Day 2: Bellinzona

Me looking out over the town from the castle.

We could see another castle from where we were... how amazing?

The day after we arrived we had free time to grocery shop and explore the capital of Lugano which is Bellinzona! I did a little research and Berne is the capital of Switzerland while Zurich is the largest city. Here everyone just calls Bellinzona the capital though so I am assuming Bellinzona is the capital of the "state" we are in which I THINK is Ticino and then Lugano is a town within all of that. However, I am no expert and everything looks beautiful everywhere you go so who cares!

We took the train in for 24 francs. It only took us 20 minutes to get there and we set off to explore the amazing castles. Below are gorgeous pictures from one of the three castles. We visited Castelgrande, but I still want to see Montebello and Sasso Corbarothey. During Carnivale they celebrate in the castles and streets. It is one of the largest, well known celebrations of Carnivale (except for Venice of course.)

My Italian teacher told us the Castles are fully renovated inside... so I have found my destination wedding location! After the we climbed up all the towers and tried to bust into a private party we decided to go grocery shopping. It was much easier to go here because in Lugano the walk back from the grocery store is up a MASSIVE hill. Call me dramatic but this is not Appalachian people. 

**I am going to do another blog post about the grocery stores in Switzerland and customs, prices, and products. However, I am going to hold off until I have more experience AND very exciting news we got today was that the Swiss-franc has dropped in value to below the U.S. dollar!!!@#$%^&*( Wooo this means I get more bang for my buck. If the franc does not drop I will not be gaining weight here because I am rationing all dinner meals and living off of rice cakes.

Sneak peak of my continued Day 2 blog post: What happens when 40 people try and go to dinner in a different country? & Coyote Ugly (yes, even the Swiss love Leann Rimes and bar dancing chains)

Group shot with the amazing background!

Things I have learned: Day 5

** A lot of this information is from my FIRST day in Italian class from our adorable teacher Madga. She was a wealth of knowledge that I fully intend on using to seem impressive on my knowledge of the country.

1. Mount Rosa is the tallest mountain in Switzerland
2. My name sounds AWESOME in an Italian accent
3. So far the ugliest name I have hear in Italian is Caitlyn. I dare you to say it in an accent.
4. Ticina is the only town/state (not sure what the right translation is) south of the Alps
5.  Lake Como aka George Clooney is 45 minutes from Lugano
6. We have the Matterhorn here (it looks cool and terrifying)
7. The Bernina Express is an amazingly slow train that is solely meant for people to view the gorgeous scenery across Switzerland.
8. They also have a Glacier Express from Brig all the way to Zermatt. See what I did there I acted like I know where those places are
9. St. Mortez is an awesome ski area with over 200 miles of slopes... if I need a large mountain to jump off of I now have a reference
10. Italian/Swiss students to not find it rude to stare right at you for 5 minutes straight this includes: when you say "Ciao", wave, or hide your face in terror.

This is where I go to class everyday! (I know you love the columns mom)

This is where I THOUGHT we went to class everyday... UPGRADE!

Day One: Completed!

We unpacked... I will add pictures of my room eventually.

We took a walking to tour of the town and our 20 min downhill walk to school... followed by our 20 min uphill walk back to the Montarina. Our instructor made us find out own way back so we detoured to the gorgeous park that is now the Official park of Lugano!

We ended the night with dinner at the Montarina where we get one dinner Monday through Friday... every other meal we are on our own. *Mental note to dedicate one post to Swiss grocery stores.

I am almost caught up on blogging-ish, but I have my first quiz tomorrow at school. SO naturally procrastinating has never felt better