Spark Notes is your Friend

The Nyon Chateau, aka what I see everyday walking home from the train station.

I'm sitting here in my room realizing it's my last night in Mme's house. Dislike. My bags are packed to the brim at EXACTLY 23 kgs, and I have a small pile of things I'll be leaving behind in order to keep it that way. I realized that I didn't write about every single place I visited, because, well I'm lazy and you don't want to read that much. So in lieu of individual posts, here's a comprehensive list of places I've been with a brief description in no particular order. Organized, condensed, and a complete bastardization of all the amazing times.

1. Geneva, Switzerland - no duh. Stick to the old city and avoid the red light district near the train station (aka where we went to class).
2. Nyon, Switzerland - no duh part II. The beach is the best part. Beautiful in warmer weather or encased in ice. The chateau is also a perfect place to hang out. 
3. St. Cergue/La Dôle, Switzerland - a perfect place for a day of skiing. A scenic train ride up and fun, easy slopes. 
4. Zurich, Switzerland - beautiful old city of the Swiss German part of Switzerland and FIFA headquarters, so perfect for everyone. Go when it's warm.
5. Brussels, Belgium - underrated, perfect for the weekend, lovely old town and Belgium is really an interesting place.
6. Paris, France - who doesn't love Paris? Or at least the idea of Paris. One of my favorite places in the world. 
7. Bern, Switzerland - more of the Swiss German, but they have bears (thus the name Bern) as their mascot so that's pretty cool. 
8. Mt Blanc/Chamonix, France - good lord. The best skiing you will ever find, but be ready for it. Cute downtown with a thing for hockey. If you're used to hockey in the states, it's mediocre, but still a good show.
9. London, UK - HUGE city. Or at least it seemed like it was. Spend time in the parks during the spring. 
10. Nice, France - so incredibly wonderful. Beautiful city, delicious food, water of the brightest blue, and perfect for exploring.
11. Monte Carlo/Monaco - you will see the most ridiculous cars. If I ever, somehow, make even a little bit of money I want to live there. Even if it's a small, run down shack on the side of the mountain.
12. Yvoire, France - cute little medieval town. Easy and scenic boat ride from Nyon.
13. Annecy, France -perfect medieval town (see the theme?) cute shopping, beautiful waterfront.
14. Gruyere, Switzerland - as in the cheese. Swiss countryside at its finest. Castles, cows, and breathtaking mountain views galore.
15. Lausanne, Switzerland - great night life. 

Not a lot of big trips, but that adds up to about one each weekend. Not bad for a semester's work.

Bad Sarah.

UGH. I actually forgot about this blog. As in completely forgot that it existed. And there's been so much going on! So now I have to do all sorts of updating. I have no one to blame but myself. Do you guys forgive me?

You can't resist the eyes.

Awww, thanks! You guys are the best, I knew you'd understand. 

We'll start where we left off. After Brussels our group trip continued on to Paris, France which is probably one of my favorite cities ever. I went to the Musée d'Orsay, which was amazing. It's one of my favorite art museums. It's right on the Seine River in the old train station so it has beautiful, wide open spaces inside and two big clocks and wonderful architecture. 

Art is everywhere, man.

The sculptures were incredible. The details were impeccable and the marble looked like it was soft as butter. As for the huge impressionist/post-impressionist collection, I can't even begin to describe how extensive and beautiful the paintings were. I feel uncultured when I say this, but normally paintings don't impress me nearly as much as more tangible forms or art like sculptures, carvings, jewelry, ext. But these paintings were wonderful. There were a few times where I caught myself with my mouth open, head cocked, leaning in toward the painting (suuuuper cute, Sarah).

We went to the Louvre as well, because on Fridays it's free for students after 8 PM, so that was a nice break on the wallet. I wish I could give you a better description of what we saw, but mostly we just wandered around trying to soak in the thousands of years of genius. And we had to sit down a few times in various exhibits because we were just that tired from walking around Paris all day.

As for the academic portion of our trip (Oh yeah, we're supposed to be studying while abroad) we went to the OECD and UNESCO. The OECD was surprisingly interesting considering it's less than perfect global reputation. "Rich man's club" or not, it's still an organization with some of the world's leading economists. At UNESCO we had a presentation on how the education portion of the Millennium Goals, and based on how lofty those goals were they're actually doing pretty well.

After these visits on Friday, our group trip was technically over. However most of us stayed in Paris for the weekend because hey, we were already there. Now of course the hotel where we were staying with the group was a liiiittle bit too expensive for your average student so a group of us packed up our things and trekked north to a little hostel in the Montmatre district near the Sacre Coeur. It's also near the Moulin Rouge, which was disappointingly anticlimactic.

I guess you have to go at night or something.

Two of my all time favorite parts of the trip was 1) the amount of time we spent at Shakespeare and Company. It's an old English book store near Notre Dame famous for the library of old books on top and the famous writers it attracted in the 1920s bohemian Paris (think Woody Allen's recent film, Midnight in Paris). 

 It had a little nook with a type writer for aspiring writers to use. A moot point thanks to computers, but a poetic thought none the less.

2) The organ and Gregorian chant concert that was held in Notre Dame one night. That organ is incredible and the way sounds reverberated off the walls and ceilings... goodness.

And just think how old this incredible architecture is.

Gah, I feel like I'm leaving so much out but this post is already ridiculously long and scattered. Cliff notes version: we also went to Versailles, ate more crêpes than any human being should, had a lunch of a baguette and strawberries in the park, visited Champs Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe at night, visited the lock bridge, and realized how awesome the Paris metro was for getting you to all of these places. All in all, Paris was fantastic and I'm pretty sure I want to live there someday. How I'm going to make that happen, I have no idea. But it's on the bucket list.