I’m home. Finally, home.  Where the prices are in dollars and the people speak in English. Well, most of the time, anyway.  I landed in Newark, and the first thing I did (would have been eating, had it not been for the whole customs ordeal) was turn on my Blackberry.  My real Blackberry.  Then, I watched it spaz out as it tried to update 6 months worth of e-mails and the text messages sent before my phone service was shut off but after I’d left the country in January.

I had an entertaining conversation with the customs officer about my stay in Switzerland, my adventures in Morocco, and my cell phone ringing as I itemized the foreign goods I was transporting into the country.

Apparently, you’re supposed to keep your cell phone off until you get past customs.

Oops.

Okay, I may have ignored all of the signs.

Then, I found a cart to throw my luggage onto, repacked a little bit as my suitcases were magically overweight now (really, Continental?), and for some reason, completely soaked (thanks, cargo crew!). I managed to shove all of the Swiss chocolate into my carryon bag, hoping it wouldn’t get crushed or crush my souvenirs.  When I’d finally rechecked all of my luggage, I found Burger King, had some onion rings and made my way over to the airport pizza place.  After having NY style pizza that resembled nothing remotely similar to NY style pizza, I went online, checked e-mail, updated facebook, watched TV… and then moved on to round 3: Jamba Juice.

After all of this, my flight to Tampa was delayed several hours (which made me super sad because I’ve definitely had to stay overnight in the airport trying to get to Tampa, and the saddest thing ever at that point would have been ending up in the Newark airport hotel again), but I finally made it home, and of course Amma brought food to the airport 🙂

After the longest day ever (I’d been up for 27 hours by the time I even left the airport), I got home, distributed souvenirs, and called it a day. or night. or day, if you’re thinking in Geneva time.

Though I couldn’t wait to get home, I’m glad to be in Florida, and I’m happy to be in the US again, I miss the Jet d’Eau, I miss Migros, and I miss the mountains.  I said this before and the wishes came true, so here it goes again:

Until next time, Switzerland.

May 10, 2010 – May 13, 2010

The Danish do not sleep. That’s what I learned in Scandinavia. 4 days in Copenhagen and Malmö tired me out immensely, so I boarded my plane to London happily ready for a relaxing 3 days. This leg of my journey wasn’t going to be filled with your average touristy-jaunts.  I’d visited London a couple times in my life, most recently 4 years ago, when I managed to do most of the sightseeing I had any desire to do.  A couple of things remain on my list, except now that I remember the capsules on the London Eye are fully enclosed spaces, I’m not sure I want to do that again.

I got to London by midday on Thursday, May 13, and took a shuttle from Gatwick Airport to Earl’s Court, close to central London. Victoria YB, henceforth to be referred to as YB, met up with me at the Earl’s Court tube stop to walk the 15 minutes or so to her flat in South Kensington.  She graduated in 3 years from Richmond, finals finished the week before I showed up, so she’d really been just chillin’ in London.  Not a bad lot, really.  We hung out, drank a lot of chai and then went to the half-price Mondays burger joint around the corner where I had a veggie burgers and fries. And chocolate malts. So. Delicious.

The next day, YB and I decided we needed to walk from her flat to Piccadilly Circus, stopping at the halfway point to step into Harrod’s, just cause.  We walked through the food halls, skipped the one with the hanging dead animals, and grabbed a map to find the single most important section of the store: The Pet Shop.  We lucked out, there were indeed puppies and kittens (and hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils and mice, but who cares?) there.  The cutest puppies ever were new arrivals and had neither breed information nor price tags outside their viewing station.  But no matter, the other puppies were definitely £ 1,700.  But, no matter.  Just to be considered to buy a pet at Harrod’s, you have to pass an interview/screening process as well as a background check, and then you have to successfully complete the pet-compatibility test.  Ridiculous, much? We finally made it to Piccadilly Circus, then wandered off the beaten path to find dinner in Chinatown.  We went to a place that had a reasonably priced menu on the door and really fancy interior décor.  However, we managed to get reasonably priced food and a decent portion size.  At least, for Europe, anyway.

The next day, we consumed yet another couple gallons of chai (keep in mind, I haven’t had coffee in a couple of days – what?!) and then made our way through Hyde Park to the Victoria & Albert Museum to get ourselves a small helping of European culture.  Along the way, I noticed the elephants again.  We figured out that international royalty had been sponsoring these elephants … and they were being placed around the city.  I’m still not sure what the funds support, but whatever.

There were several much cooler ones, but I kept forgetting to take pictures when I saw them.  After the V&A closed (at 5pm, silly British), we wandered around the fancy parts of London, killing time before heading back to South Kensington to the Creperie where one of YB’s flatmates worked.  Discounted crepes, anyone?  We got our crepes, we chilled at the pub, I met more of YB’s friends.  They are wonderful people, and absolutely ridiculous, just like she is.

In spending those days with YB, making up for lost time, swapping stories from the rumor mill and reminiscing about the car ride gossip times, I had the experience I wanted in London: some time to chill, some time to think, and some time to enjoy Europe without the pressure of sightseeing before heading back to the Land of Opportunity.

America, here I come.

May 6, 2010 – May 9, 2010

After several days in Germany, William and I parted ways: he returned to Saudi Arabia, and I boarded my flight to Denmark to visit my friends studying on an exchange program in Copenhagen.  The view from the plane as we approached Scandinavia was beautiful.  The water was clear, and the coastline peppered with greenery.  Surprisingly, my Easy Jet evening flight wasn’t delayed, and I arrived in Denmark before nightfall.  I met up with Jason, and we had dinner and dropped my stuff off at the residence hall building.  I hung out for a bit before properly outfitting myself to endure the frozen tundra that is Scandinavia.  I definitely hadn’t planned for weather that cold and coupled with the rain, that miserable.  We took the bikes (mine borrowed from Jason’s friend) and went to Student House, a club/bar/lounge hangout place frequented by mostly college students, local and exchange.  I met a bunch of his friends and we danced, talked, and played foosball.  Not even kidding, they take foosball seriously in that country.

The next morning, we headed out to several bakeries for delicious pastries.  First on the list: a Danish, which, unsurprisingly are not called “Danishes” here.  They’re winerbrød. And they’re heavenly.

Then, we wandered toward the center of town, to the longest, most famous walking street in Copenhagen – Østergade.  These streets are pedestrian only, prohibiting motor vehicles and bicycles.  Sounds cute, the concept is nice, but sometimes, it’s raining and you really just want to ride your bike because you’ll get to point B more quickly.  Except getting fined by the police is just no good. The beginning of Østergade:

We went to the classic, H&M, where I procured a pair of much-needed leggings for increased protection from the freezing winds, and we walked down past St. Peter’s Church and several of the buildings of Jason’s Uni.  The walking “tour” continued, stopping at yet another bakery.  I had an eclair-shaped pastry that was nothing like an eclair.  It had a peanuty-rum filling and a chocolate shell. Apparently, it’s a pastry of local origin. I had coffee with it, rejoicing at my cup o’ almost-Joe.  We took a trip over to the train station to coordinate an adventure to Sweden, and wandered by Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park. I got authentic Danish food, the name of which escapes me but it’s essentially a piece of bread with butter and mayonnaise, lettuce and then various sets of toppings.  I had the vegetarian, obviously, which was slices of hard-boiled eggs, tomato, and onions.

And then we took a day trip to Sweden! Originally, I had wanted to go to Stockholm, but it was quite the trek away, so I made a compromise and decided to check out the city of Malmö, in southwestern Sweden. Located on the coast, and only 35 minutes from Copenhagen, I figured it was worth the day trip. We saw the Turning Torso, Malmöhus (the old city castle, which houses a strange array of museums on everything you’d ever want a museum on), the three squares (Gustav Adolfs torg, Lilla torg, and Stortorget), Slottsträdgården (the castle gardens), and walked through the Gamla Väster (the part of town between Lilla torg and Malmöhus).  I most definitely went to H&M, a Swedish company, in case you didn’t know, and bought a $7 sweatshirt. Quite wonderful, and also necessary.  Despite wearing several layers of clothing, I was still freezing the ENTIRE time I was in Scandinavia.

Strange sights abound in Sweden.

Another night with Jason’s friends at Student House and Kant and another day in København passed with a large helping of sightseeing, picture-taking, and Danish-pastry eating.  Elizabeth, Jason and I got coffee near Christianshavn and after coffee, we walked through the hippie commune of Christania.  I lost several games of foosball, consoled only by the fact that I was still better than a Danish man, so not all hope is lost for me in the competitive foosball realm.

Okay, let’s be real, it is.

May 2, 2010 – May 6, 2010

First stop: Berlin

The flight from Geneva to Berlin was surprisingly hassle free, and since we’d checked in online, we just proceeded directly to security.  We grabbed some random food on the way and waited for boarding.  We got to Berlin, consulted the metro map to figure out where we needed to go, and ended up at our hostel without difficulty. The Grand Hostel Berlin was definitely nice.  It reminded me of the place we stayed at in Fes, in terms of the room decor and the amenities.  Nothing will beat that stone bathroom of glory in Fes, but the bedrooms were nice: the beds, soft, and the pillows and comforter, fluffy.  After checking in, putting our stuff away, etc, we decided to make use of the remaining light and go exploring before dinner.  We ended up heading in the opposite direction we meant to go and found Volkspark instead of Tiergarten. Hah. It was a really cute park though, and we walked through it to the top of a hill, found a bunch of fairytale-esque spots, and wound our way to a street filled with restaurants so we could find dinner.

It was the Freedom Trail. It said so.

It took us to the top. By this time, the sun was setting, and we started our dinner restaurant search in full force. We found a restaurant that seemed like it served German food. The menu was all in German, and the people didn’t speak much English. William randomly chose something on the menu, and they said they were out, so he chose the dish right below it. I chose penne arrabbiatta because at least I knew what it was. Or so I thought. It turns out it’s a pasta dish in tomato sauce with a bunch of sauteed vegetables. Not spicy in the slightest, but wholly delicious. After dinner, we decided to take it easy for the night and went back to our hostel to plan for sightseeing the next day.

Sightseeing started at Pariser Platz, by the Starbucks next to the Dunkin Donuts whose sign was white (and not lit up pink and orange as it should have been). We joined a rather large group of tourists from various countries and our American tour guide who claimed to be from Atlanta even though his accent definitely stated otherwise to begin our 3+ hour walking tour around Berlin. It was way too cold for my Florida self (in the 50s) and drizzling.  We got a short history lesson about the building of the Brandenberg Tor, the US Embassy building, and how the French suck. We walked a bit, saw the German Parliament buildings and came to the Holocaust Memorial.  The  design of the memorial is interesting – No one’s really sure what it’s supposed to be.  It can literally represent what it will, but in general, it is supposed to be a reminder of the atrocities committed, located centrally so no one could ever forget…

I stood on the ground above Hitler’s bunker. I wondered if the people living in the apartment complexes realized that their parking lot was paved over. I looked at the seemingly innocent street corner at which Hitler’s body was burned. It’s all very surreal when you’re experiencing it. I felt as though I were walking someone else’s memories. We saw a segment of the Berlin Wall – I’m not sure what expression you’re supposed to have on your face when you are in such a picture. I’m pretty sure a smile isn’t the right one. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point, the entrance to the American Sector.

When the tour paused for a food/beverage break, William and I decided it was getting late and ditched it to go to the East Side Gallery. Here are a few of the pictures I took of the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall.

For dinner, we scavenged around again, looking for an authentic German place.  We found the House of 100 Beers and we found an Australian cafe… on the merits of, “but when will we get to go to Australia?” we decided to dine at the latter.  William ate kangaroo steak and I had a vegetarian chili burger and potato wedges.  Spectacularly delicious, it was.

And then we went to Dresden…

This seemingly quaint, cute town really loves protesting.  We saw so many people with flag and posters and signs all over the city.  I wished I understood German so I knew what they were busy protesting about.  The city itself is segmented by a river.  The Baroque sector is on the Alstadt side of the river, and it is the remnants of the old city before the fires and the bombings.  The Neustadt side of the river has the hip/punk/grunge scene, the restaurants, the clubs, and the music stores… I confess, I spent a disproportionate amount of time in the music stores.

It was cute. I was freezing.

We literally wandered the city.  We walked through the Baroque sector, saw the old Opera House, when to the Castle, which is now, of course, a museum also.  We saw people dressed up, people selling rocks, and people giving away free soda for answering questions in German.  We also found some really sweet alleyways and cool buildings and architecture.  Here are a couple of shots from around the city.

I managed to find a little porcelain doll, tribute to the doll factories of Dresden which existed before the Allied aerial bombings of the city in WWII.

At night, we went to several lounges that we found right near our hostel, which was located in a rather convenient place.  (I also found a tasty bagel cafe and had one of the best bagel sandwiches of my life.) We scoped out the scenes, had dinner at a little corner cafe, the name of which escapes me right now.  I had German potato pancakes with honey, which is possibly the best way of preparing potatoes ever (and I’m including homefries in this evaluation).  On our second day in Dresden, we found the open air market, proceeded to look at all the little stalls, buy a few gifts, and eat a good amount of food.  I had crepes with nutella, chocolate, banana, and honey.  We hit up the shopping centers that occupy all of the space, I kid you not, between the Baroque sector and the train station.  Some of the stores we recognized and others we walked through just to get out of the cold/rain/sun/horridness the weather gods kept throwing at us.

I think I’ve used this  word too many times now, but it really sums up Germany for me: DELICIOUS.

These posts are belated like none other, and I realize that.  The last month in Geneva was hectic beyond belief. Not only did I finally have to do the reading for class (no, there was no point in doing it before as I would have had to re-read for the final anyway) and the internship portfolio for credit, but I started trying to do double the work at my internship just as a personal goal.  As such, I tried to get home by 7:30 each day, but there weren’t really guarantees.  When I did get home, all I wanted to do was sleep. In addition to that, friends started visiting from other places in Europe, during the week even, thus leaving me with little blogging time.

The two weekends after the park and the Russin village were uneventful.  I wrote my internship paper during one, studied for the IR Organizations final during the next.  My office had a couple of parties – Nael got engaged, Noemie’s birthday came up, and I was leaving, so there was the good-bye party.  The first was a pancake party (best kind of party ever), in which we had pancakes and crepes and raspberry cake.   Yves, Noemie’s boyfriend, made dinner at my good-bye party: salad, pasta, three kinds of sauce (pesto, alfredo, marinara), and bread.  And dessert was from the bakery – lemon cake and raspberry cake.  I realized I’d really miss my coworkers, and the atmosphere in the office.  In an organization that deals with such heavy material, the office work tends to get intense, and the lighthearted banter and the camaraderie helped with that.

Sevane invited me to a blacklight party: that was interesting.  The music was good overall, though sometimes it was hard to dance to, and sometimes it was a flashback to middle school. It amuses me that Europe seems to be behind on American music.  Finding the party was an adventure, we took the number 7 bus to the end of the line, and then had a map drawn on a post-it that would supposedly guide us to our destination.  After finding the wrong party, walking through several sketchy alleys, and turning into a random neighborhood style place, we found it. People were decked out for this party – brightly colored wigs, costumes, the whole to-do.  I’m used to blacklight parties where people just wear white or neon.  There were a couple of other differences, but on the whole I’m glad I got to go out with Sevane and her friends at least once. It was nice to make a friend from Geneva.

William got to Geneva on Friday the 30th, giving me a couple days to show him bits of Geneva. It’s not the most touristy city, and there isn’t much to go see. There’s a bunch of museums, but he’s not into that kind of thing. The lake is beautiful, and the parks are nice, and we lived right off Lake Geneva so he got to see the Jet d’Eau, the Flower Clock, etc.

There was a BU sponsored farewell luncheon at the restaurant on Mont Saleve. This time we didn’t hike the mountain; we took the cable car up. The lunch was nice, if not odd.  They got the number of vegetarian requests wrong, people got a little more annoyed than they should have (Sometimes it’s really not worth arguing about. Unless you’re really craving a plate of lettuce, just let it go…).  I ate a weird risotto thing with fried vegetables as my main course.  Dessert was chocolate cake. 🙂

I packed up my whole room (read: threw everything I owned into my suitcases in no particular order), packed my travel bag, and left. EuroTrip Round II commenced.

All relaxing weekends begin with a 3.5 hour bike right, correct? Correct.  Sam, Casey, Kate, Karla and I rented bikes from the Genéve Roule bike place up off of Rue de la Terrasiére on the morning of Saturday, April 10. The cost of bike rental was about CHF 2 per hour, and I would have just borrowed Elim’s bike for free, except she was away on Easter break and didn’t leave the bike lock key here.  But CHF 2 per hour for a maximum of 5 hours is really not a bad deal.  We set off at a leisurely pace around the lakeside (Lake Geneva to us, Lac Léman to the rest of the world) opposite from Rue Muzy and went all the way to the start of the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens). We rode through the garden up to the WTO, taking many pictures and stopping to play in the little playground we found. Yes, maybe we’re 4 years old.

They probably wouldn’t take too kindly to us climbing on this…  (but it’s fun…)

The flowers are blooming, it’s finally spring, the garden is beautiful.  The pollen counts are up, my allergies are kicking in (seriously though, when did I develop allergies? I disagree with this turn of events in my life), but the sun is shining brighter.  That’s all that matters.  Genéve is quite a beautiful city, despite its early closing hours, and riding through it on a slightly chilly, but mostly nice, Saturday morning made me happy, at the very least.

There are flamingoes and peacocks in the same frame…

There were many cute “dolls” in the garden.  I’m not sure what they’re called actually.  They weren’t garden gnomes, though.  That’s for sure.

On the way back from the garden, we decided to go to Carouge to the Saturday morning open market and have coffee. So we biked through the city to Carouge, not too far, just off the number 12 tram, so we followed the tram line on our bikes.  We had our coffees, which were absolutely delicious and absolutely necessary.  We tried sample cake in the market, and I lusted after the pretty, pretty vegetables.  After we walked through the TINY market in Carouge – Plainpalais is definitely better – we took some pictures, and decided to head back to Genéve and ride east along our side of the lake.  We wanted to go up to Coligny, but we only vaguely knew which direction the town was in, not how to get there.  The air smelled fresh, and by this point, the sun was finally coming up and burning off the fog everywhere, which made the ride much more refreshing and (for me, anyway) relaxing.

After a while, Sam decided she wanted to go to the gym, and I headed back along the lake with her and Karla as I was starting to tire.  I wasn’t actually tired yet, but I didn’t want to overexert myself after not having had real exercise in months. We returned our bikes and returned to Rue Muzy to kill some time before the University organized wine tasting in the afternoon.

At 4pm, the house emptied out, with everyone headed to Gare Cornavin for the 4:35 train to Russin, a 12 minute train right west of Geneva, close to the French border.  I stepped off the train, and I felt as though I’d just taken the Tuscany express.  The vineyards surrounding me reminded me of the Italian countryside, especially since spring has made everything green again. We hiked up a steep hill to the town, turned a few corners, followed a winding road, and ducked into a fairytale wooden doorway into the house of Madame Debayer.  We took our seats on short wooden stools set along the inside perimeter of the room and were each handed a wine glass and a list of the wines we would be tasting (that were all available to buy, obviously). The tasting was very technical, we were taught how to smell the wine, how to handle the glass, how to slosh the wine about in our mouths to test the acidity, and which food would be appropriate to complement properly the type of wine we were drinking. We started with a light Chasselas complemented with delicious homemade cheese sticks. I ate literally half the plate of the cheese sticks, but with good reason, as the three dishes following the cheese were duck, ham and beef… After the Chasselas, we tried the Sauvignon Blanc, then we switched to red wine. We then had a Pinot Noir and a Merlot (I think? I forgot to make a note of which wines we tasted.) I had the cheese and bread with the last red wine, (and learned  that cheese is generally had with heavier red wines).

Vineyards of Domaine Des Molards

Entrance to the House

The vineyards have been in their house for… 15 generations or so.

The day was the best combination of rejuvenating and relaxing. I miss having my bike around, and I probably won’t rent those bikes again while I’m here, but it was definitely a good decision. The wine tasting was quite different from what I had expected, but definitely in a positive way.

Random factoid reinforced this weekend? Europe doesn’t understand vegetarianism.

Yet another week of internship passed smoothly.  There’s been a number of new cases, and I’ve been working through the cases that I was given in my first week. I attended part of the Global Commodities Forum and we presented the annual report at the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council. I took notes, got confused when people asked things in French, and wore my snazzy UN badge. We applied for accreditation for me to attend the Committee Against Torture session at the end of April. It lasts from April 26 to May 14, and obviously my internship ends April 30th, so I will only attend part of that if I get approved.

The Alesch Glacier – Europe’s Longest Glacier

In fun news, last weekend, Adrianna, Mike and I went to see the Aletsch Glacier, Europe’s longest glacier. Danielle was supposed to go also, but she rolled out her hip and was in massive amounts of pain because the clinic kept insisting she had just sprained the muscle, and then they refused to give her painkillers because she didn’t buy them immediately after getting checked out (they are expensive!).  So the three of us took the train from Geneva to Fiesch, this town halfway across the country, in the middle of the Alps. In Fiesch, we basked in the sun – I’m not joking, the sun was out and warm, and we took off our jackets and sunbathed – ate lunch, and were slightly disappointed to find out that the weather conditions would not allow for paragliding (which was originally part of the reason to go to Aletsch).  However, thanks to our Half-Fare travelcard, it was only CHF 20 to take the cable car up to Eggishorn, the highest point, from Fiesch. The sun had burned off much of the fog, so we had some breathtakingly beautiful views of the glacier and of the mountains from the top of the world.

View at Eggishorn – 2,927 meters, or roughly 9,600 ft – Aletsch Glacier

Mike and Me

After taking our heart’s content of pictures, we went into the little restaurant for hot chocolate and a snack.  Adrianna got a platter of local cheese and bread that randomly came with mustard.  It tasted great though, and the hot chocolate warmed us up enough to get us back down the mountain.

Adrianna and Me

It was 5 pm by this point, and as per European tradition, no restaurants were open for dinner until 6 pm.  Mike had a good idea of taking the train back to Brig, a town located an hour in the direction of Geneva, and finding dinner there.  So we took the train to Brig, got there around 6 pm, and found a restaurant with nice Swiss-German food and decided the prices weren’t lethal and we’d eat there.  I ended up getting a DECILIOUS meal for CHF 20 which just doesn’t happen in Geneva.

Mike’s bratwurst and potato hashbrown thing and Schneider Weisse

Adrianna’s tortellini in cream sauce

My basil pesto spaghetti deliciousness

Even though we didn’t end up paragliding, we had a wonderful day. It was nice to get out of the city with good company and experience a new place that captured my heart wholly and completely.

❤ the Mountains…

Many apologies to everyone, as this post is long overdue. I haven’t had a chance to upload pictures/charge my camera battery so I’ll come back and add in pictures later.

The Office Life

My spring break was anything but relaxing (traveling is EXHAUSTING), and then I jumped right into the second stage of this program: the internship and the IO class.  My working hours in my first week of internship were absolutely horrendous, though it’s eased up now.  I was working 9 am to 7:30 pm, but I still had class reading (okay, let’s be real, when was the last time I read for this class?), but more importantly, I had to write my paper for the IO class.  I wish I could detail the work I do for my internship, but there’s a lot that is of a sensitive nature.  I work at Alkarama for Human Rights, an NGO that was founded in 2004 by a team of volunteers and lawyers.  Alkarama works to represent people who have been victims of extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, or enforced disappearances, appealing to applicable UN bodies to take international action against the offending state.  The organization has offices in Geneva, London, Beirut, Doha (Qatar), and Yemen, but there are lawyers who work for Alkarama in many other Arab countries.

Despite being given a hefty workload in the first week on the job, I like  working at AlKarama. The project to which I have been assigned is the major project for several other employees in the office and the parts I complete are final productions.  I’m working on human rights violations with regard to the Gulf states.  I like that I’m being challenged from the professional aspect: the work I did this week was held to higher standard than in past internships and the type of documents I create are different from what I have written in the past.  These 3 weeks have pointed me in the direction I think I’d like to take the work I do.  I’d still like to work for the U.S. Foreign Service or the State Department but I want to work on reforming political structures to address human rights violations and bring justice for all people.

The Activities of International Organizations class

Having class for an entire day is really tiresome. We have 3 hours on Thursday morning, break for lunch, and then class all afternoon/evening.  I’m always so tired by the time I get home from work that I don’t have the energy to worry about class/reading… I’ll catch up over Easter? The way this class works is that we discuss different arenas of activities of international organizations each week.  Last week, I presented my paper, and so did 3 other people.  We gave summaries of the paper and then did an oral defense – just a basic question and answer session.  The topic was on international peace and security… my paper was on UN and NATO actions in Afghanistan.  The paper reads like a policy brief and looks like a Model UN background guide.  It wasn’t too bad, I just felt it dragged out way too long and took over my life for 2 weeks. Uncool.

This week we’re talking about Human Rights… and the current presentation is on the Universal Periodic Review. Then, there are 3 more presentations, all relating to HR treaties.  Interestingly, the United States has not signed a human rights treaty since 2002… and it also failed the its review with the UPR due to infringement of rights during the war on terror (and cough*Guantánamo*cough).   I need to come up with a question to ask to show participation and effort… but the topics are either dry or explaining UN bodies that I already know the structure of… (Thanks MUN!)  Carla, the program director, has decided that a plate of chocolate eggs is the best break-time present. YAY chocolate!

Festivale du Chocolat

On a much happier note, last Saturday was the Festivale du Chocolat in Versoix, and let’s be real, of course I went.  Taylor was visiting Geneva so he came along, and …most of my house did too.  There was a giant tent set up and inside all of these specialty chocolate vendors set up little tables (like SPLASH! but so much better).  Mike found out (from Carla, I think) that the vendors get discounted rates on renting the tables if they give away more samples.  I’m totally not going to argue with that.  I ate probably 30 or 40 little pieces of chocolate or chocolate covered fruit/nuts/gummy candy.  I also had a cup of chocolate with apples in it, and a brownie.  I really wanted to buy a bag of chocolate, but I refrained.  Migros obviously needs my business.

After the Chocolate Festival, we were waiting for the bus back to Geneva, and Mike asked us if we’d be interested in seeing CERN, which I was ALL IN FAVOR OF.  For those of you who don’t know, CERN is the European Center for Nuclear Research.  It’s the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which was built to further research in particle physics.  The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC are currently searching for the Higgs boson, which gives particles in the universe mass.  There’s way more to all this than I can possibly understand, so I’m going to stop talking before I confuse myself and say something completely nonsensical.  Final question of the day: where did all the antimatter go? (If you still don’t know what I’m talking about – Angels and Demons – Antimatter!)  We got the guided tour through the museum, and then Mike showed us the CMS control room… I’m hoping Andrea has access to the ATLAS control room,  because that would be SWEET.

First Internet Server. Ever.

Timeline.

After CERN, Mike and Taylor realized I’d never seen Boondock Saints.  Apparently that’s blasphemy since I’ve lived in Boston for 3 years… oops. So we watched that and Inglorious Bastards. I proceeded to sleep for… about 14 hours, must have been tired.  Oh, and apparently my computer was missing something useful/important, but now, after 70 hours of work on it (Thanks, Mike), it’s running 600x faster, and apparently isn’t missing a home directory anymore. Woo.

I’ll try to update again soon, especially since I’m going (if weather permits) paragliding this weekend.

❤ Ciao!

February 26, 2010 – Barcelona, Spain

From my journal: I’m in the Geneva Airport. Because it’s EasyJet, and not a morning flight, we’re delayed about 45 minutes. It’s not as bad as it could be, and we’re chilling in a little cafe in our terminal called le prêt à manger. I’m eating a delicious tarte ratatouille (vegetable tart).  I didn’t bring a book with me, because I wasn’t in the mood for 1001 nights, and I may end up buying one in the Payot Librarie in the airport here, unless everything is overpriced.

Finally, we get on the plane and arrive in Barcelona around 6:30 pm. The metro in Spain is wonderfully efficient, and after searching through the rather-complex, color-coded map, we found the stop we needed for our hostel: Drassanes. Exiting the metro, we realized we were standing in the middle of La Rambla. At night. It’s gorgeous, officially, and there’s the statue of Christopher Columbus visible in the distance.  The street signs, however, were small, and without a map, it took us a little while to figure out where the street toward our hostel was.  We found it (not like Columbus and America), and we walked through this narrow, tree-lined street to the Barcelona4Fun Hostel. I’m not kidding, that’s actually what it was called. It was wonderful though – gorgeous stairways to the 3rd floor, where the office was.  The bathrooms were decent, and we had free internet access right outside our room.

The ATM decided to hate me, but we went to Carrer de Argentina and had dinner at Taller de Tapas, a super snazzy tapas bar just a 5 minute walk from our hostel. I found a Barclays ATM after dinner (of course, there’s 7,000 of them in Spain and I can’t find a single one in Geneva), and was really excited for no fees. We went back to our hostel to figure out Spanish nightlife… and take naps. That night we went to Nista Apollo, this crazy club with a British guest deejay, so the place was packed.  We walked in as he started the Lion King remix. It was absolutely fantastic.

February 27, 2010

Sightseeing in Barcelona started with a walk down La Rambla to find that all banks are closed on weekends and that if we weren’t careful, we spend all of our money on jewelry. I bought a necklace/earring set, which is absolutely gorgeous, postcards for my travel journal, and a magnet for the refrigerator in my house in Tampa (i.e. present for my mamá).  First, we walked to the port end of La Rambla to the Christopher Columbus monument, where I proceeded to climb up on one of the lions.  We got ourselves maps at the tourist office, and set off for the Gaudí Cathedral and Museum. The faces on the cathedral statues/sculptures contain more emotion that I could mentally or physically process.  We stared at them all for entirely too long – I’m sure some of the other tourists thought we were crazy.  Imagine this but on the ENTIRE cathedral:

After we circled the cathedral snapping pictures of every square inch of stone, we found another entrance to the metro, taking the train to Passeig de Grácia.  This street, known for its high end shopping, also houses the Casa Mila, more famously known as “La Pedrera.”  The Gaudí buildings scattered around Barcelona can be spotted from just about a mile away. Each is distinctive in its own right.  La Pedrera is wrought with iron working, the Casa Botilla and the Casa Lleó Morera couldn’t be more different from each other and La Pedrera. With two more destinations on our list, we hit the road again, this time headed north to Parc Güell. We took a detour first to see Casa Vicens, which I’ve re-named my gingerbread house. Trying to get the entire house into a picture was a challenge in itself, as we only had the width of the narrow street in front of us to work with.

Our adventure of the day concluded with the hike up to the top of Parc Güell, where we had a beautiful view of the entire city of Barcelona. It’s a shame it was fairly cloudy out, for the pictures might have come out much clearer. At the center of the Parc, there was a stone hill with stairs running along the side, from the top of which the view was even better. After admiring this gorgeous bit of Catalonia, we wound our way back down the other side of the Parc to the Gaudí museum and cave-like area that we were 80% sure was the set for the Jungle episode of America’s Next Top Model. There were musicians playing good classical/jazz music, and the mosaics burst with colors I hadn’t even thought existed. We finished our night with a delicious dinner from the restaurant located – I kid you not – directly outside of our hostel. I had the least Spanish meal ever, pasta with arrabbiata sauce, but we had a series of Spanish cakes and pastries to round off our meal, so at least I made up for it.

We found a local club to go dancing, and I had an entertaining exchange with a boy there.

Boy: ¿Eres Peruana?

Me: No…

Boy: Soy de Lisbon, Portugal. ¿De donde eres?

Me: Los Estados Unidos…

Boy: ¿De Nueva York?

Me: No, de Tampa, Florida.

Boy: Ah! Eres Cubana!

February 28, 2010 – Barcelona to Málaga, Spain

Sunday morning dawned BRIGHT; the sun had finally decided to come out and grace us with its presence.  We woke up an hour or so later than we’d intended, and after some rushing and some stress, we rushed to what we thought was the meeting point for our tour, only to find that a) we’d gone walking about 10 minutes past the office we should have been headed for and that b) our tour had left 15 minutes before we arrived.  After getting really confused by the woman in the office who kept contradicting herself, we found out that we could neither get a refund nor join the tour midway through.  Walking out of the office and heading in a different direction, we found the Barcelona Bus Tours ticket window and decided instead of wandering around trying to find the tour we’d missed, we’d jump on the bus instead, sit on the top deck and take pictures of the city as we drove through it.  We did get a good feel for the city, but it was a little difficult to take pictures since the bus didn’t always stop for the sights.  In addition to driving past the sights from the day before, we got explanations for the little monuments, statues, and symbols located in the most unexpected parts of the city. Barcelona is truly amazing, I would definitely go back and stay for at least a week.  At the time most self-respecting British people were setting out for High Tea, we arrived back at the Barcelona airport, this time headed for Málaga, further south on the coast of Spain.  The flight was delayed over an hour, putting us in Málaga after dark.

In Málaga, Elizabeth was waiting for us at our hostel – which was located right on the beach. If we hadn’t had to catch the bus to Algeciras in the morning, we would have spent a day lounging on the beach. The sand was almost white, the sky and water extremely blue, and the people in the hostel were a riot. We went to find dinner as we were absolutely famished and we found ourselves a pizzeria a ways down the road. At the pizzeria we discovered that we had miscalculated the time difference between Vancouver and Málaga.  The USA-Canada fight for the Olympic Gold in Men’s Hockey was in its final stages.  The waiter had the game on his TV and relayed the disappointing news to us: With the score 2-2, Canada won in the shootout. Depression was overcome by cake, though, and my delicious Tiramisu made all of life better.

From my journal (translated from Arabic): Right now, we’re going to Algeciras, the southernmost point of Spain.  It is the closest crossing point to Tangier, Morocco.  From this city, we can take the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Maghreb. I’m really excited and extremely happy… I think I’ll love Morocco quite a bit.  I want to buy a ton of souvenirs (I probably won’t have enough money): PRETTY CLOTHES! Scarves, jewelry, leather from Fes. Before I talk more about Morocco, I have to say… I want to live in Spain for a few years. And now… I’m sitting on the bus and listening to my iPod, rocking out, as per usual.  Sometimes I think… why didn’t I study in Morocco? I’m expecting this week to be a completely different experience than the last 2 months (my entire life minus those long summers in India) have been.

March 1, 2010 – Málaga to Algeciras, Spain to Tangier to Fes, Morocco

From my journal: Getting here was by far the most complex and odd thing ever, but it was all worth it in the end, if only for the palace of a hostel/guest house that we’re staying in… for a grand total of $20. The bus, ferry, bus, train journey became worth it after the DELICIOUS meal we had at a small restaurant just outside the Fes medina (The Arabic word “medina” literally translates to city. General meaning is an old marketplace, often the center of the Moroccan city). We had a traditional Moroccan appetizer of “salads,” by which they meant a multitude of plates with different types of curry, spicy vegetables, and vegetables soaked in vinegar accompanied by several hundred pieces of bread. Moroccans get really upset and/or offended if you don’t eat all of the food – they think either the food is bad or you didn’t like it.  The waiter gave us the saddest look ever when he realized we’d barely put a dent in our salad, though all we were thinking was that we had yet to get to the main course.  The minute he disappeared to bring out main course, we attempted to shovel down half of the food remaining on the table, in an attempt to un-insult him.

The entrées came out: I had a mountain of couscous topped with a mountain of vegetables. Can you say DEE-LICIOUS?!

The sights, the sounds, the smells, everything reminds me of India so far, but imagine a donkey for every cow. Tomorrow, we’re going to have breakfast in the Palace, and then our guide, Abdul, who found us at the train station upon our arrival in Fes, is going to take us around the Medina/city to see the sights.  We’ve got until about 4 pm, because then we’ve got to be at the train station to catch our 5 pm train to Rabat. It’s a three hour train, but that’s not so bad. We’re meeting Jess, Aura, and Anthony at the station, and I honestly cannot WAIT to see them.  (Translated from Arabic) Right now, I’m really tired. We’ve slept very little, especially in Spain. The Spanish fully believe in being awake until all hours of the morning, and we kept getting up sort of early to go sightseeing… From Málaga to Algeciras to Tangier to Fes, I think all I want to do is sleep for MANY hours. P.S. Postcards to the family were mailed today (Amma, Appa, Vinu, keep an eye out for them, you’ll hopefully get them soon. I’m not sure how reliable post from Morocco is…) Time to sleep.

March 2, 2010 – On the train to Rabat from Fes

From my journal: Back up a bit. Fes was just, WOW. So many colors, in addition to the sounds and smells.  The city, silent upon our arrival, was bursting with life the next morning. It reminded me of India in so many ways, and then not at all.  In India, I’ve never seen entire dead animals hanging from stall windows.  Such stalls in Fes made entire sections of the medina smell like a butcher’s shop. But the men sometimes made quiet comments at us when we walked by, but we weren’t hassled as we had expected we’d be.  Earlier, I mentioned that our guide found us at the train station. Here’s the story: We got off the train in Fes, unsure of what to expect, knowing that we needed to grab a cab (it was 10 pm) to take us to our hostel/guest house/palace.  We walked outside and were asked where we needed to go.  The minute I said the hostel name, the man we were talking to, Abdul, made a face and said it was “too far.”  But, he said he knew how to get to it — apparently it was buried deep inside the Medina. He wasn’t joking – after 700 turns, 350 white walls and 600 brown doors (okay the numbers are a bit much, but I kid you not, everything was a white wall or a brown door), we came to our hostel.  Abdul told us a little bit about the medina as we walked through it – there are 10,000 streets in the Fes medina and not a single one has a street sign. Little children run about freely – if you greet them with “bonjour,” they’ll say “bonjour” back, with better pronunciation than I have.

So far, Morocco has been very GREEN.  But what’s more astounding is the variety in the foliage.  There are palm trees in big, green, open fields, but they’re right next to shrubbery and druids, and… mountains.  We went to the tannery in Fes today, and I got two bags of camel leather.  One is very modern and trendy, the other is an ancient style Berber bag. I hadn’t anticipated buying anything at the leather souk, but really, they were beautiful… and when will I be in Fes again in the near future? From here I need to get souvenirs, gifts I promised, and my scarf.  I’d like to go to the hammam also.. and be CLEAN.

It’s been raining since MORNING, and it sounds like the window in this compartment isn’t shut (which it clearly is). Sent a confirmation text to Aura to make sure everyone is at the train station in Rabat when we get there, or we’ll be completely lost. I don’t have a map of the city. It feels funny not to be going home for spring break, but this trip will definitely make up for it (Sorry guys!).

~We finally made it to Rabat on Tuesday late evening, around 8 pm. Anthony, Aura and Jess were indeed waiting for us at the train station: Rabat Ville.  Seeing them made everything better – suddenly I wasn’t as tired as I’d felt before, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed my friends from home. They took us to a pizza place where we had cheap, delicious dinner and caught up on some basic things.  Jess told me about her dilemma for her major, we met their friend Alex – she’s also from BU and on the Rabat program.  They told us about their homestay families, the amenities, and their difficulties adjusting not just to life in Morocco, but life as a permanent guest in someone else’s home.

March 3, 2010 – Rabat to Casablanca

From my journal: Wednesday morning started with a regular Moroccan breakfast of bread, butter and jam.  I skipped the orange juice in favor of tea, as Jess and Aura had promised to take us to the good orange juice place.  They got us from the hostel and we went on an adventure through an internet cafe (FINALLY) to the cafe with the FRESHLY SQUEEZED ORANGE JUICE. After months of living in a landlocked, not-so-tropical country, I was craving tropical fruits, orange juice and peppers.  We had delicious 10 dirham ($1.25) juice, noticed that all the people in the cafe were men, because apparently self-respecting women don’t frequent cafes. It’s quite sad because the food is delicious.  We stopped in at one of the CCCL (Center for Cross-Cultural Learning) buildings to see where they have class, saw their library, met another student on the program, and headed out into the medina for some shopping time.  We had halwa de chocolat – 2 dh, and so good.  It was a nutty dessert ball encased in chocolate.  How could I say no?  I can safely say that if I were on the Morocco program, I’d have gained 20 pounds by now. We walked through vegetable street, past the neighborhood bakery, to get to the souks.  I bought a bracelet for me and a gift for William.  Anthony joined us on the way to the Kasbah.

The views from the Kasbah:

Post-picture madness at the Kasbah, we went to the Chellah Gardens to chill and relax a little. The gardens were bright and sunny, and after feeling reenergized, we headed to Jess’s house, because her homestay mother had invited us all to lunch.  Her homestay mom made us a delicious traditional meal of salads, bread and tagine.  Unfortunately it was chicken tagine, so I didn’t eat it, but I did have the multiple salad dishes and a lot of bread.  The bread we ate had been baked in the neighborhood bakery we had passed on our way to the Kasbah. Anthony couldn’t come with us because Jess’s house is extremely traditional – no boys who aren’t family members are allowed inside because of Jess’s homestay sisters.  I had been worried about the proper way to thank Jess’s homestay mother for her hospitality, but it turned out that the father had a store in the medina that sold Moroccan teapots, which everyone wanted.  Danielle, Elizabeth and Adrianna all bought beautiful teapots to go with the Moroccan tea they bought at the pharmacy in Fes.

I really liked the traditional feel of Rabat, and whatever had been lacking in Geneva was finally reconciled. Maybe I just needed to see those friends, but maybe I needed some place to remind me of home.

Casablanca by Night

From my journal: Adrianna’s friend picked us up from the train station on Wednesday evening and took us to the apartment to drop off all of our stuff.  We showered, felt clean, and wandered out to get dinner.  As a break from all of the authentic Moroccan food we’d been eating, and on account of Casablanca being extremely modern, we went to a non-Moroccan place and had American food. I had a salad that awkwardly had corn in it, bread and fries.  Covered all those food groups… We went out in Casablanca, which is basically the New York City of Morocco. Clubs don’t open until 12:30, so we chilled at a bar first.  We went to a live music club where it seemed to be Motown night, and I knew a fair number of the songs being played.  It was nice to get out and dance for the night.

March 4, 2010 – Casablanca by Day

From my journal: We woke up early again and went out to the bakery on the block to get breakfast.  We had pastries – croissants, etc – and orange juice before we set out for the hammam.  We got dropped off at the hammam, La Pacha, a place where Adrianna’s friend goes (i.e. not a tourist hotspot).  It was a nice hammam though, and we got the entire package: the regular hammam plus a massage and a silk wrap. It’s Morocco, an Islamic country, so it’s obviously gender segregated. When you enter the hammam, you first go into the steam room where you rub the hammam soap all over yourself, steam yourself for a bit and then rinse off, fancy bucket bath style.  Next, you lie on these beds and a Moroccan woman SCRUBS you with your own special hammam scrubbing glove… for a good half hour. After all the dead skin and any dirt I might have encountered in my entire life was scrubbed off of me, I stepped into the shower to rinse.  Then, I was covered in silk-mud, which smelled distinctly like henna (but it wasn’t a dye), and wrapped in thick saran wrap cocoon.  The mud heated up, and I felt entirely relaxed.  Finally, when the mud cooled, I was unwrapped and went again to rinse off.  I thought that was the end, but I’d forgotten about the massage.  The same woman who scrubbed me gave me a soap massage. She found a knot in my bag and proceeded to scold me in Arabic for having too much stress.  When she realized that I vaguely understood what she was saying, she continued in the same vein.  Finally, I rinsed off in the shower again, then washed my hair, bucket bath style. There were fountains all around the perimeter of the main hammam room, and little stools at each fountain on which to sit and wash your hair.  After we were all done steaming, scrubbing, purifying, relaxing, and rinsing, we stepped into the drying room to towel off and get dressed.  I checked the time – we had entered the hammam at 10:45 am, and we stepped into the drying room at 12:45 pm. I felt clean FOREVER.

Coming out of the hammam, we tried to hail a taxi and failed SO miserably. We kept getting rejected by the petit taxis and for the life of us could not figure out why.  Adrianna’s friend, Saad, finally picked us up and took us to lunch at Pizza Roufe. Yep, I had pizza. And it was delicious.  Next, we went to the Mosque of Hassan II, staring shamelessly in awe of this gorgeous piece of architecture. Never mind its location, right on the beach, with the waves splashed up on the shore nearby, but the pristine feel of the place, the intricate architecture.  It felt like a completely different world compared to the old medinas and even half of the buildings in the new parts of the city.  We were laughed at for being too touristy, but I don’t regret it one bit. The pictures came out beautifully.

We took a short trip into the Casablanca medina, a far cry from the medinas of Fes or Rabat.  The architecture was more modern, the roads were paved, and probably because we were with Saad, we didn’t get hassled.  Elizabeth bought another purse, we picked up Saad’s sister, and headed to the beach. By this time, it was dark out, and the waters cold, but the lights of the city at night simply sparkled.  Elizabeth took some snazzy pictures on her snazzy camera, and the waters of the Atlantic tried to attack me.  The tide came up higher than I anticipated, but hey, now I’ve touched African waters.

The others had paninis at Pueblo, but Danielle and I, both still full from lunch, went with Dina, Saad’s sister, to a cafe for coffee and desserts.  In the process of choosing an ice cream flavor, I tried about 8 other flavors, but then, I’m not passing up free ice cream.  I ended up with cafe au lait, dolce latte ice cream, and a chocolate mousse cake.

… Tomorrow we’re headed to Marrakech at 6:30 am. Hopefully, traveling on very little sleep won’t kill us…

March 5, 2010

We got to Jamâ El F’na, the main square where the medina converges, and after considerable difficulty, we found our hostel.  We put our things in the hostel, got a little help from the woman working in the hostel (who was from Australia, of all random places), and wandered back into the medina on our way to the Koutoubia.  Given that it stands out above everything in the medina and even most parts of the city, it was relatively easy to find.  After pictures there, and a look at the gardens behind it, we went to the Cafe du France for lunch, had different but delicious couscous.  We participated in the traditionally male-dominated National Moroccan sport of Café sitting (and people-watching).

While we were at lunch, we heard the call to prayer.  For the first time all week, I saw people get out prayer mats, and sometimes just pieces of cardboard mats.  All the men in djellabas lined up in rows and knelt down on their cardboard mats and prayed.  I felt mildly awkward staring at them and eating during their prayers. We adventured into the souks next, looking for jewelry, scarves, and gifts.  I bought so much, but actually didn’t spend too much money on it thanks to the currency exchange rate. I realized after Rabat that Jess’s arabic has gotten really good, but mostly she’s just gotten confident using it.  So I tried… I found out really quickly that by speaking in arabic I got better starting prices for all the goods in the souk, and people just really loved it.  Everyone loved that I’m Indian… random women would come up to me and ask “Anti Hindia?” (Are you Indian?) and upon receiving affirmation, tell me “Marhaba! Welcome to our country!” After 4+ hours of shopping and haggling in Arabic, I felt exhausted. With no help from a man who wanted money from us and with lots of help from a little boy playing in the medina with his friend, we found the Madersa Ben Youssef on the opposite end of the souk from Jamâ El F’na.  The Madersa, a dormitory for the old Quranic school, had ornate wooden work inside, though the students’ rooms were very tiny, and not very well lit.  Some of the rooms lacked windows with access to sunlight – something I feel would be depressing. Next, we went to Jardin Aguedal, the King’s garden, located behind the Palais Royal.  We tried to chill in the garden, but upon sitting down on a fountain wall, were told off  by the guards.  Seriously, what’s the point of a garden you can’t relax in??

Holding an evil monkey, no big deal:

We met up with Sam and Marianna and their two friends from London for dinner at the Cafe Argana in Jamâ El F’na. I had couscous vegetal, and again, it was nothing like the couscous I’d had before. Post dinner, I felt exhausted and decided to turn in early for the night. The beds at the hostel left much to be desired and my back hurt quite a lot.

March 7, 2010 – Ma’Selaama, Morocco

From my journal: We’re delayed in Marrakech, and should have been arriving in Geneva… right now. We might be re-boarding at 1 pm, but it’s EasyJet, so it’s entirely possible that we won’t.  They said the plane had electrical failure, which really makes me want to get back on the plane. I’ve accepted that we might not get home tonight, but I hope we do.  All I want to do right now is crawl into my Rue Muzy bed with its uncomfortable pillow and sleep for 35 hours straight.

— Back on the plane at 2:15 pm, and now there’s no chance of getting back to Genéve before all of the grocery stores close.  I still have potatoes…

My final thoughts on Morocco all boil down to one comment: What an amazing country!  The scenery changes as we travelled south were phenomenal, and the atmosphere of every city different from the last.  We saw the mountains in the north, the coastal cities, the Capital, and the Atlas Mountains. Seeing the snowcapped mountains juxtaposed with Marrakech’s desert style architecture and palm trees in the foreground was unreal.

Dear Morocco,

I’ll be back.

Love, Viesh

Imagine the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, mix it with the Gasparilla Parade in Tampa, spice it up with the 4th of July festivities, add in Halloween costumes and decorations, and garnish it with a dash of Swiss winter. This Luzern, set alive with excitement, felt far different from the Luzern I remembered from the summer of 2006. The difference felt good; it felt right; it felt magical.  The costumes ranged in variety from families of Vikings to pink piggies to a band dressed as Stalin.  At least a dozen bands marched through the streets of Luzern starting early in the morning around 11 am and continued to play through the night.  A bunch of the songs, I recognized- the bands played Queen and Bon Jovi, just to mention a couple.  People were dancing in the streets, following the bands they liked or that they knew people in.  Many people had set up cart shops selling bread, cheese, meats, drinks, beer, etc. I really wanted to get a costume, but they were overpriced, obviously, and not worth it for something I wouldn’t wear again. I would have gotten a mask, but I have a nice one at home.  Ashley put red hair dye from a spray can in my hair, but of course it came out purpley/pink on my hair. Keith and Mike Lloyd ended up painting up their faces, and Julie got an Indian headband, spear, and face paint.

We ate breakfast at a cafe when we arrived, as we had left the house in Geneva at 6:30 am to get on the 7:10 am train to Luzern.  Ari and I found a cute cafe in Old Town and had coffee and crepes del chef. Said crepes del chef were culinary Magic on a plate: crepes with chocolate, yogurt, and chocolate syrup. Magic, painstakingly acquired through the use of elaborate hand gestures, pointing and awkwardly reading off the menu, but Magic nonetheless.  Following that, we heard the drumroll of a band, and ran to the steps where most of the bands had a slot throughout the day.  We found the rest of the group, bopped around to the band, taking in the excitement all around.  Post-dancing, we wandered back across the river to Jesuitenkirche, one of the spots on our walking tour of Luzern in 2006.  Of course, the church hadn’t changed a bit, and I sat in the same pew I had sat in 4 years ago, reflecting a bit on the different circumstances surrounding my visit, the changes in my life since that time, and the way I’ve grown as an individual.  So much is different, and perhaps so because I’m past the halfway point of my undergraduate years now whereas back then I was still in high school.  After exiting the church, Chelsea, Ari and I bought a chunk of cheese… the name of which for the life of me I cannot remember.  It was a German name, so there were more consonants than vowels.  It was extremely tasty, which is really all that matters.

Before the Streets Started Filling Up

Random Guy in Costume Singing Queen... & Ari and Me

We trekked up to the tower wall, and made it as far as possible.  They close and lock the door up to the top of the wall in the winter, probably because it’s dangerous and icy.  I have my old pictures at the top of the wall though, and I’m happy with that.  We met up with the group again, and followed more bands around the city, dancing to keep warm.  The temperature dipped into the 20s, Fahrenheit, not Celsius, and though the sun came out, I felt my body working in overdrive to keep me warm enough for comfort.  After a day of bread, cheese, hot tea, and dancing, we found an extremely overpriced pub where most of our group sat down for dinner.  Julie, Ari, Mike, Ashley and I went back out for some street food, which reminded me how much the Germans love bratwurst but not vegetarians.  I ended up eating my apple and snack bar complemented by french fries at the oh-so-cultured Burger King and hot chocolate in the Luzern train station. So worldly, I am.

We returned to Geneva on the 8:00 pm train, exhausted but happy, ready to recover from sensory overload. The three-hour train ride took ages in my mind, and my relief at hearing the train announcements first in French, then in German, at the halfway point to Geneva knew no bounds.  French is troublesome enough, but Swiss-German is nearly impossible to follow. And I don’t have a working knowledge of German either.  Spending the day outside found me congested, sneezing, and coughing on Sunday morning… and not much better (possibly worse) today.  (But, it was SO worth it.)

The adventure’s been chronicled, my weekend’s been successful, and now I am off to nap.

Peace, love, and chocolate mountains in Swiss banks.