going to Munich! 3 more days mommy!

Sorry I have been soooooooooooooo busy lately and no time to update anyone about what's going on!!
A couple weekends ago, my Rotary Counselor took me to some really cool places. It was a lot of fun to spend the day with him, and him and I get along really well with a lot of similar interests which gives us a lot to talk about. We started out by going to a museum about old music machines, before the record player. It was really interesting to learn about how they listened to music, and I got to hear the famous orchestra automatic music machine that was in the sister-Titanic  ship called the Britanic. They used that when they did long cruises, but took it out because they had to use that ship during war. That ship got sunk during war and they were happy to have taken it out since it is worth millions today and a huge part in history. I was able to hear it play!! It was really cool.

Afterwards, Peter and I crossed the bridge in his village that crosses into Germany!! I stood with one foot in Germany and one foot in Switzerland, it was a really special moment for me. We went to a church in Germany and inside this church was a small room with candles, flowers, pews and a place the priest can stand. We went in there and I asked him what it was for.. He began to explain that this was the place the families went to during the war to pray for their friend or family member currently fighting.There was a huge board of names, birth date, date of death and where they died or in which battle. There were hundreds of name and they all came from that little city on the border. I started to ask questions and we had a really good conversation, and I explained to him that I have always wanted to go to a Concentration Camp but will have to come back to Europe one day to do so, since it is too far from Switzerland to do it this year. He told me that there was one in Munich, called Dachau. He told me the partner club to my Rotary club is Munich and he can see what he can do to get me there. It's amazing what someone will do for someone else, just out of the common good and I really thank him for everything he has done for me and helped me with.

Last night I received a phone call saying he found a Rotary family in Munich that will host me and my best friend, Ana from Mexico. So in 2 weeks, Ana and I will be travelling to Munich for 4 days. One day for Dachau, and the other days to travel the beautiful city. It will be a very eye opening experience and will definitely teach me a lot. I am very excited to go.

Here are some pictures of that day with Peter:

standing on the border! :)

Germany

The church in Germany

Germany

I am so excited for Ana and I to go to Munich, it'll be so amazing! There are a tonne of trips planned to other countries but I will talk to them once they come!

MY MOM COMES IN 3 DAYS!!
It has been nearly 7 months without her, which is hard to imagine if you knew how close we are. I am so excited to show her my life here, so on 10 45 am on Thursday, I will be reconnected with my mom once again after being apart for 7 months. I am so incredibly excited to see her and we have so much planned so she is going to see a LOT of Switzerland in just 9 days!!

Welcome mommy and have a safe flight .. I'll be eagerly waiting for you at the arrivals gate!!

Weekend in the Alps!

At Christmas time, I attended a Rotary dinner and met an incredible family.. The Sollberger's. We sat at the same table and they invited me to their apartment in the Alps, and that was this past weekend!

Their apartment is in Sorenberg, Switzerland. It is a gorgeous place!! It had a balcony that you could walk onto and view rows upon rows of mountains, along with all the skiers and snowboarders that were going down the mountains.

Saturday was a relaxing day which was wonderful. We went out for ice cream and I got to see the beautiful village. Then we went back to the apartment and I sat on the balcony, in the sun, overlooking the Swiss Alps.. Here is the view from the balcony:

Here's the view from my bedroom window:

Once the sun went down, the Sollberger's invited me to a ski & snowboard freestyle competition, it was so cool! These people are absolutely incredible at being in control while flying through the air attached to skis or a snowboard, it was magnificent. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture because it was night time and they were going too fast but it was really cool !! Afterwards we went to a Pizzeria, mmmmm. And we all sat there chatting the night away.

The next day, I was apart of a really cool family tradition. Every Sunday that they are in their apartment for the weekend, the father (Simeon) and the two kids (Florence and Fabreece)  go to the local store and pick out the bread they want to have for breakfast while the mom (Sandra) prepares everything back at home. So I went down to the store and picked out a few croissants and other neat Swiss bread.. PS the bread here is fabulous. My hips think so too!

Afterwards we got all warmly dressed for the mountains, oh who am I kidding.. the weather was fabulous and you barely needed a winter jacket!! It was spring temperatures, probably around 10 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately Sandra wasn't feeling well, but Simeon, Fabreece, Florence and I went skiing! I'm not very good at it, and they were all very patient and so supportive, encouraging and all made very good teachers!! Since I was on a mountain, some parts of the hill were really steep! At one point, I was going down a not-so-steep hill then I looked beside me and there was a hill attached to mine, it was so steep and I laughed as I went past it. Simeon stopped and said, okay lets try this one! At first I chuckled and thought he was kidding, but he wasn't.. I could have said no but I wanted the challenge and I did it !! I followed him and I was so proud of myself, I went down that really steep hill twice and it felt really good. They are all so incredible.

Then sadly it was time to go back to the apartment, pack up and head home. I had such an incredible time with this family, they are amazing!! They are so down-to-earth and happy and so welcoming, I felt like I was at home within the first 30 minutes of being there... I had an INCREDIBLE weekend!!

Sunny Switzerland!!

WOW we are having incredible weather over here in Switzerland.. I know my previous post makes it look like we have a lot of snow, but where I live we haven't had any for quite a while!! Some other parts in Switzerland has snow because the altitude is higher.. but here in Basel the weather is incredible!!

Yesterday I had half a day of school, so afterwards Ana and I decided we should do something since it was the most warm and beautiful February 7th I have ever seen. There is a river in Basel that we often go to during the day or sometimes at night, and it's one of the most relaxing places I have ever been to. There is a sitting place on the side of the Rhine, that looks like this:

Yesterday it was around 13 degrees Celsius, so Ana and I went to the sitting place and sat there for over three hours.  At first we talked and ate lunch, then we started to quiet down and really enjoy the moment. I sat there looking at a typical, beautiful Swiss view (in a t-shirt might I add.) We were surrounded by people laughing and talking, swans floating down the rivers current, birds chirping and flying around, trams crossing the bridges and the beautiful row of Swiss houses across the narrow river with the church bells ringing ever half an hour. This exchange is a dream come true. 

I would also like to add that today, I have officially been in Switzerland for SIX MONTHS!! Time is flying, I can't believe I'm more than half way done my exchange. I hope time slows down a little bit because I'm loving it here so much. 

Rotary Winter Weekend, Switzerland!

This time last year, I was at a camp with Rotary finding out which country I was going to for the year, that day feels just like yesterday. It was one of those days that I'll always remember and look at, knowing that's the moment it all changed.

This year, I had the Winter Weekend in Engleberg, Switzerland. We met Saturday afternoon and walked to the group hostel/rented house place and I knew at that moment this was going to be an amazing weekend. There were a few different rooms, with a giant bunk bed in each. It was like sleeping on a giant bed with my best friends here in Switzerland.

It started off with us going ice skating, and was really neat to see the differences between students. Most of the Canadians had previously played hockey and we taught our friends that aren't used to skating. I taught my friend from Brazil how to skate.

Afterwards we went back to our house and had some time to relax, talk and catch up with the other exchange students that we don't see very often. Then the Rotex (previous exchange students that run these weekends) organized a game outside... Beside our house we had a big field, and Rotex came up with a pretty funny game. One person was it, and the others had to run from on side to the other without getting tackled, that made it quite an interesting time! If you got tackled you had to join in the center and tackle other people. It looked pretty funny since we are all in our big snow suits attempting to run as fast as we can. It got a little dark out so people started to head back into the house, but I stayed outside along with my closest friends here. We lied down in the snowy field and looked at the stars.. There I sat with people that are changing my life, surrounded by the Swiss Alps that made a prickly black outline in the moonlight shadow, talking and laughing together in Switzerland. I just lied there, soaking all of this in. It was an incredible moment, that I will never forget.

Then we had dinner and played a few other games all together until we decided to go downstairs and all lay in my bed telling ghost stories in the pitch black with nothing but some moon light shining in the window, it was incredible. I love these people!!

The next day, Rotary took us sledding. It's not tobogganing down a hill then running back up, it's real tobogganing. You take a ski lift/gondel to the top of the mountain and go down a long path, similar to a ski hill. It looked really funny, almost like a video game called Mario Kart racing. During some paths, you could look beside you and see the most incredible views. The Swiss Alps are magnificent and it was so cool to toboggan along and see the amazing views. Unfortunately I went over a bump and hit my face off the toboggan and hurt my nose but I'm so thankful I didn't break it !!

I had such an incredible weekend, with extremely special people. This place is incredible.

The things I love about Switzerland..

I realized I have mainly written about all the things I have been doing and not so much about the actual country itself.

In these last few weeks I have really been realizing how much I am in love with this country. It is truly an incredible place, and the way  everything works is astonishing. I don't know if it's because it's a small country, but boy do they really have everything figured out here!

The number one thing which astonishes me here, is the transportation. I could look at a map of Switzerland and randomly put my finger down and probably be able to get to that point with either a bus, train, tram, boat or chair lift. All the transportation plans are incredible! You can get anywhere without a long wait between each mode of transportation when you have to take multiple ones to get somewhere. There's a website you can go to and type where you'd like to go and it gives you the whole plan along with exactly what plat form you have to go to and so on.. Also something amazing is how punctual this country is!! When I go to school every morning, I take a bus to the train station then a train to school. The bus comes every hour at :09 and :39. When it says it's there at that time, it's literally there on that exact minute. It's so reliable and when you make plans with someone to meet at the train station for example, you say I will be there at 8:12, and that's the exact minute you will arrive!! Okay I'll stop blabbing on about it, but here are some pictures of what it looks like here:

Another thing I love about this country, is the variety of places you can visit. In a matter of 6 hours, you can drive to any place in Switzerland. Since Switzerland is central Europe, it has all the surrounding countries flowing over the boarders to give you a good taste of what that country is like, without even entering it.

For example, I went to Tessin which is in the south of Switzerland. Tessin is a kanton (county/state) on the border of Italy, and when I went there it felt like I was in Italy. Everything was just like it would be if I was in Italy: restaurants, houses, buildings, markets, traditions, the landscape, Italian language and most of the people were Italian. Now if you look at Switzerland on a map, it is surrounded by countries with the same scene at the kantons on the boarder.

Switzerland is the pink country that is surrounded by Italy, France, Germany and Austria. So that is why Switzerland has so many differences and four different languages: Romansh, Italian, French and German.

To me, those are the coolest things about this country. Now I'm going to just give some random point form points about other things that I absolutely love:

- the food is incredible... I eat a lot of bread, cheese and chocolate. Although you won't recognize me when I get home, I'm loving the meals here!

-I haven't seen a single homeless person on the streets here. They have a special set up for people that are struggling so that they can still live on their own and have enough money for the necessities, I don't know exactly how they do it but it works and sounds incredible.

-They don't have stray animals.. They have tonnes of cats outside but they're all house cats that go out during the day and wonder. The cats are all friendly, beautiful and have their own home.

-They have a great school system, you can find an apprenticeship for almost every job out there. It seems like they get through school pretty fast depending on what it is, get the experience they need, then find a job.. it's a good system! 

- The people are so punctual! when they say they're going to be there at this time, they are there.

-It's a very clean country!

-Every window I look out of is usually a breathtaking view

-The views make me speechless.. cough cough, swiss alps!!

-The best thinking I do here is when I am in the mountains and it's one of the most incredible feelings I have ever felt.

Now here are some random differences compared to Canada, that I have noticed in the last 6 months:

-the toilets have different handles

-the door knobs are a lot different

-the keys are different

-tv shows usually start at quarter after

-almost everything is closed on Sunday

-almost all stores are usually closed by 7 pm

-they don't have 1 cent coins, everything is on the 0 or the  5 .. $0.95 

- it is a very expensive country!

-the windows open differently, they swing out instead of pushing up

-people use their knife a LOT more when eating

-they use many round-abouts instead of intersections.. intersections are extremely different

-all kids take public transportation to get to school

-they're allowed to have nudity in things like newspapers and magazines

-they use graph paper as their paper, not lined paper in school.

Honestly, I encourage everyone to travel to Switzerland in their lifetime. It will take your breath away, guaranteed. 

I LOVE SWITZERLAND!