Disneyland Paris!

Me and Ceele in front of Thunder Mountain! (It was so much fun! The actual "mountain" was on an island in the middle of this lake, so to get to it, the ride shot under the lake and came out on the island! So fun!!)
The castle!

The maze that was closed :(

Ceele and I. This was one of our many times on Space Mountain! (It was so much more intense! It shot you up into the dark and had corkscrews and loops!)

During our stressful time in Paris, we got to see Notre Dame!

Since we had the field trip on Friday we couldn't do any big weekend traveling so we decided to take a day trip to Paris and go to Disneyland. Disneyland closes at 10pm and the last train going back to Lausanne left at 5pm. So we spent the night in Paris and planned on catching the 8am train back to Lausanne on Sunday morning. We spent all day Saturday from opening to closing at Disneyland. It was so much fun, and almost exactly like the Disneyland in Anaheim, except for the rides are so much more intense. We rode Space Mountain about 10 times and Thunder Mountain was just as fun. It was raining all day! But it was still so much fun! It reminded me of how much fun I had the first time I went to Disneyland Paris with my family. One very distinct memory I have of the park was this giant Alice and Wonderland maze that had this giant Queen of Hearts that was around one of the corners and she would jump up and yell when you ran around teh corner. I remember it scaring the life out of me and my sister. So I was looking foward to going in it again this trip, but when we got there it was closed. I was so disappointed but I took a picture of the outside for my sister! On Sunday morning we woke up early to catch the metro to the train station and then the train back to Lausanne. BUT, while on the metro, I realized that I left my phone in the hotel room so Ceele and I had to jump off and catch the metro back to the hotel. Ceele waited in the station until I got back and we caught the next metro to meet our other 2 friends at the train station. Our train left at 7:58 and we were going to have about 2 minutes to spare to run through the station and make it on our train. But with our luck the metro broke down in the middle of a tunnel for about 3 minutes and we missed our train. We ran up to the platform as the train was pulling away. I could have literally reached out and touched it, but we were about 10 seconds too late. To make things worse, that was the only train going back to Lausanne on Sunday. So every way we tried to get back home didn't work out and it looked like we were going to have to spend the night in Paris, with mid-terms the next morning. After 9 hours of trying to get back home we finally found a whack route back to Lausanne on a train where we had to switch 4 times. 18 hours later, we got back to Lausanne at 1am and had to study for our mid-term the next day. Little did we know that going to Disneyland for one day could cause so much drama. But while stuck in Paris we tried to make the best of it and walked down to the Notre Dame and took some pictures before catching our train. Even though it wasn’t the best circumstances, I still love Paris!!

Geneva!

The Front Of the United Nations Headquarters
The Giant Chair in front of the UN

United Nations

Ceele and I in the main conference room in the UN

Geneva Cathedral

Yvonne, Michele, and I in Geneva

Simon and I in front of the Reformation wall

Ceele and I at a park in Geneva.

One weekend we took a field trip as a group to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva and the Reformation Museum. It was really interesting to see the Reformation Museum because we had just learned about it in Humanities. That is one thing that makes studying abroad amazing! You can learn about something one day and see it the next! It makes this educational experience that much more meaningful. The United Nations headquarters was also very interesting. It was huge and we had this really cool tour guide who spoke like 10 languages! We then went over to the Reformation Wall. Then back to Lausanne!

Corsica!

The Palais des Papes

Ceele, Simon and me in Avignon!

Jenny, Sarah, Me, Yvonne, Ceele, and Michele at the beach!

Taylor, Cindy, Ceele, Sarah, and I on the boat!

Ceele, Josh, and I!

Me and Ceele at the port we stopped at for lunch!

Part of the coves we went by!

I know it has been a very long time, but things have been so crazy and busy here! So in October we had our first Educational Field Trip. This semester it was to Corsica. Corsica is a fairly large island in the Mediterranean, south of France and west of Italy. We stayed in the capital of Corsica, Ajaccio. It was absolutely beautiful! It reminded me a lot of Malta and we had such a blast! So on Tuesday, we met in the lobby of our building at 4:30am!!! Two buses picked up our group and set out on our 7 hour journey to Avignon, France. We arrived in Avignon around 11am to tour the Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes). During the 1300's the popes relocated to Avignon to escape the violent chaos in Rome. Many Popes lived in the palace up until 1377 when they went back to Rome. We took a walking tour through the palace and a little bit around the town. If the weather had been better it would have been enjoyable, but it was hard to focus on anything when it was about 45 degrees plus heavy winds. I swear I thought I was going to fly away! After touring the palace we went to a group lunch at a nice restaurant in town. After lunch we headed back to the buses for another 3 hour drive to Marseilles to catch the ferry to Corsica. We had been told that we were taking an overnight ferry to Corsica, and that we had cabins with beds to sleep in for the night. Of course, I start freaking out because I think we are going to end up on some sort of tiny boat that we are paddling ourselves, but it turned out to be a huge cruise ship! We boarded around 7pm and after getting settled in had dinner on the boat. I knew we had a big day the next day so Ceele and I decided to go to bed early so we were both asleep before we even left the port!

On Wednesday, we arrived at 7am on the ferry in Corsica and once again our buses took us to our hotels. The group was so large that we had been split up into 2 different hotels that were about 15 minutes apart. One was right on the water, and the other was directly in the center of town. Although the seaside one would have been nice, I was satisfied with ours being in the middle, it meant that everyone had to walk to us! Our hotel was Hotel Napoleon. So once upon a time, there was a man named Napoleon Bonaparte and he was born on the island of Corsica. Then he died and Corsica realized he was their only claim to fame so they dedicated everything to him. I mean everything. Hotels, restaurants, streets, squares, museums, beaches. Everything. In the afternoon, we toured the house of Napoleon Bonaparte. Shocker.

On Thursday, we boarded our buses once again for a 3 hour drive into the center of the island to a place called Corte. It is a university town of supposedly one of the most historic universities of the island. Again the weather was not the best with low temperatures and wind chill. We spent most of the day in museums and shops except for the train ride we took around the town. And when I say train I mean a tiny super embarrassing trolley that took us through the time. It was buried into the mountains and was actually a very quaint, pretty town. I just wish the museum was more interesting. It was so boring even our program staff was complaining! That’s when you know it’s bad. We then had a long bus ride back. It was too windy and we all ended up getting carsick! Ugh!

Friday was the best day of the trip. We boarded a tour boat at 8:30am and didn't come back to port until 5pm. We spent all day touring the coast of Corsica and sailing through the Mediterranean. It was absolutely gorgeous! The boat was pulling in between huge caverns and rocks that had never been touched by man. The water was so blue you could see for days to the bottom! We stopped at a small village on the way that only had 18 people living there. It was so tiny. There were just cows roaming around on the beach. We had packed sack lunches that morning to take with us and eat when we stopped at the village. There were also bees there who like my lunch as much as I did! A few of us found a small swimming cove that was just a little bit of a hike around the hillside, but it was well worth it. After getting back from the boat tour we were on our own for dinner so of course we resorted to a Panini stand that we found. Paninis never fail!

Saturday was check-out day. The plan was to check out at 11am and have free time for the rest of the day until we had to be at the airport at 6. So my roommate and I decided to sleep in that morning and go down for breakfast, then pack our bags, checkout and roam the city. A stress free morning right? Wrong. We got a call from our director at 8:50am who was frantically trying to get a hold of all the students to tell them that the hotel had just informed her that our checkout time was 9am and that breakfast was also closing at 9am instead of 10am. Yay. We had no time to shower, no time to get ready. It was basically, jump out of bed, run down to breakfast, run back up throw clothes in the bag without folding, sit on bag to zip it shut, checkout and then try to have a nice day on the town. Luckily it all worked out and we ended up having a really nice day. I went shopping around the town and then sat at the beach for a while. It turned out to be a very relaxing day! At 5pm we loaded the buses and headed for the airport. It was back to Lausanne! It was definitely a trip to remember!!

Milan and Como!

The amazing shopping center!
Ceele and I in front of the Duomo!

Inside the shopping center! (Prada!!)

Castello Sforzesco

Fountain in front of Castello Sforzesco.

Cute chairs in the park!

George's Villa.

Shopping streets in Bellagio!

Lake Como!

The lake again!

Fairy ride back!

Me and Ceele :)

Ceele and I out in Milan!

Buongiorno! Well I didn’t think things could get much better after a weekend in Nice, but I was wrong. I had the most amazing weekend in Milan! This weekend I traveled with Ceele, Taylor, Cindy, Kimber, Chase, Ryan, and Adrian. It was so much fun! We left Friday morning and had a three hour train ride straight to Milan. As soon as we got off the train, we realized our new challenge. We were no longer in a French speaking part of Europe and unless Italy recently changed their national language to Spanish or English, I knew we were in big trouble. So we stood around for a good 20 minutes with blank stares on our faces trying to figure out the street names. Finally, Taylor decided to bust out her high school Italian and it worked like a charm! We eventually found our hostel and I man was it an experience. This hostel was actually run by a Chinese family who spoke pretty good English which was helpful. However, the entire place reeked of orange chicken and fried rice. Lucky for us, we did not spend much time there. We didn’t waste any time before we started walking the city trying to find the Duomo. I was also keeping my eye out for the shopping center that I visited with my family. I remember the first time I went to Milan, we only had a couple hours there and we got dropped off right in front of this giant, covered, designer-store heaven. It was where I got my first Prada bag. It was a magical day. So magical, in fact, that I never even noticed the Duomo was right next to it. But I didn’t miss it this time. It was absolutely stunning. The entire thing is covered in statues and is layered all the way up. The inside was amazing too. The entire floor was inlayed marble and each column had different sculptures at the top. The stained windows at the back were all so bright and so detailed. What I did not like about the Duomo was the amount of pigeons that filled the square. I was terrified the entire time! This guy tried to get me to take these seeds in my hand so they would come all over me! I don’t think so! But Ceele did it! I felt so bad for the poor girl. After the Duomo, we ventured over to this old castle that was so amazing! It is called Castello Sforzesco. It had this beautiful fountain in front of it and had all of these great museums inside of them. Behind the castle was a beautiful park filled with runners, trees, ponds, bridges, and park benches. They had this adorable mini amphitheatre that had chairs put into the stone where seats should be. That night, we found a great and cheap pizzeria and got to bed early to get ready for the next big day ahead of us.
On Saturday, Ceele and I decided to break off and take a day trip to Lake Como. At first, we were a little nervous to go out on our own, but I have never been more proud of us. We found our way to the train station, bought our tickets, got on the right train, got off in Como, found the lake, bought fairy tickets to Bellagio, got on the fairy to come back, bought train tickets back to Milan, and took the Metro from the train station to the hotel. And everything was in Italian! But Lake Como was absolutely breathtaking. The gorgeous villas and quaint towns surrounding the lake made everything picture perfect. George wasn’t in at his villa this time, but he left the key under the mat for us. We had beautiful weather too! Except we learned very quickly that wearing shorts out in public is not as common in Italy as it is in California. Every single person we walked by looked us both up and down like we were crazy! I have never got so many death stares in my life. Bellagio was absolutely amazing. It was such a beautiful town and I am so glad I got to visit. All of the cobblestone roads had stairways off of them leading to shops on both sides. They had the most beautiful silk and cashmere scarves that were made in Italy. They also had amazing leather products! Unfortunately, I realized that I was a traveling college student who paid for the ticket out to Bellagio and had to eat lunch so no scarves for now. But it still was an amazing trip! When we got back to Milan that night, Ceele and I decided to head out for a nice dinner. Another cultural difference is that no one goes out until extremely late! We didn’t leave for dinner until around 10 because most restaurants stay open till about 1 am and then everyone leaves the restaurants and heads the bars around 1 and to the clubs around 2! Such a crazy night life! But once again, we didn’t make it out that late. We were extremely tired so after we got a peak at the night life, we headed in just as everything was getting started. Still, such an amazing day!
Sunday, our train didn’t leave till 2, so we enjoyed the morning eating more gelato and exploring Milan before heading back to Lausanne. Another amazing weekend! Ciao!

Nice!

On the train ride there!
Chase, me, Ceele, and Nathan in front of the fountain.


Another beautiful fountain!

On our way out for the night!

At the beach!

Me and Ceele!

Nice!

Flower market!

Amazing flowers!

Flower ice cream!

Nice at night!

Last night out!

Well, I just got back from my first weekend trip and it was amazing! Me and four friends (Ceele, Kimber, Nathan, and Chase) left Friday morning on a 7:15 train and were off to Geneva to make our first transfer. Surprisingly, the first transfer was pretty smooth! Well, at least that’s what we thought until we were yelled at by a bunch of angry French people. Apparently, we were in the right seats, but in the wrong car! After that situation got settled, it was smooth sailing all the way to Nice. When we arrived in Nice, we decided to find our hostel first. Yes. That is correct. A hostel. Even though I was extremely nervous about it, it turned out to pretty nice. Yes, there were some questionable stains on the carpet, but it had its own bathroom and shower and was right in the middle of everything. We then went to a small café on one of the main shopping strips. I was so excited to see a bowl of pasta for 7 dollars! Then I realized that we were now on the Euro making everything suddenly much more expensive. After lunch, we decided to walk around Nice and ended up finding two beautiful fountains! Nice is so amazing! It’s so exotic but still very European. It’s like the Hawaii of Europe! The second half of our group (Taylor, Cindy, and Rachelle) came in on a train about three hours later. Once they came in, we walked around a little longer then went and got ready for dinner. We walked into Old Town and found a strip of amazing restaurants. Everyone was sitting outside and enjoying long dinners and conversation. Of course, the place we decide on is the American Bar. However, it turned out to be a lot of fun. We all had a great time and some American classics!
Saturday, we got an early start and headed out to the beach. Unlike our beaches back home, there are rocks everywhere. They replace the sand. So lying out became very interesting. But did that stop me from falling asleep? Definitely not. After it warmed up a little bit, we decided to finally go for a swim in the Mediterranean. It was amazing! The water is so blue and clear and not too cold either! It was almost a little too clear. It was so freaky being able to see the bottom of the sea. After the beach, we decided to go through all of the markets. They were so amazing! Nice is famous for having one of the most beautiful flower markets ever! (Mom and Grandpa, you would have loved it!) Everything was so bright and colorful. As soon as you walked up, the incredible smells were overwhelming. So beautiful! We then walked down the strip by the beach until we found this amazing gelato shop! Not only did it taste amazing, but when you order it on a cone, they shape your ice cream into a flower! It was so delicious and so cute! After a long day of walking around, we went and got ready for a nice dinner down in Old Town. We ate at this amazing restaurant with a great environment. We also had such great weather! It was nine o’clock at night and we were sitting outside in jeans and tank tops! After dinner, we walked down to this bar that I had read about in my travel book. It said that there was a bar upstairs and a dance floor downstairs. So naturally, when we got there, I went searching for the dance floor downstairs. After searching for the stairs, Ceele pointed out to me the 3 steps that lead down to a separate section of the building with two long picnic tables and a DJ booth. Little did we know how packed it would get later in the night. It ended up being the highlight of my trip to Nice. We met tons of people from all over Europe and had a great time! First weekend of travel = success!!

Bern!

The Capital!
Taylor, Cindy, Ceele, and I in the capital!

Swiss bank!

Me and Ceele

In the water fountain in front of the capital!

Bern!

9/18/09
Today, we started our day nice and early by loading up a huge bus and heading out to Switzerland’s capital, Bern. We started by going on a guided tour of the Celts exhibition. We then were allowed to explore the Einstein museum upstairs which turned out to be really interesting. However, the day really picked up once we were allowed to go and explore the city ourselves. Now what is really tricky about Switzerland is that they have four official languages. So even though we have been studying French, Bern is in the German speaking part of Switzerland making things for all of us even harder. Luckily we found a really great Italian restaurant where the owner of the restaurant spoke English! After eating, we walked over to the Parliament building which was beautiful. It had beautiful fountains and was right next to another incredibly beautiful building which turned out to be a bank (go figure). After resting, we all decided to go out to discover the night life in Lausanne. A huge group from Pepperdine went to this club, Darling, and we all had the best time! It definitely made me think of my friends and miss them even more than I already do!