A Few of my Favorite Things (finally...)

WELL... unfortunately I have been away from keeping up the blog posts due to the fact that when I returned from my Western European International Institutions Trip my computer crashed and I was unable to drop it off at the apple store until after the following weekend trip and then couldn't pick it up until right before this last weekend's trip-thus here I am sitting with my bad memory trying to recall what exactly I've been up to.

Since it was a while ago I'll try to recall the most important highlights-Thursday after the Western Trip we visited the US mission to the Geneva UN-We were able to receive a presentation from the US ambassador to the UN (I was sitting right next to her) That was pretty cool-the presentation about world economics on the other hand was a little less exciting. That presentation went longer than expected though so class was cancelled for the afternoon allowing us to get a move on toward our weekend plans.

Our first stop for our last 4 day weekend was supposed to be Copenhagen. This meant a night train to Hamburg. Our "beds" were chairs that looked like they came off of some sort of space ship and thus we called them "pod seats," but they reclined and came with blankets so they were adequate, I slept far better than I anticipated aside from when the conductor came to check our tickets at 12:50 am (pain in my @$$). Then we woke up around the time our train was supposed to arrive in Hamburg but we were stopped due to some technical problem explained to us in our native German-meaning we have no idea why but we were delayed by about 30 minutes. So we arrived in Hamburg after our connecting train to Copenhagen had already departed. This meant we got a couple hours to unexpectedly explore the city of Hamburg (SURPRISE!). We got a quick breakfast (pretzel croissant and a coffee-but this was a REAL coffee, not those sissy espresso "coffees" from France and Italy-this was a giant and that's European giant-American normal sized cup of coffee). Then we walked through the city hall and on to this tower. This tower was actually formerly a church but it was completely bombed in 1943 (guess why) so we visited a little WWII museum and then went up the tower. Hamburg is NOT one of the prettiest cities in Europe, I assume mostly due to the fact that it was almost completely bombed during 1943. Then we slowly walked back toward the train station grabbing a quick cup of our beloved Starbucks and made our connection to Copenhagen. The train to Copenhagen was going fairly smoothly, we had lovely seats in the "children's car" which meant the floor was a carpet with roads on it to play with cars, and other kinds of toys and games. Then the train stopped something was said in German and all the lights turned off-we were moderately worried and asked the conductor and he told us that we needed to leave our stuff and get of the train as it wasn't safe. Turns out it wasn't safe because the train was now in fact on a boat. Our train was on a GIANT ferry complete with restaurants and duty free shopping. The ferry lasted about 20 minutes or so (during which I was singing "I'm on a Boat" the WHOLE time) and then we got back on the train for the last leg to Copenhagen.

When we got to Copenhagen, Melissa's friend Jo met us at the train station. And told us how to get to our hostel and then we exchanged information to meet up later. Our hostel was a little bit out of the way but very nice. After we showered and dropped our stuff off we went back into the city center for dinner. We ate at a Mediterranean Buffet and it was AMAZING, falafel, hummus, all kinds of salad and pita it was amazing. Then we went to meet Jo at a bar called the Laughing Pig-where they of course made us check our coats (I got out of it as I was wearing my sleeveless jacket aka vest) We hung out at the bar for a while but we were all pretty tired so we called it an early night and went back to the hostel.

The next day we woke up and went to get breakfast at some little cafe type place-yogurt and coffee. The weather was really rainy so we took the bus to the Danish Resistance Museum which was FO FREEEEEEE and really cool. Then we walked over to see the famous statue of "The Little Mermaid" and took the train back into the city center. We were hungry so we got some lunch-it might have been at Riz Raz again-still just as good if not better. Then we sauntered slowly back to the train station to catch our train to Stockholm.

We got to Stockholm and walked to our hostel, this was the first time we had to share a room but it was fine. The hostel was pretty clean. Then we went to walk around a little bit. We looked for a bar but there weren't very many good options-they were all to crowded or expensive so we got a Kebab and called it a night. The next morning we took the TBahna (since we heard it was an artistic attraction) to Old Town where we met up with another Colgate Student on the Stockholm program while we got "brunch"-coffee some sort of sandwich or salad and an AMAZING cinnamon bun. Then we went to what we call the "Ship" museum but it's really called the Vasa or something. This was really amazing, it was a ship from the 1600s that had sunk and then rediscovered sometime in the 60's brought back up and fully preserved so you can see the whole ship. After spending quite a bit of time there we walked back (in the snow) to some cafeteria place that was highly recommended, unfortunately it was closed. So we went to look at a highly recommended bakery-also closed. At that point we just found a cafe and got some lunch and sat for a while since the weather was so bad and it was free and then all the museums closed. We slowly walked (From lunch) to where we were getting dinner, by way of the palace. The place we got dinner (with the other Colgate student) was pretty cool, you got a card that looked like a hotel key and then went to these sort of counter booth thing where you swiped your card and ordered and then at the end gave your card to the cashier and paid. Then we headed back to the hostel because we had an early morning the next day.

We woke up about 3:00 am, to catch our bus to the airport which was an hour away, we had bought what we thought were our bus tickets the night before, but we got there and realized we had bought them for the wrong line-luckily the bus driver was really nice about it and let us use them anyway. After our hour bus ride to the airport we went to check the 1 bag we had been using for all 5 us. Unfortunately it was overweight so we had to figure out how to take a bunch of stuff out of it. Our final solution was that everybody really layered up on the clothes-I literally had on everything I had brought with me-jeans, sweats, tee shirt, 3 sweaters, vest, and raincoat, plus a shirt in my pocket and a hat. We eventually got our bag underweight and with our pockets full we went through security-but we made it with no extra charges. We landed in Brussels and had to take a bus to the train station and then an hour train to actually get into Brussels. We arrived in Brussels and had about half an hour before our train to Paris. We were a little bit late getting into Paris and had to change train stations so we went running through the train station to try and make the train we wanted. Unfortunately we didn't make it and to add salt to injury there weren't anymore eurail pass seats on the train so we had to buy full price TGV tickets to Geneva and wait about 2 hours for our train. Then we got on the train and somebody was sitting in my seat. I politely asked her to move (in french) because my friends were sitting close to that seat but she said no and the man across from her said when she was done eating-so I slid in away from my companions. When she got up to return to her seat (which was very close) the man that had been sitting across from her took her seat (the one next to me) and pulled out some food-I assumed now he wanted to eat and I would have to wait longer. Then when the man came to check tickets another passenger told the conductor I was trying to sit in MY seat next to my friends so then the Conductor and this man got into a fight-in which I tried to speak and neither party would let me say anything, but it was eventually decided (without any word from me) that I would sit in the seat that the man had been originally sitting in. It was all very odd. But we finally made it back to Geneva. Safe and sound.

That night I had to prepare for a presentation the following day for which I needed a powerpoint (but my computer was still broken) fortunately Grace needed somebody to take her computer away so she could focus on her reading and I was able to get my presentation done. Wednesday our professor realized how much work and travel we actually all do and lessened our assignments so Matt got up and gave her a big hug and she went a spiel about how "overly friendly" Americans were compared to Europeans and how none of her students at University of Geneva would do anything like that. Thursday we had a quiz in Shain's class and then Grace, Melissa and I set out for our weekend in Salzburg (Sound of Music Land)

When we were looking at trains to Salzburg we wanted to take a night train, but because it's so "close" the night trains got in at 4:20 am we tried to find other options as the hours from 4-8 are generally pretty slow for tourism. We found a night train to Munich which we thought was PERFECT, and it got into Salzburg around 8 am. When we investigated further we realized the train actually went through Salzburg-but we figured what the hell. So we arrived in Salzburg-late almost missing our connection to Munich-but we made it and got some extra sleep, plus for a special bonus there's a Starbucks in the Munich train station , so really what we did was commute an hour and a half (each way) to Starbucks. We got back to Salzburg about 8:30 am or so and went to drop our stuff off at our hostel which was pretty nice basically a hotel with shared bathrooms and a lot of beds in very small rooms. Then we went out to make our pilgrimage to all the Sound of Music sights. We started in Mirabel Gardens where much of the doe a dear song was preformed-when they run through the tunnel and use the steps for notes and dance around the fountain. Then we got some lunch-mediocre but we passed through University Platz (where Gretl drops the tomato) and then we walked for a long, long, long time to see the 16 going on 17 gazebo where we sat and stared as 3 groups came and went, we were AMAZED. As we walked back toward the hostel we walked down Hellbrun Allee where Maria walks on her way to the house for the first time and we actually passed the front facade of the house in the movie. Then we got back to the hostel where we waited for everyone else to arrive. However our co-travelers arrived 2 less than we anticipated. It turned out 1 had overslept and one who had had an interview missed her train as she had gotten on put all of her stuff down and realized she needed a spoon-so leaving all of her stuff (including passport and railpass and wallet) to get a spoon and only returned after the train was pulling away. So we checked in and got ready for dinner. We ended up at this restaurant and had a relaxing dinner-pork cutlet and "bread dumplings" with the regional chocolate cake for dessert. Then we went back to the Hostel to watch the Sound of Music, but the TV was broken so we watched it on Zunaira's computer until people got too loud for us to hear. So we went to bed.

The next morning Grace, Melissa and I set out to see the back of the house where they drink "pink lemonade" and the children and Maria fall of the boat into the water. It was beautiful. Then we walked to see if we could see the amphitheater they preform in at the end of the movie-we could but it was a tour that didn't depart until 2. So we walked around, somebody gave us an amazing free chocolate bar, we saw the fountain from "I have Confidence" and got some lunch-I had some sort of dessert dumpling it was really funny looking. Then went on our tour. The tour was all of the Salzburg stages so we also got to go behind the set of Don Giovanni which was really really cool. As was of course, the Sound of Music stage. There's also a fortress in Salzburg that is in a lot of the background shots during the movie so we went to go tour that, inside were a couple museums (including a creepy marionette museum), then headed back to the hostel to meet up for dinner. We got a recommendation for what we were told was a beer hall but it was much closer to a restaurant that served beer-but it was good. I got dumplings that were very similar to pot stickers followed by this Salzburg dessert that was a GIANT GIANT thing-3 of us split it and couldn't even finish it but it was really good-kind of eggy. So dinner was pretty good except for the really drunk man that kept coming up to us-3 times he came up and we told him to go away every time. Eventually the waitress pulled him away. Then we went back to finish the second half of the movie and go to bed.

We woke up the next morning and visited Nonnberg Abbey where the children try to visit Maria and the Nazis pull up to at the end and then went to catch our train back. Our train back to Geneva was thankfully uneventful and we arrived safe and sound!

Well hopefully I remembered as much as I could...

Low Lights: not having a computer, wearing all of my clothes onto a flight, seat stealing french men

High Lights: Riz Raz, Accidentally seeing Hamburg, Pilgrimage to the Sound of Music

How the West was Conquered

Well fortunately I didn't have to lug my semi broken computer all over western Europe this past week, unfortunately I now have to remember over a weeks worth of corky adventures and semi boring lectures.

We left the Cite early Sunday morning to go to Strausberg, and while this city sort of straddles the Franco-German border (and if you ask Professor Shain he says they have their own language) but really they are a bit more French than German-especially in language (don't tell the Germans I said that). We arrived Sunday afternoon and checked into our hotel, no I did not forget the middle "s" it's hotels all week! Then we went out to explore Strausberg a little bit. We saw a church (SURPRISE!) with an astronomical clock of some sort. It was freezing cold outside so we went inside for a hot drink. For dinner we went to le petit France and I tried Escargot (yeah adventurous eating!!)! It was actually pretty good. Then we went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The next day we had to wake up early (but it was slightly better due to the "free" breakfast of bread, cereal, chocolate cereal, and coffee. I don't think the french got the memo about breakfast being the most important meal of the day... Then we took off to visit the European Court of Human Rights where we had the pleasure of watching an introductory video and having a question and answer session with one of the staff. After that we had a short lunch break (fast food pasta so gourmet) then went to visit the Council of Europe-not to be at all confused with the European Council part of the European Union this is in fact a separate entity. There we had a short lecture and question and answer period. Immediately following we had a visit to the European Parliament. Here our lecture was given by a Colgate Grad (2002) Geneva Study Group Veteran and Lithuanian citizen. He was quite entertaining as he understood exactly (more or less) we were all coming from. About half way through his presentation an older gentleman poked his head in. He was then introduced as the Vice President of the European Parliament. This man was a boss (for those of you not hip to the lingo this means very super cool). Apparently he was recently exiled from his party in Great Britain (stick it to the MAN!!). After our exciting guest appearance was over we left to pick up our bags from the hotel and grab a quick dinner before getting on the train. A couple of us decided to get Kebabs. And while the Kebab man was incredibly nice he first wrote down all of our orders, then slowly prepared all of our buns, then shaved the meat, then one at a time re asked what we all got on our kebab. However as this all transpired the time of our train's departure got closer resulting in us leaving the last Kebab (more Melissa's fallen soldier...) and sprinted-bags in tow-to the train station with time to spare. Arriving in Luxembourg a couple hours later. A couple of us decided to try to "experience Luxembourg nightlife" as suggested by Professor Shain on our itinerary but apparently on Mondays everything is closed (although Shain informed us the next morning all the strip joints were open... questionable). We ended up finding a bar called Urban and had a very relaxed couple of beers in a very crowded bar before heading back.

The breakfast in Luxembourg was great. Oatmeal, eggs, fruit, yogurt all kinds of wonderful breakfast spreads. We headed straight over to the European Court of Justice. Here we got the opportunity to witness part of a hearing about Kurdish refugees in Germany Interesting? NO. Lots of detailed legal mumbo jumbo. Then we got a lecture from one of the lawyers. Thankfully the visit eventually ended and we were able to grab a quick lunch before our freezing cold walking tour of Luxembourg. This involved us walking around the small city of Luxembourg with a fairly nutty tour guide. He was an old man against nuclear plants, and very pro Canada not to mention the United States. He ended the tour with his own rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. After the incredibly cold tour was over we went to collect our bags and catch a train to Den Haag and got some sleep.

The next morning we visited the International Criminal Court for a couple brief presentations and we watched part of the Thomas Lumbago (or a name similar to that) trial. This was far more interesting than the ECJ. There was a witness testifying who basically had drunk dialed an "emergency" line (although their words were more elaborate than mine were.) Than we visited the Special Court for Sierra Leone where we saw Charles Taylor-while this is a separate court it really just meant we changed court rooms. After another brief presentation Melissa and I got lunch at a small very very cute cafe where the waitress was so nice. She sat down with us and explained all the dutch. After lunch we went to visit the International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace. The building was a bit more interesting than the actual presentation on the ICJ. After the ICJ the whole group took a train into Amsterdam for the night where we got Indonesian food and went to a couple of bars.

After we all safely made it back to Den Haag we had one more appointment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This involved another fairly interesting court room viewing session. And afterward we got our bags and headed for the train station... again. This time we made our way to Brussels. We checked into the hotel and went to get some dinner. We went to a place that somebody on the groups friend's friend suggested (I probably wont trust them again...) but I was able to get mussels (IN BRUSSELS) and then we called it an early night in order to conserve our energy.

The next day in Brussels we visited NATO one of the better visits we had. Our presentations were by a couple different people in NATO. Afterwards we had a meeting at the European Commission with a very funny Sicilian and a very dry lawyer. We went down the street in Belgium where they are very aggressive about trying to get people into their restaurants. One was so aggressive he linked arms with me proposed then kissed me on the neck. Needless to say we didn't eat there. That night a bunch of us went out to a couple of bars that I had visited the last time I was in Belgium including Celtica (1-2 euro beers) and Delirium (over 2000 kinds of beers) and Delirium was quite the find.

The next morning we had free so we went to visit Mannekin Pis and the Comic Book Museum and the little peeing girl, of course stopping for waffles and french fries along the way. Then we hopped on our train to Paris. We checked into our hotel and went to a creperie in the Latin Quarter before catching up on some sleep from Brussels.

We got to do a bike tour the next day of Paris which despite the freezing cold weather was really cool, even though I managed to embarrassingly fist pump USA at one point. Afterward we strolled down the Champs Elysees and then saw Notre Dame. Then we headed toward dinner which was a fondue restaurant near Montmarte and Sacre Couer. This restaurant had communal tables-which if you were sitting on the wall side you had to climb over the tables. Additionally the wine was served in baby bottles and there weren't any real menus you just got what they brought out and the choice of cheese or meat fondue. We of course picked cheese. After dinner we headed to the Eiffel Tower. Climbing the Eiffel was one of the most breathtaking experiences of the trip so far. Then we called it a night.

The next morning we went to visit the OECD (or some similar acronym)-this was a fairly dry presentation based on economics. Afterward I got to meet up with Kristen for lunch. We were near the eiffel tower (But far enough away) and were pointed toward this restaurant by some random coffee house man, and the recommendation turned out to be really good. Then I had another group trip to UNESCO, mostly an explanation of the artworks in the building. Following this fairly uninformative visit we gathered our things and got on the train on the way back to Geneva.

The trip was a lot of fun. It was nice to be with the whole group. And I learned some very important things:

1. I don't want to be a lawyer
2. European Organizations are very confusing
3. Be careful around 2 e beers...

My Week in Geneva (More or Less...)

Monday-I started off my day and my week grocery shopping, though even before that I woke up and went for a run (whoop) I ran to an area of Geneva called Carouge. I'd heard about this section of the city from Melissa who has literally fallen in love with it. It is sort of a more quaint area with cafes and used book stores, and area where it would be fun to just sort of wander. After I returned from the grocery store I had some lunch and finished reading for class. We had a regular class with professor Shain where he informed us of a paper that we had due at the end of the week. After class I began my reading for Professor Krause and got the unfortunate news that since Melissa just found out she had an interview the next day-and Grace had to work on her presentation for Wednesday neither would be free for the original plan of traveling to Gruyeres the next day. Being on gchat though I was inspired to take a trip to Dijon to visit Jane-the freedom of the day stemmed from the fact that our normal Tuesday class had been moved to Wednesday morning this week.

I woke up early enough to catch a train to Dijon that got me there a little before noon. I made my way to the arc de triumph (Dijon style) and read while I waited for Jane. After her class got out in French promptness she met me and we went to flunch for lunch where she was meeting some people to plan her spring break. Flunch-for you 'gaters out there-is basically a french version of Frank Dining Hall but cheaper. We were there for about an hour as Jane planned her upcoming trip to Spain and the Canary Islands (JEALOUS) Afterward she took me on a little walking tour of the city and then we sought out the hostel she was going to be staying in the next week. We walked up and down the street it was supposed to be on for quite a while before we realized that it had been exactly where we thought it was, the sign was just quite small. Then we made a quick stop by her homestay and I got to see where she was living for the semester! Her house was very different from my Montpilley one (apparently designed by a famous architect) but located in the same kind of area slightly outside the centre ville. Dijon over all reminded me a lot of Montpellier just with a slightly less diverse population. But I really liked the city and catching up with Jane as really great! I got back on the train, along with some police and a drug sniffing dog, and made my way back to Geneva. I spent the rest of the night finishing my mountains of reading for my two classes the next day.

Wednesday left most of us feeling very brain dead. We woke up and made our commute to Small Arms Unit for class with professor Krause, then took the commute back to the cite where we had time for a quick lunch and then we had to head upstairs to class with Professor Kott. Professor Kott seemed unimpressed with our ability to remember the readings and has thus threatened us with a quiz next class... we'll see how that goes. After class we all tried to start reading for professor Shain's class teh following day but after five hours of discussing international politics it was fairly impossible so most of Wednesday night was spent procrastinating.

Thursday I woke up at breakfast and went for a run, but on my run it started to snow a little bit. It feel a little odd to be complaining about a few flakes when Colgate recently got blitzed by a massive snow storm (trust me Campus Distributions sent me ALL the emails), but screw it, I was cold on my run! Afterward I did some more reading for Professor Shain's class (like literally until class started) and then went to class where we began by discussing our upcoming Western Trip. When the prospect of an evening in Amsterdam came up, I proceeded to raise my hand to ask if we would have time to go to any of the museums in Amsterdam-this concept was quite a surprise to Professor Shain who eventually overcame his shock and was able to tell me, no we would not in fact have time to see any of the museums in Amsterdam (and I wanted to see Anne Frank!) That evening a couple of us played Kings in the common room of the cite while surrounded by a couple other gatherings of young people one seemingly being a pajama party.

Friday, Melissa, Grace, Elise, Kate and I woke up and got on a train to Gruyeres. It involved taking this little dinky two car train up the side of an Alp but it was very pretty. We got to Gruyeres and had a quick small lunch of soup and coffee (french onion with gruyeres cheese-though for being the land of Gruyeres cheese they skimped a lot). Then we went to the Cheese factory museum (kind of similar to the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Oregon) On our way in we got samples of 6, 8 and 10 month aged cheese (I say age because it sounds a lot more appetizing than 10 month old cheese), the tour consisted of an audioguide with Cherry the Cow as your guide. Yes. Cherry the cow (she was born during the cherry season you know) and you get to look down into the giant vats where they make the cheese. Then we made our way up the steep hill to the town of Gruyeres. We went up to the Chateau de Gruyeres where we first viewed the Audiovisual Spectacle, this narrator was a man who was "the spirit of history" apparently the spirit of history is really an old man sort of dressed up in a court jester suit. Then we toured the castle which was really cool. It was furnished like it would have been back in it's prime. When we got toward the top we looked out the windows to see many, many Swiss soldiers-a clear sign of a neutral country. After the castle we went to, I believe, every souvenir shop in the town of Gruyeres. I got a teeshirt that looks like the swiss flag. Then we hung out in the church (it was a little early for dinner and there weren't any cafes or anything around) Then we went to our fondue dinner. We had fondue with potatoes, bread, and little cocktail pickles and onions. It was SO good. After dinner I ordered a coffee which came with cream so thick it was almost solid, then we got dessert, raspberries with the same super thick cream and a mirangue (a Gruyeres specialty) We sat at dinner for about 3 hours and then caught the train home very dairy heavy.

Saturday was paper day. Having worked on my paper very little during the week I had a bit to do so I woke up and worked and worked and worked. Then when I was almost done I took a break to watch The Office, however while watching my computer decided to freak out at me. I spent the rest of the night until dinner trying to fix it. It still wasn't finished when I ate dinner so after dinner I tried to skype home but my computer was still being very broken. Luckily since then it's been working QUICK KNOCK WOOD IF YOU'RE READING THIS!!!

This coming week is our western trip. We are going to Strausberg, Luxembourg, Den Haag, Brussels and Paris. Strausberg and Luxembourg will be new for me! We will also be traveling as a whole group so that should be interesting... but exciting!

What I'm Worried About: My poor computer!!

What I Miss: Having my entire wardrobe-especially my shoes

What I'm Happy About: That Mom had a really Good Vacation in Mexico and Dad had a good (busy) week at work!

Full of Bologna

We woke up early Friday morning to catch our Train to Milan (4:30 am to be exact), we got ready to go and caught the 5:09 am bus to the train station for our 5:45 am train (yes all of these times were in the morning). We got on the train without any problems-thinking we were going to get in around 11:30. We soon discovered we really only had until 9:30 but we managed to sleep uncomfortably most of the way.

We got into the Milan and went to put our luggage in storage lockers but as it is Milan it was actually this valet type service-a.k.a. an overpriced pain in my ass. But we checked our bags and went down to try and figure out the metro system. While carefully studying the map of the metro system we were interrupted by some kind of protest involving people with flags (of course in Italian and thus all greek to us) blowing very loudly on whistles in the very enclosed metro underground area. After they made their way out of the station and our ears stopped ringing we figured out our line. When we went to climb the stairs out to the piazza it turned out each step was actually a piano key so as you walked up it played music. I now know the staircase I want in my dream home.

First things first, after very little sleep we sought out some coffee-and found very good cappuccino. Then we went to climb the duomo. The inside of the church was giant-and there was this audio visual chapel underneath which I still don't really understand. But we climbed to the top and it was really cool because we basically got to walk along the rooftop (I even walked the ridgepole grandma!) After climbing back down we walked down the famous shopping street with Louis Vuitton and Prada. We made the hike to see the Last Supper Painting, we got all the way there only to find out it was sold out for the day-apparently only so many people can go in at a time in order to preserve the painting... I say questionable they don't have that standard for the Mona Lisa. So we walked to the old fortress which was really large and old looking and thus pretty dern cool. Then we went off in search of risotto the alleged specialty of Milan, we found some that was pretty good, though I haven't had a lot of risotto so I don't have a great base for comparison. Then went to the train station to catch our train to Bologna.

We got on our train and arrived in Bologna without problems. On google maps it looked like another Bologna train station was closer to our hotel so we got on a train to the other station, only one stop away. When the train pulled in Grace went to open the door and it only opened half way before shutting again and keeping us on the train. We were thus forced to ride it to the next stop where we got off. The train going the other direction didn't come for half an hour so after looking up the hotel on my iPhone we realized the walk was only half an hour so we started walking the 4.8 km to the hotel. Fortunately we stopped for gilatto, Unfortunately, when we got to the address of what we thought was the hotel it wasn't. After several minutes of confusion we called the hotel and realized we were in fact still 7-8 km away from the hotel. Fortunately we were able to catch the very last bus which was still about a 25 minute ride. We made it to the hotel eventually, and Grace's head over heels stumble through the front door alerted them to our presence. We checked into the "4 star hotel" and then as it was already about 9:30 decided to just have dinner in the hotel restaurant and call it a night. Though we did all get the Bolognese pasta dish.

We slept in the next morning and then caught the bus into the city. The first stop was the two towers, one of which was leaning and one of which we climbed. These were the hardest steps to go down. After our climb up and down we looked for somewhere to have lunch. We got some amazing pizza and it was so nice we ate outside. Then we checked out this fountain that was controversial because (allegedly) when the sun shines in just the right way his hand makes it looks like he has a giant erection-but I couldn't see it. Then we visited a church that was originally supposed to be larger than St. Peter's though the Pope went ahead and stopped that. We grabbed some gilatto afterward, and visited another church-this one was interesting because it had plants inside. Then we headed toward the medieval museum but on the way we saw a crowd watching something, it turned out to be a cracked out woman probably about 55 doing what appeared to be some sort of dance in a purple velvet leotard with an equally old man behind her with a microphone saying italian phrases every once in a while-that was an experience. We got to the Medieval museum which was free, yet they were still very adamant about frequently checking our tickets-again useless bureaucracy at its finest. Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

We had dinner at a fairly classy restaurant where the portions left something to be desired. But the food was good. We hit up this Irish bar and had a beer while watching the Olympics. After that we were all pretty tired so we caught a cab-as the busses stopped running-and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and took the bus to the train station where we just caught the train. We had a bit of a layover in Milan, and despite the high end fashion industry the food selection at the train station was pretty much limited to McDonalds. Then about 20 minutes outside of Geneva the train stopped, we don't really now why but it didn't start again until we were about 40 minutes late.

All in all it was a good weekend, fairly relaxing, time to sleep. I liked Bologna a lot because it was more Italian in flavor than the other more touristy cities we visited in Italy.

Best part of Italy: hands down the food

Best part of Germany: the beer

Best part of France: understanding at least SOME of the language

Best part of Geneva: TBD