Milano, Herbst Ferien, and German

The past couple weeks have been very busy and eventful! This week was my first week back to school after ‘Herbst Ferien’ which is a two week fall holiday. The first week we went to Milan, Italy for the 2015 World Expo and it was absolutely amazing!

 

I’m extremely fortunate that we have a train that goes directly from my Kanton to Milano and it’s only 3 hours! This year the expo 'theme’ was 'Feeding the World’ and ending world hunger. Maybe lver 100 countries came and had a pavilion where they share their culture and explain their ideas to end world hunger. It was amazing seeing the world come together! At almost all the pavilions you can also get food for lunch and I decided to go to the Gambian pavilion for lunch and had some great food and met the really nice people running the pavilion. It was also really strange being in Italy because now that my German is getting better I’m used to speaking German, but when I bumped into somebody in Italy and apologized in German ('Entschuldigung’) I got the strangest looks and realized, now I can’t speak German or English here. It’s so interesting that I only traveled 3 hours and I’m in a whole other world, the differences between Switzerland and Italy (and all other European countries) are huge! For the second week of Herbst Ferien I spend a week in the Swiss alps with my host family and it was so amazing. The first day we hiked about 3 hours to a 'Hutte’ in the mountains which is a little cottage-like house that hikers stay in while in the alps, they’re very hidden and isolated with the best view imaginable and it was incredible. The next day we hiked down and we drove to our next destination in Berner Oberland where we would stay and keep our stuff and be out hiking in the alps or touring a city on Kanton Bern during the days. We hiked a ton (Ontario hiking is extremely different from Swiss mountain hiking) and but the view at the top was always worth the hours of hiking and climbing. We also went to 'Ballenberg’ which is a museum of Swiss houses and buildings that were deconstructed and then reconstructed in the same area, you can see the differences of the Kantons different styles and it was very interesting. When we went inside there was information about the history of music, traditional clothing, farming, and lifestyles of the different Kantons in Switzerland. It was so nice to be able to learn so much about this country! We also did Interlaken and some 'tourist’ destinations and it was a very informative learning week. I also was in 'Germn boot camp’ because we agreed no English for the entire week, and it helped so much with my German! It’s still not perfect and I have lots to learn about the German language still but I’m conversational and I can get by a lot easier now that my language skills are stronger. It’s so crazy how when my German is getting better, my English is actually getting worse. Sometimes I’ll be speaking English and remember the German word before the English word, I’ve never experienced struggling with English because it’s my native language but I’ve some really embarrassing moments where English didn’t work out so well for me! School is getting a lot easier now that the language is coming around better, I have a language class once a week after school to help with my German and I will be starting a class in Zürich once a week also to help with the language too! It’s a really great feeling knowing that you’re on your way to becoming bilingual. 
Switzerland is feeling so much like home and I’m absolutely in love with Switzerland and Europe! Living here has really opened my eyes to new things and new interests and it’s the most incredible experience. I’ve been here for almost 3 months now and I’m absolutely loving it!

If you have any questions about my experiences or my life in Switzerland don’t hesitate to email or message me on Facebook!