Prèmier nuit

Travel was certainly exciting. We arrived at LAX at about 5:30 am Friday morning; took the 5-hour 8:15 flight to Philadelphia, the 7-and-a-half-hour 6:20 flight to Zurich. There were three of us traveling together at that point. We then went through Customs there, met up with two more students, validated our travel passes, and caught the two-and-a-half-hour 9:13 train to Lausanne. Up to this point everything was on time and no more difficult than we had anticipated.

From the train station in Lausanne, we were supposed to meet one of the coordinators who would then drive us to the dorms to make things easier since 5 of us were coming together. We didn't find him, however, and decided to go on our own. That was a bit of a challenge, however, since the maps we had were a bit ambiguous and we had to hike up a 20-30% grade cobblestone downtown street all the way to the Mètro station. One thing that amazes me is that public transportation here is so efficient. Not only in their mode of locomotion (mostly electric), but also in the schedule and placement of the routes - the entire country is managed by a single public transportation group.

In downtown Lausanne, things look pretty much like any downtown area you might be familiar with, except there are some different street signs and the other signs are not in English. Lucky for me, my Spanish background and the bit of French that I studied for this trip have paid off and we haven't been confused or misinterpreted anything.

Yesterday afternoon after we dropped off our bags at the dorms, we were starving, not having eaten since the flight in. We headed across the street, where we had seen signs of a café. It was closed at the moment, as usual ... we made a $100 shopping trip (split 5 ways) for that day's lunch and dinner, plus some groceries that would last longer and some household items not already furnished. We ate quickly and retired for the afternoon, rising around 9pm, at which point we had dinner - tortellini with sauce from scratch; salad on the side.

Today I plan to attend Mass at 11:45 in the next town, which happens to be in Spanish, and then explore that area, hopefully finding some less expensive groceries and other services we may need while we are here.

All in all things are working out, and as we quickly learn the ropes, I think everything will be fine! More to come...

Au revoir!