Lake Como

Today was literally the best Wednesday ever. Yesterday we realized we got out of class at 9:30 today so we might as well make a big day about it head on over to Italy and Lake Como. Once we got to Como we had no idea of what we wanted to do except I wanted to get to Bellagio!

The first view of Como I had! We ended up buying a ferry ticket to Bellagio on the slow ferry. We ended up having 1.5 hours to waste so we found this really yummy cute cheap restaurant in Como. I got a giant bowl of fruit, bread, and a plate of spaghetti for 8 euros! Then we got on the ferry and it turns out that it was a 2 hour ride to Bellagio, but it was well worth it! We had wonderful views of the lake and it just proved how giant the lake is when we were on a boat for 2 hours and barely got through 1/3 of the lake! When we finally got to Bellagio we had 45 minutes walking around and bought gelato. Why don't I live on Como. So beautiful.

A stairway in the middle of Bellagio that led to the top to the gelato place!

Me in front of Bellagio on the way back. Unfortunately, while cruising the lake we did not get to see George Clooney who was in town cruising around Lake Como this weekend. We got to play in the water in Bellagio for a little bit before our 2 hour ferry ride back! One of the coolest things I saw was a lot of pools by the side of the lake and one of the pools had a high dive that you just dove off into the lake! Same with slides and other toys! So exciting. Saved a total of 8 francs thanks to my half pass/after 7 pass and the entire trip was less than 30 euros. It was so exciting and great.
Favorite picture of the day:

This was by far my favorite way to spend a Wednesday! Next Wednesday we all have our Academic Travel classes in the afternoon so no trips to Italy for us! Tomorrow I have bunds of homework to do but I am pleased to say I actually did some reading for my history class on the ferry today. Yay!
I still am so much in love with Europe
Oh and forgot to mention! We got back at 830 and had a hall meeting at 9 so I made oatmeal mixed with nutella. Best dinner ever.

Trash Day

Today was trash day in Lugano which is a little bit more exciting than trash day in Colorado/Texas. It's basically dump day and everyone goes through the rich people of Sorengo's dump throw out and find goodies! I saw kids walking with a broken table, some broken chairs, a lot of pots and pans and purses so it was quite exciting for them!
Second day of classes.. so rough! My Italian professor did not say a single English word today and it was the first day! Awful.
Tomorrow we are going to Lake Como because we are done with class at 9:20 and this weekend instead of going to Bellinzona wine festival, we are going to go to Interlaken/Gimmelvald in the Alps and I am extremely excited! I can not wait!!
Free BBQ for dinner.. nothing too exciting! Stoked for Como tomorrow- only 20 minutes away!

Family Dinner!

Classes started today.. Yikes. Franklin is going to be a totally different experience for me. I have written a single paper in college and it was one page long. In my lit class I have to write 2 papers, 4-6 and then 9-12 pages. Marketing a 6 page paper, Schlein class a 20-40 page paper and I don't know about Italian yet.. I am so scared for all of these papers! I have to remember that if I don't like the classes, I would have had to take them at SMU anyway so I have to take them regardless! Might as well take them in a foreign country.

Big excursion of the day: grocery shopping. We had to walk down the hill to the store and then walking through the store I had no idea what I was supposed to buy. Meat looks so strange in Switzerland and I had no idea what type of food I was buying. The only downside of grocery shopping is we have to carry all the groceries back to our dorm.

Shelaynes backpacking bag was packed with food and both of our bags weighed a solid 30 pounds. Thankfully instead of walking up the hill, they have built a train that shuttles you up and down for 1 franc.

Just imagine that hill for a 5 minute climb with a 30 pound bag of groceries. Amen for new transportation.

After grocery shopping we had risotto night with the study abroads upstairs. Claire made risotto, Jen brought bread, Esther brought mushrooms, and me and Shelayne cooked some strange sausage, zucchini and onions which actually turned out delicious! It was such a fun evening and a great bonding time.

Carrying our pan upstairs for dinner! Literally a pot luck. Took our own plates, forks, and pan with food! So great. Now time for bed since I have an 8:30am class every single day. Whoo!

Valle Verzasca

Today was amazing! It got off to a hectic start but everything turned around when we got on the bus to Valle Verzasca. It was a little of an hour away from campus up in the Alps and our first stop was a little stream where we ate our bag lunches. After that we walked/hiked up to a waterfall with a little pond that people could swim in. It was a really pretty waterfall and lake but since it was glacial water it was freezing cold and I could barely put my feet in! Crazy kids were swimming all the way across it to the other side and hopping out which was probably like 25 yards away.
All the study abroads took a picture:

After giving crazy kids time to swim, we went down the road a little farther to a bridge and cliff that people jump off into a little pond. Apparently the bridge is in some famous movie but I couldn't tell you which one it is. At this spot, the water was a lot warmer than the first stop, but after jumping off the cliff it took your breath away it was so cold! I needed to experience it but I was only good for one jump. I literally froze once I hit the water and had to calm down before I could swim to the shallow part.

The bridge that some of the locals jumped off of and you can see the rock and a little bit of the pond below.

My entry into the water!
And here is my favorite picture of the day

Tomorrow is the big day to finally start school and orientation is over! I am so excited to officially get the semester under way! I will finally buy groceries tomorrow, and hopefully by my half pass for train tickets! Bellinzona wine festival this weekend and maybe a day trip somewhere else Sunday!

Bellinzona Castles

Today we went to Bellinzona which is a 30 minute train ride away from Lugano to look at castles! There are three big castles in Bellinzona, one of them is right in the heart of town and two of them are up high on a hill. After walking around for a little, a woman handed me and Shelayne a green vegetable shot and it was the most disgusting thing I have ever been handed.. Never again will  I try that! Next weekend we are going to a wine festival there so I know not to try the vegetable shots! For some reason I thought it would be a brilliant idea to wear some sandals and a skirt and then decided I want to hike up to the 2 castles that were legitimately on top of a mountain! Bad idea.. We stopped at the first castle for a little bit and then found out starting in May you had to pay for it so we got kicked out and then walked up to the second! Above is a picture of the first castle we stopped at, and the town down below. Everywhere in Bellinzona had wine vineyards and it was really fun to see even the tiniest yard with thousands of grapes!

This picture is from the top castle with a view of Bellinzona below! Oh and we got gelato! The first gelato I have had since I have been here and it was nutella flavor and amazing.

When we got back we got to relax a little bit and then all the study abroads went to downtown for pizza at a yummy place right by the lake! I am really enjoying all this free food we are receiving! We hung out downtown for a bit and got some drinks and then came back up the hill. We were ready to go to bed and our neighbor came running into our dorm and made us go back into town for blues to bop, a jazz music festival with 3 stages and lots of people in the middle of downtown! It was a lot of fun but on the way back we were walking up the hill and these 4 men were walking by us and one thought it would be hilarious to scream into my ear.. It was creepy and scary and I don't know what their intention was. Pro tip: not a good way to flirt sir!
Tomorrow we have the lake and waterfalls about an hour away and Monday we start this strange thing called school.. Hmm.

Study abroad students are hungry..

The biggest even today was going to IKEA! Whooo. It was actually disappointing how expensive it was! Obviously I didn't need to go expensive because I'm only here for 4 months but I thought since it was closer to Sweeden it would be cheaper.. false.
I met with my "academic advisor" today who is actually a crazy irish man and literally talked nothing about school. For 35 minutes (during my 10 minute scheduled appointment) I learned about his dog Hector who chews his hat, his amazing pride for Ireland, and positivity. It was interesting but kind of a waste of time! It would be quite an experience to take his Irish poetry class with him (since he is an Irish poet!) but instead I get to take a class that is going to make us write 20-40 page essays! So stoked...
Finally got a phone and for 2 of us it took an hour! The Italian man helping us thought it was more important to flirt with us than to give us our phones and told us the best place to visit in Switzerland is Lugano. At the Orange store. When he's working. Very confident!! I like it! GOOD NEWS:: The hills are finally getting easier!!!
There was a BBQ tonight for all the students and at the end of it we were told that study abroad students look hungry and need food so they gave us 20 leftover sandwiches and a giant box of bread to bring back to our dorm! Success? yes!
Tomorrow is a tour of the castles at Bellinzona and I am super excited and can not wait to actually start taking pretty pictures of things! Lugano is beautiful but I want to get out and explore!

Bucket List

Nothing too exciting happened today. We went to a lot of orientation meetings that had nothing to do with us (we learned how to register for classes even though we are already registered! yay!) and then had a meeting about the do's and don'ts in Lugano. They are crazy eco friendly here and you have to throw away your trash in certain trash bags and if you don't recycle everything they have people whose job it is to go through your garbage and find the recycling and find you based on the numbers on the bag and tell you to recycle! It's pretty cool how much they care but so much to think about! So during all the boring meetings all the study abroads made a bucket list of the things we want to do these next 4 months and the adventures start this weekend with a train ride to Bellinzona and a tour of the castles there!

Bucket list:

These 4 months are going to go by so fast but I am so excited because everyone here is awesome and it is going to be a great time! Oh yeah I forgot we created a fra-roity called Sigma Alpha (study abroad!) and it is super great!

At night we went to dinner with all the study abroads, transfers, and orientation leaders while the freshman had their own dinner and it was this cute expensive pizza place and the school paid for all of it!

 And one last picture of the "campus!"

Orientation continues..

Today we just continued orientation and went to a lot of little seminars that didnt apply to the study abroads because we aren't freshman so those were really boring. After that we went on a tour of campus and there are literally so many hills here I dont know what to do with myself! For lunch we had really good pizza and  then we went to tour downtown Lugano. Our dorm is the closest to downtown and the train station so it is going to be easy when we want to travel. They say a lot of seniors like this dorm because its less like you're on a college campus and more in the city. To get to downtown and the lake and a lot of little stores/big stores its a solid 10 minute walk with hills of at least a 15% grade! So ridiculous. Once you get down there, there are so many different places to go that its unbelievable its such a small town but they have jammed so much stuff into it and I can't wait to just wander around it. I love this place! I will start taking more pictures tomorrow but I have one of the main street down to Lugano and the main square. 

I have met a lot of cool people, and all 8 of the study abroads are really cool! I am going to end up buying the half and after 7 train pass so it is half off for tickets in switzerland and free tickets after 7pm which is going to be a great value and allow me to travel around Switzerland! 

Fun fact, Switzerland has enforced quiet hours after 10pm and apparently last night a lot of freshman went out to an Irish pub right across from campus and they had so many noise complaints that the police had to come talk to the dean of student life and if it happens again, Franklin is at the risk of getting shut down.. yikes! So these freshman better pull their acts together.. rookie mistakes. Oh and one person got expelled a couple years ago because they had a goldfish in their room! They are super serious when they say no animals in the dorms!

 Besides the really early really obnoxious wake up call we had this morning by an orientation leader, everything is going great! I just can't wait to sleep and get caught up from this jet lag!

Getting here!

Today was a long day to put it nicely. Left Denver at 7:30 am Monday and got into Lugano at 4:30 pm Tuesday.. Joys. I have discovered a couple things about Europe already, air conditioners are rare! Both the Munich and Milan airports did not have any air conditioning and I found myself getting lost and told wrong directions and wandering from end to end of both airports, multiple times. It was miserable. The bus ride from Milan to Lugano was really convenient but when I got to the bus station I had to take a 5 minute taxi ride to campus that was 20 euros. Ridiculous. Turns out my dorm is right next to the bus station so the walk I have to do every day to my 8:30 am class is worth 20 euros! My dorm is really nice and is about 3 times the size of the one I had freshman year and we have our own mini kitchen and table and lots of free space with a pizzeria 2 floors below us! Thankfully walking a mile up the giant hills to class is going to keep me in decent shape! It is too hot to even think about doing anything right now and since my dorm doesn't have ac I feel like I am baking whether I am inside or out.. I hear this is normal for orientation week and should cool off soon! I also found out today that the academic travel to Turkey is more "vacationy" than "academicy" and we should get put up in 5 star resorts and the professor opens up bar tabs for the students some nights! I definitely picked the right travel : ). The campus and Switzerland are as pretty as everyone has described and there truly are palm trees right next to the mountains.. crazy. Tomorrow we get to take a tour of downtown Lugano and maybe the pub "Coyote Ugly" right across from my dorm will be  a part of the tour as well! So far I am loving Switzerland and this is going to be awesome!