Florence and Venice!

It poured the entire time we were in Florence!
The chocolate festival!

Mariesa, Me, and Michele at dinner!

Ceele and I in the square by the Ufitzi gallery!

Mariesa, Katie, and Aneasha hanging out in the square!

In my mask for Carnivale in Venice!

Taylor and I in Venice!

So I basically just got back from the best week of my life. It went straight from a fantastic weekend in Italy to an incredible week in Greece!
Last Thursday, Ceele, Aneasha, and I left on an afternoon train to Florence. I was so excited to go because not only were we going to stay in the Florence house but I was going to get to see my suitemate, Allie, from last year! Once we arrived in Florence, it was already pretty late, so Allie showed us around the house and then we got settled into our rooms before going out to dinner. It turned out to be one of Allie’s friend’s birthday and she added Ceele and I to the reservation so we got to meet a lot of the students in the Florence program. We had such a great time at dinner then went to bed early to get ready for our big day of sightseeing.
Friday morning, we went to breakfast at a great café that all of the Florence kids eat at then we were lucky enough to be shown around by Eric, one of the students from the program. He first took us to see the Duomo. It was so amazing! It was so different to see it after learning about it. I had much more appreciation for it this time around. Around noon, we headed to the train station to meet up with the other three girls from our group. Once we met up with them, we went to the Ufitzi Gallery which was incredible! I saw so many paintings that we studied in humanities and religion. It was so great to be able to see them in person finally. Then we walked over to a chocolate festival which was amazing but still did not compare to Swiss chocolate! We then just walked around through the markets and bought leather handbags and rain boots since it was POURING RAIN! Plus, we were heading to Venice for Carnivale (along with the rest of Europe) and we heard that when it rains in Venice, it floods. We went out for another amazing dinner then wandered through the streets of Florence until we were too tired to go on. Plus, we knew we had a big day on Saturday.
Saturday, we got on an early train from Florence to Venice for Carnivale! I was so excited! We had all bought masks in Florence because everyone dresses up crazy and wears masks! They were selling these really extravagant masks everywhere! When we got to Venice the weather was great luckily and we walked around the confusing streets trying to find our hostel. Once we got settled in the hostel, we headed to Saint Marco’s Basillica to meet up with some people from the Florence Program. When we got to the square, we realized that most of Pepperdine’s international students were there! We saw students from every program and it was so great to be all together. After seeing all of the amazing churches and buildings, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night activities. We all got to dress up crazy and wear things like ballerina skirts and capes! It was so incredible to meet up with so many Pepperdine students and see so many people dressed up. We ended up hanging out in the square all night to enjoy the festivities! It was such an amazing experience!

Paris!

In front of the Louvre!
Me and Ceele!

Arc de Triomphe!

In front of the Arc!

Ceele and I in front of the Eiffel Tower!

Sacre Coeur!

Eiffel Tower!

This past weekend, I traveled to Paris with Ceele, Katie, Mariesa, Michele, and Aneasha. Even though I have been to Paris before with my family, it was such an amazing experience to go after studying all of the architecture and paintings that are there! We left on Friday morning and had rented an apartment for the weekend. It took us about an hour and half to find the key place, find the apartment, and then get the bolted door unlocked. It didn’t help that it was pouring rain! But it didn’t stop us from enjoying the beauty of Paris! Since it was a rainy idea, we figured we would visit the museums. First, we went to Musee d’Orssay. It was such an amazing museum. I could have spent hours in there! It made it even more interesting since we are covering all of these artists and paintings in Humanities and covered some of them last semester in Religion. After, we walked over to a café and had dinner before heading to the Louvre. It was awesome because the Louvre is free on Fridays after six! So we ran through the different galleries taking in all the amazing paintings and art pieces. My favorite one was Death of a Virgin by Caravaggio. He was one of my favorite artists that we studied first semester and that was one of my favorite paintings. To see it in person was absolutely amazing! After all of the museum hopping, we were exhausted so we headed back to the apartment.
Saturday, we started the morning off by walking down Champs Elysees. It was beautiful but so cold! It was super sunny but then it started snowing! It was crazy! There were so many beautiful shops and of course, I wanted to buy everything! We walked all the way down to Arc de Triomphe. It was even more beautiful then I remember. After, we bought food for lunch and went and ate in the park next to the Eiffel Tower. It was so cold! I don’t think I have ever been so cold! After lunch, we waited in the freezing cold to get tickets to go up to the top. When we got up there it started snowing again! It was so amazing to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower while it snowed. Once we were frozen solid, we decided to go see Notre Dame. Not only was I excited to see the church again, but it was so warm inside! After that, we dashed up to Sacré-Cœur for the sunset! It was so beautiful! We got to see the Eiffel Tower at sunset and once again, the church was so warm! We went and got dinner to escape the cold then walked around Montmarte. We walked through the exact square where my sister and I had our drawing done! The drawing turned out so good and is now in our family room. But at this time of year, there were no street vendors out. But we did get crapes at the same stand that I got crapes at with my family! It brought back such good memories but made me miss them so much!

Thonon les Bains and Chateau d'Oex!

Walking around the town.
The harbor.
Ceele, Me, Dylan, EB, and Chris on the boat!

EB, Me, Ceele, and Megan.

Ceele and I on the boat across Lake Geneva.

Chris and I at the harbor!

Katie and I at Chateau d'Oex.

Me kissing the Shottish hot air balloon.

Some of the balloons over Chateau d'Oex.

The next weekend, I decided to stay around and do two day trips. On Friday Ceele, EB, Dylan, Chris, Megan and I took a boat across Lake Geneva to a small town in France, Thonon les Bains. It turned out to be a really cute little town. We walked around by the lake for a little while then hiked up to the downtown. Here we had lunch and found an amazing candy shop! It was such a fun day out!
On Saturday, we went with Katie, Mariesa and some of their friends from the Florence and Heidelberg programs to a Hot Air Balloon festival at Chateau d’Oex. Chateau d’Oex is the place where the first hot air balloon to circumnavigate the world took off from so the entire town is big on the hot air balloon thing. They had all of these amazing hot air balloons that filled the sky. They had this huge balloon that turned out to be a Scottish man complete with kilt and bagpipes! It was so pretty to see all the balloons but I was bummed I didn’t get to ride in one! Maybe next time! Sunday, we spent the day relaxing and getting ready for the rest of the week. Another great weekend in Switzerland!

Wengen!

Solothurn!
Maddie showing us how to eat raclette.

Me, Ceele, and Mariesa before skiing!

Most beautiful view ever!

Ceele, Katie, Me, and Mariesa at the top!

Crowds there to watch the world cup!

Mariesa and Maddie with dedicated fans!

Maddie, Katie, Me, Alex, Ceele, and Mariesa at the ceremony after party!

Us with the amazing Thalmann family!

It has been a while since I have updated my blog and a couple have weekends have gone by but I will do my best to sum up these past few weekends!
My first weekend of travel traveled with Ceele, Katie, Mariesa, and Alex. I got invited to go stay with a girl, Maddie, who lives in Switzerland. Maddie studied abroad in the United States and stayed with at Mariesa’s house so thought she would return the favor for Mariesa and some of her friends. I can honestly say it was one of the best weekends of my life. We left here on Friday and took a train out to her small town of Solothurn. It was such a cute town! It was nice to visit a place that I have never heard of before and that isn’t a huge tourist trap. The town was so peaceful and so quaint. She walked us through the town and then to her house. Her family was so welcoming from the moment we got there! They completely opened up their home for us and gave us all of their kids rooms to sleep in. That night, they cooked us this huge Swiss meal. It was this amazing cheese, Raclette, with all of these different things to drizzle it over like potatoes, pears, pickles, chicken, pineapple and a bunch of other crazy things. It was delicious! It was fun to make too! They had this specific device that allowed each person to heat up their own cheese and then you could scrape it onto your plate with these little wooden paddles. It was so amazing!
The next morning, we woke up early to go skiing in the Alps! There was a skiing World Cup in a city called Wengen not too far from Solothurn so we decided to ski there. Before we left, Maddie’s dad packed our backpacks with these amazing lunches (they were the nicest family ever!). The train ride up to the mountain was crazy! There were so many excited and crazy people going up to the ski resort and everyone was just yelling and shouting the entire time! The view was so amazing! It felt like we were on top of the world! It was such a beautiful, bright, blue, sunny day too. We were so lucky. Once we started to rent skis I started to get nervous since I haven’t skied since I was maybe 12. Turns out, I definitely forgot how to ski. Ceele (who hasn’t skied since she was 8) and I accidentally followed the other members in our group up the main lift and ended up at the top of a black diamond. Long story short, Ceele and I got left behind and it took us 4 hours, a lot of tears, and a strangers help to get down the entire mountain. We skied two towns over and had to take a small train to get back to the rental shop. After that was over, we met up with everyone else and decided it was time to relax! So Maddie told us about this “after party” she knew about. Turns out this “after party” was the World Cup award ceremony! It was so awesome! There was a huge stage and crowds of people waving Swiss flags around and people painted in red and white from head to toe! After the ceremony, there was these huge party tents filled with people. They had a live band, a DJ, and tons of dancing! We spent the rest of the night dancing (still in our ski clothes) and then made the adventure back to Solothurn where her mom had homemade lasagna waiting on the table for us! So incredible!
Sunday morning, we all slept in till about 11. When we woke up, her parents made us this amazing Swiss lunch! We had rosti (basically hash browns) with meat over it along with rice, salad, and bread. Then they brought out these slices of pineapple with drizzled chocolate and whipped cream on top for dessert! After lunch, it was unfortunately time to head back to Lausanne. It was such an amazing weekend! It was such an incredible experience to get to stay in a home with a Swiss family. It allowed me to experience Swiss culture in a whole new way!