Well then

I'm back safe in the U.S. again...Europe 05 is over and everything is back to normal. Seems kinda weird; I'm in a mental funk right now of trying to enjoy being back and also trying to grasp what I just got back from because it seems to normal and the same here that I find it easy to think of the past four months as not even happening. Anyhoo...I'm going to close off the final days of the semester below and then say goodbye to this blog for some time. I think I'll just post every now and then as I see fit or something rather than every day. :)

Thursday:
My first day of freedom in Riva started off with the finishing of PolySci class in the morning. It was easy because people were doing presentations. Will and Joe's was hilarious as they compared people and events that happened this semester to how political parties work. :P After lunch, I went up with a few people to the top of Monte Generoso. We took a cool cog rail car up there and then hiked about 20 minutes to the peak. It was very cool and very pretty, but a little smoggy, so it was kinda hard to see. We could see over Riva and Lugano and Como and stuff, so that was cool. Liz couldn't come because she was finishing her last paper. :-/ I got back from that around 5:30 and then Liz got her paper done and we went out to dinner at the Cafe Sociale for our 8-month anniversary dinner at 8:30 as we had been planning for months. It was really nice and we got some good pizza and talked until about 11:30. Found out they wouldn't take my Visa, so Liz ended up running way up to the Pab to get her ATM card, taking out cash and running back to the restraunt. It was kinda nuts, but memorable I suppose.

Friday:
Ah, the last day in Riva was a mixture of emotions. I got up to find the Pab fairly trashed from a big party that the other people through the night before. So, I went through my daily routine and then my Bible study time was interupted when the gardener found the damage and then found me who was the only one around at the time. He was pissed and took some effort to yell at me and blame all his anger at the whole program and VT on me. That kinda sucked to say the least... Liz finally met me and we left on our planned morning hike around 10:20. We walked up Monte St. Giorgio behind the Pab up to a small town called Mereda. It was so stinkin cool and just beautiful! :) We got up there right at noon and it was incredible. It was so small and just covered with fields of yellow flowers around it. And we saw some big cows with bells. :P We walked about the town until about 2:15 and then made our way back down a crazy steep and rocky path to Riva. Got there an hour later, just in time for me to call my mom before we headed back out at 3:45. We took a train down to Mendrisio where we shopped at the big outlet mall and I found my dad a new belt. Then walked back to Riva and got there for the cookout at 6:30. It was fun and we got to eat tons of meat! :-D About 9:30 we decided it would be good to pack up our stuff in order to leave for good. We did that and got all done just before midnight. Then went down to the lake to meet the other people and hung out there for just over an hour. It was really nice out and really pretty down on the water. Left Riva with some good final memories! :) I took a shower and then got to bed just after 2am.

Saturday:
Just travel, travel, travel. I was up a bit after 6 in the morning and we left on a bus for the Milan airport at 8:30. Took a two hour flight to London and then a 7 hour flight to Dulles. The flights were largely uneventful, but tiring regardless. We finally got in around 6:30 U.S. Time (12:30am Swiss time) so we were exhausted after such a long day. It was great seeing my family and Liz's at the airport! :-D Very cool and I'm so glad they finally got to meet. We went out to a quick dinner at Chick FilA together which was a bunch of fun. :D Then I came home and unpacked my stuff and then celebrated Dad's birthday for awhile and got to bed finally just before midnight which was like 6am for me. Quite a LONG day! I was living on sugar for the last six hours of it, lol!

Today:
Got up around 9 after a good sleep and then spent the morning organizing my stuff and washing my clothes and stuff. That kinda lasted into the afternoon. Around 3, I took my car out for a spin about town. It was very weird to drive at first; I was a little scared, but got back into it after about 10 minutes. So, theres like a million new things that were built around here since I was gone, but whatever. It was a fun drive. I got back around 4:30 in time for a late lunch and then got to chat with my Liz on the phone for about 45 minutes. :-H :-H Sucks a bunch not to see her today, but its good in other ways. Just played around on the Net a bit tonight. I guess I should go do something else now though. Getting bored already here...gonna be a long week....hopefully I can find some peoples to hang out with or something.