mostly harmless.

I’m back in Lugano for my second semester! The return trip was mighty hectic.

I took off on a 12-hour flight to Zurich after a seven hour layover in LAX, then had another four hour layover upon arrival. I got to the gate in Zurich only to hear that my flight to Lugano was cancelled. The SWISS desk gave me a train ticket to get home, so I grabbed my (wheelless, 49 pound) duffel bag and dragged it across the street to the station.

At the station, I met some other dudes headed to Franklin and we all piled into an elevator to get down to the train platform. The elevator had glass doors and we saw our train pulling up to the station as we descended, descended and then — CLANG — the elevator got stuck. The three of us were shoved in this tiny elevator with two luggage carts; the lights were completely out and we could see our train, sitting there about to depart. There was a platform attendant staring at us and laughing while we motioned wildly “That’s our train! That’s our train!” He made a hand signal saying “I’ll go make a call,” and walked away, chuckling.

Despondent, the three of us prepared to wait for another train when the elevator started moving again! We grabbed our stuff and ran to the train; the doors were closing but one of the guys managed to hit the open button in time and we jumped in, collapsing on the floor of one of the cars with literally seconds to spare. A nice Swiss lady, sensing our plight, listened to the German announcements and told us which station to change at for our train to Lugano. We got in at around midnight and took a cab back to campus.

Since then, however, not much of interest has happened. Classes started last week, and Franklin is finally getting back into the academic swing. My days once again consist of class, cross-stitching, and NPR with a healthy scoop of the internet thrown in, just for kicks. Apart from the pollution levels in Lugano at the moment, life is pretty normal. I’ll keep you posted if anything momentous happens.

Ciao!