Jet lag hasn't stopped me here!

Oh boy has jet lag ever hit me hard, harder than I think it ever has!! Every night I wake up at 1 am and can barely sleep until it's time to wake up in the morning, it makes for a very tired girl but I'm surprisingly doing okay throughout the day with very little sleep!!

Yesterday was a fun day, we went for a hike in France in a forest. It looked similar to what I'm used to in Canada in our forests, with a few differences here and there. It was beautiful, and the birds were so loud!! The birds sounded different, it was so neat. Afterwards we went to a little bakery and had the best eclaires I had ever had. As we were walking in, I said that we have eclaires in Canada, boy was I ever way off what an actual eclaire was, these things are amazing!! Wow. Then Peter (my Rotary counsellor) and I walked around Basel together, and went to different places like the Munster (old church in Basel), library, and walked through all the streets. It felt so weird for me to be back there, it was so nice to see everything again, and I am so lucky to get this opportunity, but it made me really miss the exchange students that I became so close with, I would have paid big money to have them there also and just to get a few more minutes with them, like it used to be. I guess that's just a fact of life, it goes on!

Today was an amazing day, oh my gosh. Peter and I went on a trip to Lausanne and Montreux, and it was so special. We left at 10:30 am and took the train, to go on a day of wine yard adventures. We took the train through the Swiss Alps and I kept hoping that we were going to be doing something, anything, with the mountains in sight. I can't stop staring at the mountains, they are absolutely stunning, my favorite landscape in the entire world. We stopped and got out, and holy it was absolutely stunning. In Switzerland  they take such good care of their gardens, especially the public ones. Beside the lake of Geneva, the gardens were so beautifully groomed with huge mountains on the other side. I missed this view, it was so beautiful just to stand there and stare. We then took a boat to the Chillon Castle, where Kings, Queens and Lords used to live. It had amazing history, and it was HUGE! So neat to take the boat to it, with mountains running along each side. Wow, what an amazing country. 

Afterwards, we walked through all the wine yard in St. Saphorin. The wine here is well known, and there were SO many wine yards all built into the side of the mountain, I have never seen anything like it. Peter can speak French which helped a lot, because he got talking to the locals about where people can buy wine in this tiny but famous village. They talked for a while, and the people were so friendly. The husband ran and grabbed a farmer that was working on his crops. He came down, and took us to his house, and in his basement he made all his wine. He let us try a bunch of different wines, then we both bought some bottles. He was so nice and friendly, and drank a glass of wine with us. It was absolutely delicious!! Afterwards, Peter and I walked through the village, then up through all the vineyards, and hiked through the little walking paths that lead us through it to the next village. This next village is my dream village, so tiny and the people were so friendly. Everyone says 'bonjour' to everyone as they walk by, (it's a French part) and it had such a nice feeling to it. Those lucky people that live there and wake up to the amazing Swiss Alps beside lake Geneva everyday - wow. 

Here are some pictures from today! 

Tomorrow I'm going to school to see all my school friends again, it'll be so neat. We have stayed in contact so it'll be really nice to see them again! I am SO excited for tomorrow evening, I go back to my first host family, they are amazing and I'm so excited to see them again. I'll be there until Monday, and I don't know if I have internet or not, so I might not update this for a while, but I will once I'm back! 

So excited for what these next few days bring, wahoo!! :)