The End (+ Italy)

Well it's over. I'm so sad. If you are thinking about going on a study abroad all I can say is do it!!! It has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I am so glad that I had the chance to go. I made some wonderful friends and saw some pretty spectacular sights (and my french got a lot better). It was amazing! Here's the recap of the last couple days:

At first I thought Geneva was going to be kind of lame. I mean there isn't really that much to see touristy-wise, and while it's really pretty and very very clean (especially compared to Paris) it's so dang expensive!! The first night we got there everything was closed so we ended up grabbing some McDo for  dinner (something I said I'd never do, but when you are starving and there are no other options it's pretty tasty). Well a happy meal + McFlurry = 11,60 swiss francs = a little more than that in dollars. Talk about pricey! We ended up getting pretty creative, most days our meals looked like this:

• delicious paid-for (that's the important part) hotel breakfast of swiss muesli, yogurt, an apple and hot chocolate
• a piece of bread, cheese, nutella and a yogurt taken from breakfast for lunch (sometimes an apple)
• waiting until we absolutely had to buy food for dinner and buying the cheapest thing we could find, which often was McDo. Go figure.

haha the joys of being a student. But really, travelling as a student is the best. You get discounts a lot of places and you can plan your own schedule...take a nap whenever you feel like it. So besides the expensive part, Geneva ended up being really fun. We went around the whole city and saw the few sights like the flower clock, the cathedral, the jet d'eau, and went to a cool Reformation museum. But my favorite part was definitely jumping off platforms into Lake Geneva. It was soooo much fun! And a very nice break from walking and museums. It was really nice to just hang out and spend a little more time with my friends before we all left.

View from the train

An old catholic cathedral taken over by the Protestants during
the Reformation, with a neo-classical facade added

At the top of the cathedral

Group fondue night! It actually kind of made us sick because of all the
cheese, but it was fun to try it 

Swimming!

Well sorry this is short but it's late and I have to get up absurdly early tomorrow to catch a train to Pompeii (I can't believe I just typed that!). Yesterday my family flew into Geneva and I gave them a tour of the city-it was cool to know it well enough in only 3 days to act as a tour guide! Then I said goodbye to everybody and we caught a flight to Rome. Today we visited the Forum, Colosseum and Pantheon--they are pretty amazing. I'll blog more about that later but here's a teaser:

The walls in the center are the underground passages that were under the stage

The outside of the Colosseum

Pantheon! It used to have stairs in front but they are now 25 ft underground
because the city has risen so much over 2000 years. Crazy. 

Well goodnight! I hope Pompeii lives up to its reputation, I've been wanting to see it since I was probably 5. We'll see!