"Peaceful Easy Feeling" Eagles

Warning: Lots of photos in this one. So... I'm sick. Monday I have to go back to school which is not going to be fun. So I think I have to fill you in in a bit of what I've done in my holidays. So... last week I went to the Alps with my host family and we stayed in a cabin that was so cute. It wasn't that big but it was a really good time. We left Saturday (September 28) just me and my host dad because my host family got a new dog and my host mom and sister had a training course Saturday and Sunday afternoon, so they joined us Sunday night. Roman (my host dad) and I played a lot of games and I won most...actually all of them. Saturday we had to find the cabin. There is no town near it and the roads don't have names and there are no addresses where the cabin is. All we had was GPS coordinates. It took us about three hours to get to the town Vrin where we borrowed Edna's older brother's car and drove up to the cabin. We got to around the main location but there were five cabins. I understood where the cabin was and pointed out which one it was. I was right. When we finally got settled in we had to start the oven fire (it was an old fashion fire oven) and when Roman started the fire smoke started coming out of it and we couldn't figure out why. I opened all the windows to try and get the smoke to stop from going everywhere. But I forgot to get the windows in the rooms which were upstairs so I opened them but the rooms where already filled with smoke. I figured out that it was the pipe and when we took off the little opening and then put it back on it worked just fine. The smoke went out of the rooms and we closed the doors. We then relaxed for a bit. I did some writing and then after dinner we played some games. The coolest thing that happened at the cabin was that there were herds of cows everywhere. When we got out of the car all you could hear were cow bells. It was pretty cool. And there was a herd of cows that came right up to the cabin in the afternoon.

I would try and give the cows some water but it would go down the drain in the cement thing to fast and when I left a bucket out there they would try and eat it. They were so cute!!

Inside of our Cabin. The dinning table was behind me and the stairs lead to the bedrooms. 

Love this!

So Sunday Roman and I went for a walk down to this lake but there was this restaurant there. It was about half an hour down from the cabin. I had a sparking lemonade (I have no idea what to actually call it but it's called Citro). We then hiked up the hill again to the cabin and we played a few more games. I think I won them all again....all except one. I then did some writing and Roman took the car we borrowed to go to a different town and get some groceries. It was a Sunday so all the stores were closed but he found a town that had the stores open. While he was gone I cranked up the music and wrote in my journal. When he got back he made this traditional soup of that region and then went to go get Christa, Edna and the dog Samson from Vrin. It actually took them a while to get back. I'm pretty sure it took them about an hour and a half to get back. I set the table and waited, and then I got really bored and hungry so I was a little less patient and decided to turn the music even more up. Eventually they came back and when they got to the cabin Christa and Edna where slapping the walls and the cabinets and stuff, which I was like, okay, maybe it's a Swiss way of making sure the walls are solid...but they were doing it because their dog trainer told them to let the dog see them make sure the house it okay and safe. So they weren't crazy. We ate dinner and then played some games. There was no internet in the cabin and we couldn't use a lot of the electricity because it runs on solar panels. We also weren't allowed to put water down the drain unless it was in the washroom. We had to put a bucket in the sink in the kitchen and the bathroom to collect the water then we threw the water out outside. After playing some games we went to sleep. My room was at the very top and was an attic converted to a room. There were two queen sized beds in there and that is about all it could fit. 

Monday morning the dog started whining and crying because he was enclosed in the bathroom. The trainer told them to block a small part of the house off for the dog and the bathroom was the biggest room we could put him. But everyone was pretty upset that he was crying so Edna said she was going to leave that day. Her brother who we borrowed the car from was coming up on Tuesday to get his car and it was his birthday. I convinced Edna to wait and go home on Tuesday night and I would go with her since we were going to a Rotary meeting on Wednesday. So that's what we did. We slept over at Edna's brother's house and then took a train back Tuesday. It was a pretty eventful ride with the dog. When we got home Edna put him in his space and then left. She was really fed up with him. I for one took a shower because my hair was greasy and I smelted like burning wood. It was really nice to take a shower. It was a pretty quiet day. I finished my journal and then went to the post office. 

The Rotary meeting was good. It was at a really prestigious restaurant in Burgdorf called Stadthaus. We met with the president of the club and two other gentlemen and they took us upstairs to the dinning room and helped Edna set up her presentation. She had to present about her exchange in Ecuador last year. It was pretty cool. It is an all-male club and they all seem to have pretty cool jobs. The one thing I really liked about the club was that they had fabric place-mats that has their names sown into it.  The food was fantastic. I have never had such a good meal. After Edna met up with her friend. 

Okay so now, this week I was invited to go with my friend Sophie and her host family to Europapark which is Canada's Wonderland mixed with Disney park in Germany. So I went over Sunday night and slept at their house. Sophie's host dad is the president of his Rotary Club and does something in Nuclear Energy. So Monday morning we got up, even though it was pretty hard to get up, we were so tired. We then drove about two and a half hours to get to this park. And the first thing you see driving into it was a cartoon mouse, dressed up in a tux, holding a top hat. Sound like another cartoon mouse that everyone knows and loves....It was pretty cool, but really similar to Disney. We first went on a ride which was like the Ghost ride in Canada's Wonderland but it was viking themed. It reminded Sophie and me of How To Train Your Dragon. So for those of you who don't know the ghost ride at Canada's Wonderland it is built of wood instead of metal. We waited in line for a while and then when we go to the end, Sophie wanted to go in the line that would allow us to get front row seats. We waited even longer. After we went to this ride that was called Blue Fire. Now, I have never been on a ride that went upside down but this one did. Also, I realized I haven't been on a roller coaster for seven years. So I was nervous with this one, but I got on it and Tom (Sophie's host dad) sat beside me (Sophie went with her host sister because she wanted to be in the back). It was actually really fun. I love it! I was screaming the whole time and Tom was laughing, I think a bit at the fact that I was literally screaming the whole time and would sometimes throw in a swear word or two. After we went on this ride that Sophie's host mom wanted to go on (she didn't like the big rides. She liked the more calm ones). It was a cool ride. Can't remember the name. But it was based off the movie Arthur. After that we were able to go on our own to do whatever we wanted. We did about 3 rides in the three and a half hours. we did a lot of walking. Europapark has a theme of Europe. Instead of Magic Kingdom and Epcot it had France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Spain and all the other big countries in Europe. It was pretty cool cause one minute you would be in France then all of a sudden you're in Italy. We met Sophie's host family at 4 in France and went on a ride called Silver Star. It was super fun! It is sponsored by Mercedes so while you were waiting in line for the ride there was this small exhibit and it had a Formula One car and a luxury car of Mercedes. The ride didn't have any loops but it had a huge drop. And you did it three times in a row. .I started to feel sick at the third one but I really liked it and we went a second time. We drove home at around 6 and then I slept over at Sophie's house and then Tuesday morning I went home. And I had a relaxing day Tuesday.

Sophie and I on the Monorail

Russia Area of the Park

Entry Gate as you arrive

View from the Monorail. France I think

This was Germany

Greece

Exhibit of the Mercedes place before the Silver Star

I took this picture for my dad because we watched Top Gear and the man on the right is Lewis Hamilton  a famous Formula one driver who drives for Mercedes and appeared on the show a few times. 

Wednesday my host dad, Roman, took me to CERN, the large hadron collider in Geneva. Here they discovered the Higgs Boson, and among other things they created the World Wide Web (www). We went to the museum which had a whole bunch of parts that they use in the colliders and how it works. After we went to another building made out of wood which had more about CERN and the things that came out of the building process and some theories that they're trying to prove. We didn't actually get to see the collider itself but maybe one day....I had a lot of fun and it was cool to learn about how it works. I didn't know that there were four main areas in the collider where they gather information and search for other things. One thing that made me just take a moment and think, "wow" was in the museum there was a bottle of champagne that the scientist drank when they discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012. In CERN they send particles at almost the speed of light and get them to crash into each other in the hope of discovering new particles.

The building made out of wood (sponsored by Rolex. Says so as you first walk in)

A video of actual particles moving threw the cloud chamber. They could be Cosmic rays (Cosmic Microwave Background. Left over stuff from the Big Bang) or other particles. 

So that leads us to yesterday, and I was starting to get sick so I didn't do a lot and today, I am 100% actually sick. So, life is going great right now. 

In all honesty, this holiday was great and I can't believe I've been here for two months already. Sometimes it feels like I've been here longer, like 2 years, and other times, which is when I try to speak German, I feel like I've been here for about 2 weeks. Actually these last five days I've spoken English mainly so my German is slipping away. It's okay though. When I get back to school I know it's gonna come back quickly. And right now my head hurts to much to be learning German. I'm having trouble focusing on English at this moment.

Okay...I'm up to date now. I can sleep now.