YFU Ski Camp

Friday the 8th, I said goodbye to Mai. She has been a good friend of mine at school almost since I arrived in Switzerland. She came to talk to me one day when I was eating alone because she thought I might be an exchange student. Mai is too. She comes from Thailand, lives (lived) in Fribourg, and goes (went) to school at St-Michel with me. Unfortunately, Friday was her last day, so Mai, Julie, and I went out for hot chocolate. Our inside joke is the hand gesture that she is doing in the photo to the left. It means "I am handsome", and she got a group of unsuspecting boys to do it in a picture with her as we were walking to the station. I already miss her, and it makes me sad to think that I will also be leaving the life I made here behind me.
Sending love!

I finally taught my host mother how to make snowflakes like I make them, and she did this lovely window decoration the night before I left for camp. Yea! Special moments!

The train ride to Meiringen is two and a half hours from Romont. When I got to Fribourg, I was added to the chaos that was 15 French-speaking exchange students with luggage and skis. We were piled in hallways, dodging falling skis, executing heroic efforts to move mountains of luggage to let a family with a baby stroller get by, knocking over unsuspecting Swiss as our stampede changed trains in two minutes, and yet did not loose a single ski boot!

We stayed at Simon's Herberge in Meiringen, maybe a ten minute walk from the gondola to the ski slopes. The gluten-free bread was delicious! Every evening we would walk to the Migros to buy lunch for the next day, and after that the student-organized dance party would start in the dinning room.

When I first got on my skis I really did not remember much, but I quickly got back to parallel skiing and moved up into a more advanced group the second day. On the third day, I mastered my first red run, and by the end I was so comfortable on my skis that I even started doing jumps! Four consecutive days of skiing was really tiring (and I hurt all over), but I also had a wonderful time, and was sad to leave the slopes for the last time on Thursday.

 

Sweden, Turkey, USA, Thailand

My host sister Tabea and I have identical ski boots. I labeled mine, but when I went to get my boots from the attic and saw a pair, one having a label, I assumed the other did too. Turns out our boots got mixed up, and I put on my ski boots the first morning only to find that I had brought two right feet! It all turned out OK because I was able to rent a pair in Meiringen, but it still cost 50CHF and a lot of trouble. On the last night, the YFU volunteers gave me another right ski boot that they all signed as an award for my mistake. My face was so red! The next morning I took the boot around the breakfast tables and had everyone at the camp sign it. Even Simon himself! Now I have a lovely (and potentially difficult to bring home) souvenir of the Ski Camp!

I bought myself a Swiss watch!

Videos: See descriptions below each video...

One of the volunteers is actually a ski instructor, but when we went to the pool, he ended up using his skills to give a swimming warm-up class. On the last night the other volunteers made him a bag to wear that made him an official swim instructor, and had him re-create the class he gave at the pool. It was hysterical!

Hello from the ski lift!

Adele is popular with exchange students! We even started using a new greeting "Hello...it's me..."

At the end of every orientation camp, we move around a circle to give everyone a hug. Encase anyone was not aware, hugs are the most essential items to find when you are on exchange!

The train ride home was beautiful! In one part it felt like springtime because there was so much sun, green hills, and even a crystal blue lake. The skis in the seat next to me and the snowy mountains above were all that reminisced of January.