 1/2 hours talking and waiting for the rain to subside. We met up with Meg's friend Dirk (a guy she met in South Africa this past summer who lives right outside the city). He showed us around in the afternoon and we did some shopping and stuff.

the attic where we slept...there must be something about attics as it was the second weekend in a row..

At around 6pm, we took the bus 20 minutes outside the city to this guys house where we were couchsurfing. He was just getting home so that worked out. His name was Stefan and he was perfectly nice and accommodating, just soo weird. He's 32, and we think that he's just kind of lonely so hosts couchsurfers to have people around, who knows. But it worked for us as we saved at least $150 on a hostel.

our street...it reminded us of the neighborhood that Harry Potter lives in

We stayed in that night as we had barely slept at all the night before. The next day we slept till around 12:30pm then spent the afternoon in the city. Amsterdam is sooo amazing. It's a bummer that the only thing you hear about it in the states is about the weed, because the city is so cool. Central Station (the main train station) is in the north of the city on the water, and then canals go out from that in arcs, here's a pic:

so cool right??!

So Friday we just explored and did some shopping. We had thais food for dinner which was absolutely amazing.

Saturday was really fun too. We explored in the afternoon and went to the flower market.

flower market...mom you would have loved it!

That night, Dirk had gotten us tickets for museumnacht (museum night) where you get into all the museums you want form 7pm-1am. We managed to go to all the ones we wanted which included the Anne Frank house, the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum (dutch history), and a photo museum. We had a blast and took the bus home around 3am (I love public transportation in Europe, I am seriously obsessed. The US is desperately lacking).

this is in the red light district, annie and i thought it was funny with the swans

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great last day. Up until then, it had been overcast and on and off raining all the days, but the afternoon yesterday was sooo beautiful.

megs and my christmas card pic on a tree at Vondelpark

Sun and a bright blue sky. We walked around Vondelpark in the afternoon, a great area that reminded me of Central Park in NYC. It's so fun because dogs are allowed off the leash literally everywhere. So there were people and dogs and lots of music also.

one of many canals, they all have boats along them

Oh, the other great thing about Amsterdam is the bikes. They are seriously everywhere. There are separate paths/marked off areas for bikes on every road and it definitely takes some getting used to to make sure you look both ways when crossing the street. We almost got hit a few times...but by the last day we finally got the hang of it.

this is just a small sampling of all the bikes...

Last night was fun, we made dinner at the house and Dirk came over as well.

meg, dirk, stefan, me at dinner

We went to sleep fairly early as we had to wake up at 5:15 to catch our train. All the traveling went well, without a hitch. We had to take a bus from the house to the Amsterdam train station, then a train to the airport, then the flight, then another train back to Nyon from the Geneva airport. This afternoon was great, we played football all afternoon. We played 6 v 6 which was a total blast.

This week looks fairly dull and busy. I have to work my butt off the next few days, then I leave for Germany on Friday to visit my friend Jonathan who was an exchange student my senior year of high school. I'm really excited to go there and see him, but also kind of bummed as its my last full weekend in Switzerland :( We leave in less than 2 weeks, Saturday November 21 I think, for Croatia for 2 1/2 weeks. Then we get to come back to Switzerland for one night before Annie Megs and I leave for Dublin for a few days.

So thats pretty much everything going on in my life for the moment. It feels great to be back in Switzerland. It felt like coming home when we were flying over back to Geneva. I have a problem of getting adjusted too well to wherever I am and never want to leave. I'm trying not to think about the fact that I only have like 10 days left...But it will be fine. Croatia should be fun and I'll be with all my friends which is whats most important. And we'll get to have a last night in Geneva as we fly back on Monday December 7 and then we don't fly to Dublin until Tuesday afternoon (December 8). On the plus side, when I get home, it means I get to see all you fantastic people, which as much as I love this trip and Switzerland, I will be so happy to see everyone when I get back. That's about all. I probably won't update to much until next week when I get back from Germany. I hope everyone's doing well. Hugs and Love.

interlaken!

This weekend we took a girls trip. Annie, Megs, Ace, Chels, and I went to Interlaken for the weekend. We couchsurfed at this hostel, meaning we slept in the attic which was so cool, its a bouldering room with mattresses all over the floor. We got to stay there for free and got breakfast, but just had to help out with some dishes and stuff in the morning on saturday and sunday.

our sweet attic.

We woke up super early on Saturday to take a 6:50am train out of Nyon. We got to Interlaken at 9:30 and got settled in and then planned to take the train up to a town called Grindewald to hike, its a bit more up in the mountains. First we stopped by the tourist office though because we wanted to sign up for zorbing which is when you get in a giant ball and get rolled down the mountain. But alas, we missed the morning zorb, and the next time wasnt until Tuesday. So we went for the next best option...canyon jumping. We signed up to get picked up at 1pm the next day.

We then took the train to Grindewald were we did a short hike.

you know you have been in switzerland for a long time when walking by cows that are a foot away from you is completely normal...like all the time

It was so beautiful. It gets dark so early so we took a 5:45 train back down to Interlaken.

grindewald

The night was pretty chill, we had happy hour at the bar and drank some wine and talked alot. Megs, Annie, and Ace went out for a bit but Chels and I were both exhausted and passed out around midnight.

Sunday was insane. The morning we just walked around the town, it was such a gorgeous day

interlaken...so beautiful

and then got picked up to go canyon jumping...only megs annie and i went, so ace and chels took the train home early. we were in a big van with some indian people and other american kids. We drove back to Grindewald and partly up this mountain to literally, a canyon.

so how crazy is this pic?? the platform was over to the right, and then you just...jump

so basically the deal is, you put on a harness and hooked to the rope at your belly button. then you stand on the platform...and jump. you literally drop like 150 feet until you start swinging. it was the most exhilarating, intense, crazy thing i have ever done in my life.

so after that, we checked out of the hostel and took the train home, all pretty beat.

megs , annie, and i are going to amsterdam early thursday morning so I'm going to try and do a lot of work the next few days. oh and i love today's crossword puzzle. mostly because its easy and i am almost finished with no help (knock on wood!). more updates soon to come, hugs and love.

beginning of ISP period...freedom

so finally ISP period has begun. which means that we have no obligations or commitments for a month and the whole time free to research.

of course monday though (26 October) we had a take home test due in the afternoon that I had not completed. So Marisssa, Megs, Ace, and I went went to this great cafe in Geneva in the morning. That night was really fun, we had a big bon fire to celebrate the official end of classes.

Tuesday was a pretty average day. Megs, Annie, and I got lunch at this great cafe in Nyon. I got a vegetable panini which was totally out of this world. Then I hung out there in the afternoon to get some work done. I tried to start doing some reading which didn't go to well...but I did read the newspaper which was good. And I am still completely obsessed with my podcasts.

Yesterday (Wednesday 28 October) was great. In the morning, Annie, Jess, and I had French class. We decided to keep taking small group lessons with our teacher once a week. Then in the afternoon, a bunch of us went on a hike. The weather has been soo weird here. In the beginning of October it was absolutely freezing, like total winter weather. Then for some reason this past week has been super warm and sunny. So our group of 9 took the little train up the mountain (the same one I take every day except all the way up the mountain) and got off in St-Cergue. We hiked for a total or 3 hours maybe and had lunch on the top of this great glassy plateau field area with an unreal view of France and the alps.

first try at a group pic

It was so beautiful, I'll post pics of our group there soon. It was so funny, we had 2 cameras on timers and it reminded me of all our crazy family get togethers trying to get a good group pic. And of course the first time, you underestimate how long the timer is, so as soon as someone goes to check if its working, the camera flashes (that one was Chels, ha). But it was worth it, we got some great pics.

yayy, a good one. we were all kneeling to try and get the mountains in

jess steve and i with mountains!

Today: In the morning I hung out with Megs and Annie at the cafe we like then went to the grocery store and bookstore. Then we got roasted chestnuts (marrons in french) which are so good. I love getting food from street vendors especially when they remind me of christmas ("chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."). I have spent most of this afternoon trying to get all my ISP stuff organized. We only have a little over 3 weeks left in Switzerland to do our ISP before we go to Croatia which is so out of control.

I honestly can not believe that I am leaving so soon. Everyone says abroad goes by fast, but seriously. This is crazy. I'm going to have to crack down and start getting research done.

Tonight should be fun. Some of us are going to see Taking Woodstock in Geneva, I can't wait. Then hopefully we are going to Interlaken this weekend, yay!

I'll post pics soon. Hugs and love.

Paris/Brussels pics...finally!

Ok, so to make up for the fact that I didnt update my blog for 2 weeks..I'm putting up a bunch of pics from Paris/Brussels. enjoy!

me walking by the seine

the "hostel group"-annie, ace, me, megan and chels, dancing on l'arc de triomphe
basically the best pic ever...me, ace, and annie. if you cant tell, our group absolutely loves holding hands and hugs (aka, hug it out). and i can say honestly that this picture was not planned, megan yelled, "look both ways" and snapped the pic without us knowing

hand holding...again :) ace me and steve on our way out to delirium, a bar in brussels with 2005 types of beer..the most of any bar in the world

pic outside the place ace and i spontaneously cut our bangs in paris

ace and i in front of le sacre-coeur

ace, meg, megan, laurel and annie at le louvre

last night in paris...me, ace, chels, and tucker (not pictured) got together a picnic of bread, cheese, fruit, chocolate and wine, and ate on the grass in front of la tour eiffel...it was a great night

i hope you enjoyed the pics! im definitely back in the blogging routine, so be prepared for frequent updates :) hugs and love.

11 days later...lugano, montreux, and a marathon

yes, i know. i am the worst blogger ever. the problem is that blogging is like exercising, in the beginning your really motivated and you do it everyday, then you start to get busy and its hard to find the time and then one missed day turns into two and suddenly you havent exercised (or blogged) in over a week. so i apologize. but i have made the decision to spend the next 30 to 45 minutes giving you updates and loading some pics.

so. not too much has happened in the past few weeks. but i guess ill start off with some lugano stuff which seems sooo long ago, it was the weekend of Friday October 9-Sunday October 11.

LUGANO!
my friends and i left after group presentations on friday. we stopped by migros (which is like walmart in the US kind of, it literally somehow owns everything and despite how we talk about how annoying that is, its cheap so we still shop there) to get some food for the weekend then took the train from geneva. Lugano is in the italian speaking part of switzerland, and i mean legit, it should be part of italy. this part of switzerland juts into italy and so lugano is probably 20 minutes or so from the italian border. pretty much no one really spoke english, so that was a challenge as i pretty much speak zero italian.

the train ride was 5 hours total, we had to switch trains in luzern. it was a fun train ride though on account of my new obsession with podcasts. and i literally mean obsession, my friends make fun of me all the time. we got there around 7pm and it was raining which was a downer. the hostel wasnt too far though from the train station. it was a really nice hostel/hotel and our room was awesome. we were a group of 7, but the room was for 9 which meant that there were 3 sets of bunk beds (if you cant do the math, that means the bunkbeds were 3 beds high) which were awesome!

the next day, annie, steve, seth and i went to hike. we took the funiculaire (this little tram thing that goes up hills) into the center of town and then took a bus to the hike. we had to wait a little while for the bus though so we explored this cute little market that was just opening. annie and i got these cute old-fashioned rings, my first souvenir of the whole semester, yay! the bus ride to the hike was crazy. we went up the mountain which mean winding our way up a too narrow road for 25 minutes.

but the hike was amazing. the day kept getting nicer and nicer the more we climbed. it was kind of like narnia on the hike (lion the witch and the wardrobe reference, duh).

narnia!

it was just so magical through the trees. once we started to get up towards the top though, there were some great look outs. lugano is absolutely beautiful. its right on the lake with mountains coming up on all sides, it was like a mesh of italy, figi, and new zealand.

me, annie, and seth
the hike all around was about 4 hours maybe. that night we went to an awesome italian place for dinner that seth found in his guidebook. it was totally authentic and off in an alley. you even drank wine out of little ceramic bowls. we got back to the hostel at 10 and planned to go to a club or something later since nothing opens till midnight. of course though, everyone is getting kind of tired, so ryan says im just going to take a 20 minute power nap. that all sounded like a good idea, so we all climb into our beds to rest for a bit. i knew it was over then when the lights went out...despite seth having set his alarm, we all ended up waking up not 20 minutes later, but 9 hours later at 8am the next morning. we all got a good laugh though.

sunday was the most beautiful day ever! it was perfect. warm, sunny, blue sky, beautiful blue lake. we walked around this park down by the lake for awhile and just chilled out.

look at the lake! so blue!

annie seth steve and i took an earlier train home at 1:15. it was another fun train ride, we spent a few hours making up would you rather questions, some of my favorites were: would you rather be the tinman and continuallly be out of oil, or would you rather be the scarecrow working in a brickoven pizzeria? and another that i came up with, although i dont know how as my creative side of the brain never seems to work. but nonetheless..would you rather always feel like you have to go to the bathroom or would you rather every time you brushed past something as you walked you got stuck to it for 10 minutes? it was a good laugh.

WEEK STUFF: October 12-16
nothing really exciting this week at all. we went to the UN a few times and the UNEP (united nations environment program) and the ILO (International Labor Organization) but thats about it.

WEEKEND: OCTOBER 17-18
it was a really fun weekend. saturday, the girls (me, megan, annie, ace, marissa, and molly) went to montreux for the day. its on the opposite side of the lake. we had lunch and then spent the afternoon at the castle chillon (which is super famous because of lord byron's poem called the prisoner of chillon). it was a huge and cool medieval castle.


this is the castle..so cool right??

me, chels, molly, marissa, and megan...
pretending to be constipated sitting in the "bathroom"...which was a box with 2 holes in it that just went down...


that night, some of us went to a concert at a venue in nyon. it turned out to be a heavy metal music festival. it was like a time warp back to the mid '90s. aka, yelling music, long hair, head pounding, the works.

WEEK: OCTOBER 19-23
again, another non eventful week. it was the last week of class though which was great. we start ISP (independent study project) period tomorrow so i have a whole month to research and chill and write my paper.

WEEKEND: OCTOBER 23-25
so finally, I am at the past day. Friday night was great, I went to a jazz concert at the same venue, but it was much more chill. lots of people, good music. saturday, us girls went into geneva to go to the market, its a huge flea market with tons of stalls all around this one square in old city. it was so fun and i got a really cool sweater/crocheted dress type thing.

Today was so amazing also. Ace, Annie, and I ran in a 1/4 marathon in lausanne. you could sign up to run a 1/4, a 1/2, or a full one. it was such a great experience. the start was by a huge park, so the whole area was filled with runners and people warming up. there was also a stage with 5 people running this aerobics/dancing warm up with tons of music. it was great.

pic pre-race...we got nametags and everything!

the running was fun, ace went ahead a bit, but annie and i ran together and finished in 55 minutes, which wasnt too bad. then afterwards, we got waffles and pizza from the stands by the finish. it was great.

post race-wearing our shirts and medals!

so now its 5:50, i took a break in writing this to skype with chris for over an hour which was great. ill edit the post tomorrow or something and put pictures up. but i hope this update is good for now. i have to do a take home test tomorrow and then i will officially be finished with class. i miss you all boatloads and hope your having great falls. Hugs and love.