stairway to heaven

Never ever have I ever.... hated and loved something so much at the same time. In case you haven't guessed, I'm talking about our "little" hike up Mt. San Salvatore that we took yesterday. The first 20% of the trip was the worst because A. I knew that I would never make it to the top if the entire trail was like this first part, and B. I was tired and hungry and everything was foggy so we were afraid that we would make it to the top without being able to see anything. Let's just say that with Brinberg leading, we were sprinting up 18 inch steps with no breaks and we all wanted to die.

Halfway through, we all realized that we weren't turning back, so we sucked it up and trucked on. There wasn't much talking, considering the fact that we were all panting and staring down at the feet of the person in front of us to ensure that we didn't miss a step and fall off of the mountain. Also, we got to the point where we were ABOVE the fog in town, so we got to see everything pretty clearly. When I finally took the last step to the top, I was so happy I could cry.

We all took pictures and then Brinberg explained that we would take a different route down the mountain. We walked through the coolest little farm towns that reminded me of movies sets. At one point, while crossing through a pasture-type thing, we heard a stampede coming and cowbells ringing and then saw two giant clydesdales run across our path 30 feet in front of us (noted: 1st time narrowly escaping death). It was pretty amazing, mostly because of how striking similar the scene was to one in my old Barbie horseback riding computer game. Then we got lost and had to walk through little neighborhoods to get back on track. Picture it: 50 americans walking through a tiny silent rural neighborhood. I can't imagine what the locals thought of us.

 

 

We finally got home, showered and immediately everyone took naps. We had to rest up for our first Saturday night in Lugano! We went out to dinner at a small restaurant where we were immediately treated like kings and queens. Our waiter, who we perceive to be the owner, speaks little to no english-but his exaggerated facial expressions and hand signals kept us hysterically laughing all throughout dinner. He graciously offered us free wine refills, quickly winning us over. We now call him papa and we even ended up going back for dinner tonight!

After dinner, we went to a bar called Coyote Ugly and had fun interacting with the locals. The big thing to do here is foosball, but they are strict on rules, so we just watched in amazement. The music is almost all american hits, with a hint of techno added in the background. Afterwards, we went to a club in the town and everyone was extremely friendly. We were exhausted, so we gathered everyone outside and headed home.

Today, we lounged around and explored the town a little more. We found a few more great restaurants and stopped for some comfort food at Burger King-- small french fries and a small coke...... SIX FRANCS, but most of the shops were closed. Later, we started planning out our big trips and thinking about where to go on the weekends. Papa was happy to see us back at dinner and we were happy to eat more of his delicious margherita pizza.

Tonight, we all hung out and played cards and began to prepare for classes tomorrow. I'm not sure what to expect and I don't have ANY supplies.. so I'll let you know how it goes in my next post.

MISSING EVERYONE BACK HOME! So happy that I got to FaceTime with some friends and family tonight. I'm so thankful for the technology and the ability to join my family's sunday funday, even when I'm thousands of miles away.


CIAO!

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

so long cheeseburgers...

Welp. I never thought this time would come, but here I am writing my very first blog post. The plan is to document this trip by writing in this blog regularly. Of course, most of you who know me know that I rarely remember to do things regularly. Therefore, that term is used loosely. All I can promise is that I will do my best to keep this blog relevant and entertaining (please, someone scream at me if this gets mundane). You'll also see that I'm going to include a few bullets of what I've learned at the end of  every post. Mostly so that I can remember them, but also so that if you think I blabber too much you can just scroll to the bottom of every post.

So I suppose I will start by describing my last day in the U S of A. I basically drove around town all day running my last errands blasting one of my super weird made-for-the-car CDs that was half Passion Pit, half Michael Buble ( had to change it to the radio when "Home" came on. Not the time Michael). It went like this: buy luggage locks... get eyebrows waxed... (call me ignorant but who knows what a swiss brow wax would look like, let alone cost!) ... all while trying to soak in everything American around me. That means I ate Yorgo's for breakfast, Jimmy John's for lunch and stopped at Tropical Smoothie sometime before dinner. I have been rationalizing my high amount of unhealthy meals for the past two weeks (chicken quesadillas and queso dip at La Herradura... Cook Out... TACO BELL) by telling myself "Lindsay, you're not going to have this in Europe".  With that being said, if anyone knows of a place that sells queso in or around Lugano for less than like 20 swiss francs, please contact me.

Once I got home, I finished packing/rearranging items until both bags were under 50 lbs and realized three hours later that I had completely lost track of time. This was probably because I was talking to Mary on the phone and didn't notice until I put her on speaker and looked down at my phone that we were approaching two hours of air time (sorry Verizon bill... not sure how this whole not having a phone thing is going to fly for the next four months...). I hung up and ventured downstairs to find my entire family! Mom, Dad, Erin, John, Ashley, Grandaddy and even Chuck, our brotha from anotha motha who we don't get to see that often because he's like a ninja and does secret stuff for the military or something. Three servings of steak and potatoes later, I found myself dancing around my living room like an idiot with my sister to whoevers iPhone was plugged in all whilst almost being nailed by a passing ping pong ball (Grandaddy has one hell of a serve). It's safe to say that I will miss my family more than anything.

I am now looking around my room thinking in my mind "oh! maybe I should have packed that!" and then slapping myself in the face. I can't stop thinking of how thankful I am to be able to take this journey and how many people worked hard to make it happen. I know that I can't let them down. That is why I resolve to say "yes" as much as possible and try to soak in everything around me. I have no idea what to expect, but that just makes this that much more exciting.

Woah I just typed kind of a lot. I'll work on that. Next time you hear from me, I'll likely be in Switzerland! LATER SKATERS



linds