May 2nd, 2008

It's been a while since my last update, so I gotta catch up on a bunch of stuff.

Most of last week was spent finishing my ISP which stands at about 35 pages all together. I'm really happy with it and I had to give a short presentation on it this week. My advisor fully edited it and even came to my presentation which was also really nice.

Last weekend (April 26-27) Chris, Kat, Steph, Alex, Ida, Nico, and I went to Lyon, France to see a soccer match. It was awesome. We got into Lyon around midday grabbed some lunch and walked around for a bit. Chris and I found a Olympique Lyonnaise (The soccer team) store and bought matching jerseys haha. Then we went down by the river (Lyon is surrounded by two rivers) where there were a ton of people chillin and playing and just hanging out. We got some bottles of wine and just soaked in the beautiful weather. APPARENTLY, however, you are not allowed to drink nor have glass down by the water, and we were threatened with 75 Euro fines (oops!).

After, we went to the soccer game which i cannot even describe. 40,000 fans just cheering and chanting the whole time. Lyonnaise played the entire second half down a man (because supposedly Grosso punched the ref at half time). The game ended in a 2-2 tie, with Lyonnaise hitting the crossbar in the 90th minute.

Saturday night was awesome as well. We all got back from the game, changed quickly and headed out to some bars/clubs. There are all these boats docked on the river, and they are all bars or clubs. We finally found a good one and danced and drank the night away on a boat!

We woke up Sunday and decided to go exploring. Most of the city was closed cause it was Sunday, but the city was beautiful. It is really really old, and we went up to the top of the city to see the beautiful Basilica and panoramic view. We saw town hall and a Roman ampitheater from 12 BC! At this point it was just me, Steph, Alex, and Nico and we headed to the train station to find out that the train we wanted to take doesn't run on the weekends, so we killed a few hours in a cafe trading curse words and slang back and forth in French and English. Nico now says "Badass" and "damn straight" a lot hahahahha.

That brings us to this week. There were mostly presentations this week, which were pretty boring. Yesterday was the last one, so we decided we had to celebrate. We have been wanting to go to this club in Lausanne called MAD. It's a really famous club and is supposed to be a ton of fun and we don't have class this morning so we figured it would be a good time to party all night. The club had a special rap night and so the DJs were playing all rap and old school rap. A whole bunch of the program came and so did Nico and Tiff and it was a ton of fun. There were many hours of sweaty dancing cause the place was packed. I think it was a tres bon way to end the program.

Today we have our last official SIT activity. We are taking a boat trip from Nyon to Geneva this afternoon, and then having a big group dinner tonight at the same place we had our first group dinner when we first arrived.

Tomorrow I think I'm doing something with my family, I'm not sure what yet. Sunday I'm going home.

I cannot believe how fast this semester went. It's unbelievable to think about all that I have seen and done and I can't believe I'm not going to see my friends from the program for probably quite some time. I'm also pretty sad to leave my host family, but obviously really excited to see everybody back home.

Not sure if this will be my last post or not, but what a long strange ride it's been :)

April 18th, 2008

I realize this is long overdue, but I've been spending most of my time recently working on my ISP and any free time I have is been devoted to doing anything BUT typing. However, last night I finished the full first draft of my paper and so I'm feeling like updating today.

So I was in Barcelona last weekend?!?!

I left Thursday afternoon and got in around 5pm. Took a half hour bus ride to the center of the city and met Jena at Placa de Catalunya. The city was unbelievable. My first impression was, woah, there are a lot of people here. Guess that comes with living in a village with 2000 people for 4 months. The city does not have the old, historical feeling that many European cities (Paris, Geneva, Brussels) have. The city is fairly modern. Another impression - there are no people between the ages of 30-60 in the city. Everybody is either old spanish or young students.

Thursday we hung around in Jena's apt for a while with Mandy, and then went out to get some dinner in the neighborhood of La Gracia. After dinner we went over to Shana's apt and hung out for a bit there. Then we met back up with Mandy and went to a few bars. We were in a cool bar with good music and lots of Spaniards but the electricity kept going on and off randomly. We called it a night around 2 or so.

Jena and I woke up early(ish) on Friday to go start exploring. We walked from her apt which is near La Sagrada Familia (crazy Gaudi Church) to Placa de Catalunya and grabbed a quick pastry for breakfast. Next we headed down Las Ramblas, this cool touristy pedestrian mall with performers and little booths that sold any kind of animal you could want (including pheasants!). Also, two of Gaudi's famous houses are located on this street. Gaudi is known for his INSANE architecture. We walked around Jena's favorite food market where you could literally buy anything you could possibly want. Then, we headed straight down to the pier.

Barcelona is sweet because its a huge city, but its situation right between the sea and the mountains. So, we walked from the pier to the beach! It was really nice out and even a bit hot! So much nicer than Geneva's decision to be 40 degrees and rainy for all of April. We chilled on the beach for a while, then headed to a cool restaurant to meet Mandy for a good lunch. After we headed back to prepare for one of the craziest nights of my life.

Friday night we drank a bit in Jena's apt after gettin some really good Tapas. We headed out to meet Jena's friends at this awesome old Absinthe bar where supposedly Hemmingway and Picasso used to frequent. At about 2 am, we headed to this insane club called Pacha. The club was really cool and fun and there was even a live violinist and guitarist playing over the DJ. We left around 6 am and passed out in Jena's apt finally.

Sat morning/afternoon (hahah) we woke up and headed out to El Borne, a sweet shopping area with cool boutiques and stuff. I got many gifts for various people and spent far too much money (as always with Europe). After, Jena and I grabbed some lunch and headed to her favorite park, Parc de Ciutadella. There were tons of young people outside and it was beautiful and we just chilled for hours catching up. After, we headed home and made some plans for the night.

Sat night, Jena and I got excellent Mexican food and then walked around El Borne and found some really cool bars. After, we went to another club, Mary's Place (I think named after the Bruce song), where the DJs were awesome and everybody was having a really good time. Around 4:30am, or so, we headed home

We woke up on Sunday and Jena really wanted to show me Gaudi's Park, called Parc Guille (pronounced Wheel). It overlooks the city and is HUGE. It has amazing architecture because, according to Jena, he was obsessed with making nature look like art. We walked around and took pictures for a few hours and then headed back down into the city. Jena took me to a really sweetly designed hospital near la sagrada familia and we got some lunch along one of the streets near it. After we came back and chilled at her apt, then got some dinner at a really cool restaurant (Princesa 23 I think). Then Jena took me to a really cool backpacker's bar where they had excellent Sangria. Jena wasn't feeling too hot though, so we left earlyish. Got up on Monday morning early and headed to the airport - muy triste!

It was amazing to see how much life the city had. No matter what time, or where we were, there were always tons of people out. People were really friendly and didn't seem to have a care in the world. It was an incredibly happy city, I think there is no way else to describe it. I had a great weekend and it was great to see Jena again. Oh also, it was fairly entertaining because from Friday on, Jena had no voice (for a change) and so communicating was fun. Also, Catalan is a crazy language, a near dead mix of French and Spanish. ANNNNDD turns out I remember a lot of Spanish which was a nice surprise.


The rest of this week has been kinda shitty. Geneva in April sucks - its constantly raining/snowing and has been fairly chilly. I spent most of the week getting interviews, getting annoyed at my ISP/professors. They haven't been really clear about what exactly they want until this point and now we have limited time left to fufil the requirements. Regardless, I have a draft complete so I'm much happier now than I was the rest of the week. Time to go put in my edits....

April 9, 2008

So Saturday night ended up being a lot of fun. I went out in Nyon to Cactus Jack's (or "Tex" as the swiss call it, like a kind of island themed bar" with Chiara and Nico. We met up with a bunch of their friends and drank for most of the night. Glad to know that i can still outdrink somebody, because by the end of the night most of them were wasted, and I wasn't really feeling much (although I think they thought i was very drunk lol). I also introduced Nico to the wonderful world of Jager Bombs.

Most of this week has been pretty low-key. Most of the group was still in Barca until Tuesday, so I spent Monday in the UN doing some work. Yesterday, I ended up getting an interview with some people at the BTRF (Borneo Tropical Rainforrest Foundation) through a contact I had at the IISD (Internat'l Institute for Sustainable Development). It was a guy and a girl who were working in the field trying to implement a microfinance scheme in this remote part of the rainforrest to encourage forest conservation in addition to working with them to encourage eco-tourism as a way to increase money flow into the village. This would allow them to build infrastructure and other necessary things for the village. Anyway, they were really cool and helpful.

Today I met Greta and Steph for some thai food for lunch, shopped a bit at H&M (which has surprisingly cool guy's stuff for cheap) and then went to meet my guy from the ILO after lunch. Turns out he forgot about our meeting, but I did get him to agree to be my adviser for my project, so that was good.

Other than that, i just scheduled for a kick ass next semester (no classes on mon or fri). Just packing up some stuff, as I'm headed off to visit Jena and other wisconsinites in Barcelona tomorrow! Hopefully the weather will be much better (its been raining/snowing here for the past few days - turns out its snowed more in March & April than in January & February!)

April 5th, 2008

This week was fairly low key, most of it was spent working on my isp paper. That entailed spending most of my days locked in the UN Library looking at hundreds of journal articles and books. Basically, if i see the word microfinance again, I'm going to throw up. I started writing my paper a little bit yesterday because I had nothing better to do. This weekend 20 out of 26 kids on my program are travelin out of the country. I would have joined, but like 15 were headed to barcelona, and im going there next weekend to visit Jena and other wisco people.

Last night Greta, Ida, and I went out to the Fisherman's Pub and had a pretty good time.

Today turned out to be great, though. Nico and Chiara and I woke up early, grabbed some breakfast, and headed out to Neuchatel. Neuchatel is about an hour and a half by car and is yet another amazingly beautiful old city on a lake. We walked around for a while, saw the obligatory old church and castle, grabbed a small snack and enjoyed the great weather.

After, we drove to Lausanne, a city not far from home, which is really cool because there is a big university there so the city is filled with younger people. Nico and Chiara showed me the centre of the city, which I had not been to yet. There were a ton of people and really cool stores and shops. We had a really good time just walking around and talking and chilling. Oh, and we had sushi for lunch - tres bonne.

Thats about it, prob going to work on my paper for most of tomorrow and monday, and then I'm off to Barcelona on thursday!

Also, working on going to Basel, Switzerland (near germany) to see a soccer match with nico, and then to Lyon, France to see the top French soccer team play the last weekend of the program (hopefully both will happen) - thus fulfilling my dream to see a European soccer game.

March 30, 2008

Not doing much today so I figured I'd update.

This week was ok. Tuesday I worked on our take home final that was due on Weds.

Weds I went in and did a bit of research on my ISP at the UN Library and then headed into the office for a bit and handed in my test. Weds night was actually a lot of fun. Nico and Chiara invited me to go to the neighbors house who is one of their good friends (Jeremy) to party with them. I showed up and there were about 6 people there, and about 4 bottles of hard liquor to each person, which is impressive cause they are incredibly expensive here. But it was funny cause they were all like Malibu and fruity vodkas and stuff. Nico told me to invite my friends, so Rikki and Dave came. We taught them how to play King's Cup and they loved it! They also got really drunk really quickly which was funny cause they all started speaking english so much more. At about midnight, we went over to daves to smoke a little hookah. Finally, at about 2:30 i headed home.

Thursday I stayed around the house all day and did a bunch of research. I think my ISP topic shifted a bit further, and now I'm going to focus on microfinance and the role that it plays in empowering women, with a case study of Bangladesh. Rikki and Dave came over for a bit to hang out and that was about it. Oh, and Daniella and I played some backgammon and she obviously kicked my ass...she's way too good.

Friday I went in late to the UN library, then met Kat, Steph, and her friend for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. After, I headed to the office to do a bit more work, and then got my hair cut. Turns out that may not have been a great idea, seeing as i no longer have very much hair :-O Good thing I got a month to grow it back before I see you all. Fri night I just hung around the house, played some Trivial Pursuit Genius Edition with the family, which would have been hard enough as it was, but obviously it was in French as well.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Dave, Rikki, and I headed into Nyon around noon. Dave and I met up with Chris and played some basketball for a while, and then headed over to Jeongki's for a bbq party. Turns out about more than half the group came, and we grilled and chilled outside cause it was beautiful out and drank a bit. After, we played some more bball and soccer, and then around 6pm we headed home. I was pretty wiped so I just hung around again last night but it was nice to just relax.

This week should be more of the same - more research and interviews (hopefully) for my ISP as I try and really gain some ground on the topic.

Also, I'm home 5 weeks from today?!? Craziness. It's weird because sometimes time feels as though its flying by, especially when I think about all I have done in the time I've been here. On the other hand, it also feels like I've been here forever...strange.

March 25, 2008

I made it back late last night from out Easter Break trip to Genoa (or Genova if you're Italian), Italy.

We left early Fri morning, around 7 am, from Geneva, and after almost missing our train from Nyon to Geneva and sprinting through the train station, we settled in for the long first train to Milano, Italy. It was nearly blizzarding as we left Switzerland. The first train was about 4 hours and finally we made it to Milano after the incredible tardiness of the train once the Italian authorities took over at the boarder.
From Milano, we took another train that seemed to never end to Genova. Me, Steph, and Kat were on an early train and Chris, Kellen, and Greta were on the later train. So the 3 of us got to the hotel after an insane bus ride, checked in, and headed out to explore. The city was really cool. An interesting mix of old Italian buildings, new high rises, a huge port, and industry. We got a snack and a glass of wine down by the port and chilled until the other 3 got in around 5 pm or so.
Fri night we headed out for some dinner, got a bit drunk, and enjoyed the night out at some bars in a large outdoor area with a few hundred people.

Sat we woke up around 10 am and decided that we all wanted to go to Cinque Terre. This was about a 1.5 - 2 hour ride from Genova but it was def worth it. There are five towns 9 km apart and you can hike from one town to the next.
We started at Monterosso and hiked up into the mountains for the longest of the five hikes (I think). Unfortunately, because we started too late, we ended up only hiking Monterosso and Vernazza, but it was still amazing. You hike up into the mountains, through vineyards and crazy scenery and for about two hours walk along cliffs and the sea. Finally, you round a cliff and there, nestled in a tiny bay, is the small town of Vernazza. It had a ton of great restaurants so we stopped to get some food and then spent another hour or two exploring and enjoying the perfect weather, before catching a train back to Genova.

Sat night put a bit of a damper on things. After a good dinner, we headed out to the outdoor bar area where we were all enjoying ourselves when Greta realized her purse had been stolen. Luckily her passport wasn't in it, but her train tickets and money and stuff was, so it really kinda killed the night. We headed home all a bit down.

We woke up on Sunday (Easter) and decided to go to the famous aquarium in Genova (apparently the second biggest in the world). However, we didn't anticipate that everybody in the entire city would be there because everything else would be closed. So we had to wait on a long line and it was cold and rainy and windy and everybody was a bit grumpy. Once we finally got inside we all were much happier and we browsed the aquatic life along with 1000000000 little screaming Italian kids.
When we got out, we walked around the harbor and the docks for a while taking everything in. Then Greta, Chris, Kellen, and Kat went to go get new train tickets for Greta and Chris and Steph and I went off to explore on our own. We found some cool buildings and a sweet farmer's market with amazing cheese, meats, and wines. We all met back up before dinner.
For dinner we found an amazing pizza place and had a nice long dinner, where eventually the waitstaff forgot about us because the sat us downstairs, away from the main floor of the restaurant (oops haha). We headed back to the hotel and somehow managed to find Casino Royale, the movie, on in English which was perfect.

Sunday, we woke up late, checked out, and explored a bit more until we had to catch our trains home. Finally we got back into Geneva around 9 pm, and I got home to Arzier around 10. Apparently it didn't stop snowing the entire weekend and as of last night, was still snowing! I would say there was about 2 feet down, and would def be considered a blizzard in the US.

Today, seeing as I just woke up, I think I'll stay around the house. I have a take-home exam to do and then class is officially over and our ISP period starts!

Here are pics from this weekend - Part I - Part II

Ma Famille!

Here are a few pictures of my host family (mostly from today's trip)


Nice and early in the morning in the car...
(From L to R: Chiara, Antoine, Daniella, Tiff - Nic's Girlfriend, and Nic)

Outside of the water park
(From L to R: Chiara, Georges, Tiff, Nic, Daniella, Antoine)

Me and the fam


Vasco!!!!! (my host dog!)