party in the CH

I hopped off my plane in Switz-er-land with a dream and my cardigan,
Welcome to the land of billionaries, woah, am I gonna fit in?
Jumped on my bus, here I am for the first time
Look to my left and I see the a Swiss Alps sign
This is all so crazy! Everyone looks so not lazy!

My tummy's growlin' and I'm feelin' kinda carsick
So excited and I'm nervous
That's when the hot swiss bus driver turned on the radio
And some weird italian song was on
And some weird italian song was on
And some weird italian song was on 

So I throw my hands up, I don't know this song
The blizzard outside rages on
I'm shruggin' my shoulders like yeah
Not movin' my hips cuz I can't

Got my hands up, don't know where I am
But I know I'm gonna be okay.
Yeahhhh Yeah Yeeahah it's a party in the-C-H.
Yeahhhh Yeah Yeaahah it's a party in the-C-H.

Ok sorry once I started I just couldn't stop. For mom and dad and any of my other old geezer readers out there, that was my lyrical rendition of Miley Cyrus' Party in the U.S.A.

Let me rewind a bit. On Thursday, I said a quick goodbye to my parents at Dulles airport and soon after began heading to my gate with all of my soon to be best friends. I immediately regretted packing my heaviest items in my carry on and not finding space for the TWO winter jackets I had on in my luggage because I was panting like a dog after getting through security. Luckily, a nice man driving an airport golfcart-thing noticed my struggle and scooped me up. I flew past my fellow classmates (ok, I was barely going faster than them..) while waving as if I were a queen and they were peasants. Once I got to the gate, I met with all of my friends and we waited anxiously for our flight to board.

I'm not sure what we were so excited about, because the flight was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Let's just say 8 hours in a position which your knees hit the chair in front of you is not enthralling. Luckily, I had a plethora of movies to choose from my little screen thing and as much free coke as I wanted. (COCA-COLA!!!!!!!)

When we landed, the whole group headed to customs (where I asked the intimidating swiss man if I could please have a stamp in my passport for novelty and he stared back as if I were asking him to run away with me) and then to baggage claim (where we all got these carts for our luggage and I almost convinced myself that if I ran at a brick wall I might end up in the wizarding world about to board the Hogwarts Express. Fortunately for my health, I'm not actually a crazy person and I just giggled to myself about the striking resemblance to the scenes from the movies).

Then we headed to the bus where yet another intimidating swiss man graciously took my luggage and packed it onto our bus. After one last potty break, we took off for our three hour drive through the Swiss Alps to Lugano. This drive was easily included some of the the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed. As we drove through the coolest rock tunnels in the alps, we all couldn't help but notice how every car that passed us would cost at least 50 grand back in the states. This trend has since continued.

When we got to Lugano, we were assigned our rooms and given 30 minutes to get settled in. I couldn't be happier to be rooming with Kerry and Megan, even if they did stuff the three of us in an awkward pink corner room that we love to hate. Then we had lunch (which perhaps saved me from passing out at the time) and went on a walk down to town in Lugano. This is where things finally began to sink in. Never in my life have I been a foreigner until now. Everyone looks at us like we're talking pigs and that's probably because that's basically what we are. And while I thought everything would be SO different, I quickly realized that this place has everything I could ever need and more. After taking a walk to the university, Brinberg told us we had to get home on our own and left us to figure it out.

Luckily, Kerry paid great attention. We stopped at a shopping center called Manor to get groceries for the week and were amazed to see how cheap Evian water was. So amazed, in fact, that we decided to buy a 6 pack of 1.5 liter bottles without realizing we had a treacherous walk that included three huge hills in front of us. We stopped every twenty feet for a break, bending over in laughter at how silly we probably looked and finally made it home just as it began to get dark. Then I FaceTime-ed with my parents for a short time and then went to dinner. The meals here are great, but every so often they bring out something we're not used to and we all look around at each other and hold in laughter.

After dinner, Kerry, Megan and I decided against hitting the town. We're too zonked and we need to rest up for our big hike tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say after that.

Until then!!


Linds