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.