Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Weekend in Switzerland


Interlaken was the best weekend of my life!! Keep in mind this is my third weekend in Europe. But Still!!  I spent the first day paragliding and the second day snowboarding.  Paragliding was completely on a whim. Basically we weren’t going to do anything the first day but walk around and go ice skaing. But you know me, I can’t just sit around and waste my day. So I convinced everyone I was with to go paragliding. It was so much fun!!!
Basically we drove a car up the mountain and then put on snow pants and started our walk to the cliff (it wasn’t really a cliff it was more of a drop off). I was attached to someone of course and when we were all hooked up we just started running and then before I knew it I was flying over Switzerland. It was unbelievable. I could see everything!
When it was time to land the man I was attached to asked me if I liked roller coasters. Of course I said yes. So he started doing turns in the air and I was having a blast!
That night we went to a fondue dinner. This included three courses. The first course was cheese fondue. We had a basket of bread and then they put hot cheese in a pan on our table. We dipped the bread in the cheese and ate it. That was my favorite part of the meal.
The second course was hot oil. We were given a pan of hot oil and a side of uncooked meat. The meat included steak, chicken and pork. We would put the meat on the skewer and put the skewer in the hot oil pot and let the meat cook. Meanwhile, while these meats were cooking, we were being served white rice and French fries.
The third course was dessert. We were served chocolate fondue, which was SURPRISINGLY not up to par if you ask me. But it was still part of the experience.
I then walked back to the hostel and I was way too tired to stay up so I went to bed really early especially because I was waking up early to go snowboarding.
When I woke up IT WAS TIME TO SNOWBOARD. This was actually the best day of my life. We made our way to the mountain and hopped on the gondola to go to the top. When I walked out of the gondola there are not even words to describe the view but here are a few to try amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, unbelievable. It actually reminded me of Copper Mountain in Colorado a little bit.
The trails were mostly very wide and not icy which was such a nice change from those Connecticut mountains (hills). We were actually skiing above the clouds. I could look down and just see clouds pass me by. 
We snowboarded the entire day with a maximum of a half hour lunch break. We had to leave the deck we were sitting on because we weren’t buying anything from the restaurant inside. I survived on rice cakes, peanut butter (4 euros), and granola that weekend. I tried spending as little money as possible!  

Day One in Firenze


 I just found my first post I ever wrote when I was abroad. I couldn't help but laugh at vividly remembering these episodes of events.

            After one..two…three…? days of traveling. I finally arrived in Florence, Italy. So excited to finally be there, I was anxiously awaiting my luggage so I could go of the baggage claim and get my room assignment. After waiting for about a half hour for my luggage, and about five minutes after the luggage stopped coming out, I was informed that my luggage never even made it on the plane. COOOOOL!!

            Now this is a whole long story, but BASICALLY to sum it up… they made practically all the UConn students check their carry on bags, yes carry on bags with no name tags on them because they assured us that they would be on the plane so we thought nothing of it. The stewardess claimed she made several announcements to tell us this, yet it was all in german. No, sorry WE DO NOT SPEAK GERMAN!!!! But anyways, yes, my carry on luggage was still in Frankfurt, Germany while I was in Florence, Italy. SO CONVENIENT.
            On a positive and happy note J I LOVE MY APARTMENT!!! It is huge, humungous, enormous, too much to describe. The ceilings are tall which makes the room seem more spacious.
            My room is gorgeous. There are red sheets, and red flowy curtains that cover the window that provides a beautiful view. I LOVE IT.  It is a BIT chilly, so I will be sleeping in my sweatpants, underarmor and sweatshirts. I will just wrap myself up like a cocoon.
            I obviously haven’t fully explored the city because it is my first day, but from what I have seen, I love it! It is absolutely breathtaking.  We live near the Arno River. It so far has been my favorite sight of the day!
            I am so excited to go to sleep tonight and finally sleep after 48 hours STRAIGHT of being awake. I have to wake up at 8 am to be ready for my full day of orientation at school.

CIAOOOOOOOOOO !  

Shit Girls Abroad Say - Amateur Version

Livin' Life with The Betches

My sophomore year I decided to study abroad in Florence, Italy for 4 months. I knew two girls going from my sorority, and a girl from my soccer team who I was not that close with at the time. The two girls from my sorority and I had requested to live together, so we did, along with 5 other girls. I ended up being roommates with the girl from my soccer team, Gabby, who to this day is one of my close friends. The other four girls were from Penn State and they were actually super chill, which was great. Now don't get me wrong, 8 girls in an apartment, there is bound to be drama.

The apartment we lived in on Via San Niccolo was called "The Betch Cave", probably because we were called "The Betches". Now no one really called us this but ourselves, but we liked it. Many of you know the small acts of "Shit Girls Abroad Say" or "shit someone says somewhere". I honestly don't fully know but my friend who was super into movie production wanted to make this clip. So here it is for a good laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vV0CC6RMYc