Hi everyone~
This past week brought a whirlwind of different activities, places, and people in my life, for which I am truly thankful and appreciative. There is a friend of mine who I have mentioned in previous e-mails, her name is Cinthia. I really don't think that I could have been blessed with a friend who is more generous, funny, selfless, outgoing, caring, and hospitable than Cinthia. She has accompanied me to quite a few different places and has opened the doors of her home, along with the doors of her extended family's homes and made me feel like I truly belong.
This past Wednesday, Cinthia and I drove to a town called Caslano which is about a 35 minute drive away, where there is a Chocolate Museum called, Alprose. We got to take a personal tour of the chocolate factory, where we saw how the chocolate was poured, molded, checked and packaged. Immediately upon walking into the factory, I was wrapped up in this absolutely wonderful, sweet scent of cocoa beans. The air surrounding me was so thick with the aroma of cocoa that I was subconsciously opening and closing my mouth in order to taste the air! When we finished our tour of the factory we started our tour of the museum. One wall had pictures of 15 or so different men, and as I read the names I realized that I was looking at Mr. Nestle, Mr. Lindt, and Mr. Tobber, just to name a few. The best part of the tour was yet to come, however, because at the end is where we found the chocolate shop! To my delight, inside this chocolate shop there was FREE chocolate, and you could taste as much as your little tastebuds desired! Ha, and I wasn't the only one who was enjoying the free sweets, there was a little boy who was continually walking back to the chocolate jars, stretching out his arm and desperately trying to reach the prized Alprose chocolate. I thought it was so cute, I just had to take a picture;) Now, me being the indecisive person that I am, it was great having Cinthia there because she gave me advice on which chocolate was the best. That was my first time visiting a chocolate museum/factory and I can honestly say that I would return in a heart beat!
This past Wednesday, Cinthia and I drove to a town called Caslano which is about a 35 minute drive away, where there is a Chocolate Museum called, Alprose. We got to take a personal tour of the chocolate factory, where we saw how the chocolate was poured, molded, checked and packaged. Immediately upon walking into the factory, I was wrapped up in this absolutely wonderful, sweet scent of cocoa beans. The air surrounding me was so thick with the aroma of cocoa that I was subconsciously opening and closing my mouth in order to taste the air! When we finished our tour of the factory we started our tour of the museum. One wall had pictures of 15 or so different men, and as I read the names I realized that I was looking at Mr. Nestle, Mr. Lindt, and Mr. Tobber, just to name a few. The best part of the tour was yet to come, however, because at the end is where we found the chocolate shop! To my delight, inside this chocolate shop there was FREE chocolate, and you could taste as much as your little tastebuds desired! Ha, and I wasn't the only one who was enjoying the free sweets, there was a little boy who was continually walking back to the chocolate jars, stretching out his arm and desperately trying to reach the prized Alprose chocolate. I thought it was so cute, I just had to take a picture;) Now, me being the indecisive person that I am, it was great having Cinthia there because she gave me advice on which chocolate was the best. That was my first time visiting a chocolate museum/factory and I can honestly say that I would return in a heart beat!
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| Outside of Schokoland. |
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| Free Chocolate;) |
On Thursday, I found myself eating lunch with 16 American college students. There is small school in the city of Riva San Vitale called Virginia Tech. VT is, of course, a sister school of the VT school in the States. This school is for business and architecture students who would like the opportunity to study abroad. I had e-mailed the director of the school and we set up a time for me to come, eat lunch and meet some of the students. The school itself is incredibly interesting, built back in the 1700s, all of the paintings on the walls and ceilings, clay floors, doors, and fireplaces are all still in working order from 100s of years ago. The students welcomed me in and it was just so refreshing to be able to talk with people and to have them understand exactly what I was saying and how I was feeling. Before I left the director, Daniella, invited me back for dinner and to come and see a display that the architecture students will be showing off to the rest of the town in the following weeks.
From eating lunch in Riva, I drove back to Chiasso where I had my Italian class. The class is going well so far, but it seems that everyone else attending the class is quite a bit more advanced than I am. I guess I will just have to study a bit more and continue to speak and listen as much as possible. The italian alphabet is a little bit different from the English alphabet in that it doesn't have the letters, j,w and x. Also, I find it awfully interesting to learn what English words are hard for non-native English speakers to say. All of the Swiss people that I speak with have difficulty pronouncing the sound TH, and other hard sounds like Rock, or ld like in the word worLD. I have always viewed English as an easy, uncomplicated, normal language, obviously because it is my first language, but listening to people ask me questions about certain words and having me pronounce them over and over again has just showed me how funny our language must sound to them.
After class I went home and got ready to go to the special needs basketball practice. This time, instead of being on the court with the players who are able to really play basketball, I decided to coach on the court with the players who are there, more or less for the personal interaction and the exercise. There was one young man who, if he shot from half court, I am sure the ball would have a chance of going in because he would chuck the ball so hard that it would smash off the backboard and bounce to the other end in one or two bounces! I am really enjoying my time with these teams, and I think that they enjoy having me there as well.
On Friday between workouts, Cinthia and I went to a place called Swiss Miniatur. Swiss Miniatur is exactly what it sounds like; it is a place where you can walk in and around 100 and some model buildings of famous places in Switzerland. Upon entering the park we were given a brochure with a description of each castle, farm, house, mountain, ski resort, train station, church, sports facility, government building and airport. All the sets were intricately made, full of miniature people, cars, ski lifts ect. At the end of our tour we even got a ride on a small train that was circulating the park. I was so happy that we were able to go because this past Friday was the first nice day, with no rain that we have had in about 3 weeks, and the park closed today, the 16th. After practice that night, I went out to dinner with my fellow coaches from the special needs basketball team. For dinner, we all ordered pizza. Has anybody ever tried pizza with apple slices on it? Well, I had it for the first time on Friday and I highly recommend it! I was trying so hard to understand the conversations that were taking place at the dinner table, but for some reason there are days when I feel like I am understanding almost everything and other days when I feel like I have never heard italian in my life, which can be quite frustrating. Also, there are quite a few different dialects in Switzerland and this makes it even harder for me to comprehend.
From eating lunch in Riva, I drove back to Chiasso where I had my Italian class. The class is going well so far, but it seems that everyone else attending the class is quite a bit more advanced than I am. I guess I will just have to study a bit more and continue to speak and listen as much as possible. The italian alphabet is a little bit different from the English alphabet in that it doesn't have the letters, j,w and x. Also, I find it awfully interesting to learn what English words are hard for non-native English speakers to say. All of the Swiss people that I speak with have difficulty pronouncing the sound TH, and other hard sounds like Rock, or ld like in the word worLD. I have always viewed English as an easy, uncomplicated, normal language, obviously because it is my first language, but listening to people ask me questions about certain words and having me pronounce them over and over again has just showed me how funny our language must sound to them.
After class I went home and got ready to go to the special needs basketball practice. This time, instead of being on the court with the players who are able to really play basketball, I decided to coach on the court with the players who are there, more or less for the personal interaction and the exercise. There was one young man who, if he shot from half court, I am sure the ball would have a chance of going in because he would chuck the ball so hard that it would smash off the backboard and bounce to the other end in one or two bounces! I am really enjoying my time with these teams, and I think that they enjoy having me there as well.
On Friday between workouts, Cinthia and I went to a place called Swiss Miniatur. Swiss Miniatur is exactly what it sounds like; it is a place where you can walk in and around 100 and some model buildings of famous places in Switzerland. Upon entering the park we were given a brochure with a description of each castle, farm, house, mountain, ski resort, train station, church, sports facility, government building and airport. All the sets were intricately made, full of miniature people, cars, ski lifts ect. At the end of our tour we even got a ride on a small train that was circulating the park. I was so happy that we were able to go because this past Friday was the first nice day, with no rain that we have had in about 3 weeks, and the park closed today, the 16th. After practice that night, I went out to dinner with my fellow coaches from the special needs basketball team. For dinner, we all ordered pizza. Has anybody ever tried pizza with apple slices on it? Well, I had it for the first time on Friday and I highly recommend it! I was trying so hard to understand the conversations that were taking place at the dinner table, but for some reason there are days when I feel like I am understanding almost everything and other days when I feel like I have never heard italian in my life, which can be quite frustrating. Also, there are quite a few different dialects in Switzerland and this makes it even harder for me to comprehend.
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| Swiss Miniature! |
Saturday was game day. We left at 8:30am and headed off to play against our opponents in Pully. The bus ride was about 4 1/2 to 5 hours. I slept most of the way but woke up just in time to see the absolutely breathtaking landscapes of Losanne. Losanne is located right on this enormous lake called, Lago Le Mano. I need to google this lake and see how big it really is because it seemed to me to be comparable to Lake Superior. On the other side of the lake is France, but I wasn't able to see all the way across. As our bus rolled along the sloping streets and I was looking out my window all I could see were vineyards, old brick walls, and houses with colorful shutters and spectacular railings. All of the wine grown in this part of Switzerland is white wine, which I got to taste after the game with our assistant coaches;) I really just can't believe that people live in places like this. Everyday I wake up and still can't believe that I am here, living in this small little country, and experiencing the wonders that it has to offer. I love it, I absolutely love it.
The game started off really rough, we found ourselves down by about 17 points at one point, but going into half time we were only down 9. At the start of the 4th quarter we were still down by 9, and then we started to make our run. Steal after steal, and we found ourselves up by 1pt with about 2 minutes to go in the game. They had a chance to win the game with 3 seconds left, we were up by one and the girl had 2 freethrows, but she missed both of them, we got the rebound and it was over. I was SO happy after the game, I could've cried. We needed a win so badly, not just for our record, but for ourselves. We needed to be reminded that we can do it, and that we are a better team than our number of wins and losses. A few of you have asked about my stats and so forth, if you are interested in all of that you can find them at this website, http://www.lnba.ch/calendrier.php?m_f=1&ligue=126&tour=0. Now, once you see the page you have to scroll down to whichever game you are interested in and then click on the score of the game. If the stats are ready for that game, they should appear in blue. Remember, when looking at the date of the game, the day comes first followed by the month and then the year.
Ok, and finally today. Today I woke up early for a Sunday, 8am, and accompanied Cinthia to her cousins cross country meet, which took place in a beautiful little valley called Valle de Blenio. The 45 minute drive to the valley was beautiful as well. Since there has been so much rain over the past 3 weeks there are a plethora of waterfalls that can be seen cascading down the mountain sides. The race was fun to watch and her cousin won first place in his age group! Now, all of the mountains are covered in snow, which makes the view even more magnificent than it already is. Even though there is snow all the way up there, I was content in the valley, basking in the sunshine and even feeling warm enough to take off my sweatshirt. After the race, Cinthia and I took a walk along the river of Ticino. Once again I was reminded of how incredibly fortunate I am to be living here, even if for a somewhat short period of time in the grand scheme of my life. |
| Drinking white wine after the game with comedian and assistant coach, Giovanni Catterini. |
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| Valle del Blenio to watch Noe run his cross country race. Beautiful! |
After the race we drove back to her Aunt's house where we ate lunch with her uncle and her two cousins. After lunch, Cinthia, Onorina, Roberto and I all went for a bike ride. I wasn't too sure of what to expect but I figured that it was about to be a beautiful ride. I was given one of Roberto's old bikes, a helmet and a windbreaker, which I was very happy to have had. We all road mountain bikes and took off! The ride was wonderful and full of different types of scenery. We went from biking on the road, to biking in small little towns, on streets that were as narrow as my wingspan, to biking up STEEP hills to biking in the forest. We biked past cows, donkeys, goats, plenty of hikers, other bikers and quaint little mountain side homes. After the ride we all sat around the kitchen table drinking hot tea and eating bread with jam. Now it is 10pm and I am looking forward to crawling into bed! I am so sorry for my lack of response to your e-mails this week, but I promise to get back on track! I hope you are all doing well!
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| Left to right: Onorina, Noe, Me, Roberto, Cinthia |
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| Biking through the forest... |
Love, Leslie
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