First trip of the semester was a success! My roommates and I went a quick, two-day trip to Tioman, a small island located off the east coast of Malaysia.
To get to Tioman, we took a three hour bus ride to the coast of Malaysia, followed by a two hour ferry ride to the island.
The ferry ride was a little rough (the person that was sitting in front of Monica and me got sick, and let’s just say things got a little messy). However, we were rewarded with sunny skies and blissful beaches upon arrival.
Tioman is a popular scuba diving spot thanks to the numerous coral reefs that surround the island.
McKenna, Lauren, Monica, and I went snorkeling one afternoon, spotting numerous fish, sea urchins, squid, and a dozen other sea creatures.
This weekend, I went to Chile with a bunch of Richmond friends! We stayed in Santiago, skied in the Andes and lunched in Valparaíso. Bergen, Lauren, Sam, Jackie, Ben and I did a lot of planning and had a lot of luck to result in an amazing trip. Despite an unintentional hour of cross-country skiing across the mountain and a delayed flight, everything seemed to fall right into place.
Santiago was an incredible city. Compared to Buenos Aires, it has a lot more nature. They have sky scrapping palm trees, large patches of green grass and a wall of massive mountains surrounding the city. The view from our (*clears throat*) “penthouse” apartment perfectly displayed the city’s landscape with the amazing Andes backdrop. Here, in Plaza de Armas, the historic (1748-1800) architecture of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago contrasts lovely with a modern office building.
Valparaíso, Chile is one of the country’s largest port towns, receiving more than 10 million tons of goods annually. The city is known for its large hills filled with vibrantly-colored houses and funicular railways. The quaint town was relaxed on a Sunday afternoon and was filled with street vendors, artisans and boutique shops. This artwork gives you a sense of the masterfully-painted and historic city.
When traveling on a budget, sometimes direct flights aren’t the best option. Four of us had a 10 hour layover in Mendoza, Argentina. Seems horrible, right? Not exactly. We traveled an hour from the airport to Potrerillos, a small town at the base of the Argentine Andes. If you ask me, this beautiful lake and the breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks was a pretty incredible solution to our layover situation. Shout-out to our taxi driver, Daniel (no relation), for making it all possible.
El Mercado Central in Santiago was expansive beyond belief. It was the same size as a Costco, and with the amount of vendors as a major state fair. The fresh fish and fruit were displayed gorgeously. As the shopkeepers run around to sell their produce, customers enjoy the smells, taste-tests and people watching. Of course, when in Chile, I made many “it’s chilly in Chile” jokes and was excited when I saw chili peppers.
The MRT is extremely efficient and makes getting around a breeze.
First week in Singapore (Singy as we call it) is under the belt! I’m extremely impressed with Singapore. It’s safe, clean, organized, has incredible architecture, vibrant culture, friendly locals and of course, delicious food (I’ll have to do a separate post just on the food here- it’s that good.) Dare I say that I love this city more than the mouth-watering garlic naan Nicole and I feasted on the other day.
TIPS:
If you’re planning on buying a SIM card while you’re in Singapore, it’s probably best to do it upon arrival at the airport. I tried to go to cell stores in Singy and a lot of them were sold out. 7-11 ended up having them. You can also buy your E-Z link pass (pass for the subway) at 7-11.
I also suggest bringing an old phone to use as your Singaporean phone, that way you don’t have to keep on switching out the SIM cards on your American phone.
You can either buy a converter here or bring one- they have plenty of cheap ones here.
Bring sunblock- it’s kind of pricy here.
Don’t bring a lot of stuff! You should be able to fit everything in one suitcase + a carry on. There’s a mall on practically every corner in Singapore, so I would save your shopping for here anyways.
If your course for SMU has a prerequisite you haven’t taken, email your professor and make sure you can still take the class.
Since SMU classes meet once a week, it’s easy to make your classes on two consecutive days. This gives you ample time to travel.
I really love my apartment and where I live (Little India) but make sure you’re content with the location of your apartment. You don’t want to be too far away from the all the action. If you have any questions about good locations, feel free to ask!
Hello from Sydney! Sorry about how long it’s been since I’ve updated. I’ve been so busy falling in love with Australia that I forgot to update this blog! I’ll try and detail some of my first impressions about Sydney here (although at this point, I’ve been here for about three and a half weeks).
Many people who are thinking about traveling to Australia fixate on the length of the flight. While it is undoubtedly long, it’s not unbearable. I was lucky enough to have a nonstop flight (the world’s longest!) to Sydney from where I live in the States, Dallas, which definitely helped cut down on the travel time. Between the movie, two meals, six episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, and sleeping, the 17 hours passed by more quickly than I had expected.
I’ve often thought over the past fourteen years what it would be feel like to finally arrive back in Australia and see it from the plane. Before selecting my seat, I carefully researched the best position to catch a glimpse of Sydney from the air… but neglected to consider the fact that I would be landing around six o’clock in the morning. In the middle of winter. Needless to say, it was pitch black when we arrived in Sydney, and my 17 hours spent in the window seat was for nothing. Even then, the lights of Sydney that I could see and the sensation of being on solid ground again combined for a wave of emotion, a mix of nostalgia and excitement. Once off the plane, I was immediately struck by the weather — apparently it was the coldest stretch in Sydney in years! Though jarringly different from the 100-degree days I had left behind in Texas, I quickly discovered it actually… wasn’t that cold. More than my massive suitcases, the thing that pegged me immediately as a foreigner was waiting on the outdoor platform for the train to my apartment in a short-sleeved T-shirt. Since then, every reference to the brutally cold winter by an Australian has just made me smile — by Richmond standards, this is nice spring weather!
The very welcoming signs in Sydney Airport made me very happy.
I arrived in Sydney on a Friday and left early the next morning for my first trip, a weekend pre-orientation for exchange students up to the Hunter Valley and Port Stephens, which are a few hours north of the city. This trip was a whirlwind — in less than two days, we went to the Australian Reptile Park and got up close and personal with some furry locals, wine tasting, whale watching on a boat, and sandboarding down massive sand dunes.
Me with a kangaroo friend, 2015.
Me with a kangaroo friend in 1999. Guess I’ve changed a lot since then, but kangaroos are just as cute.
It was definitely a fun trip, but it made me even more resolutely sure of something I had been thinking about back in America. While it’s comfortable to make friends with other foreign students, I made a promise to myself to focus on cultivating friendships with Australian students. I can build friendships with other Americans at home, but the goal of my study abroad experience has always been to rediscover the place I left as a child. For me, the only way to do that is to really immerse myself into Australian culture and befriend Australians, not Americans who couldn’t name the Australian state Sydney is in. (Yes, that actually happened on the trip. For anyone studying abroad, please do some research about where you’re going beforehand! American ignorance abroad is a stereotype that’s hard enough to break when people aren’t reaffirming it.)
I spent the rest of the week before classes began discovering Sydney — just taking off in a random direction from my flat in Redfern, a suburb a bit more than two miles from Circular Quay, which is the part of Sydney’s downtown (what the locals call the CBD or central business district) that most people associate with the city, and exploring whatever area I find myself in. What I’ve noticed so far is that “Sydney” is a bit hard to define. The CBD is a very small area, and even the “city of Sydney” which is the umbrella for the CBD and the inner suburbs is still much smaller than I imagined, with a population roughly similar to the city of Richmond. Only when adding in the massive metropolitan area, which stretches about an hour in every direction, can you appreciate the full population of the city. Nevertheless, I remember exploring Sydney’s Haymarket, Sydney’s Chinatown, during my first week in the city and feeling the energy from the crowd as I walked down Sydney’s major street, George Street. Normally I feel a little overwhelmed and claustrophobic in a big crowd, but for some reason, it just felt lively and freeing. I realized then how much I already loved being in Sydney.
The classic touristy picture from Circular Quay of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Surprisingly haven’t been here in the daytime yet.
I especially love Sydney’s compactness and ease of public transport. Coming from America, it’s amusing to listen to Sydneysiders complain about their public transport — at least it exists! It’s a fairly quick walk from where I live to most of the inner suburbs or the CBD, and I can easily find a train or bus to wherever I want to go. Where I grew up in New Jersey, the closest train station that would take me on an hour-long train ride to Manhattan was a half an hour drive away! This ease of travel has made it simple for me to explore Sydney, especially the quirky neighborhoods of Surry Hills, Glebe, and Newtown. Every day, I fall more in love with the city, and every so often I’ll turn around and see a view like the ones below that just reminds me how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be here. I can’t wait to discover more of this amazing city, and finally venture to the famous beaches when it gets a little warmer!
The Sydney skyline from Victoria Park, the park that borders my university.
As I mentioned in my last post, porteños (as the people in Buenos Aires are known) live at cafés. There’s one on almost every corner, always filled with people relaxing and catching up with a cup o’ joe. My host mom knows my affinity (and frankly necessity) for coffee so she prepared the French press for my first day of classes and left a little note. “Happy first class in Argentina” she wrote.
At my host university here (Torcuato di Tella), I am taking an Argentine Literature course and a Latin American Cinema class. My last class is on the dictatorships of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay during the 60’s and 70’s. We got the chance to visit El Parque de la Memoria, which opened in 2001 and was completed in 2007. The park and its central monument aim to solidify a place in history for the “desaparecidos” or “disappeared ones” that were kidnapped and killed during the dictatorship of 1976-1983. Located on the Rio Plata (where many bodies disappeared to), there are 30,000 names and counting recognized as victims of the regime.
“To think is a revolutionary act.” This Marie Orensanz sculpture welcomes you into the park and suggests its ultimate purpose. The park is meant to be a place of remembrance and reconciliation. The use of steel, the two divided panels and the elipse at the end contribute to its symbolism. I would tell you more about it but it’s more fun for you to make your own judgements.. and the tour guides spoke in Spanish while a plane flew overhead, so I only got about 50%… Anyway, dope sculpture though.
The other night, one of the most famous Argentine Soccer Clubs and the current defending champion, River Plate beat the Tigres of Mexico during the Copa Sudamericana, 3-0. After each of their three goals, an earthquake of screams erupted through the streets around my apartment and out of every surrounding window. It was, frankly, a bit scary. Fútbol is very important here. This picture was taken in the neighborhood of River Plate’s rival, Boca Juniors. These kids play pick-up soccer games here hoping to, one day, end up on the field of the giant 49,000 seat stadium two streets over.
Hi everyone! As the title of this blog suggests, my name is Colleen and I will be studying abroad in Singapore this fall. This marks my third year at UR, and as a rising junior I am majoring in Leadership Studies and minoring in Business Administration. Wow, that was weird to type: college really does go by quickly.
Over the next four months I’m hoping to share with you my abroad experiences through photography, and also provide tips/ advice to anyone who is considering studying abroad–or traveling to Asia for that matter. Since I haven’t yet left for Singapore (2 more days- eeeep!!), I’ll give you a little background info on my trip.
First off, everyone asks, “Why Singapore?” To be honest, Singapore was not my first choice–for a few weeks I was set on studying abroad in the Netherlands. Long story short, final exam dates in the Netherlands conflicted with my sister’s wedding, so I looked into programs that had earlier end dates and, voila, Singapore was the perfect match. The whole situation was definitely a blessing in disguise. Wherever you study abroad will be amazing, but I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out. I guess I have my sister and her fiancé to thank for that one.
At Singapore Management University (SMU) I will be taking three business courses and one leadership course. SMU’s course registration is unlike any registration I’ve done before. Basically students are given 100 “e-dollars” and bet on courses they wish to take. The whole process is built upon the concept of supply and demand, and in my opinion, actually makes a lot of sense. Apparently Nicole (another UR student going to Singapore) and I should take a trip to Vegas when we get back because we successfully bid on all the classes we wanted.
Since SMU doesn’t provide housing, most exchange students get together and rent an apartment for the semester. A lot of people actually stay in hostels for a few days upon arrival while they search for an apartment. Nicole and I weren’t feeling that adventurous, so we decide to pre-book an apartment. We will be living with four other girls–Mckenna from Oregon, & Lea, Lauren and Monica from Paris.
Packing. All I will say about packing is it’s kind of like hitting that age when you realize you have to start making your own doctor appointments: a little frightening at first, then the procrastination sets in, but when you finally get around to doing it, it’s not that bad.
Located in the heart of South East Asia, Singapore is ideal for traveling. I’m planning on traveling to several countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia to name a few. Let’s be honest, this is what I’m most excited about.
I’ll leave you with some photos from my last week here in the U.S. since this is a photoblog after all:
After getting off the plane at Ezeiza International, I hopped in a cab with all my stuff and headed to my host-family’s house. My first impression of the city was that it’s gigantic! My second thought? Graffiti…everywhere. Maybe Boston and Richmond are abnormally graffiti-free cities but I am nonetheless surprised by its prevalence here. I mentioned this to my host-family and they told me that many times the graffiti has political significance and some politicians even pay artists to paint graffiti favorable of them. This could be political mockery of an opponent or a statement on governmental policies of animal protection…but then again, it might just be a parrot.
La Recoleta Cemetery is located in the neighborhood from which it gets its name. In 2013, CNN ranked this cemetery one of the 10 most beautiful in the world because of its expansive grounds with the juxtaposition of slightly deteriorating historic tombs and gorgeously maintained modern mausoleums, still utilized by families today. It was too tough to choose just one picture of this amazing cemetery, so here are three!
Among politicians, Nobel Prize winners, and entertainers, former First Lady of Argentina, Eva Peron was laid to rest 19 years after her death. In Argentina, the Perons are extremely controversial. You either love Eva or you hate her. Obviously her grave is a bias place to see this as it is perpetually filled with flowers and flooded with teary-eyed visitors. Lauren (another Richmond student) and I searched all around the 14 acre cemetery for her very modest and relatively secluded tomb.
As an”extranjero,” I have found it exciting every time I get to tell someone about the US or see an imported Pringles can in “el supermercado.” Well, on Sundays, there’s one place in Buenos Aires, we Americans can find New York bagels and cream cheese made freshly by a guy named Sheikob. Sheikob is a former PhD candidate who decided to take an adventure and move back to Buenos Aires where he had studied abroad as an undergraduate. Now every Sunday he sells bagels outside a little café in Palermo. (He even has a Facebook page!!) Ben, Bergen, Lauren and I sought him out our first Sunday in the city and told him all about our new adventure, coming from Richmond to study.
This past week, I got the chance to go to Ticino, which is the Italian region of Switzerland and it was absolutely amazing! Well, actually the entire trip went wrong from the very beginning, but it ended up being a trip to remember.
I got to see 8 hours of this view, so I can’t complain!
First, we got to drive through the countryside and see all of the beautiful scenery of mountains and lakes. However, it turns out that since our travel day was a national holiday, a lot of highways were closed and we had to go through Italy in order to get to our destination back in Switzerland. Weird, I know. The result was a 4-hour-turned-8-hours bus ride with 65 people.
The view was 100% worth it.
Luckily, the views were really amazing and I got to spend time with other awesome students. When we finally arrived in Ticino, we went on a “little hike” (please note the sarcastic quotation marks). Turns out that the hike was about an hour long straight up a mountain and when we got to the top, we were all exhausted, but once again Switzerland shocked us with its beauty and it was all worth it.
This was the posh restaurant were we acted like complete savages and got some appalled looks from the Swiss.
That night, the exchange network in Ticino organized an apéro with drinks and dinner in order to celebrate our arrival. We all arrived in our comfy workout clothes, starving and absolutely gross after an 8 hour bus ride and a big hike in the heat. We discovered that the restaurant was actually a very posh and fancy place, just along the lake. Our group of 65 showed up and I have never felt more out of place in my life. All of the Swiss were just staring at us and sipping their overly priced drinks as we took over the place.
We got to see the beautiful city of Lugano at night as we scrounged for food.
We were also famished and were all so looking forward to dinner, but the restaurant was not prepared to handle ravenous students and chaos ensued. We now refer to this night as the Hunger Games because each time that the waiter brought out more food, people literally RAN up to the tables and took all the food that they could get. It was every man for himself. I have never seen people move so fast. And I do not think we will be invited back to the restaurant.
While the scenery wasn’t so great in the rain, I was still struck by some of the beautiful little things, like this gate. It’s so cool how the different regions of Switzerland (French, German, and Italian) all have their own personal style.
The next day, the rain was incredible. Someone had told me that this part of Switzerland was “the sunniest part of the whole country”, but on this particular day, it was pouring and windy like crazy. We still got to enjoy the day because we visited a really cool old castle and we got to go out and celebrate with the Swiss students from Ticino. This night, we got lots of delicious food and did not feel like absolute savages.
On our final day, we packed up and headed toward home, but not before enjoying the brilliant sun and warm weather. We stopped at a mountain spring and got a chance to swim in the water that came directly from the very top of the Swiss Alps. Of course it was freezing in the water, but the rocks surrounding it were so warm and the views were like nothing I’ve seen before.
Although it looks amazing, the water itself was so cold because it came directly from the peaks of the Alps. That being said, the water was so fresh and clean, we still went swimming!
It was all fun and games until someone decided to jump from the giant bridge above the water. Why someone thought that it was a good idea to jump from a bridge into a freezing water, the world may never know, but at least I got a video from my nice warm spot on the rocks.
This is the bridge that a few other students jumped off of (it was MUCH higher than it seems in this picture).
After another 4-hour-tuned-8-hour bus ride home, we finally got back to Lausanne. It was hard to go from this amazing vacation immediately into study mode, but now it is the final push and I can see the end in sight. I have 3 papers due this week and then I am officially done with all of my work for the semester. For now, I am living in denial and trying to pretend that I am not leaving in a week. Thankfully, the exchange network is throwing a 1920’s style party this week as a sort of goodbye send-off. I can’t wait and will be sure to post updates soon!
One of the coolest things about the mountains is that you can go from enjoying the warm sun in one moment and drive into the arctic tundra the next! This photo was taken on the same day as the previous one, in the middle of May!
I know most study abroad students dread going back home, but I was ready to go back. Traveling, believe or not, is 60% stress and 40% enjoyment. Before arriving home in the States, I traveled to Athens (Greece), Rome (Italy), Budapest (Hungary), and London (UK). Let’s just say that every travel nightmare you could imagine happened to my brother and me during our trip.
Missed our flight? Check.
Had to pay to check our carry-on luggage? Check.
Got mobbed by selfie-stick and tour group vendors? Check.
It was definitely a learning curve for both of us. We can’t explain exactly why everything happened the way it happened. All we can tell you as fresh travelers is that you just have to keep calm and carry on. I kept repeating these words to myself during the entire trip. The best story to exemplify what my travels were like and how I emerged stronger, wiser, and utterly exhausted is our Rome story. Here’s how it went:
After the bus waved us off, my brother and I made our way along the dark streets to our hostel. We made our way with my phone glaring with low-battery warnings and picked up our pace when suddenly, we were hit with the strong smell of fresh urine. When we at last found our hostel, we dished out some extra Euro to pay city taxes that were not included in our initial booking. We were ready for some fluffy pillows by this point. I saw the open door to our mixed dorm room, walked in, and found five shirtless guys lazing around. I was the only girl. Sounds like a dream, but all I wanted was to freely strip out of my clothes, wear my fluffy PJs, and snore my heart away. After a long and surprise-ridden day, I longed for some comfort and privacy. But, I kept calm and carried on hoping for a more relaxing tomorrow.
***
The next morning we were ready for the amazing Rome experience everyone raved about. We grabbed our extra battery pack and set out for the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and the many Roman piazzas. My brother and I aren’t really big on having a fixed schedule. We like to have an idea of where we want to go and what places we want to see that day, but we welcome detours to hole-in-the-wall restaurants and signs pointing toward other cool looking places.
We ended up hitting a lot of tourist sites, gelato shops, and a hole-in-the wall bakery that had the most scrumptious desserts we’ve ever had. This was the Italy I had imagined. What I hadn’t imagined was how hard it was to find food. How can this be you may ask? Well, first we had to get lost. Friends have told us that the best Italian food were in the hole-in-the wall places hidden from the touristy areas. But somehow we always ended up right back on a bustling street. Maybe we weren’t trying hard enough or maybe subconsciously our fear of getting too lost led us back where we unknowingly wanted to be. Whatever our issue was, we were so hungry we sat down at the next restaurant on a semi-quiet street only to discover that it had been a tourist restaurant. After a couple of bites of the pasta, I had a King Kong roar moment. The pasta disappointed my Italy-expectations. But it was only our first day out and we were hopeful for the next meal.
***
Day 3 of Rome was the. most. challenging. day. It’s supposed to get easier right? But in order for this to be a reality, we should have hit the Vatican on day 1. We got up extra early and rushed to the subway in hopes of getting in line early for the museum tickets. Little did I know, it was rush hour, and the metro was PACKED. I tried to make myself as small as I could as more people streamed in with every stop, and eventually ended up underneath someone’s armpit. When we finally squeezed our way out, we walked to the Vatican only to be welcomed with a flood of questions. Questions seemed to fly from all directions – Are you a student? Do you know where you’re going? We have free information! Do you have a reservation? Sensing they were vendors, we quickly pushed our way past only to be stopped by a vendor who gave us her spiel. Thankfully, she told us that we were going in the wrong direction – that the museum was on the other side. We kindly declined her tour and headed off to the museum line only to be bombarded by more vendors.
At one point I responded in Korean just so they would leave us alone. It was honestly overwhelming. I felt like the guy in Temple Run where the vendors were the monster and my brother and I were the poor fellow running for his life. Getting in line was the worst because we were sitting targets. One vendor came up to us and tried to convince us the line was on the other side of the street and that the “discounted” cost for students was 28 euros! I thankfully did my research beforehand and knew that the EU student discount was 7.50 euros. After what seemed like endless “No thank yous” we were halfway up the line and finally got some peace.
The Vatican itself was amazing. Beautiful. Stunning as we had been told.
One of the many intricate ceilings at the Vatican Museum
Vatican City
Rome was one of our early trips, so the obstacles that we faced with every step stuck out the most mostly because they were the first memories of our travels. However, although in the beginning our trip was 60% stress and 40% enjoyment, the percentage did change as the trip went on. We were exhausted, but each day we were able to walk a bit further. We had a better gauge of when to rest, where to eat, and who to ask for information. By the time we ended up in Budapest, we were eating all the traditional local foods, hitting up the tourist sites with ease, and ended up well-rested and financially sound at the end of the day.
St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest was particularly breathtaking.
The process in getting to the 90% enjoyment, 10% stress took longer than we expected, but I’ve learned that this is the main theme of a study abroad experience. You’re thrown into a new environment where you don’t know anyone or anything. All you have are your past experiences, instincts, a dying battery, and the flood of people around you. Although it was scary in the beginning, I’ve found that embracing my vulnerability and tapping the shoulder of the stranger in front of me for directions was usually the best next step for new travelers like my brother and me. The “worst” we’ve faced is when someone ran away because they couldn’t speak English (happened to us in Athens) and the best was when we met someone in line at a Hungarian restaurant and we ended up having an entire dinner conversation with them.
I am extremely grateful to have had the comfort and familiarity of being in a country that uses the same language and has similar cultural aspects and traveling around the EU definitely made me appreciate this fact ten times more. However, my travels were the final growing stretches I needed before arriving back home. Being back home has already made me appreciate all the comforts and joys of familiar things like homemade Korean food, my beautiful countryside town, DINERS, my fluffy blankets, and greatest of all – my friends and family who supported me throughout the journey.
Home sweet home
Thank you to all who have followed me on this life-changing experience. I wish you all the best of luck in your next big step – I hope you get to travel someday as well and visit the places you’ve always wanted to – I hope you break your expectations of the things that have been romanticized and discover new loves that you never thought of before – but most importantly, I hope you have wonderful people to share them with along the way like you all have done for me. Thank you!! 🙂
This week, I learned what Switzerland is really all about: cheese, chocolate, and cows.
I got the amazing opportunity to go to Gruyères, which is the town that actually makes Gruyère cheese, the staple of Swiss cuisine. Of course because this is Switzerland, the town itself was charming and adorably and obviously had an amazing view of mountains and nature (the number one criteria for Swiss cities).
This was the train that took us from Lausanne to Gruyères. I have never in my life experienced something so adorable that it almost didn’t seem real.
This picture explains how the views in Switzerland are still amazing no matter how many times you have seen a snow covered mountain.
While in Gruyères, I got to sample all of the different types of Gruyère and I could not believe how one kind of cheese could have so many different tastes. We learned how the cheese is made, and how these different types of Gruyère result from the aging process. I also got to try the cheese just before it was put into the rounds, at the very beginning of the process. It was DISGUSTING.
This is the very first stage of cheese making, where the milk gets churned until it makes this gummy type-substance that will be aged to make cheese. This is the gummy stuff that I tried. Very appealing, I know.
It was gummy and white and totally flavorless and I cannot imagine how the beauty of Gruyère cheese is made from such an unappealing thing. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the samples throughout the day. The Swiss cheese makers clearly know what they are doing.
This man told us all about how he crafts his cheeses, and then proceeded to jump into the giant vat where he made the cheese.
After trying loads of cheese, we walked it off on our way to eat even more chocolate at the Cailler chocolate factory! On our path, we came across more cows than I have ever seen in my entire life. I finally felt like I was in a traditional, small Swiss village. I have made it fairly clear that I am not a super outdoorsy type of girl, so while some other students got a closer look at the cows, I chose to use the ‘zoom’ setting on my camera.
Lots of cows.
Okay, so they are kind of cute, but they are still livestock and therefore I kept a fair distance.
First, we got to walk through a ‘history of chocolate’ interactive museum that showed us how chocolate has evolved over the past few centuries and where chocolate originated. Then, we got to see how Cailler, Switzerland’s major chocolate producer, came to dominate the chocolate world. While this was all well and good, the best part did not come until the very end.
Il était une fois: Evidently, the Swiss take their chocolate very seriously.
After the tour, we got to try some of the raw products that go into the chocolate, like almonds, hazelnuts, and raw cacao. I obviously ate as much as I possibly could, which backfired in the end. After this stage of the tasting, we actually got to taste some of the final product Cailler chocolate.
Le chocolat, c’est quand? C’est toujours Cailler, always.
We saw how a certain type of their chocolate is produced and then a factory worker handed us some samples. I expected one or two, but thanks to a very generous worker, we all got a TON of these samples. I was regretting eating all of the raw cacao in the beginning.
But wait.
There’s more.
After this stage, we got an unlimited tasting of all of the Cailler specialties. Yes, you read that correctly, unlimited free samples! These chocolates had caramel, hazelnuts, creamy nougat centers, and coffee infusions. Again, I ate as much as I possibly could but there is only so much chocolate a girl can take. Here in Switzerland, people often eat chocolate as a part of their daily diet. For example, if you are about to go workout and need some pre-exercise fuel, the Swiss would suggest eating a small bar of chocolate. I would like to note that I approve of this mindset.
First round of samples.
I could have eaten every single chocolate on these tables if I wanted to. It was tempting…
Although I could barely move after so much chocolate, the experience was amazing and despite my declarations that I would “never eat chocolate again”, it took me all of one day to return to my pro-chocolate mindset.
It was easy to forget in such a cool place that I am an actual student with actual responsibilities, but now I am getting into the swing of final assignments. I do not have any final exams after the class period, but I have a lot of papers and in-class exams to finish in the next couple of weeks. But with the help of the best chocolate in the world, I think I will be able to make it through, wish me luck!
Posted by Colleen Egan 
urtravelogues.com 