I arrived in Lugano on January 6th after a long, sleepless night on the plane from DC. The ride from Zurich to Lugano was breath taking. To our right was the bluest water and the swiss alps. I thought the mountains in Vermont were impressive but they have nothing on the Alps in beauty or size. The first day in Lugano was so long. We arrived at the Monterina, where we are living for the next 4 months, only to discover that it too is beautiful. It is funny because it is not that warm here but there are palm trees every where! After getting situated in the Monterina, we ate lunch and went for a walk in town. I felt like I was walking in a dream because the town feels like it is straight out of a movie! You have to walk about 20 minutes, all down-hill, to get to town and where the university is. The views over the lake are stunning. Our professor, Brinberg, walked us to the university and then told us to find our way back to the monterina. Me and a few other girls got kind of lost and ended up walking up the ‘death stairs’ which has approx.. 20 flights of stairs in one long drag. Needless to say, we slept well that night.
We slept in a bit and then the next day we went to Bellinzona, which is this region’s ‘capitol’. The main thing to do in this town is go to the great castle. We ate lunch at this little restaurant, where a random person had to help the waitress with English because there was a great language barrier- something that I was not expecting to be such an issue. Everyone here speaks Italian and most speak at least some English.
Today, Brinberg took us for a ‘walk’ which ended up being a 10 mile hike up the a Swiss Alp and into another quaint town. The pain and suffering that everyone enduring hiking up the mountain was well worth it for the picturesque views!
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