Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: 2016

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Christmas time in die Schweiz

Christmas in Switzerland was definitely something else, but not in a bad way. I found Christmas here a bit more low key than what I'm used to but I still had a good time. For those of you who know me well you won't be surprised when I say that I left my gift warping until Christmas Eve... little did I know they OPEN their presents on Christmas Eve but nobody thought about telling me... Sooo... I "went to the bathroom" for about half an hour to finish wrapping my presents. I made a photo album for my host parents with pictures of us and things/places we've seen together and things that represent the time I was with them, along with that was a built in letter (in German) and they were really excited about it and I am really happy they liked it. We also had family over and had apero then crepes for dinner. I waited until Christmas morning to open the things my family and friends sent me from back in Canada (squirrel: I was about to say "from back home" but I also feel at home here so I wrote Canada instead). Christmas morning we got up and went to one of my host grandparents house for fondue chinois. Fondue chinois is the typical Swiss Christmas meal and so heres how it works, you have a special pot of boiling water/broth sometimes with veggies and stuff in it and then you have a variety of different raw meats the you cook in this water in low portions at a time. There are a variety of different sauces that you can dip your meat in. Its an endless cycle of deliciousness because as you eat what you have more is cooking and because of the pauses you eat so much and its so magical and great. There are also so many homemade Christmas cookies and I didn't want to be rude and waste anything so I tried one of every flavour and then repeated that everywhere we went. ALSO they light their Christmas tree with real candles!!!! We also sang Christmas carols multiple times a day, three days in a row. I went on a few walks in different places in my Canton and I had lots of fun.

apero

host grandma & grandpa

Christmas Eve with the fam

crepes

Christmas carols

real candles on the tree!!

Facetiming the fam on Christmas Eve ft. my mom & auntie

green Christmas

Fondue chinois meal

Fondue chinois

fondue chinois

host cousins!

more Christmas carols

walking on the lake

fun fact: I have walked around this lake 3 times and I have never noticed this thing...

walking around the old town of Fribourg

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Skiing in Zermatt

From Wednesday night to Sunday night I was staying in Zermatt with my soon to be new host family. They have an apartment in Zermatt and they go skiing there every good weathered weekend. We were blessed with awesome weather during our time there. Thursday morning my host dad and I woke up early to go and buy my ski pass which fyi is a seasons pass! The first ride up is at 8:30 exactly. We were first on the gondola and headed right to the top of the mountain (12,000+ ft). I was obviously taken away by the view and took a picture every chance I could. We met up with his cousin and off we went skiing for the whole morning. The weather was actually to hot! A cool thing about Zermatt is that you can ski in Italy and Switzerland!!! We stopped for lunch somewhere on the Italian side of the mountain. The food looked so good I almost didn't want to eat it but I was so really hungry so I munched. We did a few more runs then headed back to Switzerland as the last ride to the other side was at 3pm or something like that. Later that night I went to watch some films with my host mom and Sandra. The next day the whole fam went skiing together. One time the lift stopped because of a power issue and we were about 10m away from getting off. We needed to wait 15 minutes for it to start working again but over all we had lots of fun in the nice weather. Saturday my host mom and I went skiing with her two friends. We were the first ones on the gondolas once again. It's funny cause when you are waiting in line for the gondola it's pretty calm and as soon as 8:30 hits and the gate opens it's crazy and loud and everyone is pushing and shoving trying to get through. Later that night we went for a nice dinner at Sandra's house and hung out there for a bit. When we got home I was super tired and went right to bed. Sunday was our last day and once again the weather was beautiful so we decided to take the kids skiing once more. I had a really nice time getting to know my next host family and skiing in one of the most beautiful places in Switzerland! I am so thankful to have such amazing opportunities and I can't wait for the experiences coming my way!