Switzerland, or perhaps a dream
that's mega cool bro -chiara far too many times (albeit me too)
It’s been a few days now in Switzerland, and I can say I have quite settled in. These few days, there’s typically one or two excursions I go on which total to about 2/3rds of the day, and the rest of the day I can chill. During this time where I’m chilling, it’s really nice to calm down for the day and well, chill, but I don’t got much to do. That is, until I realized I could write here on my blog! So at least for this week before school starts, I do actually have time to dedicate to this blog (and it’s pretty fun). However, once schools start yeahhh I’m unsure if I’ll have that much time.
I will say first of all only 4 days in there’s absolutely so much I want to say and so many stories I want to talk about, it’s honestly wild. Even for the first few days (that previous post) there’s so many stories and so many things I had missed to say. For example, Gina’s driving. Everyone in my host family roasts her driving 😭, while I’m like: she just drived me back from that birthday party at 10pm, in the dark, while tired, with pretty good speed, on a narrow mountain road where if you veered a little to the right the car might be “kaputt”. To me her driving is super impressive 😭😭
Oh yeah and for some background, Gina is my second eldest host sister, and she’s leaving for an exchange in Ecuador at the end of August. Only known her for a few days now, but I’ll definitely be missing her (though I know she’ll have a fantastic time in Ecuador)
On Monday, my youngest host sister, Siena, had her very first day of work, an apprenticeship at the tourist information centre in Gstaad! Since then, I believe it’s been going quite well for her, except for a few (many) not so smart and not so polite tourists. She’s in fact already got many stories of conversation you would never be able to conceive nor understand 😭, like the biggest waterfall in Europe that’s definitely in Gstaad.
And it was the monday morning that I achieved my main most important mission of my exchange here in Switzerland. That is, to win over my host family’s cat, Wickie. Wickie is a more closed off cat, not often going for any petting or snuggles or anything of the like. However, this monday morning, it was about 7:00am and I couldn’t quite get back to sleep (jetlag). I decided to head to the back porch to chill for a bit and Wickie happened to be there. I just chilled around, petting Wickie whenever she came close, and we eventually grew closer. And then at one point, I was just laying down, and she walked over me! Apparently she really dislikes being on top of people, and it actually took Siena 10 years of knowing Wickie for her to do that! So, I consider my main mission fulfilled.
Coming back to edit this now, Wickie and I are now certified homies. Sometimes in the morning I just chill at the back porch with Wickie, and we just chill together, Wickie occasionally coming in to get pet or nuzzle me.
As I’ve mentioned recently, these days have consisted of a couple events of seeing the town or youth exchange business. Once Monday started, most of my family had started working. However, since Gina is leaving for Ecuador quite soon, she has been pretty free as of late, so she’s been able to show me around Gstaad and Saanenland this week. In fact, Gina is practically the main character throughout this post because of this 😭😭 (and more! you shall see).
On Monday, Gina had shown me the way to the school I’ll be going to, Gymnasium Interlaken Abteilung Gstaad. I’ll be taking the MOB train (or bike) from Saanenmöser to Gstaad, and then walking or taking a bus to school. And yes, the train ride is gorgeous. The school itself is practically the size of the auditorium hallway in PCSS (pne large hallway in my high school in Canada), but it is very cute and beautiful. It even has a statue (of all time) that all the students apparently find ugly 😭
After that, Gina took me around the city of Gstaad! Before we continue, here’s a bit of geography.
(Insert map of saanenland)
Gstaad and Saanen are the main cities where most of the shops and events are, while there are multiple small villages around these 2 cities, one of them being the village I live in, Saanenmöser.
Anyways, Gstaad is absolutely beautiful. We walked the promenade of Gstaad, which had a beautiful walk and plenty of stories. This promenade was quite beautiful and had plenty of shops, and over time I heard this walk was primarily for tourists. My host family never quite shopped here since the stores are quite expensive, but all in all it was a beautiful area.
The tap and fountain water in Switzerland is in fact all safe to drink! Unless there’s a sign saying you can’t drink it, you can basically assume all water is safe to drink. So considering that…
Later in the day, Gina took me biking to Schönried, and I actually believe that was my first time biking that much downhill and uphill. Needless to say, downhill was quite fun while uphill… the Swiss exchange student who came to Canada last year had scoffed and warned me about my bike ride back from school and she wasn’t kidding wow. That uphill from Schönried to my home was only a part of that bike ride and that was difficulttt.
On Tuesday, I had an excursion with my host mother to the city of Saanen and also Gstaad. We first went to a government building to see about getting my permanent residents card (had to fill out a form and return back blehh), but then got to walk around Saanen and later Gstaad a bit and see the sights.
We then went to Migros to do some grocery shopping. In Switzerland, there are two main supermarkets people visit to get groceries: Migros and Coop. There also happens to be a large debate on which one is better, each family being a Migros family or Coop family. I’ve visited both now at this point, so I can give my opinion.
MIGROS IS WAY BETTER. First of all, it’s cheaper then Coop, even if Coop might have more options. Also, Migros has this super super practical technology. It’s a scanner that you take while shopping, and you scan the items as you put it in the cart. Then, when you arrive at the checkout, all you have to do is use the scanner on the machine and then pay. You basically scan while getting each item rather than at the end having to take out and scan every time, and then put it back into your cart. It’s so so useful. Switzerland is that goood (except Coop doesn’t have it so Migros >>> Coop)
The next day, Wednesday, was Gina’s birthday!! Yeah, hence also why Gina is practically the main character of this post 😭. For dinner, my host family went out to Arc-en-Ciel for Gina’s birthday.
In the morning, I had my most favorite experience of my exchange yet. Despite only being about a week in, that’s saying a lot. Gina took me on my very first hike in Switzerland, a hike circling Lauenensee and arriving at the city of Launen. Throughout the entire hike I was dumbfounded by what I was seeing, honestly believing I must’ve been in an incredible dream. It’s beauty really can’t be described by words, so I’ve dedicated the rest of this blog post to be a photo gallery of many of the pictures I took on this hike. Though honestly, not even pictures can get close to the beauty of this hike and Switzerland.
I joked around before in Canada that Switzerland is so beautiful that you can literally take any random photo on any random hike and it’s picture perfect, one of the best photos you could ever take. Well, I kid you not, that is absolutely absolutely true. I actually attempted to take the 4th pic you see on the gallery, but accidentally had the camera switched. Through that stupid accident, I somehow ended with the 3rd picture you see 😭😭
We saw a clearing that would be pretty cool to go to, but guarded by a cold stream. But then, Gina was like we could just take off our shoes and socks and go, and hence we have the video below. It was my first time walking on rocks barefoot, and wow that was difficult 😭😭 super fun though.
That video took a lot of effort to make 😭😭 you better have watched it to the end. (Translation at the end, the video was 21 minutes)
I’d like to give a super mega “Vielen Dank” to Gina for taking me on this hike, especially since she chose to do so on her birthday (and if you’re reading this, I sincerely hope you enjoyed it a lot as well, even if the hike itself wasn’t too special for you). And also huge thanks for showing me around so many places in Switzerland.
Naturally, this thanks also extends to all of my host family and everyone involved in exchange. Thanks to all of you for making my introduction to Switzerland so welcoming and heartwarming.
Do I hear ginainderschweiz.substack.com?
Or rather I suppose it would be ginaenecuador.substack.com?
P.S. No pressure Gina 😅
mathias this is so sigma good thing ur having fun