Avery's Travel Blog

Hello all, sorry for the super late update on my life but here are the highlights.

I have been quite busy socially this first semester here. Between pregames and parties. To chill hangs at a small hole in the wall irish pub in town. I even hosted my first girls wine and cheese night here at my place. Hopefully more hosting events in the spring!

I have decided I am highly interested in moving back here to gain my masters degree and continue my life here. So I am manifesting that for after bachelors graduation!

Since my last post on the 25th of September. I am now dating the guy with the glasses on the left of the big group photo on my last post. His name is Nicolas. Its been going very well with him too! I have now met almost his entire family. Coincidentally enough, before I met his mother, she had been learning English on Duolingo. When she found out we had met she started learning more! So here is a quick recap of how we met. We got introduced to each other through friends and started talking after that. The next day he had to leave to go back to his Swiss military duties (its mandatory here for all men for a certain time period). We mostly got to know each other over texts and sometimes I saw him if he was able to come back to Neuchâtel for the weekend. His time in the military was officially over in early November. So since then we have been taking weekend train trips on Saturdays usually. We have been to the capital Bern, Lausanne, Spietz and Gruyeres. As well as weekly date nights typically at the movie theatre. I have seen three movies here so far. The biggest difference in theatres here is that somewhere in the middle of the movie, they give you a 10-15 minute intermission to go use the bathroom. America needs to start doing that now!

Spietz was definitely an interesting travel story. We were trying to go see the christmas markets in Montreux (christmas markets are no joke in this country) The winds must have been bad the night before because on our second train to Montreux, everyone on the train was asked to disembark at this random stop. We then had to take a random bus to a nearby ski town that had another train station in hopes of catching another train to Montreux. Those first issues with the train followed us to the next station. Come to find out, all trains for the rest of that day were cancelled due to a fallen tree on the tracks. So we were sort of stuck in this tiny ski town. With one cafe (which we had already eaten at), a few stores and a tiny grocery. Our next plan of action was to find another way out of this town since trains were out of the equation. All I wanted to do is to go to a Christmas market, so we planned on taking the next bus to a nearby town called Spietz for their market. 45 minutes pass. Its cold and snowing and no sign of the bus showing up. We had ultimately run out of options except for hitchhiking. We flagged down a blue car with a german guy driving and we asked if he was going to that town. He happened to be going that direction thankfully. It was only about a 15 minute car ride. He dropped us off and Nicolas gave him a few swiss francs as a thank you. Christmas markets here were amazing and the epitome of a winter wonderland.

More recently we had celebrated the holidays together. We had an early present opening with his family. Then I was lucky enough to be invited on their family trip to Paris, France. I met his grandparents who live there as well as a few of his cousins who live there. We were only there a few days but I was still able to see the quick main things. I definitely would like to go back in the future when it is warmer weather.

Finally, I spent new years meeting his bachelor friends and getting to know them. We had a nice dinner and drinks at his friends place. Then danced the night away (just dance) and karaoke. Now I have my first exams here next week which I am currently stressing over.