Switzerland!

Two weekends ago, Lauren, Taylor and I took a trip to Switzerland.  We left for Geneva early Friday morning, and when we got there we immediately dropped our bags at the hostel and went in search of some breakfast.  We found an adorable cafe where we had our first "taste" of Switzerland.  I ordered amazing quiche and a cappuccino, and Taylor ordered the most delicious hot chocolate I have ever tasted in my life (Swiss chocolate beats all).

Tomato and spinach quiche

Coffee, steamed milk, and Swiss chocolate!

After eating, we really wanted to get a feel for the city of Geneva, so we bought self-led audio tours from the tourism center.  Our adventure around the city lasted several hours, and even though we were tired, I really enjoyed seeing and hearing about the various import sites throughout Geneva.  It's hard to upload a lot of picture to blogspot, but here are a few of the things we say on Friday's audio tour:

Cafes on Lake Geneva

Beautiful ceilings of St. Peter's cathedral

Wall of the Founding Fathers of Protestantism, including Martin Luther...the Lord's Prayer is carved into the wall in huge letters as well

Plaza where we ended up eating dinner later

The tour was great, and after we rested for a while, we went back out around Geneva to find a great place to eat dinner.  Switzerland was so expensive, even after converting from francs back to dollars, but we found a good place with a lot of options and I ordered pesto vegetables and tofu, and we all ordered some french fries.  At the end of dinner, Taylor and I split a delicious dessert (that obviously included chocolate)

Hazelnut cheesecake, with a huge spoonful of chocolate

On Saturday, we took an amazing and scenic train ride to Interlaken, just a few hours away, so that we could partake in some Extreme Sports.  Interlaken is known for extreme and exciting outdoor adventures, and our canyoning trip was nothing short of extreme and exciting.  If you click on this YouTube link, you can see the exact same trip we took except with different people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7jDxUk1g7k  Interlaken was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life.  It is basically a small town in a valley of the Swiss Alps between two lakes.  The water of the canyoning trip was the coldest water I have ever subjected myself to in my life, and the jumps and slides were very, very scary, but I was proud and happy after scaling down the Alps through glacier run-off waterfalls.  After canyoning, we spent the rest of our night in Interlaken.  We ate at a cute Italian restaurant, and afterward went to a famous chocolatier and restaurant, Schuh, to get some fondue for dessert.  Interlaken was amazing, and if anyone ever goes to Switzerland, it is a must do!

View from right outside the small town up towards the mountains.  There were 10 - 20 paragliders in the sky at any given time!

The beauty of Interlaken

...The beauty of our fondue

On our final day in Switzerland, Sunday, we decided to take a boat tour up Lake Geneva to some towns in France and other towns in Switzerland.  The weather was slightly cool but very sunny.  Out tour had about 8 different stops on different shores, and we finally disembarked in the Swiss town of Lausanne, the 3rd largest city in Switzerland.  The town was adorable, with many shops and cafes as usual.  Strangely enough, the Olympic Museum is in Lausanne (why not in Athens, I do not know), so we stopped for a while to rest and look around the park and grounds of the Olympic Museum.  We climbed up extremely steep streets to find a famous chocolate stop at the top of Lausanne (the city is built up a large hill), but being Sunday, we found it was closed.  Instead, we found a very tasty Whole Foods/Do-It-Yourself Cafe that made up for it totally.  Towards the end of the day, we took a train back to Geneva to go to bed early so that we could wake up, catch a 7am flight, and make it to class on Monday morning.  Everything worked out perfectly, and my Switzerland trip was really one to remember.

Small French town on the boat tour

Swiss town

Approaching Lausanne

Olympic Museum pole of Olympic Game locations, "Athenes" is at the top

Waterfall at the beginning of the Olympic park

Taylor, Lauren, and me

Cook & Taste

About two weeks ago, my group and I were treated to a cooking class at Cook & Taste, a Barcelona kitchen class place, where we had the opportunity to make a four course Catalonian meal.  The four courses we made were Gazpacho de Tomate con Pesto y Queso, Tortilla de Patatas con Pan de Tomate, Paella Valenciana, and Crema Catalana.  My friend Dani and I got to make the Crema Catalana (Catalonia's version of creme brulee) and I also got to make the tortilla.

We made the Crema Catalana using egg yolks, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest; we cooked it on the stove, let the mixture cool in small ramekins in the fridge, and caramelized the top before serving with a blow torch.  When I made the Tortilla de Patatas, we mixed eggs, chopped onions, and sliced potatoes with some spices and made a thick, pancake-shaped frittata.  I had to be careful when flipping the tortilla over in the pan so it didn't go everywhere, but everyone loved it so I think I did a great job.  We ate my creation on top of delicious toasted bread rubbed with garlic, olive oil, and small, expensive tomatoes.

The cooking class was so much fun, and I hope I can take my family there for a private class when they visit me in November.  Here are some pictures of the cooking action and awesome food:

Zesting some lemon for the Crema Catalana

Delicioso!

The Toritlla de Patatas I made, along with the yummy bread. I forgot to snag the shot before digging in...

Beginnings of our chicken paella

Finished dessert!

About to dig into our paella, it was great but the chicken had bones we had to pick out (Spanish thing)

Oktoberfest!!!

Wow! I don't even know how to begin writing about my trip to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest.  It is a 2 to 3 week festival that has been running since 1810, and the festival draws millions and millions of people every year.  The majority of Oktoberfest-goers are from Bavaria, but there are definitely a good amount from other countries.  There was an especially solid showing from Vanderbilt; all of the study abroad Europe kids met at the festival and we had the time of our lives! Before we even left Barcelona, the friends I was traveling with and I decided to kick things off right with a round of beers at the bus station.  We continued to prep ourselves for beerfest by having some road beers, or sky beers, on the flight...

We thought we were pretty cool having our beers en route to the festival, but we had no idea the kind of beer we would soon be encountering the next day.


After taking a bus, a plane, and another bus to get to Munich and then wandering around to our hostel, we tried to go out on the town in search of something to do, but only ended up grabbing a few slices of pizza and befriending drunken, lederhosen-wearing people who were roaming around after a long day of Oktoberfest.  We hit the hay not too long after so we could be ready to go early in the morning and beat the long lines.  Cole made us wake up super early, we ate breakfast at the hostel to fuel up before the adventure, and we were on our way... I have to admit I was already feeling pretty high off of adrenaline and excitement to see what the festival would be like.  Taylor, Cole, Lauren and I set off around 7:00 AM to line up at the Hofbrau tent and the amount of people already there was astounding.  After we entered the park, before even getting to the tent where the other Vandy people would be, we saw so many huge rides and thousands of food and game carts...Disney World but funnier, costume-y, and with tons of beer!

 Kennywood's big swings except 600 times bigger

Charles, it's the real Hofbrau House! And soon I can go to the Pittsburgh one with you!

(inside the tent, view from one of our tables)

Vanderbilt friends

Shown: size off bierstein relative to my body

Once we were finally inside and situated at a few tables with Vanderbilt people, we awaited the beer waitresses' entrance.  The crowds went wild once they started coming out with huge rounds of huge steins of beer.  I was warned that this beer was higher in alcohol content, and that one mug had about 3 regular sized beers in it, so I was pretty sure I would have to pace myself.  I was so excited to see some of my great friends, who are studying in other countries, that I have been missing and everyone started to reminisce and drink their beers.  Before long, you could say we were feeling pretty happy as probably 75,000 people (only in our tent, but there were many more on site) were chanting, singing different songs, and meeting each other.  Whenever one brave soul in the HB tent decided to try to chug an entire stein, the whole tent stood up and watched to see if he/she could do it...if the person couldn't then everyone booed, if the person could...the crowd went wild! I couldn't have chugged one of those monsters if my life depended on it, but Tess and I got some pretty good shots of us pretending we were hard core...

Prost!

I drank beer, believe it!

Some of my friends, like Evan here, bought hilarious German hats...

View from top level of tent. So many people.

 Lederhosens on Alex and Lauren's adventure to the toilet!

 Biggest soft pretzels you'll ever see, Dad you would've loved them...and bratwurst (ew)

 This is how every German person dresses, it was so entertaining. I almost bought a dress.

They sell cookie cake necklaces that people wear, who knows why?

More Bavarian-clad natives

That guy had one too many...

These are the ridiculous kind of people we saw walking around.

After a long and enjoyable day, we needed to nap before we went out to get dinner with one of our best friends studying in Italy, so Taylor, Lauren and I headed back to the hostel.  Seeing everyone in the streets trying to stay awake and continuing to party on was very impressive, but the nap we finally got was much needed.

The day, in all, was one that I will never forget for the rest of my life.  I wish I could repeat it, but I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it all! I highly recommend going to Oktoberfest to ANYONE, it's a must.

This final picture shows how long and crazy German street names are, the language is crazy! I think I'll stick to Spanish...

Josepspitalstreet? Out to dinner after the festivities.

Palma de Mallorca

This past weekend, a few of my friends and I flew to the beautiful island of Mallorca to spend time on the beach and in the town.  After not sleeping on Friday night to get to the airport very early Saturday morning, we relaxed on the beautiful beach near our hostel and waited for our rooms to be ready.  We found some golden arches that I wanted to show my mom (but the food is way different from American McDonald's and the coffee is espresso.  They have McPollo instead of McChicken)

 After we checked in, we took the Palma bus to the main plaza and toured the shops and cafes.  I got to walk around an amazing cathedral that Gaudí helped to create and where many important Mallorcan kings are buried.  The cathedral looked like a castle and had a moat around it, here are a few pictures to show how big it was.

Lauren, Taylor, and I split from the other girls because we were starving and spotted an "italian" restaurant that smelled delicious.  I order a margherita pizza "con rucola" and we all finished 3 huge homemade plates of pizza.

Unfortunately, I did not take my camera with me on Saturday night so I could not document the delicious halibut dish I ate or the 35 year old Spaniard who kept hitting on my 4'10'' friend Evan.  After dinner, though, we happened upon happy hour at a bar down one of the cute, cobblestone side streets and were surprised to hear a lot of patrons speaking English.  We soon discovered that the Americans, Australians, and one South African, hanging out there were part of a sailing team that was in Mallorca for a pre-Worlds competition.  Their middle-aged/billionaire/tribal-dress-wearing owner, Doug, was buying drinks for everyone and we soon found out that he is a Vanderbilt alumni.  Their manager, a young 20 something named Jen, told us we should meet them on Sunday at the Real Club Nautico Palma to swim while the boys had sailing practice and continue on to their private mansion sailing regatta party. 

We made sure to do a background check on these people before we set off for our Sunday adventures, and the fun began once we arrived at the yacht club.  We swam and hung out with sailors from all over the world, some young and some old, and they were all very excited to be meeting young college girls.  After the yacht club, Doug, Jen, my friends, and I stopped at a sports bar on our walk back to their rented private villa and Doug footed the bill for food and drinks.  Once we arrived to the amazing house overlooking the docks and water, we showered and began helping with party preparations.  There were TWO private chefs in the kitchen, it smelled fantastic, and it tasted even better later on once everyone arrived and dinner began.  I don't even eat red meat, but the little hamburgers that the Italian chef, Lorenzo, grilled melted in my mouth.  There was seafood linguine, ribs, fresh white fish (very similar to sea bass), a Mediterranean couscous salad, plenty of vino, and more.  The 40 or so sailor boys, and few women, were definitely enjoying our being there and probably our dance moves once the private DJ, Manolo, started dropping beats out on the patio.

 (My friends with the DJ pre-party)

 (Dougie and some of our new sailor friends at the party)

(Sarah pre-party/awesome old Mallorcan party house)

I wish I had more photos of the fiesta, but I was too busy meeting interesting people, eating, dancing, and practicing my español.  Needless to say, our Mallorcan weekend was one I will definitely never forget.  Our two days were filled with random adventures that probably only happen once in a lifetime...I am so glad we went.

This weekend, if all goes to plan and we can take our final early, we're off to Munich, Germany to celebrate Oktoberfest!!

Love and miss everyone!