Saturday, July 23rd - Lazy Days
After our exhausting day on Friday, Jenna and I didn't hesitate to take it easy on Saturday. Many people left for weekend trips, but we lounged around, went grocery shopping, and mostly just slept. That night we went over to Luc and Kristen's dorm for some real French homemade crepes (yum!) and I think we watched Luc's favorite movie that night. No idea what it was called, but it was about a French guy moving to Spain and all his travel and learning experiences, so I personally enjoyed it...
Sunday, July 24th - Canyoning in the Swiss Alps
This was, hands down, one of the most intense days of my entire life.
We got up early to catch a metro and then a train to a little town in Switzerland in the mountains. The group consisted of me, Jenna, Luc, Andrew, Maria (2L from our school), Kristen, and Alex. We of course took pictures along the way of the winding, beautiful countryside:
The boys, looking enthusiastic as always:
We were running late (thanks to missing an early train by only minutes), so we had to pick up the pace to get to our destination:
Thankfully we arrived in one piece and our guide, Thibaux, was ready to go!
Unfortunately, considering WE barely made it out of the mountains alive, a camera had absolutely no chance of survival. Being the geniuses we all are, no one had prepared by getting a waterproof camera, so we have no documentation of this amazing experience.
Suffice it to say that it was out of this world. The water was freezing, and we were literally just walking down white water rapids. There were times where Thibeaux had to physically THROW us individually into the rapids and told us to swim really hard. Apparently the water was a little higher than normal, so it was a little harder than normal. We got to jump off some cliffs - well - Jenna did. I jumped off one before I was completely exhausted. Jenna did jump off a 9 meter cliff into the water, along with the boys.
It was definitely the experience of a lifetime. We went under waterfalls, we did zip flies (which I promptly fell off the first time), there was a Matrix wall (that Andrew epic failed at), and the sights were just...otherworldly. I desperately wish we had pictures. Sigh.
After we were done, they served us bread, cheese, and of course...wine. Very French. So we ate up and took to the nearby market.
We also had a good laugh about this lone fire hydrant that purports to be able to put out the whole mountain in case of disaster....yeah, right.
We were all beat after that and ended up going to bed early in preparation for our new class starting the next day.
Monday, July 25th - Evian...the town, not the water
Monday morning we had our first day of International Sports Law. It was interesting. Especially since it seemed to mostly be about the NFL. But our professor (who works with NFL free agents) loved Peyton Manning and Jeff Saturday and talked about both of them every day, so it was fairly enjoyable for me.
After class we decided to catch a ferry to Evian, France, because Luc needed to talk to his bank, which he apparently cannot do in Switzerland because banks wouldn't want to make life too easy. Always eager for adventure, a few of us agreed to accompany him.
We got there early, so had some ice cream by a beautiful view beforehand.
We walked the streets for a bit until we found Luc's bank...of course, it was arbitrarily closed...on a Monday. Disappointed and annoyed, we tried to make the best of things by defiling statutes and owling in random places.
We went to dinner at a cute little place called L'Hexagone, where we had cheap wine and this delicious cheesy bacony potato thing. It was really, really yummy. Also, we witnessed a surprising new mode of transportation while we sat there:
By this point in the trip, it took a lot to shock me. This little train (with nuns in the front) shocked me. Well done train, well done.
We tried to catch an early ferry, but ended up missing it...so we went to another nearby bar in order to ensure we made the next one.
We got back semi-late and took it easy for the rest of the night.
Tuesday, July 26th - Shopping extravaganza part I
After class on Tuesday, Jenna wasn't feeling great, so Maureen and I took to the stores in hopes of finding some fun European clothes!
We walked around quite a bit, and found a cool garden (which I will have to add pics of later b/c I'm just now realizing that they aren't uploaded...). We ended up getting to the store later than anticipated (the map was wrong) and managed basically a new wardrobe in an hour and a half. Not too shabby!
After we shopped our faces off, we went to a little cafe to have a beer and some french fries. It was a nice way to relax. (I have pictures of this too - not uploaded).
Then we went back to the dorms where we met up with Jenna and had a pretty slow evening just hanging out and lamenting the impending end of our trip.
Wednesday, July 27th - Au Revoir, Switzerland
Wednesday got interesting. Since many of us (Jenna and I included) were leaving on Thursday for new locations, we decided to have our "Farewell Dinner" Wednesday night so everyone could be included.
Jenna had seen a jacket on Friday in Geneva that she was hesitant to buy since it was so expensive, so we decided to go back on Wednesday and get it (given that this was our last opportunity). So we took the hour train ride there and back and came back with the jacket in tow!
The farewell dinner was at Tribeca. I use the term "dinner" here lightly. Dinner consisted of a $1000 open bar tab and little croutons with different sauces. I'll preface this by saying that among about 25 of us, we took care of the bar tab in under an hour. So. Things got interesting pretty quickly.
We stayed at Tribeca for a while before heading back to Great Escape, which was just around the corner. Tribeca pics:
We ended our time at that bar once our professor got kicked out...so we moved the party up to Great Escape.
Which was already pretty much a disaster. Have I mentioned that giving law students an open bar is a bad plan?
It's. A. Bad. Plan.
I feel as though further details of that night are best left...in Switzerland. It was fun, and a rather appropriate farewell to this group of people...(including one of our friends ripping his shirt off on the metro).
Thursday, July 28th - Benvenuto a Venezia
Our train on Thursday was at 2:20 p.m., so we had to book it out of class. I had packed the night before, so I arrived an hour late to class, while Jenna hadn't packed so chose to leave an hour early.
We said brief goodbyes to everyone and were on our way to the train station. Luckily we caught this train with little complication and began our three hour journey to Milan on our way to Venice.
We met a couple cute German boys on the train (who would not make a nice picture for us):
We ate with them at Burger King once we hit Milan on our hour and half layover before continuing on to Venice.
We arrived pretty late, not getting in until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. We met a very nice Italian man on our second train who told us all kinds of places to go to party and what sights are really worth seeing in Venice and Rome.
We had our first experience with the water taxi, checked into our hostel, and proceeded to sit outside by the canal to drink some wine before bed. After some time just hanging out, some boys who were staying at the hostel wandered over, and we made fast friends with Geoff, who we spent the following couple days with! He's a fantastic Aussie who we hit it off with immediately.
After accidentally staying up until 4:00 a.m., we finally went to sleep in preparation to hit San Marco the following day.
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I'm going to stop here for now and save the rest of Italy for all one post. Hopefully I'll get it going soon!
