Family Dinner

After a long day of school, I got to sit back and enjoy a family dinner with all the SMU girls and Claire! Shelayne could not join us because she is currently in Zurich! Hillary made us all chicken piccata and a caprese salad with bread and I made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Chicken piccata is my new favorite food, or maybe it is still eggplant parmesan, but they are both delicious! I tried capers for the first time (they weren't too bad) and actually ate raw tomatoes with mozzarella cheese on top! Cookies here however, are a little bit of an issues. First problem, vanilla is "vanilla sugar" that you add to the ingredients, and the brown sugar is really grainy. Next problem, we don't have bowls big enough to mix the ingredients in, nor do we have measuring cups or mixing spoons! So we used a giant pot for stew, and a spatula and spoon to mix the ingredients. They were not very good cookies, but after not having cookies for a really long time, they were much appreciated by everyone!
Off to Zermatt tomorrow to see the Matterhorn, and go rafting on Saturday morning in glacial water- should be fun! To avoid the stress of last weekend, and make up for some lost sleep we are coming back to Lugano Saturday night to write an english essay and do a couple hours of homework for my other classes!

Monthaversary

Well folks, today is the day- I have officially been in Switzerland for a month and I couldn't be happier! I might be a little biased when I say this, but Switzerland is by far the best country (in Europe) ever! It's clean, the water is yummy, they have fountains everywhere, there's the alps, and lakes, and everything is on time and I am just happy. I think yesterday it finally hit me that I still have three more months here, and it feels like home. I know my way around, I know people, and I know how to travel. Besides grocery shopping, laundry, and a lot (and I mean A LOT) of homework, nothing exciting has happened. Shelayne and I have decided to lock ourselves into our room and not leave until we have made sufficient dents in our to-do lists, it's proving difficult but together we will conquer this mountain of homework. Whoever said studying abroad is so easy was very wrong- I have never read this many books, or written this many papers in my life while trying to travel to a different country every weekend.
So tonight I will sit back with my newly received residency permit, light a candle, celebrate being a resident of this country with my bottle of... Arizona blueberry white tea.. and do some more homework! Li vedra' in tre mesi gli Stati Uniti!

Under the Tuscan Sun

Friday:
I don't even know where to begin for this weekend. It was incredible! We left Lugano around 1 on Friday and got to Pistoia (a random small town in Tuscany) at 6:30. The hostel we stayed at was 20 minutes outside of town, out in the country and the only way to get there is by car. Luckily, our hostel had a shuttle service from the owner himself! Guido, a wealthy  man who used to make loads of wine, and now only makes olive oil, has a farm out in the country side with an infinity pool, 23 places for guests to stay, and the most incredible view ever. The hostel was $25 a night, and the 5 of us had this little house thing to ourself. When you walked in there was a door on the left and on the right and each one led to a kitchen, a bathroom, and 4 beds- basically it meant we were all spread out and there weren't any strangers with us, which was perfection! The first night we got there, Guido gave us welcome wine and we sat down at dinner with 3 other people, 2 Australian girls, and an Irishman. They were great company for us at the hostel because they were basically the only other people there!

Welcome Glass of Wine!

Guido's shuttle

Saturday:
We woke up early in the morning to begin our day of what we thought would be Lucca and Pisa. We got to the train station at 10 am to find out that the next train to Lucca was at 11, and we didn't want to stay in Pistoia for that amount of time, so we did what any rational person would do- jump on a train to Florence for a couple of hours! We had plans to do wine tasting at 5:30 that night so since we weren't planning on doing anything major, we had planned to have Guido pick us up at the train station at 2 so we could hang out by the pool for a little of bit. My first impression of Florence was that there were so many people there. Switzerland looks like a deserted country compared to the mass of people that was walking around that town! We picked up a map and started on our quick tour of Florence. After we saw the Duomo, we saw a couple famous plazzas, and then stumbled across the fake David and grabbed some pizza!

Duomo

Pizza and Calzone by the Duomo

After our quick sightseeing, our group split up. Two people decided to spend the rest of the day in Florence, while Shelayne, Claire, and I decided to go back to our quaint little town to lay by the pool and go wine tasting! The infinity pool in itself was an experience. It was beautiful and so relaxing and quiet, but the only downfall was we were required to wear swim caps that Guido gave us at arrival. They made for lovely pictures though!

I was the Yellow

 

We got to stay there with our Australian friends for a couple hours and then had to go get ready for wine tasting. As a bonus to wine tasting, we got to stop by the place where Leonardo da Vinci was born. The house was so anti-climactic. It was under construction and was just a giant brick building. After we saw it, Guido informed us that he doesn't believe it was the actual birthplace of Leonardo but rather a place that the town of Vinci made up to get tourists. His reasoning behind this was that he used to be an architect and he believes the house was built in the 800's while Leonardo was born in the 400's.. Quite the controversy!

All of us at wine tasting

At the Vineyards

Wine tasting in Italy consisted of going to one person's farm, and eating all their grapes and eating wine! So amazing! The harvesting didn't start until Sunday, but we were there Saturday so we got to pick grapes and eat them, even though we didn't get to see the wine actually being produced. The 6 of us and Guido then sat down at a table with cheese, ham, bread, bruschetta, cantaloupe, and 4 bottles of wine. We got to try all the different types of wine, and Guido explained the difference between each one and then the woman brought out dessert wine and we got to dunk biscotti in red wine and then drink this dessert wine that tasted like apple juice. It was so delicious! I was going to buy wine from that woman but Guido was very sure to point out that his wine was way better and I need only to buy his. Apparently there is a famous wine that comes from Tuscany that costs 100 euro a bottle, but Guido managed to steal some of these grapes once and now makes the wine for 10 euros per bottle! I bought a bottle of this wine (we tried it on the first night there) and he gave me an extra one. So mom and dad- there is some good wine coming back to the states! After that lovely evening, on the way back to Guido's farm we got to stop at a random castle in Vinci! It was completely dark so you couldn't see anything, but there was a sculpture of Leonardo's perfect man, which was cool to see.  

Another sunset in Tusacny

Castle in Vinci

Sunday: 

This day started out wonderfully, we got an early start and were ready to go to Lucca and Pisa. The three main travel goals were to see the marble walls of Lucca, and take a picture with the leaning tower of Pisa and of course make it home! 

One important thing about the region we were in is it is a very popular place for cyclists. There were so many hills and little towns and gorgeous views there were always hundreds of cyclists on the skinny mountain roads. Guido hated the cyclists as they believed they owned the road and they had the Saint of cyclists, San Baronto watching out for them. It was actually kind of scary to see how close Guido would get to the cyclists before he would find an opening and zoom past a couple of them and squeeze his way back into the pack! He definitely has had experience driving with the cyclists, but there were so many of them and we got stuck so many times behind them that we actually almost missed our train to Lucca! Something that frustrated me was that very few of the cyclists were wearing helmets. With the way Italians drive, and the cyclists not wearing helmets, I am scared for the number of accidents that happen on this road! One last thing about that, I maybe saw 3 women out of the hundreds of bicyclists, so I decided my mom needs to get to Italy and show these men that women can ride too! 

Loads of cyclists!

After we barely caught our train, we got to Lucca at 11:30 and began to walk around the town. Back in the day, Lucca built giant walls of marble to keep enemies out, but when enemies never came, they just left up the walls and built a city inside the walls. 

Marble castle in Lucca

We dropped our bags off at a place inside the walls and began to walk around. We got to see a couple churches, a market, some plazzas and ate wonderful kebabs for lunch! The only issue with Lucca, was there were a lot of birds! 

Where I ate lunch due to too many birds
on the church steps!

After lunch we bought some bread to split between the five of us that was supposed to be bread that was famous to Lucca, but we couldn't eat it because it tasted like black licorice. Disgusting. It then started to rain, but not just rain, it poured. We had to make it back to the tourist information place where our bags were and to the bus station where we could take a bus to Pisa. Sprinting in the rain- so much fun. Not. 

We then took a 30 minute bus ride to Pisa so we could take the classic pictures holding up the tower. My favorite part of walking into the plazza where the tower is, was seeing all of the tourists with their hands sticking into the air to get their own pictures holding up the tower. It was priceless. 

Ever wonder what's behind the tower? 

I held up the tower!

We made it back to the bus station with plenty of time to spare, or so we thought, in order to get back to Switzerland at a reasonable hour. Then the panic struck- we figured out Tren Italia was striking. The man at the ticket counter laughed at us when we told him we needed to get to Switzerland and told us to go talk to information. After another 20 minute wait, the woman in information told us she could get us back to Lugano at 8:15 Monday morning (if we were willing to stay in the Milan train station between 1am and 5am).. That almost worked except our classes were at 8:30 and are 30 minutes away from the train station! We were not ready to give up hope, so we jumped on a bus to the airport to see if we could fly into Switzerland! The woman at the airport laughed at us too. Bummer. After throwing around many ideas, taking a private car to Lugano, spending the night in Milan, taking a train that would arrive at 5:30, or winging it, we decided to wing it! We noticed there was a bus to Florence leaving at 7:20 that night that would get us there around 8:30 in time for the strike to end at 9. We then looked up trains and saw if we got on a 9 o'clock train from Florence to Balogna, we could take a train from Balogna to Lugano that would get in at 5:30. Perfect. We bought our bus tickets, and our train ticket to Balogna (there were only first class seats available, but desperate times call for desperate measures!) When we got to Florence the train was a little late so we got some pizza for dinner, and then we got on the train! The train stopped in Balogna like it was supposed to, but we hopped off and saw that the next train we were going to take was cancelled! Claire ran over and asked some train dude if we could just hop back on and he said "sure, get on." Since we were already in the first class section we decided to just hop back onto first class and we learned a very important lesson- if there is a train strike in Italy, just hop on any train because they won't check tickets, and when you hop on- just jump into first class! The train took us to Milan but when we got there we were kind of at a dead end. We tried to see if there was a bus from Milan to Lugano, but it was too late for that (it was now 11) so we considered taking that 12:38 train from Milan to Chiasso, which is a small town south of Lugano. We would have gotten into Chiasso at 1:45am and had to hope for a taxi to be there that late on a Sunday morning. We figured that wasn't too safe of a bet so we just got a taxi in Milan and took it all the way to Lugano. Yes, it was expensive- but split between 4 people it was not nearly that bad and it was the cheapest option we truly had! After the hour-ish taxi ride we made it back to Lugano safe and sound at 12:45! Needless to say, I am kind of over Italy and their striking and plan to stay in Switzerland for awhile now! 

Kiwis and headstands!

Sometimes when we get really bored in our room, and don't want to do homework- strange things happen!

Putting that awkward column to a good use. Ha! That was an exciting moment in the life and times of Switzerland! Today I went and got my kilogram of kiwis to eat so I don't get sick! Manor is my new favorite grocery store.. Way better than Megros, and I bet they don't have disgusting chicken nuggets! It's almost equivalent to the Whole Foods of Switzerland. We ate at the Manor restaurant the other day, and used the grocery store today! Next step, buying clothes from there!? I will never get over the concept of grocery shopping at Saks 5th (kind of what it feels like to me!)

This weekend, 5 of us are going to stay at a hostel in the Chianti wine region of Italy and explore Tuscany! The hostel is in the middle of nowhere- a shuttle is picking us up from the train station and taking us there! There is a pool at the hostel which is going to be wonderful for relaxing, and one day we will hopefully go on tours of vineyards, or travel to other parts of Tuscany- maybe Pisa, Florence, Lucca, Bologna.. The list is endless!
I am not going to bring my computer this weekend, so Monday I will have lots of lovely pictures and good stories! Hopefully my parents don't get blown away in the Puerto Rico hurricane while I'm away! (Love you guys!)

Bellinzona v.3

Class. Homework. Homework. Lunch. Homework. Nap. Dinner!

Quite the exciting day. The other day we had a major craving for a kebab sandwich, and everyone says the best kebabs are in Bellinzona! Thanks to our after 7 pass, we were able to go hop on the 7 o'clock town to Bellinzona (30 minute ride) and got the most delicious kebabs for dinner and then came back to Lugano! We got to sit on the steps of the church in the main square of Bellinzona with a view of the castle and just enjoy the sandwiches. It's amazing how relaxing it was just because there were not cars zooming past and loud motorcycles every 5 minutes. That is one thing I am not going to miss about Lugano- how loud it was. It would be so much nicer here if it was a little quieter and I could just relax in my room and not worry about waking up at 5am every morning to the street sweepers and loud cars! I guess I'll just have to keep taking little vacations to get away from the noise! That is a-okay with me!

Blueberry Piecake

Tonight was the first Blueberry Piecake of the semester- basically an open mic night for Franklin students.  It was in one of the common areas up the hill and was surprisingly packed! There were about 100 people there, which is officially 1/4 of the college population and it was actually really enjoyable! The idea of blueberry piecake is it is a place to do whatever you want without judgement and it started in Portland, Oregon and is now in a couple places around the states. To give you an idea of how free it is, 2 boys got up and had a pushup competition.. literally anything passed as acceptable! My favorite act was when one person sang, and another person rapped at the same time and it was so off and original that it was actually amazing! I have never seen anything like it before.

Bad news though: I think the Franklin plague is quickly approaching. Apparently since the school is so small everyone gets sick at the same time so they call it the Franklin plague. Tomorrow Shelayne and I are setting out to the grocery store to buy as many kiwis as we can and just nom them all so we don't get sick! Apparently kiwis have twice the vitamin c of an orange and twice the fiber of an apple! So excited.
Hopefully I will get out of town and to Italy this weekend without getting sick!

Laundry Room/Bomb Shelter

Basically every building in Switzerland has a bomb shelter, and the one in my dorm is very similar to what our laundry room looks like. Needless to say, it is creepy down there! Oh, and along that line of safety and being prepared I learned the other day that all of Switzerland's tunnels, for trains and cars, have dynamite in them in case of invasion! It is really creepy about when going through tunnels on the train and being in them for a really long time! I was also told that Switzerland can have all of it's borders protected within 6 hours, and after graduating high school every boy is required to do about 4 months of military training, just in case! Anyway, back to the bomb shelter laundry room- doing laundry in a foreign country is not fun because every button on the machines is so confusing and different and I don't like it! To change the amount of time to dry your clothes, you either hit a button with 2 or 3 water droplets, which makes sense, or a button that shows 3 different stages of a sunrise... which doesn't make sense! 

Other than doing laundry in the creepy basement, nothing out of the ordinary happened today. My favorite thing of the day is a toss up between the crepe I made myself earlier or the fried rice Jen made me for dinner! Quite a cultured day of meals! Yum.