Busy busy busy

So, everything has consequences, right? Right. I spent all day Sunday writing a 10 page paper that was due on Monday. Then Tuesday I had my 2 hour French written exam. Just to spice things up a little during our week from hell, Earl took us to Bern for the day on Wednesday. It turned out to be another BEAUTIFUL day, 65 and sunny. We had a free morning to explore, then a lecture in the afternoon. They actually have bears in Bern!! And, I was super pumped because the mama bear had two little baby cubs!! CUUUUUUUUTE. Couldn’t get enough. The lecture was not so interesting; I could have lived without it. All I could think about was my French oral the next day oh and wait, the 8 page paper that was also due. I got to work as soon as I got home. After successfully completing those tasks, I STILL had a 3,000 word take home final to write up due Friday afternoon. Oh Earl… what a week you made for us. Oh, and this is Bern... :)

After that kind of work, a group of us decided we DEFINITELY needed to get out. So, to celebrate the end of classes/exams, we dove head first into Switzerland’s 12-5 culture (that would be 12am to 5am...). The closest (good) clubs to us are in Lausanne, a pretty big city home to a university. So like the locals, since the trains stop around 1am, we stay out until the first trains start around 4:30am. Sounds challenging, right? I thought that I surely would not survive this night. WRONG. I had so much fun!! I didn’t even realize how late it was because we were always dancing. We all had a great time, and yes… slept in very late the next day.

Hmm… the next thing worth sharing I think is that Hadley came to visit me! She got into Geneva on Sunday night (well... a week ago Sunday), I picked her up at the airport and we took the train back to my host mama’s house. Renate baked a fabulous lasagna (which I kind of want right now….yummm). She’s the best. The next day was Easter Monday. Ugh. Switzerland shuts down EVERYTHING for this holiday. Friday through Monday. Bad timing for Hadley to be able to go into any stores… but we made the best of it. We spent almost the whole day in Nyon because the sun was shining and both of us couldn’t get enough of it. Also, just to add a little flavor to our day, we found out that not everyone in Switzerland is respectful and quiet…..haha oh my god… There was a lady at the bar of the restaurant where Hadley and I got lunch who needed A LOT of help. It was 1pm. She was already wasted. Not only was she wasted, but she was wearing pleather stretch leggings, hooker heels, and a bright blue tank top, with all of her fat rolls showing. She was caressing every guy at the bar no matter what their age. It was entertaining… but I mean, COME ON LADY. 1) Do you have a mirror, 2) It’s Easter, not New Year’s Eve, 3) It’s not usually PC to be plastered at 1pm on Easter Monday… to each her own I guess. We saw her singing/screaming on the street about an hour later. Hahahaha. WOW. Some people. :-P Monday night we got to cook dinner at one of my friend’s houses because his host family was gone. We made Mexican food. Oh my, it was fantastic. Guac = amazing. I was also excited because Had got to meet a lot of my friends from here, which was nice so she could put names with faces.

Tuesday was fun. I took Hadley to the UN (I needed to do some work for my independent study project), and she was able to do a little bit of her own exploring. The Red Cross is right across the street, so she got to see that. Obviously, the museum was closed on Tuesday…lame. But I guess she enjoyed lying in the grass while I caught up on some reading before our trip to…..


BUDAPEST.


We left early Wednesday morning, getting to our hostel with a whole afternoon ahead of us. The owner of the hostel pulled out a map and basically told us everywhere to go for food, for sightseeing, everything. It was great, because before that, we really had no idea what to do slash everything was in Hungarian. Win for us! We got some food, then went off gallivanting around the city. Our first stop was Heroes’ Square, followed by the Turkish Baths. The Baths were ridiculous. If we had brought out bathing suits, it would have been a sure thing to go. Our loss… but we still got to see inside. There are around 10 pools, a bunch of saunas, steam rooms, etc… it’s kind of like a huge spa with a bunch of swimming pools and men in speedos. It would have been fun because the weather was nice, but we were lacking the essentials…bathing suits and money. We got back to the hostel around dinner time and we were exhaaausted, but starving. After resting up a bit, Hadley suggested we check out an Italian restaurant she had found online. We got there, and the food was reasonably priced, so we went in. Best decision of our lives. Probably the best Italian food I’ve ever had. It was so good, we couldn’t pass up desert, which was also amazing…chocolate soufflé. BOMB. We went to bed happy that night.

More on my Budapest trip to come in a later post. See you soon.