Pictures to go with "Two More Weeks of Fun!"

Hi all,

I switched to a new web-browser and it seems to be working a lot better for uploading pictures. Here are some that should have gone with the last post I put up. I'm back from my educational field trip and have tons of pictures (a whopping 275) on my photo website. I'll be posting later this week on the specifics of how the trip went!

-Laura

Pully, the cute town where the wine festival was held.

We shared a little bottle of wine from one of the local producers.

Alyssa took this one of me peaking out from the grape vines with my clippers in hand.

The bob-luge in Moleson.

Wheeeee!

One of the restored Biblical figures at the Lausanne Cathedral (Luke?)

Rachel and I were finally reunited!

At the watch museum in La Chaux de Fonds

A view of France from the restaurant where we ate lunch in La Chaux de Fonds, CH

That restaurant also happened to have the largest desert menu in the world?

After eating at Bella Italia on Friday night.

A very foggy day in Interlaken.

The plane we eventually jumped out of

Jeff and me in our jumpsuits and ready for action!

Landing!

The Florence and Lausanne girls in Broq after visiting the chocolate factory.

Some huge animals we ran into while taking the Florence gang around Lausanne.

Two More Weeks of Fun!

Okay. Wow. I'm still up packing for our upcoming Educational Field Trip (EFT). Every semester, our directors plan a Pepperdine-sponsored field trip for us to learn and have fun for a week with no classes!I'll be boarding the bus at 7:00 am, spending one day in Strasbourg, two days in Brussels and two days in Metz. Some highlights of the trip should be touring the Council of Europe, the European Commission and European Parliament.

These last two weeks have been amazing! (Sorry there aren't any pictures along with my descriptions. My laptop is acting up, but you can still see them if you click on the "Swiss Laura Photos" under the "More Pictures Here" heading on the right of this screen.) Here are some snippets of what I've been up to lately:

Saturday, 10/22... I went to Pully (a little town about ten minutes east of Lausanne) with Nichole to visit a bit of the wine festival, celebrating the grape harvest. The city was cute and tiny and we enjoyed tasting some of the local wine.

Sunday, 10/23... Grape-picking itself was fantastic! We got up super early to take the train back to Pully. It was hard (and not quite the "I Love Lucy" experience I was expecting), but so rewarding. We learned all about modern wine-making, got to know some locals, ate lots of good food courtesy of the wife of the wine producer and did some good ol' fashioned manual labor. I enjoy being outdoors and doing something that doesn't require a lot of concentration so I can just reflect on other things or get to know the people around me. Oh, and I also learned that spiders love living in grape-clusters. So scaredy-cats be warned!

Friday, 10/28... I slept in and did homework and chores for most of the day. Alyssa and I decided to go out for some window-shopping and hot chocolate that evening. No joke, it was the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted! You literally eat it with a spoon! It kind of reminded me of eating warm chocolate pudding from fresh off the stove. If you're ever in Lausanne, stop at the cafe on your way up the covered stairs to the Cathedral. It's so worth it!

Saturday, 10/29... We took a day trip to Moleson, the little town above Gruyere that was closing when we tried to visit the weekend before. We eventually got to Moleson, but only after three hours plus of waiting. It turns out that the trains and buses do not run as often on Saturdays. So instead of getting there in a reasonable hour and a half, it took us a really long time. Being the optimistic girls that we are, my friends and I made due by playing cards, picnicking on bread and cheese and playing on the playground near the bus stop. When we got to Moleson, we high-tailed it to the bob-luge. For four francs a person (about 3.50 USD), we had an inexpensive blast! I rode it twice with a few of the other girls before we waited for the bus to come back for us.

Thursday, 11/5... For over forty years, Lausanne's Cathedral has been under renovation, including the porch (one of the most ornate parts of the once Catholic church.) Some fellow Pepperdine students and I were blessed enough to witness the porch's unveiling at a huge spectacular event after dinner. Along with watching sketches, dancing, and singing, we were able to step onto the porch (which is now protected from the elements with clear glass walls) and see all of the renovated Biblical figures. I'm so lucky to have directors and professors here to point out some of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like that! And later that night, I took the train to pick Rachel up at the Geneva airport. I was so happy to see her!

Friday, 11/6... We went on a field trip to La Chaux de Fonds, a city nestled in the Jura mountains and on the boarder of France. It's mainly famous for its watchmakers during the boom in that industry. We visited their watch museum and also took a tour of the local architecture and how it evolved over the years. My favorite part was the lunch we shared overlooking the canyon between Switzerland and France, and being with all of these great people! When we got back to Lausanne, Rachel, Alyssa, Elle and I had a leisurely dinner at Bella Italia. I've learned that going out to dinner here is no small feat, one should plan on sticking around the restaurant for a couple of hours, talking and relaxing and that one always has to ask for the bill. I love it that people aren't in a rush to eat here--eating and talking are actually the entertainment rather than simply the means to fuel you for something else (like a movie).

Saturday, 11/7... Rachel and I got up even before the crack of dawn to catch the train to Interlaken--Rachel was going to go skydiving int he morning and she was going to join me for a canyoning trip that afternoon. Well, we got to Interlaken and it was completely foggy! So we had to push back Rachel's skydiving time slot and then cancel our plans to go canyoning. Long story short, Rachel and I both ended up jumping out of airplanes that day, only twelve hours after originally planned! Skydiving was one of the most invigorating things I've ever done, and I hope to get my license now that I've gotten a taste of it. I'm serious about this!

Sunday, 11/8... We went to the Church of Christ and stayed for an amazing lunch of salty and sweet crepes stuffed with whatever you can think of: spinach, meats, chocolate, jellies. We headed for the train station soon after, where I attempted to exchange Rachel's last franc to no avail. (It would have been a 5 franc fee to exchange even one franc.) I was sad to see Rachel head back to Pepperdine's London program, but I'll get to see her in a few weeks for the Michael Buble concert in Florence!

Monday, 11/9... I helped organize a cooking class for Pepperdine Lausanne students taught by part-owner/chef Olivier of St. Gery (the restaurant we have dinner at three nights a week.) In between classes, I went to the store and (using the list Olivier provided) bought the "kitchen essentials" like salt, pepper, mustard, flour, sugar that our kitchen was previously lacking. That afternoon, he took us back to the store to pick out things to make. He is a self-taught chef, so he encouraged us to be creative and make things simple and tasty-sounding. We ended up having tomato-mozzarella salad, Greek salad, pizza with tons of veggies and pepperoni, spaghetti al carbonara, sauteed chicken and apple cake for desert. It was so good! I realized, though, that I've already learned how to cook from Mom because I already knew how to do pretty much everything we went over. Thanks, Mom! (And Dad, and Mutti, and Nana...)

Friday, 11/12... My friends from Florence got in fairly late on Thursday night, so we slept in a bit. After waking up and having breakfast, we set off for the chocolate factory in Broq. Yes, I have been there once before, but I wanted to be with friends and share with them the joy that is all-you-can-eat free chocolate! On the way back to Lausanne, we decided to be adventurous and get off at a random train station to explore a bit. (I'm not sure where we were--somewhere between Broq and Bulles?) We heard music as we got off the train and went to figure out what we were hearing. It turned out that there was a little carnival in town complete with bumper cars! So we of course, all paid the four francs to ride them! (Although Alex and Michael's coins didn't work and the ticket lady was mean and wouldn't give them another so they couldn't go, too.) We ate a late lunch and then went into the empty church (with amazing acoustics) to have a time of a Capella worship! It was so great to be back with my friends and praising the Lord together! We all ate at Bella Italia when we got back to Lausanne, mostly because we had tons of hungry, poor college guys to feed.

Saturday, 11/13... We slept in. Again. But it was so nice and I think our visitors appreciated a laid-back weekend rather than a stressful one full of busy-body activities. We stayed in town and window-shopped, ate some chocolate, ate lunch on a terrace listening to a clarinet player on the street below, shopped some more, took them to hot chocolate up the covered stairs and then on a mini-tour of the Cathedral. I planned to cook everyone a traditional Swiss meal, so we shopped for all of the ingredients and went back to the hotel to cook. We made Aelplermagaronen (macaroni and cheese with potatoes in it), Ankestuckli (freshly cooked apples with cinnamon), and bratwurst. Everything went smoothly until the fire alarm went off and we were privileged enough to have a visit from the fire department. Apparently, the alarms here are quite a bit more sensitive than in the States. I promise you that none of the food was burnt. Lesson learned.

Let's see. What else is going on here with me?

Class: Class is going well. I had a couple of midterms this week and last week in humanities and geology. But I've kept up with the homework and the reading, so I think I did fine on them. French is going pretty well--we're reading a novel right now (Le Livre de Ma Mere by Albert Cohen). Let's just say I'm learning lots of vocabulary because I have to look up at least ten words a page!

Bible Study: It's still going great! About twenty people come each week to have a time of worship, study and prayer in the midst of our compacted week on Tuesday nights. We're even taking Bible study on the road with us tomorrow! (So we'll probably be having it in our hotel in Strasbourg?)

Convo: Keith, Alex and I have been leading a time of worship on Monday nights before the convocation speaker gives his/her presentation. Every week, the process gets a bit more smoothed out.

The Smiths: Brady and Stephanie are the ministers of the Church of Christ right here in Lausanne that I attend. They've basically adopted a bunch of us! Almost every Monday night, I'm over at their house to have a delectable supper. Tonight, for instance, Stephanie made a salad with homemade croutons, a flaky pastry filled with broccoli, chicken and cheese, and a chocolaty desert! They are so kind to us!

That's all I have for now. I'll try to update this week, but I'm not sure when I'll have Internet access since we'll be traveling from place to place for our EFT.