A fun weekend that Rotary organized for all of the exchange students
This weekend was my first Rotary weekend in Switzerland! Lenk is a cute village surrounded by mountains where all of us Rotary exchange students gathered for the weekend to connect and explore. Lenk is a couple hours from where I live and I just took the train to get there. When I got to the station in Bern there was a huge group of people that were obviously other exchange students and of course we were all heading to Lenk. Since we come from all over the world everyone was meant to bring some sort of dish or dessert from our home country. My host mom helped me make Nanaimo bars. Seeing as I had never made them before they turned out alright. My host mom is a cooking teacher so her guidance was really helpful because cooking is not my strong suit. If she hadn't helped me it probably would have been a disaster. I really enjoyed trying all of the different foods people brought, some of the dishes were very well done.
The weather was pretty rainy over the weekend so we weren't able to go out and do everything that was on the itinerary but we still had a lot of fun. There was a short hike we did to view a waterfall but most of our activities ended up being indoors. We played all sorts of games that brought us all together and helped us bond quickly. We spent a lot of time just socializing and sharing stories about our lives and respective countries. Some of the exchange students have been in Switzerland for months and are nearing the end of their year abroad, we call them the "oldies" and for those of us who have only been around for a month or so are the "newbies". I enjoyed chatting with the oldies, hearing their stories and getting insight from them. I was picking their brains trying to learn things that they wish they knew when they were just at the beginning, if there were things they wish they did differently and things they recommend that I do not miss out on. By the end of the weekend I had made friends that I know I will be keeping in touch with. Some of the friends I met were the type of people that I feel like I have known for a lot longer than just the 48 hours we spent together. We will be having another weekend like this in November and I can't wait to see everyone again.