Choose Your Country Day

Choose your country day is an event organized by YFU to help Swiss students decide in which country they would like to spend their exchange year. We were all emailed and asked to bring food, flags, and items from our country of origin which we used to decorate a table where people interested in our country could come and talk to us. Discussing our homes and giving advice to future exchange students was fun, but the best part was getting to hang out together, be silly, and finish off each other's food!

I took the train to Lucerne early this morning, and there was a surprise waiting for me at the station in Palézieux when friends of mine from the church youth group popped up and made faces at me through the widow! I arrived half an hour early and decided to tour around Lucerne. I saw lovely parks, apartments, and all kinds of different people taking walks and enjoying their sunny Saturday. The mystery of the invasion of the boy scouts and small children dressed as firemen has yet to be explained...

Finding the gathering of exchange students at the station was like coming home! I got a million hugs and we started talking rapidly in our newly acquired french like we had known each other forever. Afterwards we set up our country tables at the international language office, ate lunch, and awaited the guests. The first picture above is of all the exchange students that volunteered today. The second is the Swedish table, the third is the German table, and the fourth is (of course) the American table!