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.