Wow. I have too much to say and so little time to say it—living abroad is as absolutely delightfully busy as life gets. Since I last blogged, I have traveled out of Italy for the first time, hang glided over the Swiss alps, spent five days in Sicily with my entire program and hiked around the top of Mount Etna. HOW COOL IS THAT?
Okay, I’ll slow down and start at the beginning. About a week and half ago, six of us here in Florence program decided to go to Interlaken, Switzerland. Interlaken claims to be the extreme sport capital of the world (which, if you know me, is rather puzzling). I have never had so much fun in my life.
Our weekend started with a picnic outside of our hostel (Balmers, which is definitely the place to stay if you find yourself in Interlaken sometime). The sky was bluer than any I had ever seen, and the snow-capped mountains provided the perfect background to our Nutella and banana sandwich lunch. Next, we explored, walking the streets and not
believing our own eyes. The colors! Pictures do not do it justice. The little window boxes on the cottages are filled with the most beautiful flowers and the cows just amble around with bells around their necks and not a care in world.
We woke up the next morning and headed out to try hang gliding. Hang gliding, if you aren’t familiar, is hanging onto a large contraption that looks and works a lot like a kite. We were hooked up to a guide, who kindly asked us to keep running until we were running in the air… WHAT? But with a little bit of momentum and a lot of trust, one at a time we all lifted off into the sweet Swiss air above the mountaintops. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.
After this adventure, we decided to go canyoning. Canyoning, which I had never heard of before we signed up to go, involves trekking through some really cold water and treating waterfalls like slides and occasionally closing your eyes and jumping off of cliffs while praying you only feel yourself hit the freezing cold water below. Oh, and did I mention you do all of this in easily the most unattractive outfit you’ve ever seen? Full wetsuit complete with boots, a lifejacket and a helmet AND I HAVE NEVER HAD SO MUCH FUN BEING SO COLD AND SCARED IN MY LIFE. Really, though. It was unbelievable fun.
That night, we ventured up a mountain (taking one train, one bus and one gondola) to a little town called Gimmelwald. There is next to nothing in Gimmelwald but pure mountain charm. We stayed at a place called the Pension. When we walked in, they kindly informed us that they don’t use keys—we only needed to walk upstairs and settle in to our room! Our little corner of the log cabin was cozy and wonderful. We had to pull ourselves up out of bed to venture downstairs for dinner. Exhausted and shivering, we asked for the backpacker’s special, and our waitress informed us they had run out of it earlier in the day. She could, however, offer us a similar combo of soup or salad and an entree for the same price. We agreed, feeling desperate. When she walked out with the soup, you would’ve thought we hadn’t eaten in weeks instead of just a few hours. It was absolutely perfect. In fact, I don’t even remember my entree. The soup was that good. Afterwards? Warm apple strudel with creamy vanilla ice cream. The perfect Swiss meal to end the perfect Swiss adventure.
Then, we had to come back to the villa and endure just one day of school before we took off for our Educational Field Trip to Sicily. We started in Palermo (so many churches. That’s all. Just churches). We then ventured out to Monreale (more churches. This time they were remarkably sparkly and interesting, though). After Monreale, we went to Cefalu’. Cefalu’ is the cutest little beach town, where yes, we saw more churches. Then we were off to Castelbuono (literally “good castle” and it didn’t disappoint) on our way to Agrigento, where we found the valley of the temples.
Here, in Agrigento, I almost forgot I was still in Italy. Sicily itself is a world away from the mainland in Italy, with different people who share in a different culture and even speak a different dialect. In Agrigento, though, if you didn’t know better you would think you had been transported to Greece. The temples were unbelievable. They are huge and beautifully preserved! You can practically imagine the ancient priests walking between the pillars, then the Christian church services that took place under the brand new arches installed to distinguish them from the pagans. All of this was built against the beautiful background of the Mediterranean Sea. By the time we arrived in Taormina, we
were ready for some downtime on the rocky Mediterranean beach. And one of the girls was baptized in the sea! For almost an entire day, we were free to lie back and enjoy the island on a rainy afternoon. By nighttime, stargazing was in order before heading to bed for our early morning departure for…
MOUNT ETNA! We hiked on an active volcano! At the top, it was shockingly cold. We all rented parkas for 2 euro and huddled close. We saw two craters that our guide said had erupted in 2002. Too cool. If you bent down to dig through the volcanic rocks, the ground was hot. Etna doesn’t kid around. There are over 300 craters around the mountain that resulted from eruptions of magma (lava and hot gas from the earth). Before we knew it, we were back to the ground only to hit the airport for the flight home.
The flight itself is a story for another time…