Bonjour!
I'm sorry its taken me so long to do an update. I've been really busy with orientation and school and whatnot. Anyway, so last week was my first week of school. I have a lot of reading, but nothing too overwhelming. I am taking French 152, History 304, Humanities 212, and Communication 180.
Two weekends ago I went to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. It's in the German speaking part of Switzerland so that was very different considering I don't know any German (aside from "danke" and "nine") It was a really neat city. Its only about an hour outside Lausanne, so it was perfect for a day trip. Nick, Kristina, and I tried to find all of the famous fountains in Bern (11), but missed one! They are all very pretty...except for one which depicts an ogre eating small children (the Swiss like to try and keep their children in line). We also saw the famous bears for which Bern is also famous. The oldest bear, Pedro, is the cities mascot and they had just finished his new habitat this past year and added another family of bears as well. We also saw Albert Einstein's apartment, the one in which he discovered the Theory of Relativity. The apartment is about the size of a kitchen. We basically walking in and turned around and left.
The next day we went to Montreux which is only about 20 minutes from Lausanne on the opposite end of Lake Geneva. Montreux is apparently a very historical site for music buffs. The song "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, was written in Montreux and Freddy Mercury of the band Queen, died there in 1991. This part of Switzerland is called the Swiss Riviera, and for good reason, its gorgeous! We walked along the boardwalk all the way to Chateau Chemin, the castle that sits on Lake Geneva. It's of huge historical importance to this region because it was the go between for the French to get to Italy. It is also where Lord Byron was held captive.
This past weekend, Dani, Nick, Ben, Scott, Lauren, and I all went to Munich for Oktoberfest. We left Lausanne at 6:20 in the morning and got to Augsburg at 3 to check into our hostel and get ready to leave. It was a sunny warm day, so we all were wearing shorts and t-shirts and Iwas wearing sandals. We got to Munich around 6. There is absolutely no way to describe what Oktoberfest is like. Its like a giant (and I mean giant) fair with tons and tons of rides and people. It was extremely overwhelming. There are about 10 beer tents and they are huge as well so we figured we would have no problem getting in, getting a beer (they serve 1 liter which equals about 5 cans of beer) and having the quint essential Oktoberfest experience. We started to wait in line at a tent, when all of a sudden it started to pour! We were soaking wet and couldn't find cover anywhere. We started to sprint back to the train station and decided we would come back the next day on our way out. We were prepared the second day for rain and cold (it was about 55 outside) and headed to Oktoberfest around 1. We figured that we would for sure get into a tent because not only were we coming earlier, but it wasn't raining so more people would be outside. Nope, we were wrong. We gave up on trying to get into a tent and just walked around for about an hour. So our Oktoberfest turned into Oktoberfail. I would probably never go back. It was pretty gross on the grounds and just way over crowded. So our itinerary back to Lausanne was pretty simple. We were to leave Munich at 4:43 for Goppinggen, take the 7:02 train to Basel, then be back in Lausanne by 10:45. Easy right? We get off at Goppinggen and start looking for our train (ps we were running because all german trains are 5 minutes late) and we could not find the platform or the train route at all. I ended up asking some ladies in german where that train was and they said it doesn't exist. They were right. So, really confused about our schedule, we decided to take a train to a larger city to find a route. We left for Stuttgart, a larger city at about 7:30. When we got there at 8, I went to the info booth to find a route to Lausanne and this is what they gave us. Stuttgart-Karlsrhue, Karlsrhue-Basel, Basel-Olten, Olten-Bern, walk, bus to Montreux, sit in Montreux for 2 hours, train to Lausanne at 6 in the morning. At this point, we all wanted to cry. So we get to Bern at 1 in the morning on Sunday. We cannot find the bus station anywhere! We walked around for an hour trying to find our bus that leaves at 1:50. No luck, so we ended up sitting in Bern from 2 AM-5AM waiting for a train to go to Lausanne. We finally got back to La Croisee at 6:30 on Sunday morning. Needless to say, none of us want to go back to Germany ever again. Anyway, so planning on going to Florence this weekend. Hopefully that trip works out a little bit better than this one did...It was a fun experience and a lifelong memory for sure.
