Runnin' Around Geneva!

Gettin' silly at Versailles, or just pullin' a Jesus and turning water into wine? BOTH. She talented.

*This post is dedicated to D, my danceflo killa and one of the chief crew DABS, who I had to say goodbye to this morning. Miss you already; you made my semester so much more fun/giggly. Can't wait to be reunited in Cali, BAD CHICK ALERT, alarms gon' be ringing every which way.*

Since a family vacation to Lugano, a small city in Switzerland, I have often said that when I grow up, that's where I am headed. After a recent weekend in Geneva, this dream has only become more tempting. SO. GREEN. MOUNTAINS. EVERYWHERE. MUESLI. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY. Basically, it was great, thanks in large part to my host Jean, an elementary school buddy while his family lived in DC for 2 years when his Dad got relocated for his job. 6th grade me would have absolutely died to have seen me spending a weekend in Switzerland with Jean and his amazing family, speaking in French, no less! It was like an out of body experience, but I guess that's the sensation of a pipedream being realized.

In the short time I was there, I got to see the go-to spots in downtown Geneva, and even a food market (les halles) which was super cool, and the jet d'eau, which seemed to serve no purpose except look cool and I am super down with it. I got to go out on Friday and Saturday with Jean and his friends, and everyone was super nice. The nightlife was great, but that could be partly due to my good fortune to be there during an electronic music festival.

I even got a chance to go trail running near Jean's house while he did some work on his documentary, which was absolutely beautiful. Having returned to Parisian concrete and sidewalk-hogging tourists, I miss it all the more. Get ready to fall in love/feel like Heidi--

View from Jean's house, and these pretty purple flowers I am obsessed with

Deliberately misleading Jean into thinking he was framing the water...made for better pictures, if you ask me

"Fait par les enfants du quartier"=tiny humans of the 'hood, hard at work

...urge to picnic

Apparently this is on some list of the most miraculous things in nature, and I believe it! This is La Jonction, where the two rivers meet, and you can really see how they are completely different colors. so cool!

Saw cute trail off path in woods, knew I would get lost if I took it, did it anyways. YOLO.

Running selfies!

Thought maybe this bridge would take me towards home...

...ended up running through some stables instead. Bizarre, but so charming.

The most precious family in the world. Seriously though, I just want to hug them/go climb a tree or a mountain or something

Family dinner just before catching my train. I have been entirely undeserving of the hospitality of my hosts this semester, but I LOVE IT

So now, having seen Switzerland for a 2nd time, I can still say that it is awesome, and I am 100% going back. Everyone was so nice to me, and it was cool to see Jean and his family again (it had been TEN YEARS; his little sister was barely 4 when they moved away from DC! Unreal, considering now she's the coolest Swiss chick I know...also like the only one, but still). It was very different from Paris, but in a good way, and the whole weekend was just another reason why this semester has been so great & continually offering unique and cool experiences I could never have imagined having.

P.S. Dear Paris, I appreciate your concentrated effort at becoming greener like Switzerland, but STOP RAINING.

Eataly-Adventures in the Land of Ice Cream and Sunlight

I have been trapped indoors quite a bit this week thanks to bad weather that has officially rained on my parade and dampened my mood (see what I did there?). It inevitably made me miss Italy more than I already did, and I while bitterly looking at the photos from my time there, I realized I forgot to brag about it! :)

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Punky's 2-wk visit overlapped my week of spring vacation, so he and I joined forces with Claude and hit Italy together. We flew Ryanair (budget line used by poor students across Europe) to Pisa, where we saw the Torre Pendente...and quickly realized there was not much else to do there. That was the only part of the trip that was really planned, so we hustled to a café for wifi, messaged my friend Jujube who is doing her semester in Florence, and BOOM! Like the DAB that she is, she hosted us that night...and for like the next 4....

Gelato and the tower! We waste no time :)

The view from Julia's beautiful apartment, which she shares with 2 great girls

Julia leads her ducklings allovadaplace *note her knowledgeable finger-pointing

Gusta Pizza, a dive place on a corner & the BEST pizza I have ever had

Lemon trees in the pretty gardens, en route to the piazzale michelangelo

View from the top! You can even see the old city walls winding down the hillside

There was a pretty church at the top of the hill, and if that wasn't magical enough, there was a wedding there! You could still walk along the sides, so we creeped for sure.

During one of our days in Florence, we got up early and got out of Julia's hair for the day to knock of my pick of the trip: the Cinque Terre, the string of mountainside villages on the coast. Usually, you can hike between them, but due to bad weather, only the most difficult was open. Undaunted, we hiked from Monterrosso to Vernazza...and it was amazing.

My PICs, partners in crime til the end

HEY lookie here we found a bridge! On the slippery slopes of the mountain path

Vernazza comes into view after ~90 min. So worth it.

My secret rock chair. Having finished the hike, my thighs were shaking, so I had a sit.

Our day in Cinque Terre was amazing and I will never forget it. But it was so nice to get to return to our temporary "home base" chez Julia, in Florence. And to continue our adventures there; Claude was to move on to Istanbul to meet friends, and Jared and I decided to prolong our stay in Florence for an extra day to go to Notte Bianche, an all-night cultural festival & party. In our remaining time with Claude, we made the most of Florence, hitting the food market (we got ingredients to cook dinner for our hosts to thank them on Claude's last night), and the infamous Secret Bakery.

Pizza slices at the food market. We arrived having just eaten breakfast...and obviously got some anyway.

This picture pretty much defines what I see when I think of Italy. Classic, beautiful, rustic.

See no bakery, speak no bakery, hear no bakery? EAT DA BAKERY

After the marvel that was the white night festival, Jared and I finally kicked rocks, and did a day trip to Prato (20 min. from Florence, but the 2nd largest city in Toscana) before sleeping that night with our hosts in Modena, who we found on Couchsurfing. Gabi, Bob, and Eddy took amazing care of us--and I finally got the pizza with an egg on it I had been craving all trip!!! Modena is a small student city, like Bologna's little brother. It was so beautiful. We stayed two nights and one day there, before a day trip to Bologna and an evening flight back to Paris. Such an amazing trip, especially considering how haphazardly it was thrown together/how much could have gone so terribly wrong.

Immediate best friends :)

"OMG this is SO good!" Gabi works in a bakery, and brought us back BOXES of dangerously delicious noms.

Bob and Eddy make us a Lebanese FEAST....And now I know Lebanon is my next travel destination...

As I said, we had our last day in Bologna because it was cheapest to fly out from there, but I am so glad I got to see it! I plan to return there some day; we didn't have nearly enough time in the city, which I was pleasantly surprised to find out is a foodie's paradise. Bologna is all about their food, as Jared discovered in a market street in the old part of town off the Piazza Maggiore, where we got a ton of food. We took it to this cool place called Osteria del Sole, where they serve only wine but let you bring in stuff from the market so you can have an impromptu picnic with glasses of their wine (which is exactly what we did). Get ready to drool...

Meat+cheese. Sold.

Famous bolognaise sauce, a childhood favorite of mine! Jare and I asked for a little container full, and the man asked if we were making pasta, then laughed when I replied "Nope, just eatin' it with a spoon..."

Fresh pasta, filled with deliciousness

#1 thing I have learned from dining out/buying food in Europe: meats hanging from the ceiling is ALWAYS  a sign of good things to come.

MOZZARELLA

mozzarella....wrapped in meat. Did I mention I love Italy?

We did well.

RED

 Aside from the market street/Osteria del Sole, I had done very little Bologna research, so then Jare and I pretty much spent the rest of the day following a suggested walk in the city map we got at the tourism office, called "3 Hours in the Heart of our City." It was great, taking us past pretty churches and beautiful cobbled pedestrian streets, but my favorite part was the "secret window" off a random street that lets you have a peek at an old canal that still remains. It was so beautiful to see this hidden gem:

Basically, this was the one big trip of my semester. I could not have done a better itinerary, but it was especially amazing because of the great company (love you, Claude and Punky!). Until next time, Italy. And sunshine, apparently (SOMEONE MAKE THE RAIN STOP/WHY DOESN'T PARIS LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE HER?!)

Ciao!

Paris goes Punky

Guess what?! More visitors as of late. I recently had the great pleasure of playing hostess/tour guide to a Paris virgin, my dear Punky Brewster. He was here for 2 weeks, one of which was spent gallivanting in Italy (more on that soon). We did get to have some amazing days in Paris at the beginning and end of his trip, however.

Since time was limited, we had a lot of long days, but though they were packed with activities, it was mostly leisure (picnics, strolls, sunbathing, etc.). The days were also filled with wine, but that was really only a new thing for him--I have been here awhile, after all.

It seems as if J arrived with the sunshine, fortunately, considering that Mama Bear was here just before him and she was met with a hailstorm. You never know, here.

With me leading the way, we hit lots of the classic Paris spots: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Musée Rodin, the Louvre/Tuileries, Montmartre/Sacre Coeur, even Versailles! But we also spent time in tiny side streets of Le Marais and the area of Saint Michel and Odéon (neighborhoods in the shadows of Notre Dame), and some of my regular beloved spots (ahem, sangria bar). Wouldn't have done it any differently.

P.S. Biggest French win at Versailles: while waiting in line for the bag check because you couldn't bring food into the palace, the security woman told me there was no food in our bags (we promptly broke the baguette in half to fully hide it in a purse) and waved us on through. So tempting to break out the picnic in the Hall of Mirrors...livin' like kingz

1st night in Paris! Wine bar, sports bar, sangria bar. GREAT.

Infinite picnics; this one is in the Tuileries, in front of the Louvre

Proud to say our communication was peppered with French by the end, like "confiture" replacing jam. I will never again be able to call a corkscrew anything but a tire-bouchon...

Gates of Hell/Beyonce's Single Ladies, Musée Rodin

FONDUE...

...and wine in baby bottles?

Versailles! Still ridin' high from our victory

Diarra=God, turning water into wine. Or just getting silly

We are dancing baby cherubs

Versailles in the late afternoon sun...

...And Paris at sunset! Jared's last night

Now left with just about 1 month in Paris, I thought that seeing someone from "home" (MI/DC/PA) would make it easier, but it was tough to be alone again in Paris when PB left. I think I got too used to him being around. Conveniently, his departure coincided with the end of exams and a mass movement of exhausted American students deciding to let all their worries fly far far away, and adopting a YOLO PARIS lifestyle (more on that later, too), so I didn't have the occasion to get down in the dumps. Essentially, the picnic rate has skyrocketed, as well as hours spent out languishing in the sunshine (which lasts forever here, because it stays light until like 9:30 PM. It's a beautiful thing).

In fact, yesterday after a picnic in front of the Eiffel, we stopped into Carrefour for a bottle of wine to drink while walking along the Seine, when a Professor from Canada who just finished up a year here offered us the 2 bottles of wine he would not be able to finish before moving out of his place. It was better than anything we would have bought, and such a nice gesture. Long live wine + walks, especially in Paris.