I heart air conditioning

I'm in Dijon, France, at present, trying to deal with yet another keyboard change, which this time involves far more letters than just the "y" and "w", which are flipped in Hungary, Prague, and Germany.

I'm in a hotel tonight, since it was comparably priced to a hostel, and I HAVE A/C!!! The last few nights were so hot, surprisingly, especially in Basel, despite how far north it is. It's a beautiful thing, especially considering the necessity of preserving the Swiss chocolate I got in Zurich. MMMM good, and you pay for the privilage.

What I found of Switzerland is that despite their reputation for being one of the most expensive places you could ever go, they were far cheaper, as a rule, than Italy. Now, if you WANT to spend money, which, as a starving medical student, I don't, you can definitely find places to spend it, and lodging is expensive, but all in all, way fewer unexpected fees, ripoffs, and such, and a rail pass will let you go anywhere, rather than having certain cities fully unavailable unless you're willing to pay a fee.

Yesterday, we were in Bern and quickly saw the sites, including the bear pits, featuring an adorable ursine named Pedro, before heading to France. So far, almost everyone has been really nice, which was very pleasant, because the way France gets built up, I pretty well expected people to start yelling at me the minute I stepped off the train. Fortunately, not the case.

Also saw the kickoff to the Olympics, sans commercials, so that was kind of cool. I'd write more, but the hunt and peck method required for this keyboard is seriously affecting my stream of thought. So is, no doubt, the half bottle of local wine.