On Sunday we had a Rotary meeting in Lucerne for all the exchange students in my district - 1980. It was to discuss how our first 2 months were going. It went from 10am - 2 30pm and the exchange students that I'm close with - the ones from my German course all went out together afterwards to tour the beautiful city.. Little did I know it was going to end up being one of my best days here in Switzerland so far. It is the most beautiful city I have ever seen in my life.. It was Sunday so all the stores were closed and so we just walked around the main streets. As we were walking around, Tarsila, Sophie and I got a little lost and as Sophie was trying to figure out where everyone was, Tarsila and I spotted an incredible view that we have never seen before - snowy mountains !!
It was our first time seeing them and nonetheless, everyone on the street could tell we were pretty excited! It was an unbelievable sight and just as I thought it couldn't get any better... it did. Some friends had to go home so it was just five of us : Kaden, Alex, Tarsila, Ana and I and we decided to go onto a boat through Lake Lucerne. It started going and as we went around the bend, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was HUGE snowy mountains everywhere !!!! All around us there were green mountains, rocky mountains and snowy mountains together.
Finally, I didn't have to strain my eyes and barely be able to see them - they were SO close!!! It was all so close to us and it was the greatest feeling. Everything was so relaxed... it was all quiet, peaceful and you just sat there enjoying the unimaginable views as you boated along the coast full of mountains with people that you have become so close with in the last 2 months. I feel like I have known the exchange students my entire life, we all get along perfectly and are all going through the same stuff and all just want to have fun!! We sat on the deck of the boat and played cards and had good chats as we drifted through the beautiful Swiss alps, it was such an incredible night.
Geneva
The day after Lucerne went to Geneva, so it was very tiring since we had to get up at 5 00 am and catch the bus at 6 am, hoping to sleep on our 4 hour train ride but I couldn't ! That's okay since my philosophy is that I can sleep when I go back to Canada!! I probably could sleep if I tried since it was semi dark and all the other exchange students were asleep...
.. but I couldn't stop staring out the window and looking at the beautiful sights. I sat there listening to my ipod to softs songs such as: fear - one republic and lots of other one republic and lots of coldplay, sitting there thinking and looking at all the most beautiful sights imaginable. It was one of those moments were you just take a deep breathe and realize how lucky you are to be doing what you're doing.
We finally arrived in Geneva and it is also another beautiful city with a beautiful lake and a giant water fountain that reached 150 meters in the air.
It was the French part of Switzerland so once again I was back to square one, not understanding much again - even though I did French in school, I barely remember anything. The people there were not fans of speaking any other language than French to help us out a little, and they weren't as friendly as I hoped but that's okay you just have to go with the flow and get used to it. It had some very significant buildings in Geneva and it was exciting to explore them for a day. Geneva is the main spot for the United Nations Organization (the UNO) and it's very famous for that so we got to see the outside of that building which was really neat, I don't know too much about it so I wish we were able to get a tour but we got there just as it closed, but we have lots of time to go back and figure it all out !!
What I do know though, is that 47 countries are apart of it and I believe they have meetings to help solve global issues such as global warming.
We also went to the Red Cross museum, they are the people that come together when tragedy strikes and helps out any way that they can... it's an amazing organization. They have other museums but the main one is the one in Geneva because the founder of Red Cross was born there, so they have lots of artifacts and stories from the places they helped out at. It was eye opening to see the photos and hear the stories.
It was a very interesting few days with lots of interesting events that occurred, over all it was amazing to go to all the places and see Switzerland.. each place is so different than the next.
On Thursday I am going to Locarno, in the Italian part of Switzerland which I can't wait for. There are beaches and palm trees everywhere, I am so excited for it !!!!
Here's a map to make it a little easier to understand the places I am talking about.
purple arrow : BASEL - where I live
blue arrow : LUCERNE
red arrow: GENEVA
black arrow: LOCARNO
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