"Die Vèrle ist zurück...."

I'm back from a trip to Switserland. I was there from April 1 til April 9. It was due to Angelika, a chatfriend of mine that I got to know that there was a campmeeting in St. Stephan (Switserland). So, it was pure adventure, being the only Belgian within a group of Swiss, German and people of Austria. I noticed that my German wasn't anymore what it once had been, but nevertheless I could understand most of what was said, although talking didn't go that easy...

My flight to Zürich went fluently. After some hours waiting Angelika and Daniela picked me up. I only had known the day before I left that Daniela would be there, and she's another girl I had met on the internet. It was quite a nice surprise.

Geli (Angelika), Daniela, Anke and me shared room 15 at "the Jugendhaus" in St. Stephan http://www.stanet.ch/Haus/St.Stephan/index.htm. We were with around 30 people in total that arrived on April 1. After souper we sung some songs and then it was time to sleep after a day of traveling.

After breakfast on monday we did some biblestudy, we studied the letters of John for the whole week. It was nice, we were devided in small groups, and that made that we easily could participate. Monday-afternoon was soon there, and we did a nice walk. We got to see a very pretty waterfall, and for the ones that know me... you'll know I just love waterfalls....

Tuesday, we had several options to choose from. On the one hand I wanted to try skiing, but it was pretty expensive and besides I was one of the only ones that never had been skiing before, while all the others had... So, I decided to do something else. What about visiting the Nestlé chocolate factory in Broc? What concerns chocolate, I prefer the Belgian kind, and I'm convinced we do have the best chocolate in the world, but I must admit that the Swiss people don't have bad chocolate either. It was nice to have a tour. What was even nicer was the fact that they let us taste some of that good stuff at the end of the tour... yummy....

And after that we went to the Nestlé shop... most of what tey sold was chocolate indeed...

After all the chocolate we drove to Gruyère. A very "pittoresque" village... Cheese town. The heart of the town was very nice, and it didn't surprise me at all when I heard that they used this background to make the movie of Willem Tell. I also did visit the castle of Gruyère... boy, what was I glad that I didn't go skiing... I would have missed this, and that sure would have been a pitty.

Wednesday, we did a "snowwalk". It was really very pretty. The beauty of nature is so amazing in Switserland. Luckily I had ski trousers on, sometimes, I dived like half a meter in the snow. I saw several waterstreams, and this trip was supernice.

Thursday we visited the city of Thun. Some went shopping, but I didn't I prefered to see the old part of the town, where there was another castle to visit. We didn't have too much time, so for one time we played the role of Japanese people, meaning: taking quickly pictures of everything, but not really take time to really visit.

After we had seen the castle from outside and some other views, we went back to the cars where we drove to another part of the city. There I enjoyed a hot chocolatemilk (in Switserland you get a hot cup of milk, and you need to put in the chocolatepoudre yourself).

On friday we celebrated the birthday of Daniela. She got some presents and some nice cookies to eat, we could taste of the cookies as well!

After breakfast I decided to go with some other people to Vevey. We did a walk around the lake of Geneva. At a certain place you notice a big fork on the lake. We did a nice walk, and on our way home we stopped to shoot some nice panoramic pictures.

Fridayevening was very special. We did open the sabbath with scripture, testimonies, and we ended the evening together with a praying partner.

On Saturday we had sabbathschoolclass and a sermon. In the afternoon most went for a walk. Daniela, Anja and me went for our own little walk. We had to shelter for a bit of rain, but that didn't ruin the pleasure.

Sunday, Easter was there. We had breakfast on a nice decorated table. What concerns activities, we had again options to choose from. I went to the Ballenberg museum. An outdoor museum, where they showed how life was in Switserland in the earlier days, it sure was pretty interesting.

Monday came earlier then expected. Around 6pm I had to catch my flight in Zürich. Daniela drove me to the airport, but we decided to walk around in Zurich for a while before I took off... My vacation was almost over...