December and the Holidays

Lugano, Switzerland
(in the Italian part, about 15 minutes from Italy)

December went by faster then I would have liked, but it was a good month. I've been skiing a few times in the Alps here, and it was absolutely amazing. I went once with friends, and a couple other times with my host families.

Skiing

Picasso exhibition in Zürich

Castle in Baden.

A traditional Swiss Christmas festival.
Küssnacht am Rigi

My Christmas Tree!
Not as big as back home, but I liked it.

A lot of Swiss families burn real candles on their Christmas Trees.

My Christmas this year was very Swedish. My host mom was born and raised in Sweden, but my host dad is Swiss. They can all speak Swedish fluently, as well as German. My host mom can also speak a few other languages. My host aunt and her son were visiting from Italy(she is also Swedish), and My host mothers cousin from Germany was here too. So in my house there was Italian, Swedish, German, Swiss German, and English being spoken. English because my host cousin only speaks Italian, and Swedish, but a little English. Conversations were always being translated between German, and Swedish, and Italian.
Traditions were a little different here. We opened presents on Christmas Eve, and not Christmas Morning. We had a big dinner on Christmas Eve instead of the usual Christmas morning breakfast of strawberry pancakes with eggs, bacon, and whipped cream, :D That might be the thing that I missed the most throughout all the holidays.

Christmas Eve Dinner.

Christmas morning breakfast. I made pancakes!

A day out with my host family. The day after Christmas.

On the way up to the top of Uetliberg.

Uetliberg is also known as Zürich's mountain.
You can see the whole city from the top.

After coming out from a break in the cafe, it was dark so we got to see the city lights.

The Matterhorn!

Last weekend, the 27th and 28th, was the Rotary Matterhorn trip. It was an awesome weekend with over 100 exchange students! I started out on Saturday morning riding from my house to Zürich HB (Zürich's main train station), there I met up with probably 9 or 10 other exchange students. We took a train to Bern, and met with about 20 more. From Bern we rode to Visp. Waited there for about 20 minutes when the rest of us came. Rotary reserved a train car from Visp to Zermatt. Zermatt is the home of the Matterhorn.

The train ride from Visp to Zermatt was crazy! there weren't enough seats for all of us, even with the reserved car. So we were all over the place sitting on the ground, in the door way, on the bag racks, people standing in between all the seats. At one point, Yoda and I played Hide and seek.


The gang from Bern to Visp.







We get to Zermatt, and walk about 15 minutes to the hostel where we stayed the night... We got a lot of looks as there were 100+ people walking down the street, none of them speaking German. Cause we're exchange students... we don't speak German when we are all together.



We get to the Hostel, and are split up into countries... here are a few of the Americans... But if we say we are from America, the Latinos will get mad... so here is a group of the USA students!




After we all got our rooms, we all met in the middle of the village, and split into groups of 5 or 6, and had a scavenger hunt. It was lots of fun, and the things we had to do were a little weird. We had 5 tasks.
1. Take a picture of the Mattehorn with a Swiss flag in front of it.
2. Take a picture of a wedding couple, or a picture of a picture. Also find a fried egg.... For free, "FREE"... doesn't exist in Switzerland... ever.
3. Find the price and place of the most expencive hotel room, and the cheapest hotel room, Price of ski rentals for a day, and price for an area pass for a day. The most expencive hotel was at a 5 star hotel, and it was 3,030 Franks for one night.... that's just about the same in USD.

For this next one, you have to know a little bit about Swiss German. It's not like Swiss German is universal for the whole country, You travel an hour away, and they use different words, and speak differently as well. So here's what we had to do.

4. Find 10 phrases in Swiss German that are unique to the Zermatt region.
5. Trade a cookie cutter (heart shaped) for something cooler or of greater value. (also not easy to get swiss people to give you something for free when they don't get money in return.) We ended up getting a magnet of the canton Valais flag.

That night, we had Fondue for dinner. It wasn't the best... but that's alright.

Sunday morning we went to the top of the Little Matterhorn, a neighboring mountain top of the Mtterhorn. It was snowing and REALLY COLD! So we couldn't see anything from up there really at all. But here is the group of most of us.

What can I say... Looked just like a GIANT Toblerone.
















The Family!... well some of them.













Louis and I on the way to school one day... I'd say I'm startin to look pretty Swiss.

What is Switzerland?

Switzerland is the experience of a lifetime.
Switzerland is expencive.
Switzerland is a completely new life.
Switzerland is full of adventures waiting to happen.
Switzerland is more then just good chocolate.
Switzerland is beautiful.
Switzerland is a new school with new friends.
Switzerland is not being able to understand people.
Switzerland is a new culture.
Switzerland is not REAL German.
Switzerland is getting better and better with every day.
Switzerland is smaller then Lake Superior.
Switzerland is a public transportation wonder.
Switzerland is not in the European Union.
Switzerland is not as easy as I sometimes make is seem.
Switzerland is the country with the tallest mountain in Europe.
Switzerland is cold right now.
Switzerland is in need of snow so Benjamin can go skiing.
Switzerland is full of awesome Rotarians.
Switzerland is 4310 miles (6936 Kilometers) from home.
Switzerland is in need of a rotary district as awesome as district 6220.
Switzerland is more then trains.... they have boats too.
Switzerland is full of mountains that I will miss next year.
Switzerland is in need of a Chem teacher as amazing as Mrs. Mazzon.
Switzerland is run by a council (instead of a president). That council has more women then men.
Switzerland is housing the 2010-2011 exchange student ski team!
Switzerland is a lot more... but i can't think of anything else right now.

On top of the World!

We had fall break for school the first two weeks in October. The first week, I traveled a lot around Switzerland with the other exchange students, and friends from school. The Second week, my host parents brought be and my host sister to Mallorca, Spain. Mallorca is an island a little south of Spain. It was really beautiful, and I swam in the Ocean for the first time, went hiking with my host parents, went snorkeling with the fish, and ate a LOT of doughnuts at the buffet every morning.

So when I first got to Switzerland, I discovered Mango fanta... which was exciting. Then I went to Spain, and discovered Lemon Fanta... which wasn't as exciting as Mango, but it ws still awesome. Then about a week ago I learned that there are actually over 90 different mango flavors worldwide. now that is exciting.



Two weeks ago, a few friends and I went to Schloss Chillon. A castle in a little bit to the south east of Lausanne, and on Lake Geneva. It was HUGE, and really cool. I went with Yoda, Jenna, and Wes. Took us a while to find it, but once we got there, we made some really good pictures. Even figured out how to do something cool with my camera! Long exposure pictures are a lot of fun sometimes.

Yoda, Wes, me and Jenna!

Schloss Chillion

Here is a picture from last month. I went to the Stanzerhorn, a mountain that you get to with a pin wheel train, and a cable car. It was really beautiful.

Last Sunday, there was a country fair for Rotary, for you who don't know what that is. We (the inbounds from other countries) make booths with information, pictures, maps etc. of our countries. Then all the outbounds (Swiss students going abroad next year) come and go to all the booths to get a better idea of where they actually want to go. There were about 90 outbounds there, and out of them, 59 put on their application that they wanted to go to the USA for exchange! 59... there is only 30 spots for it, so a few of them are going to be dissapointed. Here's the good part though, after it was just over, a student and his parrents came to talk about the USA, so I talked to them about the school system, sports, trips that Rotary does.... for a good half hour... ALL in German! I was
pretty proud of myself

We had a surprise birthday party for Shannon, an exchanges student from Florida.

Hiking with my host family in southern Bern.

My host sisters God daughter. She's wearing the Twins shirt
that I gave her for her birthday... Which happens to be the same as mine.

Skating in Luzern with a bunch of exchange students one afternoon.


Another of the Schloss Chillion.

A really cool tree we found on the way to the castle. In Lausanne.

A day trip to Geneva! (Genf auf Deutsch)

The crew at the United Nations. We couldn't go inside cause it closed 30 minutes before we got there, but it's still cool to say we were there!

This is the famous fountain in Geneva Jet d`Eau. Yeah... that's French. While we were in the French speaking part, we let the Canadian, who knew French, do the talking. Except for once when I was ordering a kebab. Using all the German skills i could find at the time.... in return I recieve a blank stare, and fast French sentences. We switched to English...

Earlier that same day... we bought the biggest chocolate bar I've ever seen!

Nick and I are doing the honor of opening it.


Trips can sometimes end up like this.

September!!

So... last month was crazy busy. Wish I could use that as an excuse as to why I haven't posted on here, But I can't. So what happened last month?

The first week of last month was the last week of my language camp in Zürich. Which meant that the seccond week was the first week of real school! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to get used to regular school. The students are all really cool and help me when I don't understand anything... which happens a lot...

And here is what happens when I am bored in school

I had two weeks of classes, and then we had a week camp in Basel with the whole class. It was a lot of fun. We went to an anatomy museum, the zoo, hiking in the mountains, a Zeilpark (a big park with a lot of ropes courses in the trees.), and trottinet which are little bikes that you stand on and ride down the mountain. For this camp we stayed in a youth hostile in the town of Titerten. In our free time we played ping pong, listened to music, played frisbee, basketball and other fun stuff. It seems that students here in Switzerland are given more freedom then we have back home. There were two teachers with us on the trip, and they didn't do anything but get us to where we needed to go, buy the food, and that was just about it. We made groups for the cooking every day, so the students cooked, cleaned, and everything inbetween. They just let us loose in Basel for one afternoon to do whatever we wanted. So that week was a lot of fun, and I got to know my classmates a lot better.

Besides school, I have hung out with the other exchange students. On the 25th, I went to Zurich Freestyle with Yoda and Andrew. It was raining, and cold, but it was still a lot of fun. They were giving away a lot of free stuff, most of which was junk. They set up a ski jump, and had skiing and snowboarding, along with skateboarding. For dinner, we went back into Zurich and bought food at a Coop.
I went to France!... or just saw a sign that went to the trains that could bring you to France.
Good enough for me!

So that's mostly what happened the last month... with other fun stuff thrown in there too. When I was in Basel with my class, I ran into some Missionaries when I was waiting for the tram to come, so I talked to them for about 20 minutes which was cool. Then again today when I was walking back to the Banhoff to go home, I ran into some Sister Missionaries and talked to them for about 5 minutes so that was fun.

So I think that I should get better at this whole blogging thing. So lets start with the plane ride over here. I got some really cool pictures of the sky. It was weird watching the sun set, and then two hours later, watching it rise. I didn't have any problems with any of my flights, and I didn't get that much jet lag which was good. I probably only slept for a total of like 3 hours on the plane. I was too excited to sleep i guess.

My host family at the airport

My first day here, I flew in at 9 a.m. on Friday the 13th! But We drove home from the airport and went to my new home. My room is nice, and has a desck for me to work at. after I put my stuff in there, me and my seccond host mother went to the place where I registered with the government or whatever. We also went and registered to get my GA transportation pass. GA is the best thing in the world since the invention of the wheel.... I can get anywhere in Switzerland with it. That night I watched a movie with my host sister, but fell asleep half way through so i just went to bed.The next day was a local soccer tournament festival in my town. My younger host sister and her friends had a team, and won their age group. I had a sausage thing with a hunk of bread, which i have gotten to like a lot! Plus it's not as expencive as most of the other food.
The following Monday, I started a German Language course in Zürich. It's four hours every morning which is nice, cause then we have the rest of the day to explore different places. I've gone to Zürich See a lot, and I went to Baden one day. We kinda just get on a train and go. So since I am still in the language class, and not in school, I haven't made too many real swiss friends, but the ones that I do have are really cool. I've mostly hung out with the other exchange students because we see each other every day for language class anyways.

This is at a river in Bremgarten. We went there one day after class.

Zürich!

Zurich is a lot of fun. It's great if you have nothing to do that day, cause you can always find something. Like going into stores to look at $500 leather jackets. We saw little peddal boats that you can rent.... might go do that one day.
Other then that, the food is good, my host families are awesome, my friends are cool. Might go to Luzern this week, and maybe go down to the mountains one of these days.

One last pic for this post...
This is a fountain in Bremgarten

Could be 10 Days!!!

It could be 10 days until i leave... but less then 17 for sure. I still haven't heard from the travel agency yet and some of my friends are already overseas! I've got a few gifts for my host family but I still need a few more. Other then that I am ready to just pack up and go! Easier said then done I guess... I started cleaning out my room yesterday and realized that it is a long job.

Early July we had the Grand Rapids conference in Grand Rapids Michigan. there were just about 1500 people in attendance. This included just over 900 exchange students!! It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of awesome people... some of them involved with Switzerland in some way... went there, are going there, or are from there. So that was pretty cool. Even though some of the meetings there were really long... the speakers were for the most part really good. We got to listen to ALL of the rebounds give us advice for like and hour... some good... and some really bad.

I got to Grand Rapids with the show on Wednesday. We stayed the night in Sturgeon Bay on Tuesday and then took the ferry across Lake Michigan the next morning. The boat ride was really cool. They had bingo, movies and a whole lot of other things to do. Some of the best memories this past year came from working on the show. it was a lot of work.... but it was SOOO much fun.

Back to the conference.... they had a dance EVERY night. It was awesome!! With that many exchange students in a gym at a dance you know it has to be epic. The conference was held at Calvin College and we took over the dorms for the week. It was really hot and humid and the dorms didn't have air conditioning. Our curfew was 1am. But the last night which I think was the most fun... we had a dance until 12:30 then we had to be in our buildings at 1. But we didn't have a curfew for our rooms... we just had a big party in the basement the whole night. There was food and stuff for us down there. We had ping pong, pool, and other stuff like that too. We played random games of NINJA! We had random conversations, random pictures and other random things. It was like 4 and I just found a group of random people and joined in on their conversation for like an hour. Then I went upstairs with some people and put all the pins I got from the pin exchange on my blazer. (I got a lot!) then it was time to wake up so I went and packed.

As soon as we got onto that bus... we all passed out for a good 5-6 hours. Then it was time to say goodbye to everyone... which sucked... a lot. all I'm saying.

Two weeks before the Grand Rapids conference, we had an outbound party at Andrew's house. It was a lot of fun. We all got to know each other so much better. Andrew had a pool and a lake... and a lot of stuff to do. We had a fire and burned a hollow log. which was really cool.
Today Steve and Theresa Selvick came up from Sturgeon Bay to go to my clubs Rotary meeting. He came to my house for about an hour before that. Then we gave him a little tour of the town. It was good to see them again. Without Steve I wouldn't have been in the show.... and I probably wouldn't have been placed in Switzerland either. He has helped me a lot this year with everything. So thanks Steve.

So now I'm just waiting... and waiting to hear from my travel agent.