From Zurich to Rheinfelden

   

 I know I am supposed to be blogging like crazy, but I am still SO jetlagged. Maybe tomorrow I will be in a better place to use my brain; here is at least a little update. 

     We arrived in Zurich at 8 yesterday morning (Happy Mother's Day Mama) to a beautiful and oh-so-sunny 80 degree day. We took the train to Rheinfelden past acres of 10x10 fenced in farm plots with little planting shacks next to them where city folk apparently go to grow their veggies. So cool, sooo different,

            We got to Schloss-Beuggen, a 13^th century German castle that has been refurbished as a conference center and hotel, at lunch time.  It sits directly on the Rhine, which I can see from my bedroom window. When we arrived, we were met by one of the French faculty members with a bottle of champagne and the most legit picnic I have ever seen in my life. Blanket, basket, all kinds of cheeses, meat pâtés (which of course, I politely declined), cabbage a million ways, carrot salad, fresh French radishes, and a sauagey-roll covered in bread… which I actually tried! The only expectation I am putting on myself for this trip is that I try one new thing each day that I would normally say no to.  We had some meal tonight for dinner that was a sort of gnocchi-perogie mix covered in sauerkraut (Mama, you would have loooved this) and real German potato salad.  So good.

The Rhine River

            After dinner we hung out with the Swiss kids for hours and shared a few bottles of wine, reassuring them that most Americans do not in fact walk around in straight-up American flag outfits singing about how God and American are to two most wonderful concepts in the universe. I also tried to add that it is possible to love America very much without possessing the qualities that inevitably result in flag outfits and the like.  Everyone is so nice, although it is hard not to feel stupid when all of the other students speak at least two languages, and mostly three, and we only speak English. We had about 7 hours of lectures today, only 2 in English, and I am so ready to be done with the school part and on to the fun part.

Views from my window.

            So, I am off to bed on my second night in Germany, it is 5:30 where you are, and I  miss you all so much. I wish you were here, and am so happy that I am. I am off to Mulhouse France tomorrow and hope to write something a little more substantial then. 

The last two weeks before take off.

So, after some serious heckling from a professor about how provincial it was to be 25 and never out of the Eastern Time Zone, I signed up to take an International Social Work Course. I leave May 7th from Syracuse and fly into Zurich. From there, I will take a train and do some walking with 3 of my classmates into Rheinfelden, Germany. I will be there for about a week staying at the Schloss Beuggen.  I will participate in a seminar with social work students from France, Germany, and Switzerland, and try my best not to embarrass the U S of A too irreparably. 

On Friday May 13th, I will go to Strasbourg France, where I will spend 5 days checking out the city as well as some local social service agencies and the Council of Europe. Pretty cool, right?

Then, thank sweet baby Jesus, miss Mollie will come save me from the inevitably dire homesickness I am sure to be facing on May 18th.

Once she gets there we will be-bop our way through Switzerland to the south of France, and then hit up a couple cities in northern Italy before we head home May 28th.

Thanks to Dad giving up his flip video for a month (and thus forgoing innumerable opportunities to take videos of the dogs going for walks and doing other similarly poignant activities) we will be able to capture everything we see.

I will do my best to throw the videos up each night before I hit the hay, along with any immediately necessary commentary.

I'm sure most of you have had much more exciting adventures and may not be too interested in watching this European extravaganza.  But, for those of you who haven't, and our family, we thought this would be a super cool way to share our amazing opportunity.

Thanks for reading and talk to you May 8th.