Quote of the trip: "Ciao bella North Face!" - This was shouted to Natalie as we were walking around town. This just goes to show that as Americans, we stick out like a sore thumb. Anyway...what a time! We had a long train ride, but it's all good. We were going to sneak Kayleigh into our hotel room, but that was impossible. The guy at the front desk was really nice. He gave Kayleigh a room for 60 euro but it was apparently just for 1 night because today when we got back from our adventures all of her stuff was [View Full Entry]

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This is where things take a more serious turn. I'm down at the lake because 1. It's a beautiful day, although a little windy, and 2. It's peaceful. I find that's what you need in order to write about something like that. To be honest, I enjoyed Dachau. You always hear horror stories about the Holocaust, but it's a completely different thing to actually be there and see it. I thought of Helga the whole time. Everything there was gray. Apparently one of the building used to be green, but I don't think I saw it. I remember seeing the place [View Full Entry]

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In case you were wondering, prost is a German toast :) Quote of the weekend: "When in Munchen, do the Munchens!" = courtesy of Natalie on our first night in Munchen, land of the Munchens. Well this weekend's adventure led us to Munich, where all we did was drink beer and eat. lol. We did a lot of walking too though. We walked all over Munich, literally. I feel like I didn't really see much of the actual city itself though, well the touristy sights and stuff at least. I did, however, see the world's largest cuckoo clock go off today [View Full Entry]

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I bought flats last night and I wore them today. Bad idea. My feet are now bleeding :( We went to the Uffizzi. There were a lot of beautiful painting. There was one of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Abraham had the knife at Isaac's throat and an angel was holding his arm to prevent him from going through with the sacrifice. It was intense and very moving. Then there was one of the death of Lucretia and her body's all gray. And then one by Da Vinci. The angel's wings are so detailed. The Birth of Venus and The Primavera weren't all [View Full Entry]

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This day was amazing, flat out amazing. First thing we did was go see David at the Academy. There were a lot of other sculptures and paintings of Madonnas and such from the 1500s and such, but David was the main event. He was beautiful. The marble was a rich white color. The detail was ridiculous. I loved the veins in his arms. He was immensely large in actual size.When I first saw him I wanted to cry. It was magnificent. The locks of his hair flowed and wisped elegantly. He looked so delicate despite the fact that he was made [View Full Entry]

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Friday Night, January 19 I crossed my first border in Europe today. Te train stopped for a while. We were confused as to why. The we saw policia and la guarda. We thought that someone was getting busted for drugs or something, but we were just at the border. They checked out passports. They stared at it pretty intently. I wanted a stamp but they wouldn't give me one. We switched trains in Milan and continued on our way to Firenze, aka Florence. I sat next to a crotchety old man. Michelle was across form me. On the reserved trains you [View Full Entry]

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20.18 What an amazing day! We woke up fairly early. Breakfast was bread. Meagan would've loved that! Liz and Monica went sky diving. Me, Liza, Michelle and Jackie on the other hand went canyon swinging. OMG! It was the most amazing experience of my life. I can't believe I did it! I was attached to a rope on a wire and free fell into a gorge and swung.We were picked up in a van by a cute Swiss German named Hans or Heinz (I don't remember which). We rode 20-30 minutes in a tin box up a mountain where the world [View Full Entry]

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At night sometime - Not too much has been going on lately. It is now Friday though! The last few days I've just been going to class which isn't that bad but nothing exciting worth mentioning. I'm taking Italian (thank god) and Consumer Behavior. Today we took a train to Berne. We switched trains in Luzern and Olten. The train from Olten to Berne was a double-decker, fast and crowded. I sat by a girl from this portion of Switzerland. It's in the German speaking part. She was very friendly and spoke good English. That's probably because she studied in Canada [View Full Entry]

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Today Regina took us on a walk around the lake and to the park. It was good because we became more familiar with the city. I feel that now is a good time to talk about the city. It is in the hills of Switzerland. May I just say that the hills in Switzerland are the size of the Appalachian Mountains. To get downtown you have to walk from the Montarina (where I live), down a hill to the train tracks. Then you walk down an even bigger hill (longer than crumpland) to a flight of stairs (about 15 or so). [View Full Entry]

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10:05 p.m. (American Time) - Today was a good day. For the most part We got yelled at by Brinberg for being loud at night, that was the only bad thing. Michelle and I are watching "French Kiss" right now. I love this movie :) Anyway, we had a group trip today. It was a trip to Locarno. It was gorgeous. I rode a train for the first time. The trip began this morning around 11 a.m. 4 students from UZZI (our school in Lugano) came and picked us up. They were sort of our chaperones/guides for the day. Their names [View Full Entry]

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