Don't worry, I'm still alive!

I know I've been slacking on the blogging front, and I'm sorry! I just haven't found the time, especially with finals this week. My time here is winding down! I'm going to try and do lots of cool stuff and I'll be sure to bring my camera. In the meantime enjoy this picture of a kitten.

 Last weekend we went on a day trip to Giverny, which is where Monet's home and famous garden are. I just took a lot of pictures of flowers:

It would be a really tough call, but if I absolutely had to choose which place I went on spring break was my favorite, I would VERY tentatively say that it was...

Or is it Luzern?? I like Lucerne because it seems like the French way of saying it.

The city is right on Lake Lucerne and it's surrounded by beautiful alps. Eating out in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive so for all of our meals we went to the supermarket down the street from our hostel and bought food for picnicking. This is the view from the spot where we ate lunch a few times. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

I don't know much (i.e. nothing) about Swiss history, but this Lion Monument is, according to Wikipedia:

"a sculpture in Lucerne, Switzerland, designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen and hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, France. The American writer Mark Twain (1835–1910) praised the sculpture of a mortally-wounded lion as "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

Interesting, no?

Many of the buildings in the city are painted with frescoes.

/////

On our first day we decided we wanted to go for a hike in the alps, so we went to the farmer's market in the morning and picked up some Swiss bread and cheese and some fruit and we set out to Mount Pilatus.

You could pay something like 50 francs to ride the gondola up to the top, but why on Earth would anyone want to do that?

One of the things that I liked so much about Switzerland were the wide expanses of lush green fields dotted with yellow flowers and trees with white blossoms against the blue sky (the pictures I took don't come close to doing it justice)

Now, I'm not going to lie, this hike was HARD. The beginning was a pretty easy walk through some fields, but then it started going up. And by up I mean like a 45 degree angle or steeper for almost the entire way. I can understand why most tourists take the gondola. However, we wanted to be like those healthy, healthy Swiss folk and do some hard-core hiking. Plus it made the delicious picnic and the view of the mountain we got all the more rewarding.

In keeping with the theme of being active, the next day we rented pedal boats and went out on Lake Lucerne and then we rented bikes and rode around town all day 

We stopped at a field of flowers and did some obligatory frolicking

On our last night we had planned on going out for fondue, but instead of paying 25 francs each to eat just bread and cheese, we bought fondue cheese at the supermarket and made it in the hostel kitchen, which turned out to be so much better because in addition to bread we also bought fruits and vegetables to dip. I can't even tell you how good pear dipped in cheese is.

I don't really know what exactly it was about Switzerland that I loved so much. Part of it was definitely the landscape, but I also feel like the people there have such a good outlook on life. Example: lots of people ride bikes, and we noticed that it's not uncommon for people to leave their bikes unlocked! Something like that could never happen in the US. It probably has something to do with the fact that they have never been in a state of war since 1815. That, and there's also something to be said about a people who are so active and shop at supermarkets full of health food, and yet still value bread dipped in cheese and amazing chocolates.

Switzerland, you will be seeing me again!

The forecast in Paris predicted rain all week, so looking at these pictures makes me want to go back to...

I said goodbye to Gina and Hallie and got on a train to meet my friends Vanessa and Malorie in La Spezia before heading to those five towns that I've heard so much about.

The balcony at our hostel in Riomaggiore

 On the first day we hiked through terraced vinyards up to a church that overlooked all five towns.

 On the second day we hiked to Manarola and then to Corniglia. The normal route to Corniglia was closed, however, so we ended up taking the long way, which involved a LOT of stairs. It was totally worth it though, because it was so beautiful.

The view of Corniglia from the beginning of the hike. Not pictured: the mountain to the right that we had to climb over to get to it.

 We had lunch when we got there and I had fantastic seafood risotto (tentacles included).

We spent the last night in Monterosso. Until then the weather hadn't been bad, but it hadn't been great either, but when we got there, the sun decided to make a full appearance. Perfect for the beach!

Monterosso was still recovering from the flood last year, and there was a lot of construction going on, but we still had fun wandering around the market, seeing the church, and climbing up to the cemetery perched on top of a hill in the middle of town.

Just as the architecture stood out to me in Greece, I really loved noticing the array of colors throughout the towns:

Now there's only one stop left on my spring break, so make sure you don't miss it!