Rainy Rome

Bongiorno!

This has been my fourth day in Rome, and only the first day i've seen blue sky and the sun. Up until last night, Rome had been a dreary wet place where people keep trying to sell you umbrellas and roses. I came here with my friend Ziyi and met her friend Debbie who gave us a pretty amazing tour of the heart of Rome. This city is OLD. There's ruins scattered everywhere in the Roman sector, it's a shame theres no way to let you just roam around on the grounds next to still standing pillars, i think it would make for a great park. To keep the ancient taste, they've decided to make most roads out of cobblestones, and theyre never flat. Walking is a bloody effort here, roads are rough, and people walk slower than an amputated tortoise. The cracks between stones are practically an inch apart too. This makes me wonder how women in heels dont fall in and snap their shoes. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Anyways, unlike Paris, all the sights to see in Rome are outdoors, it's kind of nice how everything somewhat free to see, but the outdoorsyness results in an obscene amount of tourists in the city. There's probably a piazza every few streets, yet each one manages to be filled to capacity with tourists. A latte in hotspots like piazza navona costs 6euros instead of 1.50! Despite this, they are absolutely beautiful, especially the Trevi fountain. Like most fountains, you toss in coins for certain reasons, 1 coin brings you back to rome, and 2 ensures you find true love. I threw in 3, we'll see what happens.

The Vatican is a whole other sight to behold, despite my "lack of culture" according to ziyi, I can still appreciate the art and architecture and history behind these sights. Plus she bombards you with history and art facts anyways so theres no point reading it up yourself. The vatican is huuuuuuuuuuuge, its just a shame the only time it's empty is at night, when you're not allowed onto the grounds. I haven't seen the sistine chapel, don't really plan on it after seeing all of michaelangelo's other works. La Pieta is a BEAUTY. Absolutely stunning, no wonder no one believed he sculpted it when he was 23.

The other highlight of Rome is the food of course! The only downside is its freaking expensive, sooooooooooooo expensive to eat here. I've had pizza an obscene amount of times, i actually find it greasier here, but the ingredients taste better. And gelato, i had 3 cones in 1 day, on a rainy cold day. That's canadian right there. After a while, the 3 of us finally found some decently priced trattorias to dine at. We ordered enough to stuff a family. Buffalo's milk mozzarella is delicious, it's probably my new favourite cheese. Having bread anywhere after having it in Paris is going to be a disappointment. The meals are amazing though! An antipasti + primi + secondi will kill you, I'm sure the waitress stared at us in disbelief when the food vanished into our tiny asian bodies. Here's a photo of pasta with lobster ziyi had, i wish i had ordered it...

(she eats like a monster.)

Withdrawl from EPFL

Just a quick update for those of you who read this, I've officially withdrawn from my exchange semester at EPFL. I feel disappointed for not having completed the experience, however I am incredibly relieved that I no longer have to deal with McGill dep of ECE<->European credit transfer system. Instead of giving a convoluted reason as to why I'm withdrawing, it's probably better if I just tell you I trust my gut, and my gut was telling me that shit was becoming too bothersome to deal with.

On the bright side I get to travel now until I come back for the summer session. I will return bearing many gifts, mostly consumables. I'm off to Rome soon too! Can't wait.

Paris, je t'aime

Alright folks, it's time for an update. I got myself out of Switzerland and into Paris yesterday. For some reason I feel like most of the comments about paris aren't very positive. So I was expecting dirty streets with dog/human poop everywhere on the sidewalks. But what a pleasant surprise! Very little human and dog poop to avoid!

My hostel for the time being is in the city core right around l'Hotel de Ville. I went for a short walk the day i arrived, and in front of HdV was some fountains, a massive carousel... along with a skating rink packed with people in it. Safe to say it left a pretty awesome impression of the city.

The whole core is absolutely beautiful, the buildings have immaculate exteriors that just scream "Paris!". It's almost as if you took the old port from Montreal, widened the streets and ctrl+v'ed it a hundred times over the city. Very picturesque. The city regulations prevent residents from hanging things outside their windows and balconies to protect the image of the city, they also regulate the maximum height of buildings. This results in a pretty uncommon cityscape where almost everything is of the same height.

As a side note, old european cities are impossible to navigate, theres no grid overlay here at all, you could take 2 rights and end up back where you were. Nothing is consistent! "sense of direction" is absolutely USELESS now. This even translates into their metro system. New yorks looks complicated but is easy to figure out, tokyo has seperate rail and metro lines and is in a FOREIGN LANGUAGE but you can figure it out easily. However, looking at paris' metro map is asking for a brain hemmorage, it feels like they just blindly tunneled wherever they wanted to go and then put a bunch of rails down and proclaimed "voila! metro."

I'm so happy to be in a city that offers real food at decent prices. Switzerland is for rich people that wear rolexes and drive R8s. It's also mostly for german's who primary diet consists of sausages of varying colours and beer. Paris is a more for me. I like food. I like paris.

Perplexing discovery

Two posts in a row! Whilst doing my business in the bathroom, I realized something about the toilet bothered me. No it wasn't the odd panels on the wall that you have to push to flush, I've already been accustomed to bizzare manners of flushing. What perplexed me was the missing "water housing" part which we're all used to, this makes me wonder: when a toilet doesnt flush properly here, what do they do to fix it?

It looks awkward as hell too without that extra tub doesnt it?

I loveeeeeee cold winters

Back by popular demand (jun and milton... cough)!

Let me start this off by saying the first person i met in Lausanne was an asshole. Overall the swiss are very nice, although I think theres something pervasive about reclusivness and the french language culture. Anyways, the asshole is my dorm concierge, he's a stubborn arrogant twat of a frenchman that refused to answer questions and spoke to me as if i had a lobotomy at some point in my life. Infuriating asshat.

Anyways, back to my original post.

Many of us from cold climates have a deep seated dread of winter. For us it means bone-chilling temperatures, layers upon layers of clothing (except for you canada goose people), short daylight hours and various other irritating winter precautions that must be taken. Naturally, when we hear about Vancouver and their mild winters we think about how great it would be if it were like that. Lausanne experiences a similar kind of winter.

You might be thinking "Thats great! you must be loving it!", but I'm writing to tell you that you're completely wrong. I have a newfound distaste for mild winters as well as a new love for freezing winters (I'd still prefer to have no winter at all, but if I had to choose, i'd choose the f*cking cold one). To put it briefly, the mildness of the weather makes it humid, and humidity in winter results in tons of fog. Theres supposed to be a majestic view of the alps from my dorm room window, but I've only managed to see a few buildings away due to the fog. Not only that, but mild winters means theres no snow on the ground. I know most of us hate having to walk through the snow/slush in the winter months back home. But the snow brings another great quality to winters: light in darkness. After the sun sets, the streetlights & moonlight shine on the snow and it reflects everywhere, winter nights are bright to the point where you could read outdoors (only someone truly stupid would). This isn't the case here, not only is there no snow to reflect light, the fog gets trapped in the narrow european streets and prevents any real sunshine from getting through. We're used to getting intense sunshine on cold winter days in Montreal, I still haven't seen the sun here yet. I'm pretty sure they don't load up their milk with vitamin D either, so the lack of sunlight is really getting to me.

[edit] Admittedly, snow on the ground really wouldnt work in a place like this either cause of how the streets are organized and how narrow they are. In fact, snow would make navigation here impossible by my guess. [/edit]

Oh, almost forgot, our underground city back home is the bomb. All cities that experience winter should have one, its so convenient to hide from the cold AND get around.

Anyways, the experience out here in europe has not been what I was expecting, and the realization of the facts of life on exchange have sunk in. I have a more thoughtful post coming in the next few days once I'm in Paris, but I thought i'd bless you guys with one of my wonderful rants.

Bureaucracies

Does it really need to take 3 months to have a student visa application approved? Come on. Give me my damn entry ticket already.

La la la la la. Ra ra ou la la...

Less than 3 months

Less than 3 months to go until my exchange program begins. Quite exciting. I promise not to put myself in any danger (probably no running with bulls, but i definitely want to see the festival).