Catch up : Language Course

I haven't exactly been the best blogger, but  stay with me as I try to figure it out as I want to keep everyone at home updated on exchange life!

Language Camp: Starting the third day I arrived, and going for three weeks, I attended a language course. It took place in Zurich, and I was learning German with a group of other Rotary Exchange students! I think there were over thirty of us exchange students, so on the first morning they had us do a test and then split us in to two classes. (Somehow I managed to to into the more advanced class which was ) Learning German is tough, but we had a really really sweet teacher that made it a lot of fun. We went on scavenger hunts and did surveys in different areas of Zurich and one day she even took us to the pool! It was sunny at 35+ degrees almost everyday, which made me miss the PEI beaches!

 My favourite part about language camp was meeting all of the other exchange students. We all bonded really quickly and had a lot of fun together! It was really nice to have so many other people to be able to talk to about going through the challenges of changing families, living in German and Swiss culture! These students came from various countries around the world including: Canada, Taiwan, USA, Peru, Equador, Brasil, Japan, Argentina, Russia, Mexico... etc. So it made for a really cool experience to talk to other students about their home culture and how they find it different (or the same) to Switzerland's. Mayu, from Japan, had her birthday during one of these weeks, so each of us sang Happy Birthday in our first Languages! We ended up being able to sing in Taiwanese, Japanese, English, Spanish  German and French ! That was a really eye opening experience for me. We all come from different countries but can still hang out and be friends!

We had school from 9:00-3:10 so on some of the really hot days we would all go together to the park after school and go swimming in Zurich Lake! Swimming in the lake with international friends and looking back to the shore of Old Zurich that I really appreciated how amazing it is to be here! And to top it all off, I came out knowing much more German than I took with me to Switzerland! The German course was awesome for the language benefit as well as meeting the other exchange students!