Escapar

I've been busy since I last wrote... and I can't believe it's coming down to my last three or four days in Lugano. Crazy. I really am going to miss Switzerland, but before I get too nostalgic I had better update you on my goings:

(O, but first do check out my photos from Neuchatel)

So on Friday I took my first real Swiss train ride (not on the Cisalpino, in other words, which travels between Switzerland and Italy). I was planning on studying for finals during those cumulative nine hours (4.5 hours each way), but of course there was no way that I was going to stare at some math problems or historical dates instead of the spectacular scenery!! Oh my goodness, it was magnificent. The best part was from Bellinzona to Arth-Goldau. In any case, after I switched trains in Arth-Goldau, a man and woman who work at a travel agency ended up sitting next to me. They both were speaking in English for some reason (not sure why, since her first language was German and his was French, but he spoke German and Italian as well). In any case, they were trying to pronounce "awkward," so I helped them out. The woman got off in Lucerne, but the man ended up being on all my subsequent trains (he lives across the lake from Neuchatel), so I talked to him for a good part of the train ride and he helped make sure I got on at the right place. He was really interesting to talk to; especially since he knew so much about traveling.

I got off the train in Neuchatel, of course, where Bardia met me. I had forgotten how tall he was, and he was shocked at our short I am. :-) The look of surprise I received was quite entertaining, I believe his words were: "You're so small! I expected you to be much taller from the pictures." I'm not sure how that happened to be honest. So he spent the rest of the trip referring to me as his little niece, in a very nice way of course. Teehee. We ended up getting fondue on top of a mountain, and it started snowing! It was perfect. Exactly how I had imagined Switzerland to be from the beginning--something like the Land of Christmas, you know? And the Christmas lights!! Oh my. In any case, after fondue, we tried to make it up the mountain but the car we were in didn't have snow tires, so it didn't quite work... we ended up spending about fifteen minutes backing down the mountain and then going the other way where there wasn't nearly as much snow.

Saturday morning we went for a hike and searched for animals. I think I'm going to have to tell you more about this adventure in person, since I don't have time to type it all right now, sadly! To summarize: we hunted down some wild animals that looked like little antelopes, but are related to cows, and then our Swiss-hunter-man-guide gave me a sausage made out of one Saturday night (I'm going to try and bring it home as a souvenir). But do look at the photos. We had lunch, then went to Bardia's best friend's house for coffee and hazelnut torte. Then we went to the archaeological museum, which was very well done and really interesting. I was impressed, especially since it's such a small town. Then we went back to the house to nap for a bit, and then it was off to a football-fundraising dinner for Bardia's Swiss sister's daughter. It was pretty small, but it was fun. I ended up befriending the youngest daughter, who was nine or ten. She was quite cute and had a good time styling my hair. There are some strange pictures floating around out there somewhere of me with lopsided pigtails. We traded hairbands as parting gifts.

Sunday morning we had breakfast then went for a walk on the roads behind the house (it's a pretty out-there area; cows, farm roads, forests) and through the SNOW! It was wonderful. I caught the 12:27pm train from Neuchatel to Olten to Lugano, about 4.5 hours again. And there was so much snow. I quite enjoyed it.

And since then, well I've had three finals (German, Marketing, Western Civ--by far the most difficult ones), I've taken out a tremendous amount of recycling and garbage, and I've been working on packing and moving out (passing things on to friends, etc.). And I made chocolate chip cookie dough yesterday, that I baked today, to go with the Sloppy Joe's I'm making for dinner. Keely's leaving for Zurich tonight to fly home tomorrow morning, so I thought we'd do an end of the semester dinner. Then tomorrow I don't have any finals, so Deniz and I are going to go shopping downtown and then there's going to be some sugar-cookie baking downstairs. I already made the dough for those too, it's sitting in my fridge, waiting to be baked. How lovely it all is. So I think things are under control. And I also mailed a box today, come to think of it. I did a trial-run for packing today, and I was able to get about 60% of my clothes and all my souvenirs into the bigger compartment of my suitcase, so things are looking good in terms of packing. Anything that won't fit at this point will not be coming home. I can't stand the idea of paying another 70CHF to mail a box home.

Hope all is well and see you soon! And make sure to check out those photos! :-) Ari