Home Sweet Home

It's hard to believe that I've already been in Switzerland for 19 days! Looking back, some of the days seemed to last forever but now I think this whole experience will fly by very quickly. The great thing is that Neuchatel is really starting to feel like my new home. After a difficult practice I look forward to going back to my apartment and relaxing on the couch. Although i do like my time relaxing, I enjoy discovering the neat things in the city as well. I don't directly live in Neuchatel, I live in Marin Village which is about a ten minute bus ride from Neuchatel. I would consider my town a suburb of Neuchatel, although the city itself isn't too big. My apartment is pretty amazing! I have my own room that has doors which open up to our nice long deck.

This is a view from my porch!

We have a huge kitchen, living room and dining room. We even have a tv with tons of channels and some of them are in english! I couldn't be happier with the place! The town has cute apartments and houses everywhere and right across the street from me is a grade school.

One of the buildings for the school

Down the street is my new bank as well as the bus stop. It honestly couldn't be any easier trying to get to the city. The local mall is about a seven minute walk from my place. I have spent a lot of time there recently because they have free wifi and we haven't had internet in the apartment. The mall has anything and everything I would ever need. They have a post office so I can send mail and a food store called Migros. Migros kinds of reminds of wal-mart; It has electronics, food and clothing. The thing I like best about Migros is that it has some great deals on food! I've also spotted some great clothing stores but I haven't checked them out just yet.

The other sunday my roommate Valentia and I decided to go on walk. Valentia is from Ticino which is in Italian part of Switzerland. She is super nice and fun to live with and on top of that speaks really good english! It's nice having someone who can speak french especially in the first couple of days because I was so lost in the language. We really didn't have any idea where we were going so we decided to just head down the street and see where it would take us. At the end of the road we found a hiking trail and decided to take it. Well the trail ended up leading us right to the lake!

I had no idea the lake was so close to my apartment! It was amazing going from the dense forest to then having this beautiful lake before us. Everyday I'm amazed at how beautiful it is here. The lake in itself is breathtaking and then on the other side you have small foothills. Waking up to this is definitely different than waking up in Downers Grove. We stopped and took a couple pictures and continued on our way. On the path we found the coolest slug i have ever seen!

I've never seen a bug so orange! There was also little parks along the path that you could stop and play at. I was surprised to see that they had outdoor table tennis.. who knew! Luckily we didn't get lost and we were able to find our way back home.

I also went on another walk by myself but this time in another direction. Its fun to just walk and see what I happen upon. I didn't realize it but there are actually a lot of biking and hiking trails really close to my apartment! The great thing is that they have signs marked for biking, hiking and rollerblading so that helps me find my way. Well I walked and I found a little place for camping and vacationing.

They had paddle boats, windsurfing and even volleyball in the water. The coolest thing was the little vacation homes. I've never seen homes so small. Most of them had outdoor fireplaces and tables to eat at. It reminded me a lot of home when my family used to go to the Indiana State park. It was such a fun time spending with my cousins!!