There is nothing more annoying than having to wake up in the middle of the night with 70 other people making noise on the hallways while your alarm is shouting right by your year and your room-mate has all the lights turned on and drumming on his suitcase doing some last minute packing. No matter how positive you really are in your everyday life, this is going to get some cussing out of you, either if it’s out-loud or just under your covers.
That is how our Educational Field Trip started at 4 am on Tuesday, October 13th. In less than 10 minutes all those noisy 70 people where in the main lobby of La Croisee anxious to “get the show on the road”, but the excitement was soon to be killed by the Antarctic temperature that had hit Switzerland. Soon enough, people were running towards the two busses that had just pulled over next to La Croisee, one right next to the entrance, the other just down the street. Of course the buss I was suppose to be in was down the street, so I had to walk over there with my suitcase in the blistering weather.
Don’t remember much of the road to the French town we were going to, just an early morning stop to this random coffee-shop/newspaper stand where I could find nothing good to eat, except a few croissants and cup of coffee. I was actually happy about being able to complain some more and also happy about the fact that in my brilliant packing frenzy I also added a sandwich and an apple. If I couldn’t get food I though I might as well talk to some people, maybe make some small talk, try to find a complain buddy. As I was walking through that coffee-shop/newspaper stand I realized that my internal feelings were painted on the face of the entire group, and so I decided to smoke a cigarette by myself and try not to get killed for opening my mouth. The busses left and I went to sleep again.
Woke up in a tornado somewhere in France. The wind was blowing so hard that I didn’t get the name of the location until we went to visit the castle of Avignon. Aha, so we’re in Avignon right? Yes we were and to be honest, this is the place were Pepperdine made the best restaurant choice in the history of the university. Amazing meal and amazing location. This was probably the first time, the though, of this trip being a good idea, came to mind and seeing everybody all talkative made me think positive again, but I was kind of missing the complaining.
The next important stage of the trip was the boat ride to the actual island of Corsica. With no particular incidents, but the fact that you had to watch out for one of your three room-mates, to make sure you where not the one to go to sleep because there was only one key for the entire cabin. Great, lost all of my room-mates and knocked on my door for 15minutes to be let in. But I wasn’t the only one, which made me really happy. Partners in suffering are always comforting.
The morning was as unpleasant and rough as any other morning in Pepperdine La Croisee. It’s either waking up at seven to eat breakfast, or it’s for to get ready for the EFT or its six to get out of the boat. There is no time for sleeping, there is always much to do. Again herded around to and in the two busses, same groups and take to our hotel. Nope, hotels cause when we got there we realized that the separation will last for the entire trip. Fine, let’s check in! Nope, lets walk around the entire city of #@Q!3 &* somewhere in Corsica and see all these beautiful things like narrow streets and churches and the house of one of the most important people in the history of France, who by the way is hated by the entire French population, and all of this before you get a chance to shower, before you get a chance to eat, before you can even put your bags into your room. To stop my raging train of thoughts, I just looked around and saw that I was not alone and maybe they were right maybe there was not much time to see all the beautiful things Corsica had to offer. It was worth it.
Breakfast, the next day, was at eight in the morning of course, because we had to hurry up and be ready by 9:15, because we had to wait for the bus to come at 10. We enjoyed another great bus ride to the city of $%^&* a million kilometers away from Ajaccio ( that’s the name of the place where we stayed at). Two and a half hours on our way there, two and a half back. That’s five. We spent less than five hours there, and most of the time we spent in a “museum of forgotten-Corsican-important-art-things” where we saw some string, rocks and room dedicated to KKK. The rest of our time was walking around the 2 square feet CITY OF CORTE (that’s where we were) and having lunch at this restaurant where the house specialty was dog-food lasagna. But again the beloved Cognitive dissonance saved the day, while I was chewing on my lasagna, I looked over to Chelsea’s plate and I realized how lucky I was that I wasn’t a vegetarian. Thank you Leon Festinger.
Friday was a blast. We woke up again at 8 to have breakfast by 9 and leave by 9:15 to go to the port and wait till 10. I love rushing to places where I have to wait. Why enjoy a nice calm breakfast when you can sit around in the wind with a couple of friends complaining about everything. We took a boat to “the island with 18 inhabitants” and after being in the boat for two and a half hours, it was finally lunch time. Some lady handed us the biggest paper bag I have ever seen and said “food”. OMG, lunch, this much just for me? Opened the bag and found three sandwiches, a muffin and an apple. OMG, three? A muffin? Apple to? This had just turned into a happy day, but no. The content of the three sandwiches were enough to make one good sandwich. Cucumbers, carrots and lettuce inside a bread role? But I thought it wasn’t that bad because there were people willing to give up their good food(cheese and prosciuto) because the didn’t like that either. So it told myself I had a great meal and swam in the most beautiful gulf I’ve ever seen.
Saturday was incredible and made me decide that the morning greeting should be changed from “good morning” to “rough morning” for the rest of my stay here at Pepperdine. The schedule that we respect with such passion was change from having to check out at 11 to having to check out at 9. We found out about this insignificant change at 8:50 when sweet Clautilde called every single room. Walked around the whole day with no aim what so ever, went to the beach, came back, and went to the airport.
We rushed to leave at 5:30, got at the airport before 6. Our EasyJet plane was at 8.10.
I love cognitive dissonance, and I love the fact that it has a name cause it is easy to identify who I owe my life and others, because after a trip like this I think I am done traveling for a while.
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