A Suisse Adventure

This past weekend, a few friends and I decided to make a trip to Geneva, Switzerland! Kallie (my roommate), Sam (a friend I met here), and I got an early flight from Nice to Geneva.  If anyone knows anything about the geography of Switzerland, Geneva is directly on the border of France!  We arrived in Geneva at about 9o'clock in the morning and got on a train to the center of Geneva, where our hostel was!  We got off the train, and followed the directions that the hostel had given us... and it turns out, they weren't that good! So we stopped a store lady and asked where it was! It was quite funny, because the lady looked at us like we were crazy when we told her that we were going to a youth hostel in Geneva! She said "Youth Hostel... In Geneva? Are you sure?" ... uhoh! We had her give us directions anyway and headed to the hostel.  To our relief... there indeed WAS a youth hostel! Sheeewww! So we checked-in (but couldn't go to our rooms yet because it was too early) and put our stuff in the lockers they allow you to use for the day... and headed off to see the beautiful city of Geneva! We walked down to the gorgeous lake that the city is by, with the famous massive fountain in the middle! We gazed at the glorious fountain, took pictures, and walked by the water! As our tummies got hungry, we headed into the city, finding gorgeous churches, stores, and restaurants. We walked into a cute little cafe, and sat down for lunch! I decided to order cheese fondue (which was absolutely amazing)! After our lovely lunch, we discovered more of the city before heading to the hostel to get ready to go to dinner! For dinner, we went to a restaurant suggested by the hostel for authentic Suisse Food! We all shared Cheese Fondue, Chinese Fondue (which is thin slices of beef, which you boil in water and put delicious sauce on), and ravioli! We all shared each others meals, because they were SOOOO delectable! We got desert, which was amazing as well!!! That was the best meal I have had, yet!!! After dinner, we went for a glass of wine at a very peculiar bar called the "Leopard Room"... it had very animalistic decor, but with an extremely classy feel! It was VERY cool... but expensive! After our long day, we headed to bed... waking up early the next morning! Once up and going, we decided to head to the United Nations building located in Geneva! It was just a short walk from our hostel! It was awesome to see all the different Nations' flags all in a row! We couldn't go inside, but the outside was pretty cool! We then walked to a small Museum in Geneva, but didn't go in... it was very pretty on the outside tho... we sort of just ran into it while we were headed to the Red Cross building! We were excited to see the Red Cross building... but when we got there, we couldn't go in because it's being refurbished or something like that (we were guessing because the sign telling why, was in French, of course)! After our disappointment with the Red Cross... we headed to the Botanical Gardens of Geneva! This was ABSOLUTELY stunning! It was such a glorious walk through... I loved it!!! We then decided to venture back to the center of the city and found some monuments, such as this pretty awesome wall (I don't remember what its called... sorry), but we were only there for a short time, because there were TONS of protesters, and as far as I could tell, they weren't diggin' the United States too much, so I thought it was a good idea to leave! We saw a bunch of other significant buildings around that area, and then headed to get some lunch! We grabbed some quick lunch, before exploring more! We headed to the hostel for a quick nap before dinner! I didn't nap though... I skyped with Uncle Ronnie, Uncle Pissy, and Uncle Kev! They were up north at our house taking the piers out, as they do each May and October! Jackie, Nic, Nicky, and Mom were all there too!!! So I got to skype with ALL of them! I got to see Nick open my birthday present I sent from here! Which was SOOO much fun!!! After my long skype date, we went and got dinner! We made it an early night, as all the walking and exploring was tiring! Sunday... our LAST day in the beautiful country of Suisse... was when we decided to go to the Alps! We took a bus ride (for free) to the area where you could take the Cable-Car up into the mountains! It was SOOO fun to go up like that! I loved it! Once up there, we found that it was VERY foggy!!! So, we decided to get some early lunch while we waited for the fog to burn off! After our hour and half lunch... the fog had not moved one bit! So we decided to head back down, and go for a boat ride around the lake! It took a while to get to the lake from the top of the mountain, but once we got on the boat... it was an hour long boat ride around the lake! It was SOOO cool!!! I love love loved it!!! Afterwards, we decided it was time to head to the airport and end our glorious trip to Suisse!

This was a beautiful trip and I would recommend to anyone to go to Switzerland!!! I loved it... it made me think of my time that Nick and I had spent there with Grandma and Grandpa Scott a few years ago!

I have LOTS of travel plans coming up... so be sure to look at my blog just about every week! This weekend, I am in Barcelona... the next weekend in Paris... and the next weekend I believe I am in either Germany or Lucern! Finally... Mom, Nick and Jackie come to visit!!!

Love to allllll of my friends and family!!! If any of you want to skype me.. just add me!!! My skype name is: pinkbabybutt13

Or send an email! Pinkbabybutt13@gmail.com

LOVE!!!

The fountain in the middle of the lake!!!

The United Nations Building!!!

The BEAUTIFUL botanical gardens!

The Rainbow that I captured in the Fountain!

Too foggy to see anything... sooo disappointing! 

We were allllll the way up there!!!

All of the most important men in my life... hot tubbin'!!! Uncle Ronnie, Uncle Kev, Uncle Pissy, Nicci Weight (soon to be brother in law), and Nicky Scott!!! Nicky opening his gift from me... a Keg Hat from Oktoberfest, a "das boot" from Oktoberfest, and about 6 different shot glasses from different places I have been!!

Awesome Yellow Jeans in Provence!

If any of you have Facebook, you have already had the pleasure of feasting your eyes on my AWESOME yellow jeans that I recently acquired from a store here in Nice! And, over the weekend, I wore these awesome yellow jeans which created an awesome day! When deciding to study abroad, I went through a program called CEA... essentially the program takes care of everything for you including; my apartment, roommates, university, insurance... etc! One thing that they also include is CEA excursions, in which they take all the students different places that are somewhat close, which gives us an opportunity to travel without having any of the worry.  This weekend was our big trip to the Provence region of France.  We left very early Saturday morning (7:30am), taking a very nice bus to all our destinations. My program includes about 15 students... including my roommates!  We took the bus to our first destination Arles, France.  Here we took a tour of the city seeing two major Roman ruins from over 2,000 years ago!  It was awesome to hear the history of these ruins, as well as be able to see how great the engineers were even when they didn't have all the equipment they have now!  On our tour, we saw some of the sights that Vincent Van Gogh painted in his time living in Arles.  We saw the hospital where he was brought to after cutting off his ear, and many of the spots where his famous paintings were inspired!  After our short time in Arles, we got back on the bus and headed to another ruin, this time of a very large Castle.  The castle was almost completely dismantled because the people around used the rock to build their homes/the revolution of France/ wars!  So there was very little of the castle left, but the history still remains, as there are some parts still standing.  We were at the Castle for quite some time, so a few of us decided to take a bunch of funny pictures, planking (which is laying on something and taking a picture; quite stupid if you ask me, but it was very fun at the time), owling (where one crouches on something, and looks sort of like an owl; also quite stupid if you ask me, but once again, very fun at the time)... we also took pictures standing on the castle (and if we lost our balance, would probably fall to our death because it was so high up), which was very fun as well! The time at the castle was just spontaneous fun, and I had a fabulous time!  We then got on the bus, and headed to our last destination for the day, Avignon.  Here is where we would be staying for the night a hotel.  We each had a partner to room with for the night, (mine was an awesome friend, Erica) and headed to our rooms to drop our stuff off before exploring the town.  We then walked around the town, going into the different shops, and what not before we headed to dinner.  Our CEA advisor had planned dinner at a restaurant for us, and we had delicious stew, salad, and desert! It was a very fun dinner with everyone! After dinner, a few of us went to an Irish pub where we watch a few Soccer games, before heading back to the hotel.  After a long day, almost all of us were in pretty early, catching good sleep before the next big day.  Sunday morning, we woke up around 7:30am again, grabbed some breakfast from the hotel lobby, and headed to the bus again.  It took us a short ride to the Pope's Palace in Avignon.  If any of you know any kind of history of the Pope, a few of the Pope's actually lived in Avignon from 1309 to 1377 because there was lots of corruption going on in Rome during this time.  The palace was beautiful... unfortunately, a lot of the original paintings throughout the palace are no longer there, as it was used for a military barack.  But the palace preserved all of it's history (unlike most historical things in France, in which were either destroyed or dismantled during the revolution).  After our tour of the huge palace, we got back on the bus and head to the water duct that brought water to Nimes from the mountains.  This beautiful duct is called the Port du Gard.  It was used in the Roman times, and is very old... it is the largest part left of an aqueduct system left in the world.  The duct looks like a bridge, because it crosses over a large river! There we had a picnic lunch, and relaxed for a while before jumping back on the bus to head to the winery.  The Cote du Rhone region of wine (where we went), is most known for red wines.  The particular winery we went to was at a beautiful castle, and had fields and FIELDS of grapes!  We went inside the shop for some wine tasting, where we tasted three different wines; one white and two reds.  They were very delicious! After tasting, we took a short tour of how they make the wine, and what kind of process it takes to make the wine! After our tour, we were able to buy some of the wines we tasted, or even some of their other wines!  The winery was VERY fun for all of us... but it was time to head back to Antibes as it was getting quite late! The bus ride was about three hours long, but had beautiful scenery! 


The weekend overall was a great success!!! I had a splendid time in my yellow jeans with all of my friends, and can't wait to wear them again!!!


Love to all my family and friends ... and Happy 21st Birthday to my awesome brother, Nick! 

The Pope's Palace in Avignon with my roommates McKenzie (left) and Kallie (right)!

Standing in the fireplace in the banquette hall of the Palace with Erica, Kim (roommate), and Eliza!

My yellow jeans (of course) ... and an example of our spontaneous fun! I have no idea what I'm doing, but it was very fun!!!

An example of me standing on the Castle... holding a cloud!!! 

This is what planking looks like (kind of)... don't expect to see any more of these photos however, I think it's really dumb plank!!! HAHAHA

Oktoberfest Journey!!!

Ahhh... I am finally going to write about my awesome journey to Oktoberfest!!! The beginning starts with McKenzie (my roommate), Jon (a friend), and I taking our first train of seven to Ventimiglia, Italy! When we arrived, we had some time between our trains, so we grabbed some food... It is amazing how cheap everything is in Italy compared to France... WOW!!! Along with food, we got a bottle of wine to share on the train ride to Milan.  We boarded our train, finding our seats in a large compartment... essentially, we had our own private room! So we all stretched out and tried to get some sleep, even though it was only 7:00pm when we got on.  It was dark most of the way, so we weren't able to see a whole lot on this train, which was a bummer, but it allowed us to sleep, which was good.  We finally got to Milan around 11:00pm... and thought that it would be a safe place to be.  We quickly found that it was a VERY scary place to be at night.  We had people following us, and coming up to us... which was VERY scary!!! After while, we decided to get a hotel room, as it was unsafe to be in the streets or bars.  We found a very nice hotel that didn't charge us much for a large room.  It was great! We were able to shower, and sleep for a few hours before catching our next train to Munich.  We got up early on Friday morning, and got ready to head to the train station, which was only a few minutes away.  We got there, and as we were looking for our platform... realized we were at the WRONG train station.  Little did we know... Milan actually has FOUR train stations!!! Holy cow.... we RAN like mad people out to the taxis to get one to drive us to the other station... we had literally MINUTES until our train left!!! As we pulled in... we jumped from the taxi and bolted inside.  We ran into the train station, found our platform and jumped on the train just a few moments before it departed.  We then, found our seats (which were not in a compartment), and all of us immediately fell asleep... what a stressful morning we already had!!! The train ride to Munich was absolutely stunning!!! The scenery was beautiful!!! I was SOO glad that we had decided to take the train instead of flying! There was a cute little resturant on the train that we were able to eat at, which was actually quite delicious... and once again, CHEAP!!! After a LONG eight hour train ride, we were finally in Munich! We got off, found our tram to our place to stay, and headed to the tents.  We decided to just drop our stuff off, and freshen up... and head to Oktoberfest!!! We headed to the train station, where we got some VERY cheap, but delicious beer, and got on the subway to head to Theresienwiese, which is where Oktoberfest is held.... and when we arrived, it was sooo crowded!!! But it was MAGNIFICENT!!! The beer and the food was absolutely AMAZING!!! We were astounded by how much there was to do, and to see!!! We got our first Maßkrug of beer... was SOOO delicious!!! The beer was so fresh, and didn't taste chemically at all... it was delicious!!! We walked around discovering everything for quite a while, before meeting up with our friends to head back to our Camp Site... there, they actually had their own little Oktoberfest going on, and so we were able to drink and be merry with  kids our own age! It was a blast! Not long after arriving, we went to bed!!! Camping in the tent, was not as bad as I had thought, but it was quite chilly!!! We got up the next morning, and went directly to Oktoberfest to get spots in a tent! Naturally, when we got there, they would only let the girls in, if the guys weren't wearing "proper" gear... so Me, Eliza, and McKenzie all got a table! We ended up meeting the owner of the actual tent, who gave us wristbands to stay in the tent! It was very fun!!! We were able to dance and sing, and have a blast, while drinking beer! After while, Eliza and I decided to get the traditional german dresses, Dirndl! I got a green one... which was really cute!!! I loved it.. and it was great fun drinking in it... as I felt like I belonged, especially being from Wisconsin!!! After drinking the whole day, McKenzie and I decided to head back, to get our stuff to take to a friends hotel! Between miscommunication, and McKenzie and I being too slow, we missed our friends and were unable to put our stuff in a hotel room... so we ended up getting a tiny one ourselves for the night, and were able to sleep for a few hours before catching our early train back home!  We woke up in the morning, and did NOT miss our train, nor did we go to the wrong train station... everything went well on the way home!!! It once again was beautiful scenery, and very pleasant! When we finally got back to Antibes (the city we live in)... we were absolutely exhausted!!! But we had a darn good time, and it was a very fun experience!!! Oktoberfest was by one of the best things I have EVER done!!!


I will share pictures when I get some from my friend, as she has one of us in our dirdls!


Sending allllll of my love to my family and friends!!!