Allison Abroad

RWANDA, SEE YA SOON.

I leave the Montarina in roughly eight hours. I leave Europe in a little over twelve. I’ll be in Rwanda by the end of tomorrow.

Our last week in Lugano was peaceful. We had class on Monday and Tuesday, and had the rest of the week off to prepare. (When this was announced on Tuesday morning there were cheers, standing ovations, and probably a few happy tears.) We’ve turned in our final paper. We’ve had our superlatives night. We’ve packed up all of our belongings and bemoaned how much stuff we all have.

 (my superlative, by the way, was “most likely to get lost” which is...very true)

The folks going to Ethiopia left this afternoon, among them one of my roommates and also some of my favorite people on this trip. There were hugs and tears as they departed - we won’t all be together again as a group until December. Fortunately for me, the Ethiopia group is joining mine for the safari excursion at the end of November. (Other groups will go at the beginning of the trip - next week!!!)

At this point, I’m all packed and waiting. I’ve spoken with my parents and grandparents and some friends from home. I’ve downloaded some books from overdrive and updated my music library. I’ve started taking my malaria pills (important!!!) I’m pretty much all set to go. All that’s left is to...go.

I can’t say I feel afraid. I know I won’t be alone - I’ve got Jesus holding my hand all the way through this. And I’ll be surrounded by wonderful friends from this program and I’ll be meeting so many new people as well. I can’t wait to explore more of this Earth - I bet the stars will be SO bright and I bet the sunsets will be stunning and everything about this upcoming adventure has me psyched.

Thank you all for praying for me as I’ve travelled Europe, I definitely felt the effects. And thank you in advance for praying for me while I explore a completely different continent.

I’ll be pretty out of touch until December 5th, so this is goodbye for now! I expect when I get back I’ll be forever affected by what’s to come. And hey, who knows, maybe I’ll even come back with a tan!? Now that would be even crazier than trapping around Europe and then flying to Africa.

THE LAST HURRAH.

This past weekend was the last weekend trip. *a moment of silence*

The trip to Dublin has been planned out since the very first week - 36 of us went, making it the biggest mass trip since, well, flying into Zurich in the first place. It was bittersweet - spending time with the people that you don’t normally travel with is GREAT and the sense of unity within the group was awesome, but on the flip side: I’m about to leave most of these people for 5 weeks. Sure, we’ll all be together again for a few days in December. But this weekend really brought what’s coming up in just 5 days into focus.

(FIVE. DAYS.)

We flew into Dublin late (close to midnight late) so Friday didn’t hold many adventures aside from Virginia Tech students essentially overrunning the small airport gate in Bergamo in the hours preceding the flight. The city was all lit up, however, and there are many bridges crossing the River Liffey that looked just beautiful.

We were up bright and early (actually that’s a lie, it was dark out when we set out) to go on a day-long tour of western Ireland. Our tour guide was a lovely young woman named Siofra (pronounced shee-fra) who was quite entertaining and very knowledgable about Irish history. The drive across Ireland was beautiful (at least, the parts that I was awake for were). We saw green, rainbows, and sheep galore.

We also saw Barack Obama plaza. 

Yes. You read that right. The Irish are quite fond of Obama, it seems. So fond that, when he visited the town his ancestor hailed from, they built a ... petrol station ... in his honor. It was hilarious, honestly.

The Cliffs of Moher in the west of Ireland are simply stunning. There’s no way to describe the beauty that Ireland’s coast is. It just blew me away (literally - the wind was nuts).

After the cliffs, we made our way to the Burrens, which were stunning in an unusual way - it’s definitely a sight unique to Ireland.

Apparently, the Burrens were inspiration for both CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

Saturday night we went to the Temple Bar, which was located in a cute little criss-cross of alleyways made up entirely of various bars. There were music players busking in the streets and people dancing and overall it was a very joyful atmosphere. 

Daylight Saving Time starts a week earlier over on this side of the Atlantic, so we got an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning. I went with Julia to Mass, since it was in English and I miss going to church, even though I’d never been to a Mass before. It was really nice, though I can’t say I completely understood everything that was going on.

We also toured the Guinness factory on Sunday - it’d be odd NOT to, since the entire town/country seems obsessed with Guinness. The tour was interesting enough, and came with a free pint at the end, which I couldn’t come close to finishing. Beer really isn’t my thing. The rest of the day was spent shopping and getting lunch, since we had to get back to the airport in time for our early evening flight. I dragged a few girls with me to eat at Nando’s, which is a favorite of mine - it only has a few locations in Northern America (all in the DC area) but it’s a thing here. 

Dublin itself wasn’t the coolest experience of all of my trips so far, but Ireland as a country was amazing. 10/10 would come back.

Anyway, we’re all back in Lugano now and looking towards the future. We leave on Saturday, October 31st for Rwanda. Our final projects (aka our final drafts of our grant proposals) are due soon and we’re having to pack up all of our belongings to either take with us to Africa or leave here in the Monty’s luggage room while we’re gone. It’s a bit daunting, but honestly, I’ve never been more excited in my life.

It’s hard to imagine that I’m leaving this place so soon after it became familiar enough to call it “home.”

I have fallen in love with Europe in every way possible and I have to say that I truly don’t want to leave. While I’m certainly looking forward to Rwanda and the warm weather and adventures it promises, I will miss the view of the lake and mountains, the beautiful town that is Lugano, Switzerland. I will also miss so many people from this trip, who will be scattered across Rwanda and Ethiopia: we didn’t know each other before this semester but now the idea of spending a month away from most of them is daunting.

I want to thank everyone at home that has been praying for me and my safety and plan on continuing to do so while I’m in Rwanda. There aren’t words to describe how much I love you (let’s just say, it falls only slightly short of how much Jesus loves you. And shorter because there’s no way I could ever reach that amount of love.) As much as I am going to miss Lugano, I can’t wait to see you all in December.

I’d also like to thank each and every one of you who donated to KPI. You’re amazing, wonderful people who are helping SUCH a wonderful cause. I am happy to report that not only did I surpass my personal goal of $250 (Currently I’m at $340) but our group surpassed our goal of $4000 - as of writing this, we have raised $5,454!!! Thank you all SO much for helping us meet and surpass that! And if you haven’t yet and want to, it’s not too late! You can still donate - both I and Kids Play International will truly appreciate it!

I hope everyone is doing well in America right now. I miss you! Also, I miss the food a lot so if you’re out for dinner, go ahead and have a cheeseburger for me. Or maybe fajitas. Or nachos! Go wild.

to...my...HEAAARTTT

(yes, I was singing anastasia all weekend, thank you)

I would like to take this moment to implore you to donate to KPI!!!

I personally am only $50 short of my fundraising goal, and we as a whole team have raised over $4,000 so far! We’re doing so well!

We’re also going to be running a 10K at some point (date still to be determined) through the town of Lugano to raise money. But since you’re not going to be here in Lugano to throw money at our tennis shoes as we run by, this donation link will suffice, right? Right.

ALSO to provide added incentive, if I meet my fundraising goal I PROMISE to not jump off any more cliffs for at least a year. ;)

SOOOOOOOOO I’d like to take this moment to confirm that I am, in fact, alive. I did survive. No need to panic, family, I’m back on solid ground. No promises I’ll stay though, I think I’m hooked. #AdrenalineJunkie

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T ALREADY SEE today I decided to jump off a cliff. Er, well, a dam. Why? Because all of my friends were doing it, of course. If all your friends jumped off a dam, wouldn’t you do it too??

Actually, bungee jumping is something that I’ve wanted to do for years and years. In fact, I’m pretty sure I added bungee jumping to my hypothetical bucket list before I hit double digits. Next up on the list, skydiving ;D When I first heard about the bungee jumping opportunity close to where I’d be studying (at an interest meeting last year, I believe) I knew immediately that I would set aside the time and money to make it happen. And Happen. It. Did.

The dam we jumped from (Verzusca Dam) is the third highest bungee jump in the world, and the most famous. It’s been featured in a few movies now, most notably the James Bond film GoldenEye. It’s 220m high, and exhilarating. 

Most of everyone wanted to go at the beginning, to get it over with before they could psyche themselves out. I, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to go dead last. Somehow, despite the fact that I was literally jumping off a cliff dam I wasn’t nervous. Sure, I had some adrenaline running through me, and yeah, I made sure not to eat anything just in case, but most I was just excited. There were tears and shaking from some, but somehow I escaped all of that. Don't mistake it for bravery though, I’m pretty sure the only way I got away with my confident facade/composure/attitude/whatever is because I shoved any anxiety and didn’t let myself think about it at all. I’m somewhat proud of myself nonetheless (my apologies for maybe a little bit bragging).

Although both of my parents were aware that I would be going bungee jumping eventually, I made a decision not to tell my mom exactly when I would be jumping until I was already done with it and safe, so that she would have nothing to worry about. I did tell my dad last night, though, so I hope he wasn’t too nervous for me (sorry if I caused some anxiety, Dad, I love you!).

Anyway, the jump was one of the coolest, most amazing things I’ve ever done in my life. Once I got over the initial 🚨RED ALERT I AM FREE FALLING AND THIS IS KINDA SCARY🚨thing, bouncing and dangling from the dam was so peaceful and quiet and beautiful. Greatest thing I have ever done to date, hands down.

BERLIN! I cannot explain how excited I was to see Berlin. There is so much history there that I’ve been learning about for most of my life - I remember learning about Tag der Deutschen Einheit before I ever had any clue what it was about - and this year is the 25th anniversary! 

It was definitely cold in Berlin, so much so that we bought hats at the euro store we found so we wouldn’t freeze out. Was it only two weeks ago I was at a beach in Naples? Yeah.

We started the day off at Alexanderplatz, where the Oktoberfest in Berlin was occurring. As I didn’t go to the Oktoberfest in München (unlike many in this program), it was nice to experience this version of it. It was FAR more low-key than Munich, which meant it was much more my speed. 

After wandering around that for a little bit, we made our way to the Brandenburg Tor. To our surprise, the place was crawling - not with tourists like one would assume, but with protestors! They were protesting the TTIP - a proposed free trade agreement between the US and the EU - something that the protestors claim would hurt the consumer and only benefit multinational corporations. We certainly saw a lot of signs, and apparently we walked with (as the crowd was headed in the direction of yet another tourist destination we wanted to see) around 100,000 people. We tried not to key into the fact that we were American though, just to be safe.

After we made our way out of the protest, we went by the Philharmonie, home of the Berlin Philharmonic! Unfortunately for me (but fortunate for my wallet!) the night’s concert was sold out, but it was still cool to see the building anyway. It was located next to the Mall of Berlin, which looked very cool at night all lit up, and there was a mini-concert going on there, as well. Honestly, Berlin is such a wonderfully modern city - the mall reminded me of a mix of Tyson’s Corner and Kingstowne. It was also within walking distance of Checkpoint Charlie, which was very cool to see!

There is so much in Berlin and we didn’t really have enough time to see everything (or even most of everything!) so we parred it down to a few key things that we wanted to see so we could spend more time there (fighting the checklist syndrome!). We decided to wait until early morning before our train to see the Berlin Wall’s East Side Gallery, since we figured it would be better in daylight. The next morning we were up and out of the hostel bright and early, and were able to spend a decent amount of time at the East Side Gallery before we had to catch our train. It was such an amazing experience - the art is phenomenal and it really speaks to the attitude of the times - frustration with the wall and the Cold War nearing its end. 

We had to catch our train pretty early in the day, since it was an 11 hour trek back to Lugano, but I’m so glad I got to spend the time I did in Berlin. I definitely need to come back, though. There’s simply too much to see in only a few days.

SO I know I haven’t posted in almost a week (yikes!) and I blame a combination of a lot of schoolwork, a busy weekend, and very infrequent wifi for that. That said, I now finally have the wifi and the time to write about what I’ve been up to in the past week or so.

This weekend trip was unexpectedly long because our professor for this class (we rotate classes: each class takes roughly 3 weeks to complete) had to fly back to the US on Thursday morning, meaning Thursday and Friday were open for traveling and exploring Europe! Fortunately this unexpected bonus time coincided with the weekend that my friend Susie and I were planning on traveling to Germany, and not on the weekends that require flights. Plane tickets are a little harder to adjust than train travel.

Susie and I headed up to Frankfurt on Thursday morning. She used to live at the American compound there and wanted to go back; I just really wanted to see Germany. One of the nicest things about Frankfurt is that it’s not so much a touristy place as it is a regular commuter city. It was a wonderfully relaxing experience because we weren’t rushed and trying to get to every tourist attraction offered to us. If you’re not careful, traveling can turn into a checklist and you can forget to enjoy yourself.

On Thursday, we walked around down by the river (beautiful!), were almost probably murdered by ugly baby swans (demonic looking, I swear it), and explored the main squares and shopping centers of Frankfurt. We also spent a lot of time near our hostel - we really lucked out with that one! The Frankfurt Hostel was super cool, very cheap, and best of all - free dinner and free breakfast!! It just had a super cool vibe and the common room where the dinner and breakfast was served had travelers from all over. I told Susie that often the things I remember most are the things that can’t be planned and can’t be repeated - such as eating a free pasta dinner on a balcony in Frankfurt. Outside the hostel was a small outdoor market that had everything from fresh fruit to bratwurst to hot chocolate. It was clearly something that happened daily, and there were people stopping in to get dinner on their way home from work. 

After dinner, we went to the American compound so Susie could visit her old haunts. What happened there is still blowing my mind, to be honest. You would think that, because she lived there, Susie would be the one to run into someone she knew. Instead, we ran into the mother of some kids I went to elementary school with (they weren’t in my grade, but her daughter was best friends with the older sister of my best friend, so we knew each other). What a crazy happenstance!! It was entirely by chance, too. We were only asking for directions and it just so happened that we asked probably the one person in Frankfurt that I knew. It was SO wonderful to run into her.

Friday had us running into someone as well, though it wasn’t someone either of us knew - we just decided to become friends right then and there! Though we were going to attempt to go see the “Frankenstein Castle” (the one that inspired Mary Shelly to invent the science fiction genre), it ended up being a bit too complicated for us. We even considered renting a car, but in the end we figured we’d chill for a bit longer and simply enjoy Frankfurt for a bit longer until we had to catch our train. We ended up in Starbucks (we had to take advantage of Starbucks since there aren’t any down south!!! we’ve been deprived.) and it was there that we met our new friend, Dalton. He was able to pinpoint that we were also Americans by our accents when we ordered “two tall pumpkin spice lattes please.” We got to talking and it turned out that he’s our age and was in town to do a job interview for Lufthansa and had no plans for the rest of the day. So we adopted him for the rest of the day and we all went out to hang out in the parks and found a wonderful out of the way restaurant that served traditional German food. 

After that, we said our goodbyes to our new friend (after exchanging social media accounts, naturally), wished him luck with his interview, and caught our train to Berlin.

heiße Schokolade mit Zahne und Zimt

One of the main shopping districts in Frankfurt

I actually had a migraine on Friday, so it worked out that this weekend’s trip was more local and less set in stone than some of my others. Imagine if I’d had a flight or a reserved train!? Trying to travel with a migraine is something I’m glad I was able to avoid. I was able to go downtown in Lugano for their Autumn Festival for a few minutes (I’m getting the idea that there’s a festival every other weekend, here) but most of Friday was spent sleeping and downing painkillers.

Saturday morning, however, I was feeling much better and we were able to catch an early train to Zürich so as to have the most time possible there! Zürich is a very walkable city and it’s very clean and organized. Public transportation is very efficient (It probably costs something but we..didn’t pay for it..oops) and overall I’m just very impressed with the city and in love with the general vibe it gave off. Zürich is easily my second favorite weekend excursion (after Venice).

Highlights of the trip:

Starbucks!! I made a separate post about this but it was so funny, going from not seeing a single starbucks for a little over a month to seeing one on every corner, just like at home! Coffee here is very basic, there’s not a lot of variety. A cappuccino is as fancy as a lot of restaurants get, down south. Also, it’s not fall without a PSL. It just isn’t. Especially since Europe isn’t nearly as obsessed with pumpkin things as America is. (I’ll just leave this video here, for those who haven’t seen it yet, ha)

The beautiful architecture and rivers

I had a cute conversation in german with a little kid who was excited about an action figure he had just gotten - a TrapMaster? He was very excited, enough to excitedly talk about it to a complete stranger while we both waited around for his mother and my friend Susie respectively. He couldn’t have been more than 10. 

Speaking of German, I wasn’t able to understand everything that was said (Swiss German) but I was able to communicate and it definitely came in handy a few times (talking to the tourist office lady, understanding directions, etc.) and it was very nice to have my second language have practical use for...the first time in my life that wasn’t grade related. Very nice.

Also speaking of german, I FINALLY was able to buy the first harry potter book in german (a long time goal) and I plan on taking it with me to Rwanda to work my way through. It was a very exciting moment for me.

When looking for food on Saturday night our main goal was “ANYTHING BUT ITALIAN” and we ended up at a very nice pub that served excellent buffalo wings and french fries and it was very nice and, most importantly, not pasta or pizza.

I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST. On Saturday night we went up Mt. Üetliberg and had the most stunning views of Zürich and the Alps in the distance. We took a train part of the way up and hiked the rest - apparently the peak is a popular point for high schoolers to hang out, especially on a Saturday night. Seeing as there was a club situated on top of the mountain, I think I can guess where the appeal lies. We climbed up a tower once we reached to top so we truly felt like we were on top of the world. You could see forever in each direction. This world we live in is so beautiful.

Now back in the Montarina, we’re all gearing up for the week ahead - lots of projects due in the near future. I’ll leave you with a music recommendation: I’ve been obsessed with the soundtrack to the new Broadway musical Hamilton. I’ve listened to the entire soundtrack straight through and I cannot get over it, I love this story. The whole soundtrack is available for free on Spotify and is about the life of Alexander Hamilton. It sounds weird, but trust me on this, it’s worth it. Here’s a link to a B-roll of the musical. Seriously, I recommend.