Paul King is our 2006 Outbound Student to Switzerland

From Paul, our exchange student in Switzerland

Hey everybody! Just posting the blog here again but check out the pics at

www.switzerlandadventure.piczo.com, go to Dec. - March pics then scroll down to the bottom of this page to see the new pics! talk to you all later! Hope everything is going great at home! Paul

March 24, 2007

It's been a month since my last blog so I better fill you guys in a little. So I left off with Fasnacht and skiing, and the month of February. In March nothing huge or exciting happened, just settling into life a bit more. I am now starting to understand more and more Swiss German. I can sit down in the middle of a conversation and know what they are talking about and jump in. This makes life A LOT easier, because my friends don't even remember that I'm an exchange student anymore haha. So with that coming, and now understanding almost all of high German, I am starting to get right into school and with the classwork. Granted I still can't do a whole lot but its come a long ways from the beginning.

This month I went to a city in the French part of Switzerland called Lausanne, the Olympic Capital of the World. This city was very beautiful. I went with two of my good friends (Leah and Luis) for a Saturday to explore. We checked out the Cathedral (huge!) and a castle which was cool, the lake front which was beautiful, but the main point was going to the Olympic Museum! The whole Olympic Centre is in Lausanne and the Museum was amazing! First we saw all the history, got to see and touch all of the torches from the turn of the last century, see all the medals, and there was many more displays on training and Olympic coins and stamps from around the world. It was really interesting. We ended up getting kicked out cause they were closing but we could have spent half the day just looking at everything.

In School we had a project week (Sonderwoche) on business. It was very interesting. Two of my friends and myself had to make a presentation on business related to geography. So we made a presentation about Pilatus, a aircraft company here in Central Switzerland, and made an example of it for Swiss Quality. It is #1 in the private small aircraft industry. It was great! The school only made us go to school on the Monday for little seminars then the rest of the week we just used the time to make the presentation. We ended getting a 5.5 out of 6! Gut gemacht!

And between this, I've just been going to school and hanging out with friends here. Life is just turning more into a normal everyday routine, instead of being the person that is awed by everything. I really do feel that I am continually being submerged into the Swiss culture. That plus the skiing :).

Last weekend, my host family and I went on a Ski tour. That means, we took our skis, put felts (like a very fine carpet) on the bottom of our skis, and hiked up a mountain with the skis on then skied down the mountain. It was awesome! I have never done something like that before. It was like a cross between Cross country skiing and hiking! You definitely get a great feeling when you finally get to the top of the mountain and see the view. Amazing.

Till next time! (The next few months are going to be awesome! Three months, 6 different countries)

January 10, 2007

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Haha and it looks like I haven't written in a while again, some things just never change. SO I'll start from where I left off.

NEW HOST FAMILY!!!

One word. AWESOME! As equally as great as the last. My host mom is a great lady, an awesome cook (makes the best Lebkuchen on the earth), and is just one of the nice persons in the world that will always have a smile for everyone. My host dad is the same in the male form except add bike, ski, and tennis freak to that. I have one younger host brother (15) and is really big on sports like his dad. He likes playing tennis a lot. The first day I was with my new host family my host dad took me for a bicycle ride. He said that we were going in a half hour so I finished unpacking on bag and was getting ready to go when he asks me if I have a good shirt. Just t-shirts I said. So he goes into his closet and pulls out a old racing bike wear shirt he had and then I knew I was in trouble. So we start with the mountain bikes and we go down one hill then up a bigger hill then down that hill then up a bigger hill and then down that hill and, oh yes three times a charm, up one more hill. By then my host dad politely points out that we have taken our bikes directly overtop of where I used to live, 30 minutes by bus away.

grrreeeaaattt... haha Actually it was quiet fun and I would do it again soon.

CHRISTMAS!!!

Swiss schools ran until the Friday before Christmas, on the 22nd so that night my host family and I went up to their Chaleux on a ski hill close by called Klewenalp. Christmas in Switzerland was pretty close to home. They had a Christmas tree, presents underneath it, went to mass on Christmas eve.

A couple differences was that instead of electric lights in the Christmas tree, they were real candles. And we opened christmas presents on the 24th rather than the morning of the 25th. AND IT WAS WHITE!!!!

On the 25th I went to my host grandmas house and had Christmas dinner (GREAT) then had to come home because on the 26th I had to go to a practise week camp for the musical I am currently in. It was long and a little bit stressful but we got a lot of stuff figured out and it is coming together piece by piece. I had a serious lesson in Swiss German this week because that is all that was spoken during the whole week (besides people who wanted to talk to me and the American, then high German). I feel like I now can understand half of what is said in Swiss German. Its quiet an accomplishment I think because before this week I understood only a few words in Swiss German, amazing what you pick up in these situations.

NEW YEARS!!

So I got back from my practise week on the 31st, and spent New Years with Swiss friends. It was great! We had supper and ate then watched the fireworks on the lake from the balcony. It was cool seeing them because there were the ones from the city and then all along the lake were other people just shooting off random fireworks!

And now I am getting back into the swing of things, the play is picking up now that opening show is on the 19th of January! It should be a good run.

ALL IN GERMAN! My choir also has a concert coming up as well and the music we are doing is great! Other than that just skiing on the weekends and learning more German... and starting French here. I feel like I did way back in August again every Tuesday and Wednesday in French class. My class has been studying English and French for 6 years already. I'm only a LITTLE bit behind haha. Hope everything was good for everyone over the holidays. Happy New Year! Hope its a good one for you!

Hallo Everybody!

Greetings from Switzerland! For those of you who don't remember me I am Paul King and I am on Rotary Exchange in Luzern, Lucerne Switzerland. I am now officially starting the email newsletter which I will send to all of you at least every two months. If you wish not to be on this list or know someone that would like to be added, please email me and tell me so. I must ask you as well to not email me every week or very frequently because obviously I miss you all very much right now and if I am frequently reminded what I am missing then it will make my exchange much harder. I thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Now that I got that out of the way, I get to tell you all about my travels so far! Ah where to begin? Well I started my journey in Calgary where I boarded a DELAYED plane to Minneapolis. When I arrived in Minneapolis I had to run around to the other side of the airport (which is no small feat) to make my other plane which left for Amsterdam. The 8 hour flight there was O.K. but I did see the Northern lights which were really cool! When I arrived in Amsterdam airport I met 10 other Rotary Exchange students that were mostly from America but there were a few Canadians. It was awesome to talk with them because we were all going through the same experience and we had the same worries. Then we all boarded a plane to Zürich. When we arrived there we all stuck together because we where all terrified of meeting our new host family. I met my host mom and dad at the airport. I am so, so lucky to have host parents like the ones I have. They are the nicest, warmest, most welcoming people I have met. It is the same with their two sons Samuel, who is 17, and is going to Chilliwack B.C. on Rotary Exchange on the 19th, and Raphael, who is 19. They took me into their home without any question and right away treated me like one of the family. It was amazing! These past couple days in Suisse have been amazing also. In der Schweiz (Switzerland) is such a beautiful country. Everything here is clean and well kept, new or historic, and friendly. Where I live in Meierskappel (a town outside of Luzern) is much like the Okanogan if you have been there. It is on a plateau in the Alps and has rolling hills and towering mountains in the distance. Sam showed me all of Luzern and its beauty. All the buildings in the city are old style and most people live in flats or apartments. If you like shopping, Luzern is a good place to go because there are a tonne of shops. I saw my school which is beautiful and looks down on the river that flows through Luzern and the downtown area. Lots of things to do and I have only been here for 2 days! Anyway, I will sum up this email.

To let everyone know that in between my newsletters I will be updating the website that I started. It is http://www.switzerlandadventure.piczo.com. I plan on updating it this weekend with what I have experienced so far. I will also put some pictures on it so that you can see what it is like. Hope that everything is going well at home and that everyone is having a great summer vacation!

Until next time,

Auf Wiedersehen!

Paul King