Entry 6:  June 22, 2008

Today is our last day in Lugano. That means that for most of the girls here they will be going home in a week. For the other eight or so of us, we will be heading to England when the rest are flying home. Lugano has been a wonderful stay. The lake is beautiful; Franklin College is nice, our residence is amazing, the parks are pretty, all in all a wonderful week and half in Lugano.

Yesterday a group of us went to Bellinzona. It's about a 25 minute train ride from Lugano. It was a wonderful little trip, aside from the creepy guy on the train ride to Bellinzona. While we were in Bellizona we went to Castelgrande. It was a beautiful medieval castle with walls all around it. We got off the train and walked towards the middle of town, not really sure where the castle was. But we knew that it wasn't far from the train station. We were walking down the main street when all of a sudden we came to an alleyway that I happened to look down. Ta-da I found the castle. It was big and looming over the rock formation it was built on top of. We enjoyed walking around the castle. In the main courtyard of the castle there is a selection of modern art sculptures, much like the ones that can be found in the park along Lake Lugano. We climbed the two towers which gave us a panoramic view of Bellinzona. After we climbed back down the towers we walked along the outside walls of the castle a ways before we got to hot to go on.

After we left the castle we walked around the market place in Bellizona for a little while. We saw the local people buying their goods, fresh fruits and vegetables; we even saw some meat and cheese vendors. It was soon time for lunch so we hopped back on the train to Lugano to join some more people for lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. It was a nice way to end our stay in Lugano. Now we're off to Paris!

June 19, 2008

Lugano, Lugano, Lugano. Lugano is absolutely beautiful! It is so pretty and sits right on Lake Lugano. There are palm trees everywhere and it's hard to imagine that we are actually in Switzerland. We took a boat ride yesterday. We went to Morcote. There we visited a beautiful church over looking Lake Lugano and we also went to a cemetery that was up hill the whole way. You would really have to love someone to bury them in that cemetery because you have to carry the caskets up hill. But the view couldn't be prettier. It was amazing.

After we visited the church we headed back down the hill to get gelato. It was good but nothing can compare to our Italian gelato we miss so much. We sat by the lake for about an hour waiting for our boat to return. We were entertained by the ducks and the swans that came to hang out by the shore. Some of us even broke into song singing our favorite Disney songs. We took a bunch of pictures yesterday and my friends were going for the whole windblown model look. We now have several very interesting pictures of people on the boat because of it. They had one of those cardboard cutouts of people where you stick your head through the hole and well we couldn't resist that. I was a pirate with a hairy chest. Haha.

We spent a few hours on that little cruise to Morcote and then we decided to go to Manor, the huge department store that has 6 floors and a grocery store in it. It was really neat. Manor literally has just about everything you could possibly imagine. After Manor we hit up H&M and did a little clothes shopping. We were all starting to get tired of the clothes we brought with us so we thought we deserved some new clothes. We finished out the day by cooking dinner in our rooms. Yep at Franklin College we all have our own rooms with our own bathrooms and our own kitchenettes in them. This is proving to be one amazing trip.

Entry 4: June 14, 2008

So I've done some pretty interesting things in the past week. For my travel break I went to Bern, Switzerland, while most others went to the beach. Well my travel group and I sure did pick the place to go. Little did we know when we set out on our journey, Bern is hosting the European soccer finals this year. So on our first night there Spain won. How did we know this? Well it was because for several hours after the game was over fans were running through the streets, waving Spanish flags, screaming, honking their horns, and just making a scene. The Europeans are quite proud of their soccer. The next day we knew that Portugal had won because of the same sort of celebration down in the streets which we watched from our hotel room again that night. Except the party lasted longer the second night and they were even stopping traffic the second night. Bern was hosting one hopping party that's for sure. It was quite interesting to watch. I took videos from my hotel room of the people screaming in celebration. At one point there were a few random guys walking around in togas made out of Swiss flags carrying shields and fake swords. I'm not quite sure what the point of that was but I took a picture of them anyway.

In Bern we also went to the bear pits to see the bears, or I should say bear. There was only one. But he was a cutie and I think he enjoyed the attention. He would do all sorts of cute little poses in hopes of being thrown an apple from above where we were watching him. After we hung around with Smokey for a while we went to the gothic cathedral in town and climbed the tower there. Let me tell you if you want an intense workout just go to Bern and climb the tower. Holy cow my legs were sore afterward like I had just done 100 lunges.

After we left Bern we rejoined the group in Stechelberg. What did we do in tiny little Stechelberg? We hiked in the Alps of course. It was so beautiful! But boy what a hike that was. I was completely exhausted once we got back to our little hotel. As much as I hated myself during the hike uphill I'm so very glad I did it and very proud of myself for doing the entire hike. Oh and we bought Swiss Army knives in Murren halfway through the hike. Now I'm in Lugano which has amazing accommodations for us here. We all have our own rooms, bathrooms, and there's even a kitchen in our rooms. But the absolute best part is I did my laundry today in a washer and dryer. Oh the smell of clean clothes. I'm quite excited about my stay here in Lugano!

Entry 3: June 5, 2008

Having just returned from the city on the water I can definitely say Venice has been my favorite place thus far. Venice was beautiful. And you know it didn't really smell as bad as I had expected it to. It really only smelled when you walked by the fish vendors that are located randomly throughout the city.

Let's see what amazing things there are in the Venice...definitely go to St. Mark's if you ever find yourself in Venice. St. Mark's officially my favorite church now. It was AMAZING! Well amazing doesn't even really describe it. It was just so awesome! Mosaics everywhere and the gold in there made everything else stand out. It was just breathtaking! St. Mark's square is a cool place to hang out, especially if you want to watch the crazy tourists cover themselves in nasty pigeons. Quite entertaining.

And well you absolutely have to go to Murano. The Murano glass is the prettiest stuff ever! I probably went a little overboard on the Murano glass jewelry. But Dr. O did warn us that we would go overboard. Oh well it was fun. We hit the streets of Venice all three days we were there to browse the vendors with their Murano glass jewelry. Of course riding the water buses was fun to, unless you get sea sick. We also walked around the cemetery island for a little while one day. Who knew you could bury so many people on a little island. Of course the residents of that island are only there for 10 years and when their time is up they have to vacate their plots to make room for the new residents. My favorite part of Venice was definitely St. Mark's and if I ever get to go back there I will spend more time in the church. Well until next time, ciao!

Entry 2: May 28, 2008

So this is the last day of my first travel break. My group ventured out to good ol Rome. It's been quite an adventure in Rome. I've seen some pretty amazing things while here. One thing I will definitely never forget about this trip is our toilet exploding at the hostel and flooding our room. That was quite an adventure in itself. So let's get down to business I know you all are wondering what we've been doing with our time here.

Day One: We arrived at our hostel around 6 p.m. We settled in and decided we should get started with the site seeing. So we trekked and I mean trekked across Rome in search of the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain. I must say I was a little bit disappointed by the Spanish steps but that might be because there were a million people sitting on them and I couldn't really see them. However, the Trevi Fountain was absolutely beautiful, so I went twice.

Day Two: We got up bright and early and packed ourselves like sardines into the metro en route to the Ancient City! I was in awe of the Colosseum. Absolutely amazing. We spent quite a while walking around that ancient monument. Afterwards we journeyed over to the Forum and Augustus' House. All of which was pretty amazing. Then we packed ourselves again on the metro and made our way over to the Pantheon which is also quite beautiful. Wooo day two is complete.

Day Three: We were blessed by the Pope this morning. That was probably the coolest thing that has happened to us on this trip. We sort of ran through the Vatican Museum in order to see the Sistine Chapel which just makes me speechless so I should probably end with that amazingness.

Entry 1: May 20, 2008

It rained again today. I didn't realize it rained so much in Italy. But Sanselpolcro is still beautiful even in the rain. After classes today we went to the Museo Civico. It's a wonderful little museum in town that houses rooms filled with beautiful artwork. Of course we went to see Piero della Francesca's work since we've been studying him in class. Good ol' Piero was born in Sanselpolcro and he's a pretty awesome artist. There's even a park dedicated to him in the city, which we visited today to kill a few minutes before the museum opened. I had heard of Piero because of previous art classes but until this trip I couldn't really remember what his work looked like. Well after spending time staring at his work I've realized I'm in love with his paintings. He was very talented and there's no wonder why Sanselpcro is proud of their little painter.

After leaving the museum we trekked across town outside the wall (in the pouring rain by the way) to the home of a lovely little jewelry maker. Her jewelry was absolutely beautiful and much of it was very reasonably priced considering she makes it by hand. So we spent a while at her house combing through all the pretty silver and gemstones, enjoying snacks from her parents. After much debate I finally decided on purchasing two sets of earrings and then my friends and I were off again to roam the city. Speaking of Rome, I'll be there next week. Until then, ciao!