Sprink Break review; ark building plans

Mar 22, 2007 16:19

Spring Break was great. We had our plane tickets to Milan and couldn't get out of them even though we didn't really want to go to Rome anymore (we would have been in too big of a group). So we (me and the twins Michelle and Katie) decided to decide where to go when we got to the train station in Milan, having Switzerland as an ideal destination, but open to other possibilities. We got to Zürich about 11 pm without a hotel booked or anything, but luckily Switzerland is the safest and friendliest country I've ever seen. We wandered around for a hotel and settled for one that was super nice because we needed somewhere to stay. We stayed for 2 more nights in a backpackers hostel, explored the city and one day took an excursion to the top of Mount Titlis, which is 10,000 feet high. That was kind of expensive, but we figured we'd never get the chance to go up to the Alps again, and in 50 years if global warming trends continue they will be snowless.

Then we took a train to Bern, their capital. It was a cool place with a kind of college-town atmosphere to it. We only stayed there for the night then continued on to Interlaken, a town near the foot of Jungfrau (the tallest point in Europe) between two big lakes. That was probably my favorite place to stay because it didn't have the big-city feel to it and we were really close to mountains, lakes, and rivers. We stayed there for two days/nights in the "Happy Inn Lodge," another backpackers hostel that was only 20 francs (about $15) per night. One day we went to the west lake (Thun), over an hour walk, and chilled by the water while a swan taunted us and nearly attacked a dog. The next day we hiked towards the other lake (Brienz) for over three hours and had lunch on a bench overlooking the lake with mountains behind it. It was really pretty. We woke up at 5 on the day we left to catch a 6 am train and switched 3 times to get back to Milan in time for our flight and didn't get back to Athens until about 5:30 pm, so it was a full day of travel for me.

Overall, I would say that Switzerland has it together more than even America does. Everything is cleaned on a regular basis, everybody is super smart (official languages are German, French, and Italian depending on the region) and speaks really good English. I guess that's why everything was so expensive (a simple sandwich, for example, costs about 8 francs)--they have a much higher standard of living than most countries.

That was all last week. This week I wrote a few papers and had lots of class, except we have a 3-day weekend now. However, this won't be as fun as we had all anticipated, namely because it has been POURING ALL DAY. This is no exaggeration. We had archeology class in the Agora this morning, which is over a 30-minute walk (and no bus routes go from there from where we start), and it was pouring then. Of course, I never use umbrellas and got entirely soaked. By the time we were on the walk back to the apartments we were just splashing in the puddles because we couldn't get more soaked. And another thing is that Athens doesn't usually smell all that nice, and now it has a "wet Athens" smell to it, kind of like how a dog smells worse when it gets wet. It's been almost 5 hours since then and the rain has not let up at all. So much for going to the beach today. Instead, we've decided to stay in the apartments, watch Reno 911, eat gyros, and play beer pong. Booyah.
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