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!