A person’s a person no matter how small.

The tiny cars, the perfect houses, the untouched snow, and the endless decorations around every corner were all u needed. This place reminds me of Who-ville. In European form. One of my favorite things to do these days is to go to the bakery, drink the delicious coffee, and read. The taste of coffee here is remarkable compared to anything ive ever had. I am getting spoiled! Everyone seems to love it here. To go and sit and get a drink with someone is what so many people love to do. It is nice to see people enjoying each other’s company so much.
Around every corner a giant-straight-from-the-forest-Christmas tree can be found!! In any open space, like a small plaza or something, in any of the small towns…… a Christmas tree has been placed!! I find new ones every day! And its not like they are hidden or anything, they are hugeee! All the light posts have light-up decorations. Saignelegier has single stars on theirs, Les Breuleux has half Christmas trees on some and angels holding candles on others. The angels look like tea kettles. Another one of the towns had twinkling stars on their light posts. We visited the town of Bienne yesterday. It is the closest Cinema that plays movies in English and all the girls wanted to see New Moon…… I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, and at one point I was actually a little excited to be going to see it….. but it failed. Luckily we went on the discount day-MONDAY!! Only 13 francs instead of 17! The movie had an intermission right in the middle!!! After an extremely intense motorcycle chase, it stopped, the lights came on, and the screen closed. hahahaha. It was about 15 minutes of complete confusion for the six of us. What an amazing day in Bienne though. There was a Christmas street fair going on which consisted of countless booths throughout the streets. And it was raining sooooo refreshing.

the first dusting of snow

the connector of our house to the pizzeria :)

finally a good amount of snoooow!

the walking path from lunch to the CL

the CL covered in SNOW!!

view of halle cantine from the CL

adorable snow fallen village

magnificent panoramic hillside

gigantic trees filled w snow

our first trip to practice in the snow

cross country skiing?

i hope this stays awhile

wow. the valley before practice.

the street fair in Bienne!!

street decorations made me happy!!

There is a Maurice Lacroix factory in our town!! It was open to the public and we had a chance to visit and learn exactly what goes into making a watch. This is the watch that is unique to our province of Jura!! A watch is a million times more complicated than I ever expected. It was amazing to see such tiny pieces fit together so perfectly as if it was nothing. None of the workers spoke English too well, but we were fortunate that Benoit set us up with a friend to guide us thru. At the end of the tour they were selling watches for 70 percent off!!! They also had beer tasting of a beer that was unique to the region!!! I cant wait to get my watch!

us in our booties and coats!!

viewing the process of building the watch frame

How I Survive: The Picture Book

Besides all my lovely friends/fam chatting with me and sending me e-mails(i coudlnt think of any appropriate pictures to demonstrate these things) this is how I am staying alive…………

90 cent sugar free energy drink!!!! delish!

cereal for life!! tastes like honey KIX!!!

iced coffee…. just add milk and ice :)

wheat pasta

swiss hot chocolate!! mmmmm!

candy :) usually german.

…….chocolate……..

my first box sent to me from my fam!!

my love

I miss and love you all. Bizzzzzzz.

ps- the suisse people, upon seeing/leaving someone they know, kiss each other 3 times on alternating cheeks. ive discovered writing “biz” represents this, in short form. “bisous” and “bec” are the actual forms!

Uplifts

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

It has been snowing for 36 hours!!!!! It is great I love it. Not much of it has been sticking, however. Just now, as I am about to go to bed, there is 2 inches on the ground. I can’t wait to see what it is like when I get up!! Hopefully I will get to take some great pictures Well, at least try to. The snow instantly reminded me of Boston. The villages have a very East Coast feel to them as it is snowing. I feel more at home.

The team won our first Swiss Cup match!! We also won the other League B match. We will play two more Swiss Cup matches before the League A teams enter into the bracket, which will be the quarterfinals. It is still be decided whether I will get to start practicing on Friday, as discussed, or if I will need another week. I stood on this weird machine at the doctor’s last Friday. I stood on metal foot plates and help two metal rods. It was explained to me as a way to measure the muscle mass of each side of my body. I had to enter my age and weight and height…… hmmm. Another interesting adventure yet again at the doctor’s.

We went to Luzern a while back. Our plan was to go there to ride one of the steepest trains in Europe…. but we got off to a late start and did not make it there until the afternoon. But of course, we made the most of it!!! We saw some great churches and a stone carving that is known to be the most sorrowful and passionate in all of Europe. We also got delicious mexican food. yum! Luzern was gorgeous. I thought Geneva was great, but compared to Luzern, Geneva is filthy! haha. To me, Luzern is a must see in Switzerland. We started at the tourist office again. They informed us that a lot of cities in the country have the “steep trains,” but it is something we should do. We decided on the walking tour…… which led us thru the city along the lake and helped us to locate all the significant stops along the way. The main stop, other than the lion carving, was the Musegg Wall. Climbing to the top of this wall and its nine towers gave us a spectacular panoramic view of the city. Although it was built in 1386, it stays nearly intact becasue of its location near the Alps! The view was truly breathtaking and gave us our first big taste of what the alps are really like. Being there gave me the uplift my gloomy soul needed.

the lake of Lucerne

the view from one of the towers

the clock tower of the Musegg Wall

dev emily and steph w mr. lion

commemorates the swiss guards who died during the French Revolution

gorgeous church on the water

flowers outside the church

emily entering the church's front doors

Zurich continued to further the process of the rebuilding of my mental state. Most of the other girls went to shop, but I went to sightsee!!! It is rare that you we see me on a day in which I feel like going shopping. hah. What a phenomenol experience I had simply walking around the city. The trees throughout the entire country are tremendously colorful, let alone in Zurich. I wound up in a wonderful little park. It was a little bit scary because at this point I was alone and there were quite a few characters in the park watching me. I walked briskly thru, taking pictures while I could. I wish I would have stumbled upon it sooner because I would have liked to spend more time there. I am sure I will return at some point.

downtown Zurich!

the sky is falling

museummmmmm

this lake runs thru the whole city

magical park

light rays shining thru the leaves

perfect.

rain on this great day= great rainbow

the rainbow and me

all trainstations should look like this one

shrubbery

fast action near the train/bus

We are fortunate to have made a lifelong friend in Loic, our “team manager.” He absolutely loves spending time with the team. Although our French tongue is coming along slowly, Loic remains persistent. When he discovered we wanted to go hiking in the Alps, during one of our lessons, he immediately volunteered to take us on one of our upcoming days off. It ended up taking some time to get there, which resulted in us trying to get Claude, VFM owner and Loic’s father, to cancel practice later that night. We were not successful, understandably. Loic had also made surprise plans to take us to get some famous dessert made in one of the towns we would pass thru on our way home. We ran out of time for this as well, but he still plans on taking us there at some point. We made it to one of the tallest dams in Europe. It was located next to a giant glacier!! This was the coldest day since we arrived in Switzerland. However, Loic managed to make sure we were prepared for this. We decided to take the trail that wrapped around the entire lake… it took us about 3 hours. What a great team bonding day!!

waterfall we spotted while waiting for the car train

just getting aboard the car train

this is Switzerland

a pretty hillside vineyard

famous village thats on all the postcards for the Alps!

wish you were here!

the gang and our trail :)

milk thistle family? :)

:)

the glacier is wayyyy in the background

the view on the way down….

The watch factory in Saignelegier, which I am amazed I had no knowledge of its location, is giving VFM a tour on Thursday!!!! It is the factory which the province of Jura is famous for, Maurice-Lacroix. Benoit, VFM president, just informed us they are giving a 70% disocunt on watches!!!! Woooooo. So, we will be going on a tour of the factory and learning first hand what watch making is all about, and hopefully picking up a Swiss watch!!! This is such an exciting offer!

Here are the public links to my facebook photo albums of Luzern, Zurich and The Alps!! You do not have to be apart of the facebook community to look at them
For Luzern and Zurich go to:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2320091&id=1817027&l=ebd02e8c79

For Les Alpes Suisse go to:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2320261&id=1817027&l=fcf2f23cfd

Des fromages sur le cerveau

We left last night from Le Pepiniere, our home gym and the place where we practice twice a week, to discover a snowstorm going on outside!!!!!! Ahhhhhhh. This quickly turned into my first adventure of driving a stick shift in the snow and thru all the windy roads back to our little chateaux in Saignelgier. (both meanings of windy fits here) It ended in a great success, although the faces of my two Southern Californian roommates might have proved otherwise. For some reason, I had a feeling it was going to be bone-chilling cold after practice and brought with me extremely warm attire. One of my roommates actually showed up to practice without sweatpants I think it would be safe to compare this to the first time I went snowboarding in Vermont up at Jay Peak……. I planned on boarding without goggles, but had brought a beanie “just in case.” It was January. haha. My time here, at the moment, might have been quite difficult had it not been for my experience with actual winters in Boston.

At the moment, I am not allowed to play volleyball. I ended up tearing a ligament in my ankle! It was found 9 days after the actual sprain in the MRI that was taken at a hospital in Bien. I was told the day I had the cast removed I will be allowed to fully participate in practice in 8 days!! That will be a total of 30 days since the injury, 30 days of not being able to run or jump!!! That sounds so crazy to me. Luckily, ever since I was taken out of the cast and put into the removeable brace I have been able to bike and weight lift. I am participating slightly in practice… mostly standing and serving, passing, and initiating drills. I have been the official assistant coach in out past two matches (injured players are not allowed to sit on the bench). I have written our lineups and taken stats on the bench. The last league match I will have to sit out of will be this coming weekend, hopefully. We are still undefeated and have been lucky to not have had tough competition these past few weeks.

However, the Swiss Cup starts Sunday!!!!! So this means we have two matches this weekend! Both at home! Both of which I can’t play. I did everything I could to try and get the doctor to clear me for this weekend, but I ended in failure. It must be for the best though. I am used to always playing thru injuries, but I have never torn or broken anything, so this must be different. The Swiss Cup is single elimination!!! It is the very first match that we will be entered in the Cup, so it is not expected to be hard. Remember, our goal is to WIN THE SWISS CUP!!!

Our schedule, as far as we know, is:
LNB
Nov 7th vs Therwil
Nov 14th vs Val de Travers
Nov 21st vs Muri Bern
Nov 28th vs Geneve
Dec 5th vs Ruswil
Dec 12th vs Cossonay
Dec 19th vs Fribourg
Jan 9th vs Therwil

SWISS CUP
Nov 8th vs Thurwil
Nov 22nd vs ???
Dec 6th vs ???(sweet 16)
Dec 20th vs ???(quarterfinals)
Jan 10th vs ???(semifinals)

So there it is……. it is up to us to make it happen.

In other news, our town hosted the Cheese Olympics recently!!! It is an anual European festival complete with a parade, a disco, bands, bars, booths, and tons of tents!! It was held in Germany last year! The first night my roommates and I attended the fondue party!!! It made more sense for me to eat cheese because I didn’t have a match to play in the next day. haha. So, I bought the fondue!!! We all shared it and it was delicious!! The next morning we walked around to all the booths tasting cheese before we left for our match. There were cheeses from Italy, France, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Austria, Spain and a couple other flags I didn’t recognize. My Coach and I completed the full cheese olympics experience on Sunday by watching the parade and tasting, but this time buying cheese!!! We also bought these delicious sausages. I found this crazy cheese sandwhich making booth…. where I HAD to buy a cheese sandwhich. They had a grill set up particularly to make cheese sandwhiches, I swear!! That thing looked like it would stay hot for days. They would stick a slice of cheese and two slices of bread on these prongs then rotate them in the grill. Turned out perfect everytime!!!!

the flyer that kept me in anticipation…

all the adorable couples dancing to the band :)

soooooo crowded in our town barn for the Cheese!!!

fondue for one but fed three!!

annnnnnnnnd…. she loved it!

the beginning of the zip line for kids and that building marked the end of the parade

the end of the zip line and the CL in the background

that circus tent had a petting zoo inside!

close up of those cheese slices

cooking the cheese sandwhiches!!

morbier cheese made in les monts de jura and my delish sausage

homemade broccoli cheese and potato soup :)

Damages Shmamages

Last Saturday I sprained my ankle! I landed on someone in our match…. but we still won! They dont even need me!! We are still undefeated. We play the team in second tomorrow in Lausanne. Ill be tagging along as the stat girl because im in a CAST!!!! Yep, sounds strange to me too. I also was given crutches. The doctor is being really cautious. He had every right to be though cuz my ankle looked herendous!!!!! I get it off on Monday, I think.

Right after it happened on Saturday, Mya, our team mom, asked if she could call a special lady for me. She said it is known as “the secret” around here and that most teams do it. Some people believe in it, some people do not. This lady is known to have special powers. I later found out she does magnetism. So Mya called the lady and she asked for my full name, birthdate, how much I weighed, where I lived, and maybe some other things I don’t remember. So as Mya was touching my leg, the lady said she was doing some things and saying some prayers for me. I was told she takes away pain and can even stop bleeding. She can also see dead people. I was asked if I believe in ghosts, and I said I didn’t know. I have no reason to or to not believe yet….. A man in the VFM Committee has a mother that is believed to have the power to heal burns. This woman was called after a girl on my team suffered a pretty large ice burn from an ice pack that ruptured. It has healed tremendously and the scar is diminishing rapidly. She will give her powers to her son just before she dies…..

So, I sprained my ankle on Saturday and I woke up Tuesday morning to it looking the worst it had yet. I went to the Physio, Marc. He is from Vancouver and speaks the best English out of any one I have met here. He determined I should go to the doctor the next day….. little did I know I would be getting a cast when I agreed. While I was at the Physio, the secret lady came!! She asked to look at my ankle. She told me (thru Marc’s interpretations) that I was not allowing my energy to go thru my knee; my ankle was having trouble healing because the blood was not circulating down to my foot. She spent about 15 mins just hovering her hands over my leg, up and down. She squeezed a few of my toes, pressed on parts of my ankle, and mumbled a few things to herself…. then she was on her way. Marc came after she left to do stim, ultrasound and massage. He asked me to really focus on directing my blood all the way down to my foot thru my breathing. While I did this, he said he could really feel the swelling relaxing and the blood flowing all around. ?

Later that night, after I sat thru practice, the president of VFM was talking to Coach Kevin. He asked to see my ankle. I unwrapped the ace bandage….. and was shocked with what I saw. It went from a huge, awful looking swollen sprain, to an almost recovered and little bruised ankle in a MATTER OF HOURS! My coach had seen it earlier and even he was shocked… my body must just be that fast at healing. Regardless, I had a doctor’s appointment the next morning, and he still put the cast on even though I told him it looked 20 times better!! He also gave me an anti-inflammatory/pain perscription and self-injection blood thinner!!!! I was told to inject myself in the stomach every day. Since my foot was in a cast, he needed to make sure the blood was circulating. If it wasn’t circulating properly I could end up with a blood clot. So, my teammate, Kristin, wants to be a nurse, and I nominated her to give me the shots…

Mya told me a story about how she discovered there were ghosts in her house. She said she just had a bad feeling and asked the secret lady to come visit her house. The lady ended up saying all the rooms except for a couple she could feel spirits in. She gave Mya this glass orb filled with copper spirals to put in her house, and she also told Mya to light incense. Mya said when she took out her lighter to light the incense… she heard a “whooosh,” like the sound of someone blowing out a flame…. and her flame went out. ?? Loic, our team manager, said he has also witnessed miracles because of this lady.

I had an MRI and I got to keep the CD full of pictures!!! It was very cool to see my actual bones!! I returned to the doc right after my MRI at a hospital that was 40 mins away. He looked at the pictures real quick and pointed out a few things. He showed me all the important ligaments and pointed out that none of them were torn. yay. He located a bone contusion, which is simply a bruised bone. He also located, what he called, an artifact. He needs to read the radiologist’s report, which he won’t receive until Monday, in order to determine exactly what the artifact is. The picture can be described as what looks like a splinter in one of my bones. They took the MRI right thru my cast!!! I was hoping they would have to take it off and then I was going to convince them not to pu tit back on!!!! So that was unfortunate.

Significantly out of topic, but I have discovered that if you pay for gas with your bank card, some gas stations over charge you because they do not initially know how much gas you are getting when you put in your card. A gas station charged my card the maximum one day when I bought gas. This ended up meaning it wiped my whole bank account for four days until the money was finally returned. I tried to ask the bank about this when I noticed 2 days after I had bought gas, and they, in broken English, tried to ask me if maybe I spent it at some party!!! geeez!

Also, my cell phone is no longer in function due to soe unknown password it is asking me for. Not a PIN for the Sim Card, but a password! One that I have never set. Thank goodness for Skype! Oh wait, that doesn’t really work either…… hahaha! Looks like I will have to resort to good old fashioned e-mail! haha.

Petrified Wood Foundations

If you didn’t know, this one is about Venice!!!! The buildings were built on piles of wood! Wood does not decay under water and without oxygen, so it becomes petrified!! As soon as we were pulling up to dock the boat on the first night, I felt like I was in a movie. We arrived just as the sun was setting, which created an amazing atmosphere. We drove to Chiasso, which is an Italian part of Switzerland, and then took the train into Italy. We planned to stay there for 3 days and 2 nights, at a hostel, Camp Fusina, which was on the mainland. The four of us decided to get two rooms, one with a bathroom and one without. They ended up being on opposite sides of the camp. haha. Not having a bathroom worked out fine, it was actually just like a normal campground, with tents in places and RVs in others. There were a bunch of shared showers, sinks and toilets. They were only a 5 minute walk from our little bungalow. We thought there was going to be wifi…. but it was not working any of the days we were there.

The first boat to Venice left at 9am and the last boat from Venice left at 1030pm. St. Mark’s plaza was unbelievable!!!!! It was our first stop the first night we got there, right after sunset. All four of us kind of just stood in awe for awhile, taking some pictures. The square was much bigger than I had imagined. It is much less crowded at night, which makes it pretty peaceful to just stand around and listen to all the performanes. There are at least three groups ready to perform at all times. The crowd just travels, all together, from each performance to the next. There were a lot of old couples dancing. It was very cute. The old men seemed to never tire but to liven up every time one of their dancing songs would come on. Long stem roses are being sold constantly all around. There were a lot of couples in general. The atmosphere was quite a romantic one. I did not ride in a gondola in hopes of one day returning and making it truly a romantic experience, the way I thought it should be.

Just the city of Vencie in general was an amazing experience in itself, however, I think my favorite place we visited was Saint Mark’s Basilica. I was absolutely blown away. The museum inside the Basilica was gorgeous. There were sculptures, paintings and tons of mosaics!! We spent at least a good 2 hours in there. I could have definitely spent more, but I think the other girls wanted to move on. There was a mass going on while we were inside. I wonder how you get the privilege to attend mass there?! You could only see the people inside thru the cracks in the portable walls there to provide privacy for the mass. There were so many different mosaics of animals and different scriptures in the domes. There were also so many different types of marble used to build the whole building. It was most definitely an enchanting place. It was well worth the line to get in and the crowdedness.

The city of Venice was not extremely dirty like I had heard and read about. I was actually impressed by the cleanliness of all the water passageways. It rained the last day we were there, which was unfortunate. I had planned out which souvenirs I was going to buy and from where. However, because of the rain, all the outside booths were closed. Throughout this day, we saw sooooo many people wearing green. A lot of them just had these green hankerchiefs. To me, it looked like there was a picture of a marijuana leaf on them. Old people, young kids, babies, everyone seemed to be participating in this festivity. We finally discovered it was some type of political event. It was described to us as a protest against the government, and that was it. Some people even had their faces painted and held huge green flags with the “leaf” desgin on it. Strange……. wish I had figured that one out.

We ended up taking the train back to Chiasso right out of Venice……. but when we bought our ticket the ticket lady decided it wasnt important to tell us we had to make a 5 min station transfer via the subway!!! We barely made our transfer on the way home. The last of our adventure was when we got lost driving home. Well, we didn’t exactly get lost, one of the tunnels we take to get home that goes under the mountains was closed! So we took the detour which sent us driving OVER the alps. When we got to the top it was snowing!!!!! It was our first experience of driving stick in the snow and on hills!!!

VFM!

photo shoot in the park

Soooooooooooooo it is time to provide everyone with all the VOLLEYBALL information. The reason why I am here…. VOLLEY!!!! The team I play for is Volleyball Franches-Montagnes or VFM. Franches Montagnes is the region of Switzerland that we represent. Our website is www.vfm.ch!!! There are 16 teams total in our league. 8 on the west and 8 from the east. Saignelegier is extremely close to the French border, which puts us in the west. Our league is called LNB. It is a fluke that VFM is in LNB this year. They have not been in this league for over 10 years!!! They are usually in LNA. So the club’s plan this year is they MUST move up. The leagues are set up like this: LNA, LNB, First League, Second League, Third League.

We play each of the 7 other teams in the west twice…. this brings us to the end of December. Starting in January, the top four teams from each of the west and the east will play each other. The winner of this little playoff is announced to be the number one team in the league and automatically moves up to LNA!!! The Swiss Cup is a whole new story. It has supposedly already started???? We will not move into the Swiss Cup until after the little playoff thing(Feb maybe)…. it will actually be the Swiss Cup Sweet 16. LNA begins Swiss Cup play in the quarterfinals. There are around 200 teams involved. All of the teams in Switzerland!! The draws for who you play are random. So, all the LNA teams could draw each other and then knock each other out!! haha. But this is true. The winner of the Swiss Cup is the number one team in Switzerland!!!! This is all I know about the Swiss Cup…..

First home match!

Our team has 6 Americans and 4 lovely Swiss players. In the picture: Damiana Musumeci, Cami Dessarzin, Stephanie Cahill, Jessica Nyrop, Melissa Willemin, Devon Sutherland, Kristin Kelley, Sandra Gogniat, Emily Day, Me, and Coach Kevin Wray

The top picture is the whole team with our Masseuse, Glen.

My Travels

Shopping in Neuchatel

So our first trip happened within the first few days we were all here. It was to a little city about 30mins away. This city has crazy buses that almost hit people every time I saw one! The city is set up so there are promenades for a few cross-streets, so people can walk without getting in the way off traffic. Only the buses drive on these roads. We found a few great stores for shopping. There is no shopping in our town besides the grocery store and a small pharmacy. We needed bins for clothes, hangers, clocks, batteries, adapters, towels, a few pillows, i think that was it. Neuchatel is located right on a lake and it was gorgeous. My coach was the one who brought us there. He had already been living in Switzerland for about a month before we arrived. He said he comes down and plays beach volleyball on the lake a lot. After shopping we went and had the most delicious ice cream in a cafe by the water. I had mocha!!! A few of the girls ordered beer…. I didnt want to ruin my ice cream

The five of us walking thru Lausanne

The first weekend we went to Lausanne and Geneva all in one day. Lausanne was gorgeous as well!!! This city was also located on a lake. We did not really know where we were going when we were driving there, but we ended up driving directly into the tourist info booth. haha. We have done this by accident almost everywhere we have been so far I think!! They told us a few places to go and explained how the metro worked. It was very simple compared to the T. We saw a sign that read “libre” under a big, blue “P” for parking and one of the girls said it meant “free.” Little did we know it has two meanings….. “free,” but also “open.” Sooo it was just letting us know about the vacancy. Later we also discovered it was a hotel parking lot!!! Good thing we didn’t stay in that city for too long. Our first stop was to the Olympic museum. There was never an olympics there, it is just the meeting place for the olympic committee. Their exhibit was all about using the olympics to create peace and bring countries together. This was the original idea behind starting the olympics way back in the day. It was pretty cool. They had a lot of authentic uniforms and equipment from different olympics. We then took the metro to a Notre Dame cathedral. There were some great views from the top of the hill there. I wanted to visit these ruins and this giant lookout post made of trees, but I was out voted. We needed to continue our journey onto Geneva….

The big city of Geneva after dinner

Geveva was the biggest city in Switzerland we had visited so far. We were planning on renting bikes, but the bike rental we knew of was closed when we got there. Geneva is kind of dirty and there are people and scooters everywhere!! We proceded to walk and ran into the Tourist Info place!! They told u about this giant fountain that was a popular place, and a garden. One of my swiss teammates, Melissa, had mentioned the fountain to me when she heard we were going to Geneva. I was expecting the fountain to be a natural sort of geiser. But we couldn’t find it, and this thing is supposed to be huge!!! We were a little confused. We stopped in a chocolate store, which was soooo delicious and surprisingly not too expensive. We did some more shopping. A few of the girls don’t have winter jackets (Californians) and were looking for some good ones becasue they are worried about the winter. haha. Then we ate at this outdoor italian place. My teammate, Devon, ordered a pizza “American style.” It was served with an egg over easy on top of it. I recommend this!!! On our walk back to the cars, we saw the fountain!!!! Apparently, they can turn it off and on. Strange. It is at the end of the jetti, in the middle of the lake, so hopefully they are not wasting gallons and gallons of water every second!!!! I coudln’t really find too much information about it, but I am sure we will be back!!!! Our two little Hyundai stick shifts are holding up fabulous.

Here is the public URL to my facebook photo album of the 3 trips……….

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2311006&l=1608f539c9&id=1817027

The Decision

So im in Switzerland….. and I’m here for the next 7 months?! It is still hard to believe I am here, playing volleyball, and traveling thru Europe. I think I would take this over graduating in May?? What would I do then? I’ve only been jamming in classes the past two summers in order to graduate on time. I also already chose my housing and classes for the fall semester, committed to being the undergraduate assistant vb coach, scheduled my work hours around my classes thru December, no big deal.
I just couldn’t pass up the amazing opportunity to go to Switzerland with six other Americans to play pro volley. Other plusses were the fact that I would be able to begin playing beach at the beginning of April, and that I would now graduate with Corey!!! So once it was figured out that I would still get my scholarship money for my final year and no one was really against me going… I signed the contract, quit my job , went on a leave of absence from Northeastern and got on the plane!
What a completely different world it is out here. It is most definitely gorgeous! Check out my picture page! If you click on a picture, you will be able to read a little description of it. Volleyball is going to be a challenge because I will be playing middle, that of which I haven’t really played in a while. I will just be a little rusty at the beginning. I cannot believe how expensive everything is here. EVERYTHING. Looks like I will be eating cereal for dinner most days……
I can’t wait to continue telling all about my journey thus far…..