Day 6- January 11th

Today we only had one class in the morning, so when we we're done at 12:30, we planned to walk to a small fishing village called Gandria. Brinberg informed us that it's about a 45 min walk and gave us directions on how to get there. Luckily it was a pretty flat walk compared to the normal walks we partake in. Some of the girls jogged there but we came from class so we decided to just walk and enjoy the scenery. It was a beautiful walk and a perfect day for it. I've realized the downfalls of traveling in a big group however, and the benefits of breaking into smaller ones. A lot of the girls just straight up complained the whole time about the walk and if we were lost, and when we finally got to "Gandria" that there was nothing there. The fact was that it was more of a walk and experience to enjoy the view and the lake; there wasn't supposed to be an amusement park at the end or anything. I can absolutely not be with those girls when we're in other parts of Europe. I don't know if they know what they signed up for but a 3 mile flat walk carrying nothing but a small backpack is nothing. We're going to be backpacking all over Europe. So when everyone stopped at a restaurant to eat, some of us just got gelato, and then Sarah, Val, and I decided to go off on our own. We had heard that from where we were Italy was only 1 km away. We were like we might as well enjoy this nice day and get to go to the border of Italy and Switzerland. So we continue to walk along the road to Italy not knowing for sure how long it's going to take us and then all of a sudden we see the Italian flag and what looks like border patrol. Sarah goes to take a picture of the flag and is automatically shouted at "NO photos. This is military owned. So then an officer came to talk to us, and of course he didn't speak English but he spoke enough to be able to communicate to him. He ended up liking us and letting us through even though I did not have my passport with me. We kept on walking through, unfortunately we had to go through a busy tunnel with no sidewalks (don't ever try that on your own) and finally reached a place where we couldn't walk any farther. On our way back we finally found the actual border and got pictures of us standing in two countries at once! It was a pretty cool feeling. On our way back, so thankful that this one officer loved us because they were reluctant to let me back into Switzerland without a passport, we were able to go through. The officer even asked for our phone numbers so that we could meet up with him later but we were actually being honest when we said we don't have phones that work (lol) so he gave us his name to locate him on facebook. After getting our picture we walked back to Lugano just as the sun was setting over the lake and got to see yet another breathtaking view. We finally got back to the Montarina, and let me tell you I was exhausted. I guess either the walk was a lot longer then we thought (it did take us about 5 hours) or I was just really tired, but I for sure didn't need to go on a run today. The rest of the night I came back and just relaxed until dinner. Dinner was actually really good (pork chops, potatoes, and carrots), something other than Italian. Let me tell you I am tired of pizza and pasta. I have been craving broccoli ever since I got here.  Well I'm dead tired so I'm gonna try and get some rest since I have a full 6 hours of classes tomorrow woo.