On Monday and Tuesday we had a few hours of German lessons and then we made flags about ourselves and our countries for the exchange student bulletin board in the hall at school. It was really fun to make the flags, and I'm sorry to all Canadians, but I reinforced ALL of the stereotypes with my flag - igloos, polar bears and ice hockey. Sorry, but it had to be done.
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| My flag! |
Wednesday was a beautiful day. We went to a mountain near Luzern called Rigi Klum. We took a train up the mountain, but got off a stop before the top because our teacher wanted to hike for a little bit - so Swiss, haha. It wasn't just a casual hike, it was a straight-up-the-mountain-for-1km hike. It was beautiful, but it was tiring. The was a "fog see" on both sides of the mountain and it was gorgeous. The "fog" was actually clouds - yes, we were higher than the clouds - and the tips of the mountains looked like little islands in the distance. We could see the top of the Alps far beyond the mountains and it was easily the most amazing, unreal and breathtaking thing I have seen so far in Switzerland. The only thing that I can think of that can compare with it's beauty is the lagoon that we visited last summer when I was in Ecuador. We spent 2 hours at the top of the mountain and had a picnic lunch and took millions of photos. I could have stayed there forever, but unfortunately we still had some more exploring to do.
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| The view is even pretty from the bathroom |
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| The "Island" of mountains |
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| I guess you could say I've conquered Switzerland |
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| The cute little train |
We took a different train back down the mountain and then boarded a ship to Luzern. The boat ride was about an hour long, but it was absolutely freezing because we had to sit outside - there was no room inside. When we got to Luzern, everyone had to say a paragraph in German about something in Luzern - we were given our topics the night before, so we had a little bit of time to prepare - well Google Translate had some time to prepare...
After our little speeches, we walked around Luzern for a little bit. The teacher took one of the other exchange students, Ben, around the city and showed him all of the landmarks. The rest of us had already been to Luzern multiple times, so we split up from them. Kourtnie and Rocio went shopping while Caroline and I went to Migros and bought chips and salsa to satisfy Caroline's "mexican craving". We met up with everyone at the train station around 6pm and then headed home together.
Thursday was a cooking day. We all met at the grocery store in the morning and were given traditional Swiss recipes. The recipes were in German, so we had to translate a lot of the items. We split up into two groups and bought the ingredients. We then walked back to the school and spent all morning cooking.
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| Rocio and I with our apples |
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| Ben, Frau Mathys and Kourtnie |
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| Rocio |
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| The Birthday Girl and her cake |
Thursday evening I met up with a few kids from my class and we went to the festival in Solothurn called HESO. We walked around for a bit and then went and sat by the Aare. It was really fun and I am so glad that they included me in the festivities! I love them more and more each day! :)
My host parents are in Munich for the weekend celebrating Oktoberfest, so my host sisters and I are alone for the weekend. Before my host dad left he said to me "no parties in the house, no boys in the house, and no parties with boys in the house".
Last night I went to Zurich to stay the night with my friend Emily, who is an exchange student from Nova Scotia. We went out and met up with some of her Swiss friends and some of our other exchange friends, Alejo, Ana and Jess. It was a great night!
I'm going to a Swiss Oktoberfest tonight with my host sister and then to a surprise party for one of her friends, so it should be a fun evening! I'll keep you posted!
Lots of love,
Madi
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