Whirlwind Europe here we come!

I am currently in Interlaken, Switzerland in the middle of beautiful mountains and lakes, cows and chataeus. It's so scenic and just how I imagined Switzerland to be. On Thursday I met up with Alissa in Geneva; she was coming from Nice, France since she had been traveling while I took my exams. While in Geneva we saw (in addition to hundreds of banks and clock stores!) the UN and the Red Cross Museum, both of which were very interesting to tour. We explored the cathedral there and went to the impressive archeology musuem underneath. We played lifesize chess and made ourselves dizzy on seesaws and sit and spins in the park. We also managed to rent bikes and take a boat cruise of Lake Geneva for free. Since the Euro Cup 2008 is being held in Geneva right now, there were "football" fans from all over the world decked out in the colors of their home team so it was fun to share in the spirit of all the festivities. The city has even suspended a giant soccer ball above their famous fountain in the middle of the lake. So after two nights there, we headed to Interlaken in the central part of the country where we had to swap from our incredibly basic French vocabulary to an almost unpronouncable set of German words.
Tomorrow we head on to Munich. Here's the rest of our itinerary with basically 2 nights in each place:
*Munich, Germany (with day trips to Dachau and Fussen)
*Salzburg, Austria
*Vienna, Austria
*Prague, Czech Republic
*Berlin, Germany
*Amsterdam, The Netherlands (with a day trip to The Hague)
*Then back to England for all of 6 hours before I return HOME on June 23rd.

Finished!

I can't believe the semester is over! I came back from Italy last Thursday (Italy needs a dozen blog posts of its own because it was amazing!) and then had an exam on Friday and another on Monday. Now I'm finished! I'm not so sure how the exams went as I didn't really know how to prepare for them and so spent far more time traveling than studying, but they are OVER! It's such a relief to be done with school, but so sad to know I'm leaving. It has been a great semester and I really love England and all of the wonderful people I've met here. Despite not being crazy about my courses, I've learned so much, mostly outside class, about everything- history, politics, culture, traditions and just people and life in general. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to live here in Norwich because I feel like I was really able to experience and enjoy England in a way you can't when you are simply visiting on vacation. It was great seeing so much of the country as well as just taking part in the day to day things like grocery shopping and riding the double decker buses to and from town. I am definitely going to miss it here.

Tuesday was my birthday and it was a wonderful day. I went out for breakfast in the morning with some friends and finally had a "traditional English breakfast" because I knew I had to do it before I left. It was complete with eggs, toast, baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, sausage, bacon, and of course tea. And since it was my birthday, my friends insisted that i top it off with chocolate cake : ) Throughout the day I received so many birthday greetings and cards from people both here and at home. I even has the pleasant surprise of getting several phone calls from family and friends back home whose voices I haven't heard since I left in January. In addition to the more mundane like laundry and packing, I met up with friends through out the day and that night had a barbecue by the lake which was a lot of fun. I even learned (well, was taught) how to play cricket. Later that night we went to a cowboy and indian themed party that the university was hosting and I was obligated to keep my "birthday girl" hat on in addition to the cowgirl hat. It was a great day and thank you to all of you who made it special.
Now I am preparing to leave on the second half of my Europe adventure...