Thursday, January 8, 2009

Have I mentioned yet that I love the breakfasts here? Tea and toast with jam or marmalade. There is also an option for cereal, which I do partake of occasionally, but when the bread is that good…who needs anything else? Ok, I would appreciate some fruit, but I can’t complain! I also appreciate that the tea is free at breakfast, whereas at any other time you have to pay for it.
Today’s class focused on economics – specifically in international banking and currency exchange. Again, it was not a topic that I am very familiar with, but one that is incredibly vital to international relations. I was a bit nervous after completing the reading last night…I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the terminology, but the professor did an amazing job of breaking everything down and making certain that we understood it all.

Following class and lunch (who knew you could cook pasta so many different ways!), a few of us hopped on the train and went to Bern, the capital city, for the afternoon. In Bern, there are fountains forming a line down the middle of the street. You cannot pass one without seeing the next just ahead in the distance. Most of them had a bear incorporated somehow (Bern is quite famous for bears). There was also a beautiful clock tower that we waited at for about five minutes because one of the girls had read that it did something spectacular at four minutes to the hour. So with great anticipation we waited. At four til, this little carousel at the bottom right of the clock began to circle around (like any normal carousel would do). Cute, but certainly not spectacular. However, there was a little shop of the corner that was quite interesting, so like any normal girl would do, we worked to forget our disappointment with a little shopping.

All in all, Bern was a success. Not my favorite city by far, but the views were amazing. I forgot to mention the views! Behind the State building there was a delightful view of the city and mountains…a little bridge where every few minutes a train would pass. Loved the view! Pretzels were also a part of the trip…we all bought a pretzel at the train station and worked to spoil our dinner on the ride home!

Ok, now that the success of Bern has been fully iterated, the evening held another group dinner (we still managed to eat despite the pretzel) and an early evening…we are headed back to Geneva tomorrow, so yet another early morning!