Helloooo Allll!
Time has been FLYING by here, sorry for my sporadic posting, but it's getting difficult with having so much to do so much of the time! I realized, I think what my issue is. For all of my college life, I have never been able to have classes that went past 2pm due to having softball practice, and I don't have that time restraint here, so I have classes until 6 pm and it is SO COMPLETELY throwing off my working schedule! Anyhoo I've got a bunch to fill you in on!
First off, WENT ON MY FIRST TRIPPPP. Me and three friends went to Lausanne last weekend for Sat-Sun. For those of you who don't know, Lausanne is about 40 minutes away from Geneva in the country and it is BEAUTIFUL (I will post the picture of the view soon). It was okay, but kind of stressful because we last minute found an airbnb to stay, which ended up actually being really nice and the girls were really wonderful. However, we were there for one night and we decided to leave pretty late (like 2pm) and got there around 3 and then had to actually find the place. THen we were tired and kinda just hung around for a while doing nothing when we could have been seeing some sights. FInally we got ourselves together enough to go to dinner, by which point it was raining. We did, though, in the dark, find a really cute area with a really adorable and quaint italian restaurant where I got my new favorite dish of Perches (shout out to mom, dad, auntie Nikki, and Anne) and we had a nice long long looooooooong chat because our waiter decided to ignore us for about an hour and a half. After that we paid more money to take the metro back to our airbnb to get ready to go out... none of us really wanted to but one of my friends was really adament about it so we all tried to rally after snuggling up and watching Orange is the New Black. However. As we were getting read, one of my friends ate a piece of chocolate that our hosts had [SO KINDLY] bought for us. She has a serious nut allergy, and we discovered that when chocolate here says "may be traces of nuts" that means "there are probably traces of nuts" so within about a minute she was looking like death. She told us she wanted to get on a train (by herself) and go back to Geneva because she likes to be alone when this happens. We didn't like the idea, but we took the bus to the metro to get her to the train station. Of course there was an accident/breakdown on the line and so the metro didn't show up. We then took the bus BACK to the airbnb and set her up in the room with a bucket and blankets. Within about 30 minutes of laying down she was feeling much better. Since the rest of us were already dressed to go out, we decided we'd give it a try (which in fact we kinda didn't want to do), so I called and ordered us a cab IN FRENCH BY THE WAY and we went out. All of the bars were closed and the clubs were really expensive. Except one which looks pretty similar to the one we go to here. Moral of that story is that clubs are the same no matter where you go and we should have spent our time sight seeing. The next day we slept until 12 and pretty much packed up to come back since we all had homework to do. We wanted to find a cute place for breakfast but everyone was really snappy and not into it so after wandering pointlessly around we ate cheap baguettes from the train station (which I seriously did not want).
It wasn't an awful trip, but we learned a lot of lessons.. especially that we need to be more prepared with a plan.
Also, this week has just been all around stressful with feeling CRAZY HOMESICK and trying to book trips and figure out a travel budget and do all of my school work. Fortunately my dad is awesome and we discovered I have plenty of money to cover my travels. Also fortunate was that I have a great boyfriend who sent me adorable pictures of animals to cheer me up, and I also self-remedied by listening to a bit of premature Christmas music.... for hours.....not ashamed.
We decided, too, that we are going to have a Halloween party on Halloween, which should be great. I'm looking forward to doing something totally American, haha.
Okay so here's a brief recap of the past couple days: dad is AWESOME he found me and two friends 25$ tickets to Milan, so that's where I'll be next weekend.....no big deal or anything. JUST KIDDING I AM SO PUMPED. Then, yesterday in my seminar (which is the class that literally gives me the msot anxiety ever) we went into breakout groups to discuss the reading which I managed to do all in French (phew, I'm improving slowly but surely), and lastly, yesterday, perfectly fitting to celebrate surviving the week, there was a beautiful fireworks display at the lake which I had a perfect view of from my window.
Thankfully this week is done, and today I worked on a project, my Fulbright Registration and my Thesis Proposal. Tomorrow, I ship out with my friend to Zurich. WOOP.
For those of you interested, here is my travel itinerary:
Last weekend: Lausanne
This weekend: Zurich
Next weekend: Milan
Nov 7: Barcelona WOOO (there's an ice bar)
Nov 14: Berlin (for thesis interviews and sightseeing)
Nov 21: Paris (also for thesis interviews and LOTS of sightseeing and macaron- buying)
Dec 5: Vienna (FOR ALL OF THE CHRISTMAS MARKETS TO MAKE UP FOR MISSING THE CHURCH FAIR)
Dec 12: London (to see the Nutcracker)
Dec 20: DEPART FOR HOME
it's coming so quickly, but i'm going to live the hell out of this place while i'm here!
xoxoxo
Edie