Sex and the City…After being in Italy for over 2 months I think many of us have reached that point where we start to miss things about home. I’m not talking specifically about friends and family, because you miss them from the start; it only makes sense after all, you are on the other side of the world. I am talking more about the things like readily available internet access, 
English TV, much less cable, cheeseburgers and french fries. Basically all those little things we take for granted at home. Now I have one of those crazy personalized yahoo homepages that pops up anytime I am able to get on the internet, and the other day I happened to give it a look over. What caught my attention was not any of the real headlines but the movie listings—the greatness of the internet has my homepages list the movies playing at my local theater back home. I quickly realized that out of 16 different movies playing I had not a slightest clue what any of them were….except Disney’s High School Musical III of course. It was the weirdest feeling of being totally disconnected. That evening it hit me. I was walking home and passed the movie theater that shows movies in their original language on Monday nights. The movie poster displayed for the following Monday was Sex and the City. As news spread around Umbra that it would be showing the excitement was almost comical. Of course it is a great chick-flick of a movie but I think people were more excited to feel that connection to home. Needless to say, Monday night the theater was packed full of American girls clamoring to see “The Girls” on the big screen once again.
After the week always comes the weekend and this was my first back out on the road in a while (with the exception of my class field trip last week of course). Since I hadn’t been out of Perugia in a while I went big and got out of the country! One of my really good friends Mr. Ben Albert is interning in Geneva, Switzerland, so I headed out to visit him. Getting to Geneva from Perugia takes about 12 hours on the train so I had my first overnight train adventure! I’m happy to report that everything went as planned—I guess I’m finally figuring the trains out after all this time. On the overnight trains you are assigned a cart number and a bed. The beds are tiny and fold out from the walls, but other than being a little small they were fairly comfortable…they even give you sheets, pillows and breakfast! You fall asleep in Italy and wake up in Switzerland! The country was just as beautiful as I remembered from my visit about 4 years ago. Stepping out of the station I felt like I was back in New England. The air was crisp, there were trees with leaves changing colors, and streets filled with the daily hustle and bustle.
Ben and I spent the afternoon walking around Geneva. There are lots of public parks all along Lake Geneva and so we walked through our fair share. We also walked through what is known as Old Town. And it is just that, the original or old part of the town. We visited one of the churches and the town office building. For those of you who know Ben know he is a fantastic tour guide and his skills were in fine form as he told me all about the history of Geneva. One of my favorite things I learned was that the men used to ride their horses right up to their offices in the Town hall building. To this day there is a ramp instead of stairs up to all the offices. We also took a break for a gigantic game of checkers in which Ben kicked my butt! Ben Albert…here is your prize, just like I promised, your picture, nice and big on my blog.
English TV, much less cable, cheeseburgers and french fries. Basically all those little things we take for granted at home. Now I have one of those crazy personalized yahoo homepages that pops up anytime I am able to get on the internet, and the other day I happened to give it a look over. What caught my attention was not any of the real headlines but the movie listings—the greatness of the internet has my homepages list the movies playing at my local theater back home. I quickly realized that out of 16 different movies playing I had not a slightest clue what any of them were….except Disney’s High School Musical III of course. It was the weirdest feeling of being totally disconnected. That evening it hit me. I was walking home and passed the movie theater that shows movies in their original language on Monday nights. The movie poster displayed for the following Monday was Sex and the City. As news spread around Umbra that it would be showing the excitement was almost comical. Of course it is a great chick-flick of a movie but I think people were more excited to feel that connection to home. Needless to say, Monday night the theater was packed full of American girls clamoring to see “The Girls” on the big screen once again.After the week always comes the weekend and this was my first back out on the road in a while (with the exception of my class field trip last week of course). Since I hadn’t been out of Perugia in a while I went big and got out of the country! One of my really good friends Mr. Ben Albert is interning in Geneva, Switzerland, so I headed out to visit him. Getting to Geneva from Perugia takes about 12 hours on the train so I had my first overnight train adventure! I’m happy to report that everything went as planned—I guess I’m finally figuring the trains out after all this time. On the overnight trains you are assigned a cart number and a bed. The beds are tiny and fold out from the walls, but other than being a little small they were fairly comfortable…they even give you sheets, pillows and breakfast! You fall asleep in Italy and wake up in Switzerland! The country was just as beautiful as I remembered from my visit about 4 years ago. Stepping out of the station I felt like I was back in New England. The air was crisp, there were trees with leaves changing colors, and streets filled with the daily hustle and bustle.
Ben and I spent the afternoon walking around Geneva. There are lots of public parks all along Lake Geneva and so we walked through our fair share. We also walked through what is known as Old Town. And it is just that, the original or old part of the town. We visited one of the churches and the town office building. For those of you who know Ben know he is a fantastic tour guide and his skills were in fine form as he told me all about the history of Geneva. One of my favorite things I learned was that the men used to ride their horses right up to their offices in the Town hall building. To this day there is a ramp instead of stairs up to all the offices. We also took a break for a gigantic game of checkers in which Ben kicked my butt! Ben Albert…here is your prize, just like I promised, your picture, nice and big on my blog.
In the afternoon we headed right across the boarder into France for a little hiking. Mont Salèveis in the really small French town of Salève itself. Unfortunately I was a weekend late and the gondola which would take you to the top of the mountain was no longer running. Thankfully we were still able to take the foot train about halfway up. The views through the trees were beautiful as was the autumn leave covered path. Here are some picts of our hiking adventures.
In exchange for letting me crash at his place I cooked dinner and then we headed out to see Geneva at night. It is just as gorgeous as it is during the day! As we made it back down toward the lake the large fountain in the center was turned on and illuminated bright blue!
Sorry my picture does not do it justice. Before calling it a night and heading inside to watch a movie with on of Ben’s friends we happen to stumble across a Starbucks! I know most of you are probably Dunk n’ Donuts fans but unfortunately they have not made it across the Atlantic yet…Starbucks has. Even better is the fact that they already have this year’s holiday flavors out! I decided that Dark Cherry Mocha was worth the try and it was DELICIOUS! I hope ya’ll can try it soon!Sorry for my Starbucks tangent! Back in Geneva I only had one more day. Ben and I joined the rest of the students in his program for their weekly venture across the boarded to the French market. By now I have been to my fair share of Saturday markets and this by far was one of the best. Even though I was headed home on the train that evening I still left with a bag full of fruit and bread!
That afternoon Ben showed me where he has been spending his semester interning…the United Nations. One again I put Ben’s tour guiding skills to use and had him explain to me what the difference was between the UN there in Geneva and the UN in New York. In case you were wondering the UN in New York is where the Generally Assembly is held and Geneva has different ones like the one on human rights. 
Even though the General Assembly is held in New York today, Geneva was the original site for the League of Nations, but today serves as European Headquarters for the UN. Ben and I spent the rest of our afternoon exploring the beautiful gardens all around the UN. We actually stumbled into a few green houses that were absolutely amazing. Eventually we made our way back to his place via the small Geneva zoo and waterfront.After a short pit stop so I could stock up on some chocolate, (and boy did I ever!) it was Ben’s turn to cook dinner. Sadly I had another over night train to catch and headed back to Perugia.
It was so great to see another Stonehill-er this weekend and I can’t wait to be back on campus with everyone. With only three more weeks of class before finals Christmas break will be here before you know it!
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