I arrived home last night and it seems a little silly to be writing another post about my travels, but I promised myself that this blog would be a complete collection of my semester and I wouldn't feel right if I left a piece out.

Before I left for Geneva, whenever I thought of Switzerland the following things came to mind:
-chocolate
-cheese
-blonde people (not sure where this one came from...)
-the alps

Blondes aside, I knew I'd have my fair share of chocolate and cheese...but I was worried that I wouldn't make it to many mountains. During the first half of the semester I made plans to hike four different weekends but all of them got rained out. It was like mother nature was saying "Why are you hiking? You don't even like physical activity! Here, have some cheese and chocolate instead."

Luckily, we managed to squeeze in three wintery, mountainous weekends before our departure. Up first: Chur, Switzerland. When I told people I would be spending a semester in Switzerland I was usually asked a) what language they speak there or b) if I spoke Swedish (really people????). Here's a fun fact you might not know: Switzerland has FOUR official languages, which are French, German, Italian, and...you guessed it - Romansch. GOTCHA! You thought I was going to say English didn't you!? For those of you scratching your heads right now, click here for some light reading about the Romansch language. Our initial decision to visit Chur had nothing to do with mountains and everything to do with hearing an unfamiliar language being spoken around us (we're real thrill-seekers clearly) but man am I glad we visited. It was beautiful and there are pictures below.

Me and all my friends.

Am I on the left or right? That's for me to know and for you to never find out.

Chamonix, France was next on the list. I'll probably never get over the fact that it was so easy to visit France. I'll also never get over the fact that Chamonix is a cute little town that I would have never thought about visiting but I'm so glad I did. There was no rhyme or reason as to why or how we ended up there one day, but we walked around a mountain, saw some beautiful views, and ate really great fondue (it wouldn't be a Switzerlindsey post if I didn't talk about fondue now would it?). Four for you Chamonix, you go Chamonix.

To give you an idea of how cute the town was. Note: this was before mountains and fondue.

Ain't she a beaut!?

Finally, my last weekend abroad also ended up being my favorite weekend abroad. Zermatt, Switzerland is unlike anywhere I've ever been. A large group of us rented a chalet for the weekend and woke up to views of the Matterhorn for two days straight. Zermatt is notorious for skiing (which I don't do) but that didn't stop me from having a great weekend. On the first day a group of non-skiers headed up a mountain and hiked around for a bit. We stopped for lunch (where, among other things, I ate cheese-filled bacon-wrapped sausage and then proceeded to hate every other meal I ate the rest of my time abroad because nothing is or ever will be as good as that) and then continued on our snowy adventure. The night was spent back at the chalet partying and hanging out with everyone. Day two was much more relaxed. No mountains were climbed, but we did find an ice skating rink. It was enjoyable for about an hour which might be a new world record considering the fact that I usually get bored of that after 20 minutes. We walked around town for a while, ate some good food, and then headed back to Geneva for our last week abroad.

After a long day of hiking, this awkward pose seemed necessary.

We went ice skating! And I bought a new hat! I love you, new hat.

Like I said before, I'm writing this from my comfortable bed in Maryland. I'm going to give myself a few days to relax and think about the semester and then I'll post a wrap-up here.

I would like to retract a previous statement. On Sunday, September 29th at approximately 11:22am I asserted that Oktoberfest is the happiest place in the world. I am hereby demoting Oktoberfest to the title of "2nd happiest place in the world" (i.e. any place you can lie in a bed and watch Netflix with no pants on) and am giving Amsterdam the new title.

Beyond the obvious fact that there are MANY fun things to do in Amsterdam, the entire city is absolutely beautiful. After taking a breezy canal cruise through the city, we visited Anne Frank's annex. While I haven't had as much of a chance to connect with Judaism as I would like to here, I felt very strongly about seeing this big piece of history. I still don't really have words, but I am forever grateful that I was able to have this experience and I will be re-reading her diary over winter break. We cheered ourselves up by taking a trip to the red light district, which requires no added commentary.

The view from the boat. If you look at this picture from a certain angle it feels almost as if you're swimming in the canal.

I cannot take credit for this picture because the museum rules clearly stated that photography was not allowed and so I grabbed this off google instead. This holiday season I'm thankful that there are people in this world who clearly disregard authority so that moments like this can be captured forever.

We also had another chance to see a museum, in the form of the Heineken Experience. What an experience it was! We learned a lot about the history of Heineken and, more importantly, learned how to pour the perfect glass of beer. I opted out of the pouring lesson in order to maximize my beer consumption, but if I ever find myself in a situation where I have to tap a keg, I'm positive I'll do a good job.

Cheers!

It wouldn't be a blog post if I didn't talk about food, so here's a short list of yummy things I ate:
-SO MANY FRENCH FRIES
-bratwurst and currywurst
-more french fries
-nachos from some random Mexican restaurant
-more french fries
-McDonalds

French fries topped with garlic sauce aka heaven in my mouth.

Like I said in my previous post, I will be posting updates about Chur and Chamonix soon. I'm heading to Zermatt this weekend and all three cities are basically winter wonderlands / look extremely similar, so I'm going to compile them into one SUPER MONDO post.

OH also in case you were wondering, I had a lovely Hanukkah/Thanksgiving! A group of us got together to cook a great meal on the first night of Hanukkah and I've been lighting the menorah every night (shout out to Ellen thanks for the awesome gift!). Our program took us to the American International Club of Geneva's annual Thanksgiving dinner which felt less like Thanksgiving and more like a wedding reception...but there was a buffet with super yummy mashed potatoes so I'm not complaining.

Oh my gosh I am the worst person ever and have totally abandoned this blog. For those of you concerned about my whereabouts, have no fear - I am safe and sound in cozy little Geneva. This whole working 9-5 thing is much harder than I thought it would be (shout out to the best summer job ever that I'll be returning to in 2014 and probably every summer after that for the rest of my life) and my free time is usually spent doing homework for the class I'm taking, but since this week is the busiest week I've had here and I have no time to do anything besides study it only seems natural that I should procrastinate by blogging.

I'm trying to think back a month and a half ago to Lisbon, Portugal where I spent the last part of my fall break, but my apologies if this post is a little short. Here's what you need to know about Lisbon:

-We took a tour through a company called "We Hate Tourism" in which we visited a bunch of non-touristy spots and ate really delicious food. The main highlight was standing on the edge of the most-Western spot in mainland Europe, but the Portuguese pastries came in at a close second.

Three cheers for cool sights!

Helloooooo beautiful<3

-All the food there is delicious. The first night we were there we had all you can eat sushi which was AWESOME because I've been deprived of good seafood since August. The second night we had "traditional" Portuguese food. I ordered seafood soup and grilled salmon....not entirely sure why those things are considered traditional Portuguese cuisine but I'm not complaining.

Our unlimited plate of sushi. I'm choosing not to include the picture of my salmon from the second night, because I'm assuming everyone who reads this blog has seen salmon before...more than likely at dinner with me.

-Everything in Lisbon is pretty and if you ever think you might want to visit you should. You should also take me with you. I always thought I'd make a great tour guide, and there's no better place to start that career than in a city I spent a mere two and a half days in.

Stay tuned for updates about Chur, Amsterdam, Chamonix, and (soon to be) Zermatt.

PS: I'll be home in 12 short days. HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?! Now accepting offers for plans (especially those involving food) so please plan for my arrival accordingly. I can't wait to see all of you beautiful people. Yes, even you Matthew.

Oh Prague. Where do I even begin? Prague is like that cool kid in your class that knows he's cool but will never admit it. People will ooh and ahh as he walks by but he'll always act like he doesn't care. With the exception of Budapest (duh) Prague is THE coolest city in Eastern Europe. The entire city has an old feel to it, but everyone there is super young and the nightlife is killer. Before I recount the days' events I would like to give a special shout out to my brother, Matthew. He spent a semester abroad in Prague and pretty much everything we saw and ate was recommended by him. THAAAAANKSSSSSS MATTHEWWWWWWWW.

During the first day there we checked out the Old-New Synagogue in the Jewish quarter, walked across the Charles Bridge, took way too many pictures at the John Lennon wall, drank beer on top of a hill at this old monastery turned brewery, and went to a rad bar with live music. I ate this potato dumpling dish for lunch, garlic bread at the monastery for a snack, KFC (!!!!!!!!!!!) for dinner, and a fried cheese sandwich for another snack / dessert. Lots of hot wine was also consumed that day, because that's apparently a thing sold on every block.

Here's a picture of me in Prague. The rest of the pictures included in this post will be of food. You've been warned.

If you are looking at this picture and you know what this delicious dish is called please let me know.

A little taste of home<3 also please note the fact that there are REAL french fries and not just potato wedges! Sorcery!

Fried. Cheese. Sandwich. Need I say more?

On day two I was graced with the opportunity to travel around by myself, due to the fact that I caught a flight to Lisbon that afternoon while my travel companions stayed one extra night in Prague. Before we split up we had a delicious breakfast at Bohemia Bagel and I ate my first bagel in just about two months. Then I headed back to the Jewish quarter by myself to see the other things there besides that one synagogue we went into on the first day. The thing that stuck with me most was the inside of the Pinkas Synaguge, where close to 80,000 names of Holocaust victims are written on the walls. After bumming myself out I decided the only way to make myself feel better was to eat a large amount of food, so I headed across the city to Radost FX (some club / lounge / bar / restaurant where Rihanna filmed a music video) and ate the most delicious nachos in the entire world. To anyone out there from Boston who may be reading this, I kid you not these nachos are better than Sunset. Major, major props to my good friend Rachel for convincing me to eat there. Without your constant nagging I would have never made the trip out there, so thank you for being persistent.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

YUM

Overall, Prague was a real winner. Sad to only have a day and a half there because I felt like there was still so much more to see, but it was really great to be able to see exactly why Matthew loved living there so much!

Anddddd she's back with another post! This one's about the second leg of my Fall break trip i.e. Vienna, Austria. I registered for Spring semester classes recently and decided that I'm going to take creative writing, so I'm feeling inspired to write this post in the form of haikus. I anticipate that the first two will be entertaining and then after that they'll just get annoying, but please humor me and try to stick it out until the end.

For those of you unfamiliar with haikus, the format is
5 syllables
7 syllables
5 syllables
and in my opinion it's the easiest and most fun style of poetry to write. Here goes nothing...


Vienna is cool
We didn't do a whole lot
But the food was good

First we ate sausage
From this tiny old lady
And it was yummy

Then we ate schnitzel
It was bigger than my head
Thanks for the tip, Bruce

Steaming hot chocolate
Was also present that trip
Once it had rum, yum!

We didn't just eat
Although it may seem like it
We saw cool stuff, too

Things we saw include
But are not limited to
A huge ferris wheel

Modern art was viewed
At some place called the Mumok
And then we ate more

Vienna is missed
We had a relaxing time
I will be back soon

Hope that wasn't TOO annoying! Check out the pictures below and stay tuned for updates about Prague and Lisbon. If you're (un)lucky I might stretch my creativity even more and try my hand at limericks.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that Figlmuller genetically engineers its schnitzel.

Hot chocolate with rum. Not pictured: the blanket I snuggled up with while drinking this bad boy.

No haiku could do this omelette justice, but this baby was from a cute place called The Breakfast Club.

My apologies in advance for taking so long to update this thing. Time flies when you're having fun! It also flies when you're starting your first 9-5 job and would rather spend your evenings lying in bed watching Netflix with no pants on instead of updating your blog.

I went to four countries over fall break and I think I'm going to go ahead and type up a new post for each one. That way you don't feel like you're typing a novel and I don't feel like I'm writing an unnecessarily long post that no one will read. Win win situations for the win!

First up: Budapest. Let me start by saying that even though we only spent two full days there I LOVE this city so much. I think the fact that it's in a country called Hungary might have something to do with it, but beyond that the atmosphere is perfect for young people and there was never a dull moment during our time there.

We arrived at our hostel (MAJOR shout out to the Budapest Bubble - the staff was so nice and friendly and we had a great time staying there) early Saturday morning and immediately hit the ground running. Here's a list of things we did on the first day:

1. Ate a delicious brunch at some cute cafe. I had eggs with cheese mushrooms tomatoes and basil and they were yummy. Unfortunately I was so hungry that I immediately started eating without taking a picture first (sorry Nikki).

2. Walked around the Grand Market Hall in a single file line because everyone and their grandma was there and the aisles were way thin.

3. WENT TO THE ZOO AND GOT UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH SLOTHS. THIS DESERVES TO BE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I LOVE SLOTHS AND I'M STILL EXCITED ABOUT IT.

I like to think that our happiness levels were equal in this very moment.

4. Had a relaxing dip in the thermal baths and saw a bunch of fat naked old people.

I like this picture because my feet look super big

5. ate bacon-wrapped chicken stuffed with cheese in a creamy corn sauce (NOM)

welcome to Nom City, population: this piece of chicken.

6. got a full night sleep because we woke up at 4am that morning to fly to Budapest.

So even though we were absolutely exhausted by the end of it day one was an overall success. We spent most of day 2 on the Pest side of Budapest (more info can be found here). The day's events went something like this:

1. Ate a cheeseburger for breakfast at this rad place called Good Bar Good Burger. Don't worry mom, it was a small burger AND it came with a side salad.

pancakes are SOOO last year

2. Watched a bunch of sweaty Hungarian people run a marathon and pretended like it was marathon Monday

3. Crossed the bridge into Pest and walked up a huge hill / walked around the top of said hill most of the day.

4. Did archery for the first time since like 2005 (hi Camp Pocono Ridge miss ya) and hit the bullseye!!!!! Just kidding... I failed almost as miserably as I did when I was 12.

I volunteer as tribute

5. Ate yummy sausage for lunch and converted my vegetarian friend to a meat-eater for the rest of our travels.

6. Visited the Dohány Street Synagogue aka the largest synagogue in Europe. It was super amazing and was by far the biggest highlight of Budapest (besides the sloths of course)

In this moment I was incredibly thankful that I had my Bat Mitzvah in the cafeteria of an elementary school and not a giant synagogue that could hold 3,000 people.

7. Ate authentic Hungarian goulash and rabbit in a red wine sauce for dinner. I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to rabbits, so eating them is my way of getting back at them for making me sneeze.

This is goulash

This is rabbit

8. Went out to a ruin bar with our new friends from the hostel!

Look mom I have friends!

So in summary: Budapest is amazing, sloths live there, the synagogue is ginormous, the food is delicious, and I'm incredibly confident that I will be back there for an extended period of time some day. It's 11pm here and I have work bright and early tomorrow morning (my internship is going really well by the way!) so I'm going to hold off on posting more about my trip. But to those of you who have been asking for me to update this thing - enjoy.

I don't know how to start this post so I'm just going to go ahead and say it: I think I'm in love with my French professor, Veronique. Not because she's attractive or our personalities really click, but because she knows the quickest way to my heart: FOOD.

Our French class wrapped up last week, and during the last scheduled class we had a French movie night. Veronique brought us cheese of all varieties, fresh baguettes, unidentifiable (yet delicious) meat, homemade chocolate mousse and crepes, and lots and lots of wine. A couple girls in the class also made mojitos which I certainly didn't complain about. We watched some French Saturday Night Fever parody called "Disco" and Veronique even turned the subtitles on, which meant I could focus more on eating and drinking and less on understanding the movie. Up until now I assumed that the best way to wrap up a class was by playing sporcle and cleaning desks with shaving cream, courtesy of every AP class I took in high school. But French 1 definitely set the bar high. Take note, future professors.

Our drink selection for the evening

CHEESE. That is all.

Principles of International Health also wrapped up last week, but in a less exciting way that is not worth blogging about. This week I have a paper to write and a French final to study for, and then I am a free woman for 10 whole days before my internship starts. More on that at the end of this post...so if you don't want to read about all the cool stuff I did this weekend feel free to skip ahead.

On Friday a group of us traveled to Bern, Switzerland AKA the capital. It was much smaller than I expected and we pretty much saw the entire city in less than a day. Not much to report on Bern itself, but the history museum is currently displaying a Terracotta Warrior exhibit that we spent a couple hours at. I'm starting to construct my own personal army of 8,000 warriors to be buried alongside me in my tomb, and I pay great commission if anyone wants to help a sister out. That evening I ate a potato and cream dish called rosti. It was delicious and even though I felt like I was going to vomit immediately after inhaling it it was totally worth ordering.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the exhibit, so this is all you get.

You'll be in my heart, from this day on, now and forever more.

On Saturday we had a group excursion to Montreux, where we ate good food and saw yet another lake. I'm becoming more and more convinced that every Swiss city functions around a body of water. Montreux sets itself apart because, in addition to a lake, it has a castle! Didn't really soak in much of the history lesson so I can't tell you a single thing about the castle, but it was pretty and I enjoyed looking at it.

This is a castle. Google "castle in Montreux" for historical context.

On Monday a few of my friends and I took a day trip out to Zurich, Switzerland, which is not the capital but might as well be because I'm pretty sure it's the most well-known city in this country. We walked all over the old town, checked out the lake (see? more water.), drank delicious hot chocolate, and ate some yummy food. Lunch consisted of tomato soup, bruschetta, and margherita pizza from this super cute Italian restaurant, and hot chocolate was courtesy of this huge chocolate shop, Sprungli. We got a beautiful glimpse of Zurich at night and then headed back to the train station to enjoy its version of Oktoberfest. We ate sausage and drank beer and sang songs and if I was dressed up in a dirndl it might have felt like Munich pt 2. A successful day was had by all!

It's a proven fact that Swiss water looks better at night

I love you, hot chocolate.

My Oktoberfest feast

This will probably be my last blog post for a short while. Early Saturday morning I leave for my 10 day Fall break adventure, where I'll be traveling to Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Lisbon. I haven't been to any of these places so if you are reading this and you have suggestions on what to do or see or eat (duh) in any of these cities please send them my way! I'm specifically looking for tips on Jewish life and culture (Rachel this is where you come in) but am open to anything that sounds fun and interesting.

On October 21st I start my internship at.......the International AIDS Society! I'm the "Journal of the International AIDS Society Intern" which means I will be doing a lot of writing and editing for their online journal. I still don't know much about the specifics of my internship, but I have very high hopes and I'm excited to start working! It's crazy that the first half of my semester is just about done, but I can't wait to see how the rest of my time in Europe will be.

PS: Ellen and Bruce sent me a cheese-themed care package and so they deserve a shout out. Love and miss!

Are they the best or what?