I have finally arrived in Switzerland after months of anticipation. The trip started off by my family taking me to the airport. It was really hard to say bye to them but I knew I’d be able to talk with them still so that made it better. My flight was supposed to be at 5:50 out of Dulles, but because of a “suspicious package” they had to evacuate the main terminal and they wouldn’t let anyone check in. Luckily, I had already gotten to the gate, but that still set us back two hours. We were finally in the air a little after 8:00 PM.  One of the in-flight movies was The Social Network and since I hadn’t seen it, I decided to watch it instead of trying to sleep. 

Eight hours later… I still didn’t sleep. We finally landed and went through customs and got our luggage and headed onto the bus. The bus trip was brutal. The scenery was AMAZING, but everyone was so exhausted. I slept about 20-30 minutes and that’s about it. 

We got to our hotel, The Montarina, and had to lug our suitcases up a couple ramps, then some stairs. We brought all of them into one room to be sorted through later, and we headed to “lunch.” It was well after 3:00 by now so lunch sounded weird, but we were supposed to be there 2 hours earlier. I’ll probably post some pictures of the food soon, but it was.. interesting. The first course was a “salad” - it consisted of a little shredded lettuce, sprouts, corn, green beans, cabbage, and carrots with a little thousand island-type dressing. The main course was a huge piece of lasagna, not your typical meat and tomatoes, but it was actually pretty good. The dessert was AMAZING. It was some kind of sherbert pie. 

After lunch we got our rooms and had to carry our suitcases up. Then we went on a brief tour of the city and made it to the University (USI). It was a TREK. But at least Lugano is a beautiful city. There are so many hills and stairs, it should be interesting walking back and forth everyday to and from class. 

After the tour, I NEEDED a shower, so I took one and waited around for it to be time for dinner. We walked over the pizzeria and had another pretty good meal.  It was bacon-wrapped chicken, vegetbales, and potatoes. Like, nobody ate their vegetables except for me - i love vegetables - sorry about it. And dessert was amazing againnn. It was panicotti (?) with raspberries and sauce over it. It tasted like a rich vanilla pudding and of course I love anything raspberries.  Then, I went straight to bed and I slept for about 13 hours. 

Not sure what I’m going to be doing today but I hope it’s something fun! Pretty much just waiting for people to wake up, still.  I’m probably going to skype with my mom then go read in my bed until then.

Hokies play today in the Orange Bowl down in Miami. I wish I could be there to see my hokies crush Stanford but it just wasn’t doable. Until the game, I will be hanging around the house watching the Pretty Little Liars marathon. I’m excited that new episodes are going to premiere but I don’t think I’ll be able to watch them in Europe. Hmm, bummer.

Anyways, LET’S GO HOKIES! 

So I was told that not too many people keep up with their online blogs when they go abroad, but I figured I might as well give it a shot. I like the idea of sharing my experience with a bunch of people. I’m going to try and write every day in my own personal journal, but I’d like to try and do this at least 2 times a week - sharing photos, adventures, anything exciting.

At this point, I have about 3% of my packing done. I’m leaving on Thursday. How do you go about packing for four months… in two suitcases and a hiking backpack? I’ve always had an over-packing problem and this will definitely put me to the test.

I don’t have anything exciting to say at this point but I figured I’d go ahead and start off with this post and see how I feel about it. :)