Last day of school..

Today I had my final day of school, and I didn't know it would feel this strange.

I admit, school wasn't my favorite thing of my exchange. In fact it was a little difficult, but what I realized was that I just found it difficult sitting in class all day as an exchange student which doesn't get any grades throughout the year so isn't taken very seriously when it comes to work, test or anything for that matter. However, there was much more to school than just sitting in class. It's the people that I met, the lunches I had and the people I ate with, the breaks between classes and the friends that I spent all of that with.

At the beginning of the year, it was a little awkward with the HUGE language barrier between every person in the class and I, but somehow we managed to make it work and we even had SO many laughs over it. Looking back 11 months ago, I would sit there and act everything out trying to simply get the right word out that I wanted to get across what I was trying to say. My life was a game of a charades.

Now, I speak German with them constantly, rarely saying a single word in English unless it's them imitating how funny they think some words that I say are, when they hear me speaking with the other exchange student in the class in English. They always say to me "holy moly!!!" They just love that phrase and how hard or weird it is to say from their German speaking tongue.

Throughout the day, there can be up to 9 hours of classes. Every 45 minutes we get a break of either 5, 10 or 15 minutes depending on the schedule. Throughout each break I went over to my group of friends that I became very close with throughout the year. They are such an amazing group of women and I have had so many tears of laughter over things that have happened or conversations we get into.  

Next week we have our final end of the year trip, we are going to the mountains for a week and all staying in a little house together up the mountain. 1 little house, 2 bathrooms, 24 women .. this is going to be interesting!! Nonetheless I am really excited for it and excited to be with everyone together for a week.

So as I walked out of my school today, I got a pretty sad feeling inside me knowing I won't be with this same class next year. the school system is really different here, the class doesn't switch around every period, it stays the same people, every subject and they stay together for their full  four years at that school. I will miss this class a lot, I have had so many moments and memories that I will never forget with them, and this class will be forever in my heart.

Love you F1C .

Frauenlauf, Bern!! :D

Sunday June 19th, I ran 10 km race called Frauenlauf (race for women) completely covered in Canadian flags and it was one heck of an experience!

I went with a friend of mine, an exchange student here in Switzerland also from Canada. On the train to Bern at 7 in the morning we got our race gear ready, ready as in full of Canadian flags and then we decorated ourselves with Canadian tattoos. We weren't expecting many people to say much because we assumed there were a tonne of people from other countries as well.. I was very wrong!

The whole entire 10km, I had a lot of people that either a) ran beside me for an amount of the race telling me that they've been there before and that they absolutely love Canada or b) people at the sidelines watching the race, seeing us then all of a sudden jumping up and down yelling GO CANADA GO !! CANADIAN GIRLS!! WOO HOO !! GO CANADA GO!! It was such an adrenaline rush, it felt great. I feel proud to come from Canada, always have and always will.. but at this moment it gave me that warm fuzzy feeling in my heart for my country.

There were a lot of special moments throughout the race, that stood out even more than people cheering very loudly for us. At one point there were a group of about five guys the same age as me, on the other side of the barrier where people stood to watch the race. They saw my Canadian flags and started running right beside me for a few minutes screaming at the top of their lungs GO CANADA GO !! GO CANADA GO!! It was startling but I couldn't help but have the biggest smile on my face!! Also, a number of people ran beside me for parts of the race like people from Alaska and Afghanistan! One girl from Afghanistan ran with me for the last half kilometer of the race, it was really interesting to talk to her and hear about her life over there.

Who would have thought that one 10KM race would be so meaningful and bring so many people together? I enjoyed this special rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny day in Switzerland's capital city, Bern.

The purple t-shirts we got after the race!! 

Sigriswil!!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend another weekend in this Swiss Alps! This time, I went to a little village called Sigriswil, with my Rotary Counsellor Peter and his wife Christine.

After school last Friday, Christine and I drove to Sigriswil to meet Peter there. Once I arrived, I was in shock at how beautiful the whole place was. It was a log house over looking a lake and a bunch of mountains, really close to us. They showed me my room and I instantly ran onto the balcony in my room, took a huge breath and looked around realizing how lucky I was. From my balcony, I had an extremely beautiful view. This is a picture from my balcony!

After settling in and having nice discussions, it was time to go to bed. Usually I am not looking forward to going to sleep, but this time I was so excited! Instead of jumping right into bed, I got snuggled into my pajamas, brushed my teeth, grabbed my diary, turned off all the lights then sat out on the balcony and just wrote away. Then afterwards, I sat there and just enjoyed the moment.. The moon shining over the mountains and the reflections bounced off the water, and the loud crickets filling the silence in the background. I literally had to talk to myself to convince myself to go inside because I needed to sleep.. Here is a picture at night!

On Saturday we woke up and relaxed for a bit then Peter and I went fishing!! Before I get started, let me clear some things up.. It's a place with a man made lake with a lot of fish in it, like a fish farm where people can go and catch their own fish for food! As a kid, I have gone fishing before at my cottage. But I more mean, standing at the end of the dock with my bright pink fishing rod and never catching a thing. So I was excited to have a better story to tell when people asked if I have ever been fishing before! So I put my rod in the water and I caught 6 fish! Little did I know, they don't just die on their own. You have to hit them on the top of the head with a wooden stick, that shocked and disturbed me.. So of course after catching the fish and reeling it in, I plugged my ears and ran for my dear life so I didn't have to hear or see that! Peter took care of business!

 Afterwards we decided to go for a boat ride on the lake (Thunersee). A really cool thing about Switzerland as I have mentioned many times, is the transportation here. They even have big boats on the lakes to help with transportation and of course for tourists as well. Boats that look just like the Muskoka's Winona, if you are from the Muskoka region! We went to the city of Thun, explored for a bit then came back home by boat.

Once I got back, Peter and I went shopping in Sigriswil. When he asked if I wanted to go shopping for food, I automatically pictured driving to the local Coop (that's the grocery store here like Megros or Zehrs) and picking up what we need then heading back home. Not in Sigriswil do you do that!! We went to the local cheese shop that looks the same as a bakery, bought the cheese that we needed, went to the local butcher and got the meat that we wanted then went to the local bakery and got the bread that we needed! It's so special to go shopping like that and know that it's completely normal to all the locals! It's special there are still towns in this world like that, with everything completely local and so fresh.

After that, we went back to the cottage and I made Fondue!! I LOVE SWISS FONDUE!!

On Sunday my Rotary officer Hanspeter came with his wife Ruth for the day. We got up early, had breakfast then headed on our way. The plan for the day, hiking up a mountain of course! On our way up, we stopped at a little house in the mountains, Peter knew them and we went in and sat and had a coffee with them, it was a little private cheese factory!
So we continued our hike, and Peter had a cave in mind that he wanted to go to but I didn't quite understand what he meant but of course I just kept walking! We arrive at literally a cave in the mountain! He explained to us how it was used in the second world war as Switzerland prepared in case Hitler sent the troops over to attack them. It was a pitch black cave and we all had our own little flashlight, the cave still has broken telephone wires going all through it, in use during the Second World War since the soldiers lived in there. It was so eerie but so interesting!

So then we went left the cave and went on, climbing up this mountain. I really do love hiking through the Swiss Alps, and Switzerland makes it so easy to do so with so many wandering paths. Sometimes it gets a little scary because the hiking path can be pretty extreme!! Consisting of ropes to hold onto so you don't fall off the ledge !!

After a full day of hiking, we got home around 4 pm, and Peter and I noticed there's still a long time of sunlight left and some wind. Something that I have missed a lot that I do a lot at home, is sailing. In Canada my family has a bought and we spend many weekends on it throughout the summer sailing around Georgian Bay. Peter has a 12-foot Lazer and allowed me to go onto the lake and take it for a sail! So we set the boat up, I got the wet suit on (because it's Swiss Alp water so it's really cold!) and then went out for a few hours. It was so beautiful, the lake was so blue and it felt so good to be out sailing again!

On Monday we played a bunch of games like Rummi and Scrabble, we went over and I practiced my Rotary Presentation, and we had a nice tea party with the neighbors. Afterwards, it was my time to catch the train and be headed on my way back home since I had school the next day. I had such an incredible weekend in beautiful Sigriswil, and a lot of beautiful time in the evening underneath the moonlight in the Alps to start preparing myself to leave this beautiful country to go back to my beautiful country.


BIG NEWS!
Yesterday I had my final Rotary presentation about my year here in Switzerland !! It was about 15 minutes long, consisted of me talking for about 10 minutes and then a 5 minute slideshow. I was really nervous since I spoke only German!! Other than that, I did the best that I could to sum up my WHOLE AMAZING year into just 15 minutes.. it was challenging emotionally to know it's my final presentation, but it went well and I got great feedback! Man, I can't believe this is coming to an end!!

LENK !!

I'd like to start off, that these past 5 days may have been the best 5 days of my exchange.

On Wednesday June 1st, my host family, Ana, host brother's friend and I hopped into the minivan and the smart car to head on our way to their cottage in the Swiss Alps in a little village called Lenk. I have heard a lot about it and really looked forward to going, but I didn't quiet know what to expect. We arrived after sunset with lots of clouds and fog in the sky, not so sure what was surrounding us that stood up to 2800 m high. We unpacked, settled in and then decided to play a game of Spoons! If you lose Spoons 5 time then everyone has to write down a dare and the person that lost gets to pick one out of a hat. There she was, my host mom doing the Macarena in front of us, I was in tears of laughter.

I woke up on Thursday to a sunny morning and breakfast ready on the table, we all ate breakfast and planned what we were going to do for the day. Denise and Silvano (my host parents) planned to go for a hike, and so we packed up the backpacks with food and drinks and headed off on our first hike.

As we prepared to go out the fog started to clear, and I looked out from the back balcony and couldn't believe my eyes. You could see so many mountains! Simply standing from the house, you could see the Swiss Alps. How incredible is that?! So then we started our hike, which went parallel to a beautiful and long waterfall.

It was in some parts a steep climb, but nonetheless very rewarding. One of the best parts of the hike was when we crossed a bridge which had a waterfall right beside it, nothing in the world would feel better at that moment than having the mist from the waterfall splash over you.

 As we continued to hike, passing waterfall after waterfall, hiking up this mountain through the woods, I realized how incredible this place is!! Switzerland has a ton of hiking paths around that goes up and down mountains and through places you thought no one could have ever been! Not only do they have amazing hiking trails, they also have signs that will say just how much time it takes to hike through the different paths.

We reached our destination point, a huge waterfall on the mountain, with other mountains surrounding us and rolling fields that look like a fairytale.

We stopped there and had a picnic, enjoying the well deserved food and drinks. Afterwards, we all did our own thing around the falls. We all played around the falls or relaxed on a relaxing rock in the falls. If you know the expression 'I couldn't believe my eyes...' I really couldn't believe them. I felt like I was standing in a postcard!!

Ana and I hiked up the side of the big waterfall and found a comfy and relaxing place to sit. We sat there overlooking the incredible views and talking.. Since I had braids that looked like Heidy, I was sitting in Switzerland surrounded by the Swiss Alps, I felt quiet Swiss.. So naturally, I decided to yodel. I can officially cross yodeling in the Swiss Alps off my bucket list. I thought no one could hear me other than Ana because I was beside a really noisy waterfall, but once we climbed down my host dad, Silvano asked me about the yodeling - woops!!  The good thing is that I can act like my goofy self around my host family because they are hilarious and we all have a great time together.

                 

So once we finished celebrating the hike up and enjoying all these views, we decided to start our hike back down. This whole hike took the majority of the day, so we went back home and had dinner. After dinner we played the classic card game, spoons and once again if you lose Spoons 5 time then everyone has to write down a dare and the person that lost gets to pick one out of a hat. Ana was on the balcony screaming the numbers 1-20 in Spanish, the neighbors must have thought there was a crazy Mexican around!

I had such a deep sleep that night, I was so tired from the many hours of hiking!

The next day we got up and once again had breakfast, packed the bags and went off for another full day of hiking. Deciding on a new path, new mountain to hike up, we went on our way up this steep path for the next few hours. Once again we passed sights that I really couldn't believe. Half way up we unpacked the bags and had lunch. This time it wasn't sandwiches, it was the traditional real deal Swiss meal. We took out a bunch of Wurst (Swiss sausages) and cut them with our Swiss knives into different animals or shapes and cooked them over the fire.

 They were delicious!! Along with Swiss chocolate and Rivella, a drink you can just find here in Switzerland which is so delicious. After eating lunch and sitting there for a while, we continued our hike up the mountain. By the time we were at the top, I was extremely tired but it felt SO good!! We had drinks at the restaurant at the top and Denise, my host mom, saw the funniest brand name for a beer.. Can you figure out our humor behind this ad? Look at the name of it!!

So we enjoyed drinks at the top and then took a Gondola down the mountain, because I am not so good at going down a mountain because of my knees. Going up is not so much a problem, but going down is pretty painful.

Then we went back home, had dinner and then Luca, my host brother, his friend, Ana and I went to a Lounge in the town. We sat there for a few hours on comfy couches just chatting away. We eventually went home and once again I was exhausted and had such a great sleep.

Saturday was sadly our last full day left on our vacation in the Alps. Ana headed back Saturday morning but my host family and I stayed until Sunday. So we went for another long hike and passed many more waterfalls. We made it to the top and felt that same feeling of accomplishment that you always feel after a long hike up a steep mountain. It feels SO great!!

After the hike we got home, showered up then headed to a restaurant in the mountains. It was so typical Swiss, It was a log homed restaurant with red and white checkered curtains with mountains and rolling hills as the view once you looked out the window. Being the cheese lover I am, I didn't care that I just ate Rocklette (grilled, melted cheese that you can eat alone or with things like potatoes) the night before... I ordered this Swiss meal that is bread with melted (amazing) cheese melted over it with an egg on it to top it all off. SO incredible !! I just LOVE the food here!!

Then we headed back to the cottage and watched Wall-e together.

Sadly, the time came where we had to leave Lenk. Sunday morning we packed our things up and hopped back into the minivan and smart car. On our way back we stopped in a Cheese Factory!! I have never been in one before, so it was a really exciting thing for me. There are these massive pots of milk and bacteria that ferment to make cheese, and then afterwards there were HUGE rolls of cheese!! It weighs between 80-100 kg and costs up to $2000 each!!

It was such an incredible five days, I had so much fun with my host family. It's sad that is over but there are still many more adventures for me in these final 6 weeks left of my exchange !!

Here are some more pictures of the views we saw during our hikes: