Take me back to Switzerland!

I spent this weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland! It was SUCH a great time.

Thursday: I skipped my first class EVER in my college career. We left for the airport and were met with a nice three hour delay for our flight to Geneva from the airline EasyJet (not so easy if you ask me). After we finally arrived, we had a three hour train ride to Interlaken..a small town, North East of Geneva. We got to our hostel, Balmers, (also, my first time staying in a hostel) kind of late. We grabbed a quick dinner and hung out, then went to bed kind of early to prepare for the weekend!

Friday: We woke up early and explored the little town of Interlaken a bit. There is not much to it...but it was nice to get some fresh mountain air. Then Rachel, a girl from my program who goes to Connecticut College, and I went paragliding! With paragliding, you are essentially strapped into a more secure Crazy Creek (for those who know what a Crazy Creek is..) and are attached by a harness to an attractive paragliding guide. You start in a field on a mountain, and just "keep running until you feel like you're flying..." and that is honestly how it feels! Run run run and all of a sudden...lift off! And you are soaring through the Alps and looking out over beautiful Switzerland. Just sit back and enjoy the show! It was so peaceful just floating up with the birds. I loved it. After that, Rachel and I explored the town..poking around in shops and enjoying the Swiss culture. We waited for our other travel partners in crime, Gretchen and Henry, to come back from Bungee Jumping 450 feet off of a cable car over a lake (see Mom, aren't you glad I went paragliding?). Everyone survived in one piece and we went out to dinner at a quaint little Swiss restaurant. Went to bed early that night too.

Saturday: Woke up early to go Canyoning!! Here is a YouTube Link to canyoning, in case I do not explain it well enough. Here it goes. Basically, you repel down into this river canyon, and then adventure down the river! You get to jump off rocks, slide down waterfalls, climb through little cracks and crevices and do all sorts of fun stuff. It was SUCH a great time. We had signed up for the 8 hour "intense" canyon trip, but it was canceled due to SNOW in the canyon we were going to go to. Yes..it was quite cold. In the canyon we went to, it was 40 degrees and raining... and we were jumping around in glacial snow melt..pretty nippy. We were wearing two very thick wetsuits, a wetsuit jacket, a dry top, booties, and a helmet..but it was still chilly. That's maybe why I have a cold now..but anyways. Our canyoning experience was three hours long and it was so fun. Our guides were great, and the people in our group were great as well. What are the chances...in our group was a girl who went to Denver University...Colorado College's "rivals." After canyoning, we made desperate attempts to warm up, watching "The Green Mile" by a fire and then taking a nice nap. We had an authentic Swiss Cheese Fondue dinner...which consisted of a hell of a lot of cheese and a lot of bread. Afterwards, we went across the street from our hostel to this little bar/lounge place. We were the only people there and we were talking to the owner and she was from New York! She let us hang out on the nice leather couches and kick back and watch an American college football game. A little taste of home! I may or may not have fallen asleep mid game. We then returned to Balmers and, of course, went to bed early.

Sunday: We got up relatively early and headed out on a hike in the alps. What views we saw! It was so gorgeous and so nice to be in the mountains and be in trees that are changing colors, and be around green grass, and all of that nature. I do like being in Barcelona don't get me wrong, but I am certainly missing the outdoor opportunities that Colorado has to offer. I am discovering I am not the biggest city person. After a few hours, we got all packed up and had our three hour train ride back to Geneva. I am so glad we got to ride the train during the day light! It was SO gorgeous...through the Alps and alongside lakes and little Swiss towns. Very ideal. We had minor struggles in the airport (Rachel may or may not have booked her flight home for MONDAY instead of Sunday, thus leading to a struggle at the EasyJet counter). Other than that, we all made it home in one piece.

I have done quite a bit of traveling in the past month and each of my trips have been so different! All great in their own different ways. This weekend will be the first weekend I will be in Barcelona in four weeks! I was expecting a nice relaxing weekend...until I found out about my Mediterranean Oceanography field trips! Friday, we have a field trip to a small fishing village from 4:30-8:30, and then on Saturday..we have a field trip to the Ebro Delta from 8:30 am (yeah! 8:30!!) until 8:00 pm. Eleven and a half hours of wild times with the Oceanography class. Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to seeing more of Spain and to learn things via these trips, I just wish that a) I didn't have to be somewhere at 8:30 on a Saturday morning and b) I could nap on Friday afternoon. I'm just being honest here :)

I have heard a lot of "do you even go to class over there?" because I just write about all the fun adventures I go on, or times when Maria goes crazy. I do, in fact, go to class. I love my Spanish class--great professor, great kids in the class. I also love my Mediterranean Environment class because I think the professor is great and the subject is interesting. Mediterranean Oceanography has the potential to be good, but let's just say it hasn't reached its potential yet. Same goes for my Sustainability class. It's hard to be in a class where the students don't care...especially when it has to do with something that is my major (Environmental Policy). It's so different, coming from Colorado College where a topic like "sustainability" is on every students' mind, and they are relatively well informed..to come to a place like IES Barcelona, where these kids don't know very much at all and don't seem to really care. I am struggling with that quite a bit.

Life at the homestay is MUCH better than the last time I wrote. I think Maria was having a bad morning. By that afternoon, she was acting like nothing happened. I think she felt sorry for yelling, and for the following two dinners, she cooked Katie and I feasts. That was nice of her, I suppose. It took me a couple days to get over the fact that she kicked my bag across the room, but I have learned to treat her as the "crazy grandma." Come on, you know what I'm talking about. That Grandma who is slightly off the deep end, makes racially inappropriate comments in which everyone awkwardly tries to laugh off, doesn't always know what's going on a lot of the time, and sometimes freaks out and doesn't realize the impacts it has on other people. Just kind of say, "okay Grandma..." and move on with the day. It works out best for everyone.

That's all I have here to report. Hope everything is going well with you, stay healthy!

Please Mind the Gap

On Friday, I went to London!

I went to visit my good friend from Cincinnati, who was in the hospital after an accident. I'm not going to elaborate on the details, but my friend is doing incredibly well, given the circumstances. I am so proud of her for being so strong throughout this entire thing!

This gave me a first hand look at National Health Care..and I don't really know how I feel about it. In theory, absolutely wonderful. In practice...not so wonderful. My friend was in a room with four other people, all very colorful characters, to say the least. To spare the gruesome details, just imagine one woman with a bedpan....and quite vocal gastrointestinal problems, another woman with a tube coming out of her brain that was leaking into a cup that she was carrying around, another man with a short robe and no underpants telling everyone to "F*** Off!" and another man who seemed to have nothing wrong with him, he just refused to leave the hospital, and had anywhere from 3-7 family members visiting him at once. The food was subpar, the equipment they were using seemed a little dated, and it just wasn't a very healthy environment. We were able to be in the Private Insurance Sector for a day or two and that was a world of difference! Private room complete with nice bathroom, a balcony overlooking the city of London, food served on a silver platter, Wifi internet connection, a TV, fancy equipment, and more. I don't know enough about the existing health care system, or what Obama has planned, so I don't want to make any rash statements...but let's just say that Obama has his work cut out for him.

I did get to meet up with another good friend from Cincinnati, Scott Simon! Scott moved to England after graduating from college and he was able to meet me in London for an afternoon. We went on quite a tourist adventure. We started at Piccadilly Circus, then to Trafalgar Square, then to Westminster Abbey, then Parliament, then Big Ben, then to the London Eye (which was extremely overpriced), then to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (the original burned down, but still cool), then Tower bridge, a quick stop in a pub for some Cider, then to Buckingham Palace, and then a walk through a park back to the Underground Station, when I went back to the hospital!

I really really enjoyed London. The pace is a little more laid back than Barcelona. The streets are more open and there is more green everywhere. I do love practicing Spanish, but it was a relief to be in an English speaking country for a weekend. English accents are really great.

Right now, I am hiding from Maria. This morning was a verrryyyy bad morning in our apartment. Katie and I overslept, woke up at 8:15, and needed to leave for class at 8:30! So we were rushing around the apartment trying to get ready and the following things occured:

1. This is the morning of all mornings Maria makes us toast, puts out croissants, AND watermelon with lots of seeds. Very nice gesture! However, we did not have time to eat it all and Maria didn't understand why. She was all upset when we rushed through what breakfast we could eat and took the rest to go.

2. It was really windy, and the wind kept coming through the open window of our bedroom and slamming the door...very loud. Normally, we would close the door when we left the bedroom, but we were rushing around, running in and out of the room getting things and brushing teeth and all that stuff, so we kept forgetting to close the door. Maria kept yelling at us to close the door, but we (mainly I) just kept forgetting.

3. The final straw! After one big slam, Maria came storming into the room to shut the window. My bed/"side" of the room is in front of the window. I hadn't unpacked from London yet (because I was planning on doing it in the morning...but we overslept so obviously I didn't have time). Since I was in a rush, I had just put things on the ground and it was messy, but I thought she would understand. Well, nope. She barged into the room, and to get to the window she had to step around my bag...but instead, she started kicking my bag and yelling at me in Spanish. She kept saying "ME ENFADA MUCHO!" Which means "This angers me a lot!" And then going off about how I can't keep things on the ground and I was messy and lazy and all this sort of stuff. I was trying to explain to her it was just because I was late, but she wouldn't even listen and would say "NO!" and continue to yell at me. Quite intense. Not the way I wanted to start my day, that is for sure. Katie and I met up after class to return back to the apartment... Maria ignored us when we came in, and when Katie left she said "Adios Maria!" and Maria ignored her.

So, yeah. I need to wash my dishes, but Maria is in the kitchen and I really don't want to have to face her. I understand she's dramatic and she'll probably forget about what happened this morning by tonight and act like nothing is wrong, but still I am shaken up and upset about it! There is NO need for her to scream at me, or kick my belongings. I haven't been yelled at like that since middle school and it's ridiculous. When Maria is not being crazy, she is so great and awesome and nice and caring and everything else a host mom should be....but then she goes off like she did this morning and it's hard to handle. I hope it gets better.

Thursday I head to Interlaken, Switzerland to spend some time in the Alps! I am VERY excited. I am in need of some mountains in my life. I heard news back from Colorado College and there was a BEAR on campus! It was just hanging out in a tree on our quad. How wild is that?

That's all I have for you now. Blog reader, I hope that you are not getting yelled at because the wind is slamming your doors!

OKTOBERFEST

So, I survived! Here in a rundown of the weekend:

Friday: Woke up at 5 am to make my 8 am flight. Verryyy early. My travel partners in crime were: Alison, Marisa (alias: "downtown riz"), and Henry, all CC students. We sleepily boarded the airplane and two hours later, we arrived in Germany! We made our way to our very nice hotel, checked in, and after exploring downtown Munich, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus. For a vegetarian, German food is a nightmare. They offered three vegetarian options: salad, potatoes, or pretzels. Alison and Marisa split a boiled pig knuckle....sounds appetizing, right? I had a delicious potato and we all had our first steins of the trip. After our lunch of singing songs and making friends with the people sitting around us, we headed to the Residenz Museum and had our educational fill. The museum was absolutely gorgeous..beautiful architecture. After that, we wandered around Munich more, and stopped at an outdoor restaurant for some apple strudel. It was incredible! We then went back to the hotel, put on some warm clothes (finally, it was cold!) and headed back to the Hofrauhaus for more steins, music, dancing, and fraternizing. Henry made some very nice Dutch friends, and one gave me a fake flower. We picked up a refugee from our IES Barcelona program who had been separated from her friends, her iphone had been stolen, she had no money, and none of her credit cards/ATM cards worked because she had not told her bank she'd be in Germany. Her name was Annie and she was a trooper. We went back to the hotel and went to bed early to get ready for our big day on Saturday...

Preface to Saturday: At Oktoberfest, if you are not familiar, they have huge Beer Tents, which can hold thousands of people. These beer tents are packed with people, and are impossible to get into unless you have a reservation...or unless you go very very early. With that being said, read on..

Saturday: Alison woke us up at 6 am, so we could be at the Beer Tent by 7 am to stand in line with Oktoberfest's finest. Our beer tent was called "Schutzen Festzelt"...which very quickly became known as "Shoots and Ladders" because we could not pronounce German. The tent opened at 8:30, and we were served our first steins at 9 am, on the dot. I really can't explain to you the atmosphere in those tents..it's unlike anything I have ever seen before! There are people everywhere and they're all extremely happy, extremely drunk, and want to become your best friend. Our tent was not a tourist tent, so we really got to experience the authentic German Oktoberfest. We danced on the tables and sang songs all day with our new German friends. The popular songs were the German National Anthem (which was played probably every ten minutes, and you had to stand with your stein and cheers---"Prost"-- everyone around you), a German song about animals, "Hey Baby," John Denver's "Country Roads," and a few other hits. It was really quite the experience. I talked politics with a German man for almost two hours. His brother actually studied abroad in Cincinnati during high school! He went to Roger Bacon high school for his Junior year. My German friend, Lambertz, was telling me about the "most amazing chili" that his brother brought home with him...yes my friends, he was talking about Skyline. At about 4 in the afternoon, we decided it was time for a nap and headed back to the hotel and slept for a few hours. That night, we went out to dinner and then went back to sleep, for we were all so tired from the day's activities!

Sunday: Woke up around 9 am, went to go find breakfast at a coffee shop, and debated what we should do...should we go to more museums, or go back to Oktoberfest? Well...I bet you can guess what we did. We went back to the fairy tale land known as Oktoberfest for round two. We went to meet up with Henry's high school friend in the Hofbrauhaus tent. What a different experience than Shoots and Ladders! This was an entirely tourist tent and you could tell, but it was still a great time. More dancing, friend making, the works. In the afternoon we explored the carnival side of the fest. There were rides and roller-coasters, food stands, and vendors selling Oktoberfest garb. I don't understand how the Germans can drink all day and ride a flippy-twisty-spinny ride..but they manage, somehow. My friends went back to "Shoots and Ladders," but I was a little beer-tented-out, so I split off from the gang and walked around Munich by myself. It's such a nice place! We all met up, got on the train to the airport, and then flew back to Barcelona. We didn't get in until midnight and I am one tired girl. I picked up a very nice head cold which I am dealing with now. Thanks, Germany! It was so nice to come back to my homestay. Maria was SO happy to have me back, and (after charging me one Euro for a packet of tissues) she made me tea and served me delicious food that was not a pretzel or a potato.

Germany really made me more confident in my Spanish speaking abilities. German was so different than anything I had ever heard before. Street names were at least 6 syllables long! It all sounded like throaty gibberish and it was a little overwhelming at times. I thought everyone was angry. The Germans are great people though, at least the ones that we met. Very friendly, outgoing, and patient. They want to practice their English, so they're more than happy to talk to you. They offer a lot of hospitality, which is quite different than many of the Spaniards I've encountered here in Barcelona. Even though it was very clear I was a tourist, I didn't feel like I was imposing on anyone..which is how I feel all the time here in Barce. Anyways, back to my main point of this paragraph, although at times I feel like I am lost when I speak Spanish, I realized that I actually known a decent amount and can get around well. I am excited to continue my studies and work hard to learn this language.

Enjoy the videos I posted. I think that's the only way you can really get the grasp of the tents. Sorry if they're a little shaky, it's hard to videotape while dancing on a table!

That's all I got. It is time for me to get to bed and sleep off this cold. This is my first five day week of school since arriving to Barcelona. It's going to be rough!

On a more serious note, this weekend I head to London to visit a good friend who suffered from a terrible fall off a balcony and is in the hospital with pretty serious injuries. Please keep this friend in your thoughts and prayers.

Hope all is well with you, blog reader.

Bier!

Tomorrow, I head to Munich for Oktoberfest!!!

Wish me luck..

I'll report back Sunday night, with stories and pictures.