This blog entry is dedicated to my sister Lyndy who turns 24 today...Happy Birthday Lyndy! You've been begging me to update, and I've been waiting these three months just for your BIRTHDAY!
No, I did not float away in the Monsoon....
I'm sucking on a Ricola coming down off the high of having finished my first final... or is it a low... it was a tough one, a group paper and it was a killer but it is over and I have 15 minutes before I start the next of three finals due this week. Finals you say? ... so this is where I have to give the rest of the story... to rapidly fill in the gaps of the last three months.
Month one July:
A beautiful month in many continents... from India to Germany to Switzerland... yes July is a beautiful month!
After kissing muddy RAIPUR goodbye I made my way solo down the subcontinent to HYDERABAD: easy, fun, lively city with tremendously good shopping compared to where I had been living... 4 quick days, a cooking class and a visit to the mysterious GOLCONDA FORT and I was zipping out of Hyderabad and onto my new life in Switzerland, but not without a stop in FRANKFURT: to grab my visa and get completely confounded by their train system... but I was not the only one, it seems their method of finding and rounding up foreigners... the bermuda triangle of trains tracks... Aaaaahh Frankfurt... once I caught my 130 Euro train, I discoverd that I had only paid for a "space" on the train which meant after 48 hrs of travel I had to sit on the floor.... when I asked the conductor how one could pay so much and not get a seat the conductor responded firmly "Iv you vant seat you must pay for veservation... Vis is Geeermany!" ... VIS IS GEEEERMANY! Ironically a seat opened up just as we were crossing the border... I have to say, the scenery really improved when I got to SWITZERLAND!
GENEVA: Oh I remember you Geneva... bright, clean, fresh, orderly... in the seven years since I last saw you, you haven't changed much, but how will it be to call you home? After so much moving around the last few years it might take me some time to call you or anywhere home. The first test... six weeks of FRANCAIS Class! But lucky me, I found a bosom friend in a Norwegian classmate and those six weeks were packed with shopping trips, field trips, hiking trips and supermarket trips. In only six weeks I managed to taste all and narrow down my favorite chocolate, yogurt and bread. A considerable feat given the vast of the selection. I even discoverd the Ovalmatine bar... a chocolate bar that is packed full of 12 ESSENTIAL vitamins and minerals ... finally a Chocolate bar that is healthy... I think I will eat one every day!
As July crept into August we had adventures in MONTREUX for the jazz festival, VEVEY, Chateau de Chillon, NEUCHATEL, ANNESY FRANCE, SALEVE Mountains, ZURICH (twice), and the Geneva fete for Raclette and the most spectacular firework show I've ever witnessed... we did happen to learn some French along the way as well. We learned the imporant stuff, like the words for ice cream "glace" and chocolate "chocolat" and student discount* "escompte d'etudiant". But I had to pass on some of the field trips when only two weeks after arrival I found a job, which ended up keeping me rather busy. I had to work hard to keep up on both French and the Job (working on EU immigration policy) but all the hard work was rewarded with a trip to ROME ITALY the last week of August. Who in the world would have imagined that one could have such a good time traveling alone! What a memorbale trip. Roaming around Rome, the Collesium, the Pantheon, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel (where I got kicked out... see traveling alone really can be a gas), Italian pizza, St. Peters Basilica, the museums, the Opera (thank heavens for STUDENT DISCOUNTS*) the Roman Forum, the Palladium, the gellato, the Italian men leaving love notes under my door (again, a plus for traveling alone ;-) ... I moved from Rome to NAPLES and onto the aromatic and stunning ISLAND OF CAPRI (yes after the pants but I didn't see anyone wearing them, perhaps they went out of style there decades ago and we are all just really far behind in fashion) then to POMPEII where I became completely lost in the ruins of the past, frozen in time... a whole civilization, a giant city, well endowed with infrastructure, highly organized, elaborately decorated and oddly void of any landmarks to prevent me from getting lost and causing me to change the name from POMPEII to the LABRYNTH-PEII. So I only had time to see MT. VESUVIUS from a distance and not climb it... next time... and there will be a next time, because I AM IN LOVE WITH ITALY!
August very quickly shifted into September and in a matter of 24 hours from returning from Italy I had to move apartments, meet my new roomates and attend the first day of GRADUATE SCHOOL. I loved my roomates at first hello. They hail from Portugal, India and Mongolia and aparently that is the perfect mix for a lot of laughs. My classmates are almost equally as delightful. They come from about 20 different countries and have very impressive backgrounds. I feel completely at home among them and academically they will keep me on my toes. The course starts with a bang! Classes 8 hours a day for the first six days including Saturday. Group presentations within the first few days, impossible volumes of readings... let the sleepless nights begin! Well the stress was becoming evident in my life as in the frame of one week I lost my new cell phone, my student card (bye bye non-existant student discount*) my passport, my laundry card, and an 8 foot long rug... yes, I said an 8 foot long rug. I think duct tape might be the only solution to stress in my life, duct tape and a backrub, cuz darned those pinched nerves are getting pretty regular! Well I must have convinced people I was cute because I got my passport back, found my student card, bought a new cell phone but got my pre-paid credit moved to the new phone, someone got me a new 8 foot rug (how sweet) and my lovely roomates are letting me borrow their laundry cards (although maybe that is not as altruistic as it seems... perhaps they don't like how I smell when I don't do my laundry...hmmmm) bye bye duct tape :)
So this brings us up to Ricola and finals... I got my first cold last week but a classmate encouraged me to put two bunches of fresh sliced garlic in honey, to let it sit for a day, then to put the honey in hot water and drink it like a tea, either she was playing a mean trick (on my roomates who have to live with me!) or she really had something up her sleeve... it turns out it was the latter because my cold seemed to just dissapear, obviously frightened by the garlic I was asphixiating it with. Now I just use Ricola becuase this is Switzerland and it is my first cold and it only seems appropriate that I eat some Ricola now. Cold or no cold, I refuse to give into winter... I still wear my sandals and toering... I WILL NOT GIVE IN, IT IS NOT WINTER YET!
So, now I must move onto final #2...
...hope you have enjoyed hearing the rest of the story... now I am going to put this garlic drinking, ricola sucking, brain dead head to bed :)
PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYNDY, I hope you enjoyed this one installment just for YOU, YOU, YOU!
* I usually don't qualify for student discounts as most discounts are for students 25 and under, us "old" students are doubly penalized first for being old and then for being old AND a student... or poor poor me :( ... but on rare occasions I can convince people that I am still cute enough to get the student rate :)
PHOTO GALLERY:
(will do separate Gallery for ITALY photos in near future)
Geneva Ode to Jet d'eau ("water jet" pronouced 'jedt oh')
Jet d'eau
Oh, oh, oh
how high does your water go?
oh, oh, oh
Jet d'eau
you are my favorite water flow
Oh, Jet d'eau
This one STANDS ALONE! No, I am not playing with my food, that really is a giant fork in the lake... VEVEY, SWITZERLAND
Chim chiminy, Chim chiminy... the rooftops of Neuchatel, Switzerland
Zurich by moonlight (without a tripod)
Annecy, France (Okay, so maybe I need to get a tripod ;-)
FINALLY! HEALTHY CHOCOLATE! Only in Swtizerland
The perfect Castle: Chateau de Chillon, hanging over a misty lake offset by a steely mountain landscape... hauntingly beautiful.
GRAD SCHOOL! where adults live like paupers, act like teenagers (yes, the leaders of tomorrow??), work their brains dry for no pay, and hope for the day when they can land a "real" job to work off their newly minted mountains of debt.
How do I end up so lucky to have such delightful roomates! Mix a little US, Portugal, Mongolia and India and you have a recipe for lots of laughs! :)
Gruyeres Castle surrounded by happy Cows... yes look closely that is not a tree but a bush of flowers strapped to the cows head.
