Winter means skiing for me. But you need snow for it, right? The winter of Germany lasted 2 days last year, so my family decided to drive to Switzerland to spend some days in a house of a friend.
I'm the only one in my family who speaks french 'cause we drove to the french part of Switzerland.
My exchange partner, Martina, from Argentina is here now, already for about 4 weeks. She is so great!
Therefore, it has been an exiting trip for her too, especially the beautiful Alpes and being on skiers for the first time!
Our trip started with a 7 hour during car drive through half of Germany 'till we arrived in a small twon called 'Aigle'. Martinas first thought was: "Why is nobody there? Where are all the people?"
She was right: the town seemed like dead, even though it hadn't been that late (about 9 p.m.). My mother supposed everyone stayed at home because of Christmas.
After waiting half an hour to get into our appartment in the middle of the 'city', we finally could go sleeping.
The next thing that expected us the other day was the sun! A stunning panorama in front of the Alpes!
When we looked at the city map, we thought "Oh hey, the city isn't that small how we thought!". But when we started walking to the train station, we arrived there in about 5 minutes and crossed the whole town.
Because there wasn't much more to discover in Aigle, we drove to the "Lake Geneva" and made a stop in a beautiful town called "Montreaux"! I think the photos speak for themselves.
After eating something and enyoing the beautiful view, the fresh air and warming sun we drove up on the hills to the "Vielle Ville" which means the 'Old City'. Again we have been rewared by a marvellous view ove the 'Lake Geneve' and the rich 'Montreaux'.
Even though we could have been there hours we were ready for the next bigger city, 'Lausanne'. Along the Lake we drove about one hour, saw plenty of vineyards and other little towns.
Montreaux had been quite small, whereas Lausanne seemed like a really big city and the quite, relaxing feeling was a bit missing. As a consequence we didn't stay very long, drunk a coffee at Starbucks (even here the prices were unbelievable!) and spent some time again in front of the lake.
A great start here in Switzerland.....
For the next day we planned to go skiing in 'Leysin'. I've been the only one who really could ski but my dad had forgotten much and my mum even more. And for Martina a whole new thing expected her...unfortunatley the weather wasn't good like the day before. It was raining and up on the hills it was snowing like crazy and because of the strong wind, some routes were closed.
When we arrived above and started skiing, without any ski school, on a blue piste, Martina and my mum fell down a lot of times and already after half an hour, both just wanted to leave the piste. But that wasn't that easy. To come down to 'Leysin' again, they had to drive the whole 5 km route down. All in all, my mum, dad & Martina needed 3 hours to come down. And I...waited the whole time for them.
On the bottom, everyone was exhausted, my mum had some bruises and Martina was a little bit shocked but she just said: "A good experience!"
What I noticed quite obviously had been the friendly and caring way the other people were there. Everyone asked "Ca va?" if anyone fell down. When I asked a young man, which route is the easiest one, he showed me the way and drove with us for a while. An hour later, we met him again and he asked again if everything is alright with us.
When people think of Switzerland, all they think about are rich, xenophobic people. But in my case, I didn't experienced that at all!
Because of the shocking experience, my mum and Martina had, only my dad and my skied the next day and the rest of my family (including my ill sister), visited a castle in 'Aigle'.
The last day, we wanted to spend our time in 'Genève'. The biggest city on the Lake Geneva(obviously its called after the city itself).
I was really amazed by the great architecture and I felt a bit like in Paris because of the french speaking people, the wonderful 'Café au lait' and the victorian buildings.
On our drive back to 'Aigle' we even crossed France and ate (of course) some baguette and croissants and shopped in a huge french supermarket.
It had been dark so the lake and the towns in front of it looked amazing. All the little lights and the huge mountains just made a beautiful picture of this place of paradise.
I really hope to see more of Switzerland the next time.
