Bundesplätz light show

Here in Bern they put on a light show at night in the Bundesplätz. Last night I was able to go with my host family, and it was so cool! It lasted about 20-30 minutes, and the pictures they lighted up on the Bundeshaus ranged from the changing of the seasons to different places in the world. When they projected a picture of the Bundeshaus onto the actual Bundeshaus, it gave it a 3D look, which was super cool.
The seasons have been changing and Fall is in full swing here. The trees are so colorful and its beginning to get chillier. Scarf weather! This is my favorite time of the year, autumn and winter. Halloween is almost here (yay!) and since trick or treating is not big here, me and some of my other exchange student friends are going to do a ghost tour/walk in Zürich at night! It's the perfect thing to do on Halloween night!
I am also switching host families in a couple of weeks. You never truly feel how fast time is flying until you realize that your exchange is almost halfway. It seems like just yesterday that I arrived here in Switzerland and started this amazing adventure. I never want this to end.

Two Months in...

It has now been two months since I've been here in Switzerland. Words cannot describe how much I love it here. Every aspect of Switzerland is just perfect; the weather, the food, the scenery, the people, everything. School is going great, my host family is amazing, and everything is just so wonderful! I am so lucky to have this opportunity and I would just like to thank everyone who made this possible. Rotary is an amazing program to go through, and to me, the best. Exchange is not a year in your life it's a life in a year.

Flims, Baveno, Milan, Oh My!

I sent this past week in some of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen. First, I spent a couple of days up in Flims, a little village in the Swiss Alps, with my host family and some . There, we took a ski lift up all the way up a mountain and then we hiked back down. The view was so amazing and there was even a couple patches of snow! Naturally, me and my younger host brother had a snowball fight. The scenery was sos beautiful I felt like I was in The Sound of Music with all the green hills and mountains in the background. While we were up there, we even had fondue! The last day that we were there, a ballon festival happened, which was a little piece of California for me, since the Sonoma County Ballon Festival always happens in Windsor. After Flims, we drove a couple hours down to Italy, where we stayed at a hotel in Baveno, which is right on the edge of Lake Majoire. Baveno is the quintessential Italian village, with cobblestone roads, colorful buildings, small streets and of course, lots of gelaterias and pizzerias. After we stayed a couple of days in Baveno, we drove about an hour down to Milano. After living in Bern for a couple of months and being used to small cities, being in Milano was crazy. The city is just so huge! We stayed at a hotel right in the center of the city, and it was also only a 5 minute walk to the Duomo. We took a tour around Milano on a double-decker bus, and the city is absolutely amazing. We also went out to dinner at two amazing ristorantes, and let me tell you, authentic italian food is so bomb. The last night for dinner I opted for pasta instead of pizza (I had pizza the night before). I ordered some shrimp scampi and me being me, I thought that the shrimp would be like normal shrimp (cleaned and de-shelled). Apparently I thought wrong because when my food came out, there were four whole shrimp sitting on top of a mound of pasta (don't worry, they were cooked). So I ended up cracking and picking out the meat from the shrimp. It was actually a pretty cool experience, since I've never had to do that before. When we came back to Bern, we went over a mountain (alp) pass. We stopped at a little mountain restaurant for a quick snack. I had mushroom potato soup and it was one of the best things I have ever tasted. I am so in love with both Italy and Switzerland, it's crazy. I can't wait to go back to Milan during the Eurotour!