As time draws on I am finding it quite crazy to think that in three weeks I will be in Switzerland.  I have been dreaming of this day ever since I visited Switzerland 4 years ago.  I will be going a couple of days early to visit my friend Lindsay and her soon to be husband over in Montreaux Switzerland.  While I am over there I plan to go to Zermatt and hike a trail that has views of the Matterhorn and immerse myself in the countryside of the Swiss alps.  I then plan on going to some areas close by and explore some towns like Laussane and Guyeres (yes that is the cheese).  The reason I love Switzerland so much is not only the good wine, cheese, and chocolate but I love the countryside.  The alps make you feel inconceivably small as you stand under mountains that feels like they rise straight up with no end in sight.  Many things about traveling are hard to describe, it is just something that one has to experience.   I feel right at home in Switzerland and I wish that my family was with me because I believe that this would be the place where they would love to explore.  I can just imagine my dad enjoying the many bike paths that he could travel on and my mom enjoying the beautiful flowers and countryside.  My husband has already gone to Switzerland with me about 4 years ago and it deeply saddens me that my other half will not be able to enjoy these adventures with me.  The only fun thing about it is that since we do everything together now, we will finally have something exciting to talk about because we will be experiencing life from two different angles for two months.

After visiting my friend Lindsay I will be returning to Lugano to work for a school called TASIS.  It is a summer school for high school students.  Below is a map of the campus of the school.  Basically for my job I am in charge of monitoring the students, taking them on trips, running sports and after school activities, and making sure the students have a good time.  I get to take them on weekend trips and we also have half day excursions on Wednesdays.  I will be working mostly in the evenings and early mornings so if you want to skype me when I am there I will have to get on early my time and late at night your time since it is a 9 hour difference.  For example:  I might be on skype at 7:00 am my time so that means it would be around 10:00 pm your time.  Some places I might be visiting this summer is:  Lake Como, Rome, Venice, Milano, and other Italian cities as well as some Swiss towns and alpine regions.  

Some interesting things about Switzerland:  

• Our director wanted to have a night where the students made s'mores as most of the students have never had one and this is the reason; Switzerland has an overabundance of chocolate but they do not have marshmellows or grahm crackers.  We were asked to bring these items with us if we could fit them in our luggage.
• Every Swiss town is equipped with a town bunker which holds enough food and room for most of the town people and most Swiss houses are constructed with their own bunkers.  The Swiss people make use of the bunkers in their house to make their own wine and grappa.
• When driving on the roads,  the lights turn from Green to Yellow to Red to Yellow to Green.  Since people only drive stick shifts they use the yellow light again to kind of be a "ready get your car into gear" and then green to go
• The Swiss are very polite and even hearing someone honk their horn is uncommon
• There are 4 languages spoken in Switzerland:  German, Italian, French, and Swiss-Deutsch

   

Here is also a couple of pictures of the campus:  http://switzerland.tasis.com/page.cfm?p=1087