Ponte Tresa Market

I am trying to figure out how to phrase this without scaring my mom to death, but there is no way! Last night while I was all cozied up in bed, one of the scariest things happened! Just know, everything is a-okay now and an integral part of this story is in our dorm, you can buzz people into the front door and then we have doorbell type things on each of our doors. At 3:30 in the morning, I was woken up by a group of Franklin students yelling and having fun outside my window.. Nothing new its a Friday night right? So then around 5:00 I heard my door buzz and I am assuming it was the buzzer from outside so someone could get in the building. I ignored it and kept laying in bed. About 3 minutes later the same quick buzz. Annoying. So I tried to fall back asleep assuming whoever was buzzing either got in through someone else, or had given up. False Assumption. They were now at my door knocking! I decided that I was going to take the "pretend I'm asleep approach" and they will go away so I still didn't do anything but try to fall back asleep. And then the knocking and doorbell ringing started going off every 1 or 2 minutes and the knocking turned into pounding and the ringing turned into a continuous loud obnoxious buzzing. This lasted until 5:15 when I finally decided to get up and see what was happening because I had decided that it was one of my friends that was locked out. Nope- wrong again. Two huge (6'4'ish) scary looking black dudes were standing there.. Not a single person of that description goes to Franklin so I got freaked out and just started cussing at them like "What are you doing" "Who are you" blah blah blah. Turns out they were looking for a girl named Erin who used to live in either my room or the one above me last year and they thought she would still be there. I assured them that I was not Erin, I did not know an Erin and they needed to get out of the building right away! They left without problems, I emailed the RA, and I was so thankful it ended easily and nothing else happened. I talked to my friends upstairs this morning and the same people were up there knocking on their door, but Claire did the smart thing and just talked through the door.. Definitely a dumb mistake on my part! But someone else told me he knows the guys that were pounding on my door through Erin because they were always here last year.. Still not okay!

Now onto better things! We went to Ponte Tresa market today in Italy. It was only a 20 minute train ride and right across the border. When you think of classic farmers market, this was it! Everything was so cheap and delicious and the place was giant!

One of the vendors we went to, his deal was 1 chilo for 1 euro! I got a chilo of nectorines (about 6) pears (about 5) and apples (about 4) for 3 euros! So cheap and so fresh and delicious! No wonder it was such a popular place to be. 

My bag of goodies that was 2 euros. Then we tried out the cheese- best cheese in the world, got some bread that was as big as our heads for 3 euros and I got some dried mangos and bananas! 

Not only was all of the food really cheap, but wine was 10 euros for 3 large bottles! Needless to say, we bought some of that to split too! On our way back we stopped at a grocery store just to pick up a couple last things and I got a thing of crackers that is usually 6 francs in Lugano for 1.5 euro in Italy. I don't know why Lugano has to be so expensive but it is really getting annoying! Tonight I'm going out for a bit for someones birthday, but first we are having eggplant parmesan and then I need to do some more homework! Tomorrow I will charge my camera so I can actually take pictures when we take a boat over to Gondria and explore the little town on the other side of Lake Lugano! 

And by the way, I learned my lesson about not opening the door at wee hours of the night and our RA sent out a message to everyone telling them to make sure they pick up the phone and see who is buzzing in from the outside before letting them in! 

Kebab Pizza

Today was a day full of good eating! After all of my classes I came back to my dorm and we decided we were going to go eat at Manor Ristorante. It is basically an Italian version of Whole Foods/Central Market. One thing to know about the grocery stores here is they are in the "basement" or floor -1 of department stores. Megros and Manor are 2 of the larger ones and Manor is 6 floors with the basement being groceries, 0 floor is cosmetics, 1 is designer clothes and so on. Therefore we were not surprised when we found this Whole Foods type market in Manor either! So exciting and it was so delicious. We then walked around downtown for a bit until it was time to head back to our dorm.
For dinner, we had a dinner for everyone in our dorm but it was at the pizza place in the bottom of our dorm! Best pizza I have ever eaten. Claire and I split a kebab pizza and after we put the spicy sauce on it, I don't think I have ever tasted anything so delicious in my life. To put things in perspective, I hate lamb with a passion so for me to say something I ate had lamb and was amazing.. Big deal!
Tomorrow we are going to a farmers market/open air market in Ponte Tresa, which is right past the Italian border. Tomorrow I will start taking more pictures again when more exciting things are happening than walking to and from classes!
The picture of the day just for fun is still from last weekend in Gimmelvald!

And here is half the study abroad population at Franklin struggling to balance spoons on our noses:

Ice Cream Cures Everything

Today was rough. For starters, I couldn't get out of bed! Don't know why I was so tired but it was so rough! In between classes I was trying to do homework and then got tree sap all over my arm! I got an email from school saying a package had arrived but I had to go pay 47.75 francs to pick it up. Cool Switzerland- thanks for the import taxes! But when I got to the post office it was closed until 2 so I went back at 2 and found out I can't pick my package up until tomorrow even though I received the package slip? Confusing. I did get a lot of homework done, but then the bad luck continued! I ruined dinner for a bit.. who knew you don't cook gnocchi like spaghetti? not me! Big pile of mush. So thankfully we had more to recook but then the gellato store was closed! So we ended up walking to a little store by the train station and got all sorts of ice cream and goodies to eat to end the day! Currently trying to figure out where I am going and what I am doing for my weekends. This weekend is full of homework and perhaps an open air farmers market type thing on Saturday! Time for me to cheer up and realize these petty things don't matter! Yay for being in Switzerland!

All of our yummy goodies : )

 

Travel Meeting

We had our first academic travel meeting today for my trip to Turkey. It was pretty basic but I now know a little bit of the agenda. We will spend 7 days in Istanbul, 1 or 2 days in Ankara, 1 day in Konya and then 3 or 4 days at an all inclusive resort in Antalya just hanging out! It should be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it, but just like every other class at this school I will have to write a 5 page paper! Grr!
Other than grocery shopping and the yummy spaghetti we made for dinner, it was just a normal day in paradise!

Swiss Resident!

The most exciting thing today was I went to Bellinzona (again!) and got my picture taken, my fingerprint taken, and a signature so I can receive a residency permit. I am officially a resident of Switzerland.. until I leave in December!
I also got to skype with a couple friends back home and in Texas and my mom which was nice because at the 2 week point, I am still loving Switzerland but I am starting to miss people! The best line I heard (and Shelayne's friend said the same thing) was "just know that we will see you again, it's not like your never coming back, Switzerland will go fast, so just enjoy it while your there!" True fact. Tomorrow will be a new day in this beautiful city and I am looking forward to it!
Since nothing too exciting happened today, here's a picture of the most beautiful town we passed on Friday on our way to Interlaken somewhere between there and Lucern.

And a picture of Murren from our hike.

Tomorrow I get to meet the professor and all the other kids on my Turkey trip during our first academic travel class period!

The Weekend of Cows

I had the most wonderful weekend ever in Gimmelvald/Interlaken. I don't think I could have asked for a smoother weekend as we never missed a train or bus or gondola and there were 6 of us! Impressive if I must say so.
The train ride to Intrelaken was long but it was during the day so we got to see all of the views of the alps and fields and meadows. We passed the most beautiful lake and town and so many mountains I can't describe how great it was! When we got to Interlaken we had about a 15 minute walk to our hostel with all of our bags but our hostel was nice so it was worth the walk. It turned out that they had a room of 6 empty so we all got to stay in the same room without any strangers. We went downstairs and ate dinner outside at the hostel (they had American food!) and then went for a walk around town. We met some study abroads from Virginia Tech and as we were talking to them I heard a bunch of bells start coming down the street. Confused as to what it was I turned around and saw this...

A parade of cows with christmas trees on their heads and bells around their necks! People dressed as pilgrims or something walked with them and led them through town. So crazy. Little did I know there would be a recurring motif of cows throughout the weekend. The next day we got up early and took a train to Lauterbrunnen, a bus to another town, and then a gondola up to Gimmelvald!

At the bus station! The gondola held at least 70 people in one car and had to go up the steepest cliff, it was cool but kind of sketchy thinking about how high you actually were. We dropped our bags off at the hostel, planned a hike and set off on our 5 hour hike. We had some of the most incredible views and passed through so many cows that were 2 feet from the path and at one point we even had to walk through the cow pasture to catch another path. So crazy. Also walking through the town of Murren (along our walk) people were always able to spot out that we were Americans and yelled because they were too! Was it really that obvious? Probably.

The 6 of us in Murren.

The view from one of our stopping points. About 2/3 up the tallest mountain there was we stopped for lunch (we had packed peanut butter, jelly, and bread, and just made pbjs on the trail and offered them to some nice people passing by!) and then we decided we needed to turn around and head back home. But the views were absolutely gorgeous. We got back to the hostel and ate a huge dinner at the hostel and had a good time hanging out looking at the alps and pretending to do homework but really just being loud and obnoxious.
The next day we went back down to Interlaken because it was rainy and cold and we thought it would be better at a lower elevation, but we were wrong. It actually was worse. We walked around downtown Interlaken for awhile in our hiking clothes and rain coats and there was some sort of wrestling going on in the main square, we called it a human rodeo! Quite exciting to see but we didn't stay out for long because it was so cold but it was such a pretty place I would love to go back sometime! The only hitch was we were ready to go around 4:30pm but we had to wait until after 7 so the train ride would be free since we have passes. Probably one of the most interesting things at the train station in Interlaken was there was a line for the men's bathroom and not the women's! Everything is backwards here.

We finally got back at midnight last night and then had to stay up to do some homework for class today!

Quick embarassing moment of today, I have been trying to find these books for my history research paper and could not manage to find them in the library so I kept asking people and they kept telling me "go back downstairs they are there" so finally someone walked downstairs to show me where they were and there was a door that I had seen but I thought it was just a mirror reflecting other books so I didn't even try to walk through but it revealed 1000 more books.. and my books were there. Ha I struggle at libraries. Oops.

Swiss Chocolate

Today we went grocery shopping for our weekend adventure! I am very excited for this trip but the most exciting thing ever was on the way back from downtown we stopped at a little Swiss Chocolate Shop and got the best chocolate I have ever tasted. The picture above is actually a picture from the shop! Now I really don't know if I can go back to the states. Too yummy. I had to speak Italian to get us through the shop because they didn't speak English- it was ugly but we walked out of there with chocolate which was the main goal! 

I tried the lemon chocolate and cappucino chocolate and I now know what I have to bring home to my mommy! Wish I would have found this last week. Chocolate once a week. Totally worth it!

And maybe even more exciting than chocolate is I have officially read 40 pages of my history textbook.. That is the most history reading I have EVER done! So proud of myself. Not really though.. Boo.

Next post will be on Sunday/Monday when I get back from one of the best weekends ever! Interlaken/Gimmelvald. Look it up- so pretty! 

Have a good weekend :)