The End of Studio

Well, the semester is finally over!!!!! Yay!!! After staying at the Unite L’Habitation designed by Le Corbusier in the amazing apartment, we packed up our things and continued to Nice, where we dropped off our things, and hopped on another train to see our final site, Le Corbusier’s grave. We were a little nervous getting on the train because first, there was a strike going on causing the trains to be late, and second, we just found out there was a big gas explosion in the direction we were headed, and we had to get our luggage out of storage by 9 or we would not have any of our things for that night or for our visit to Vals the next day. We got on the train anyway and when we got to the city where he was buried, we walked and walked, up and up like a million stairs (seriously a million) and finally got to his grave site. It was really cool because he and his wife were both buried there and on his wife’s side there was a cross for Christianity and on his there was a seashell for his belief in the Mediterranean. We walked back down, took a nap at the station, and got back on a train to Nice. On the trains, there are multiple stops normally before you get to your stop, so we get to the first stop and sit there for a while before getting told the train was not continuing because of either the explosion or the strike, we weren’t really sure, so now we were on a mad hunt for a bus or taxi or anything to get us back to Nice before 9. We searched for busses but they were all too full and the trains were just not running anymore, and after like 2 hours of running around Erica, Nate, Adam, and I volunteered to get a taxi just to get everyone’s luggage while they waited for a train. Well, what we didn’t realize is that we were no longer in France, but we had stopped in Monaco, so taxi’s were not supposed to go across the border, however, we found a driver that was willing to break the rules and we finally got back to Nice and got our stuff just in time! We went back to our hostel and went and had a really great dinner before going back, working on our stuff for the last time before having to turn it in (we got a little bit of an extension) and went to bed.

We woke up really early to get a taxi to the airport, get on our flight from Nice to Basel, get on a train to get to Ilanz, and get a bus up the mountains in Switzerland to Vals, where we would have our last group stay at the thermal baths! Oh my gosh…the baths were ridiculous…There were completely made of stacked stone slates and there were all these different rooms and crazy stuff…You were supposed to start off in the steam showers which were really intense and you could barely breathe but they felt really good, then go to the indoor pool which was 36 deg. C, then to the outdoor pool which was 33 deg. C which overlooked the mountains and was possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen, then to the another pool that was around 38 deg. C that you had to swim through this tunnel to get to, then the fire pool which was 46 deg. C, then the ice pool which was 14 deg. C (burrrrrrr) then finally the herbal pool which was warm with flower petals floating in!! We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the baths (I snuck a few but they don’t do the place justice) so seriously look this place up! INCREDIBLE! ANYWAY, we get there, get into our rooms, and a few of us go right to the baths before getting ready for a group dinner where included in the hotel was a four course meal (yum!). After really great food, we went back to our rooms, had some drinks, hung out for our second to last night there, and even made a fort! The next day (possibly the best day of my life) we went to breakfast, relaxed in the baths, got a massage, went to the baths again, and went to our last group dinner. We had great food and conversation, remembering great moments of the trip, before all running back to our rooms for the night reopening of the baths for just the hotel guests. We all stayed there until midnight before going back to the rooms and heading to back. In the morning we got up and had breakfast and then said goodbye to people one by one as they left. After ridiculously sad and depressing departures by people in the group, Erica and I finally headed to the train station to continue our journey throughout Europe.

Last night, we were supposed to go to Vicenza, but a few of the people we are traveling with wanted to stay one more night in the baths, so we decided we would rather go back to Milan. We got in last night around 9.30 and went back to this self-service restaurant we had been to before and it was so cool to remember the city and even the workers at the restaurant! We went to bed pretty early, woke up, had breakfast and headed back to the train station to get reservations for our train to Venice, where I am right now.

I cannot believe that our studio part of the trip is over! Everyone was so amazing and it went by so fast!! Now I am into the last ten days of traveling where we will stay in Venice for 3 nights, Prague for 2 nights, Amsterdam for 2 nights, and Dublin for 3 nights!

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