It’s the last full week of February, everybody, and now that classes are starting up, the exchange student network (ESN) has been keeping international students busy. Last week, I participated in welcome week activities ranging from touring the city and exploring the campus.
UNIL’s mascot is the sheep, which gives the administration a perfect excuse to have sheep roaming the campus. The ESN highly encourages taking a selfie with the sheep before you leave UNIL. We’ll see.
Welcome week also marked the end of my intensive French class that I took before the start of the semester.
To celebrate the end of the vacation class, we all went out to an authentic Swiss restaurant in front of Lausanne’s cathedral.
Before the semester officially began, I also went on a trip to the Château de Chillon right outside of Lausanne. The castle overlooks Lake Geneva and offers the best spots to take pictures.
Switzerland is a postcard, and I feel like every picture I take is a stock photo from Google.
My friends and I took a self-guided tour throughout the castle, which really meant looking for the best windows and towers from which to take pictures.
Like I said, we searched hard for the best photo ops. This is the view from the windows in the castle’s dungeon. It almost makes prison life look less miserable.
In one room of the castle, there was a video projection on the stone wall. The silhouettes of actors came in and acted out the siege of the castle in the 1400s.
As of February 22nd, I am officially a student at the Université de Lausanne. In other words, I officially started classes this week, which is only mildly intimidating. I’m auditing courses to see what I might want to add on to my overall schedule by March 20th. It’s a very lenient system, but here’s hoping everything will transfer back okay!
urtravelogues.com 