The Weekend

So this past Thursday my class departed for our first planned-overnight trip. We went to Luzern to watch a concert in the KKL building, which was designed by an Architect named Jean Nouvel. The concert hall was really nice! We were given a tour of the concert hall so we got to go backstage and into the reverberation chambers. The concert however was "modern" orchestra music... so it sounded like horror film music (I did like one of the songs though!). After the Intermission we tried to go to empty seats that were lower than ours (which was every seat because we were the very top, all the way in the back. I snuck into the next lower balcony and was able to sit in the second row of that... I struck up a conversation with the man next to me so it looked like I was supposed to be there :) and it worked haha. Most of our time in Luzern was free time so we got to walk around and take pictures, shop, etc. I went into the Cathedral and was able to hear the HUGE organ being played... I think they (the organ and an oboe?) were practicing for something... but it was still very cool. Some of my classmates and I went to a dance club Thursday night which was really fun! Friday night we got to sit in on a rehersal for the orchestra playing that night and they played normal orchestra music and it sounded Awesome! The rest of the weekend was a free weekend for our class but we ALL went to Bern, the Capital of Switzerland (which I did not know... oops). There we met a guy that we met in Riva (He went to Riva with VT in 2001 and is working at a firm in Bern) so he took us to a construction site of a building his firm had design. That was really cool and we talked about the different process to design and get a building built in Europe. He also took us to the Westside Mall (Designed by Daniel Liebeskind) and that was really crazy! The restrooms made me feel like I was in Star Trek… the doors had no handles and just opened automatically and slid into the walls. After that we went to our hostel and watched the Hokies defeat Marshall 52-10… GO HOKIES!!!!!!!! Sunday all the stores were closed so we went up on a mountain and that was really cool. It was hazy so it could’ve been a lot more beautiful but it was still really nice. I walked to the Bear pit (Bern-Bear… Think about it) and walked along the river and around the “old town” section. I walked a Cathedral where I hear people singing and was able to watch a folk-music yodeling concert. That was really cool… it wasn’t yodeling like you would hear in the mountains but they were like choir groups. That was awesome! So that was my extended weekend… I will upload pictures at a later date! Ciao from Switzerland!