Music, Orphans and the United Nations

Birdy is at it again. Now that I am in school many opportunities are floating around, just waiting for me to grab hold. Because of Birdy's artistic and musical abilities, enthusiasm to help and willingness to brave public speaking, three week-long trips have come up.

The first will be the trip to the Hague (in the Netherlands) for Model United Nations. My MUN class will travel there at the end of this semester to a beautiful 4 star hotel on the beach. The only thing is we have to come up with the money for everything because the school will not pay for us to go. We done a few fund raisers to help lower the cost but I still had to pay about 360 euro for the hotel room.

However, I'm sure the money will be worth it. MUN is a simulation of the UN run entirely by high school students. I am in the ECOSOC committee which stands for Economic and Social Council. My class's country was given to us in the beginning of the year and unfortunately happens to be the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea. So in my committee I will be representing North Korea in all of the Economic and Social resolutions that come up.

The next trip will be to Oberwesel, Germany to participate in Creative Connections. I was chosen to be one of the 15 students to be in the Strings class. It will only be 200 euro to spend 5 days in an advanced arts activity with other musicians as well as 135 other artists. We will, then, perform or showcase what we have prepared during the week. This is a great opportunity that will help take my violin to the next level.

In April, I've signed up for a Service Project to Poland. This will cost $365 but will be so much fun and very fulfilling. We will help an orphanage there by building a playground, teaching children baseball and cooking meals, among other things. Lauren and I can't wait!

All this, plus graduation and college, is coming up soon but not coming cheap. However, these are wonderful opportunities I feel like I cannot miss!

My Journal: Switzerland

During our trip to the Swiss Alps, I kept a little notebook to write down the things I did. I'll write down the best parts for you. It started with a ride at the front of a double decker bus:

Day 1

"The green wild hills unrolled like a handmade quilt. The chattering of small children was droned by the rattling of the windows as the road rolled under the two decker bus. Thus, begins my trip to Switzerland.

Sitting at the very front of the top deck of the bus was like being on a wooden roller coaster. The road rushed beneath making it seem as if it was going very fast. The whole bus rattled and shook jostling us into each other. Going up hills drastically slowed the bus while going down you would wonder if the driver could ever stop the momentum."

Day 2

"The town is wonderful. Not only is the ground covered in snow but the houses, shops and hotels are so quaint and whimsical, it's exactly how you would imagine Switzerland to be. We are in a town called Zermatt settled sweetly in a valley. Mountains are on every side including the famous Matternhorn. One thing that we found odd is that there are old crude wooden cabins and barns scattered throughout the village. They look like they would be very cold, especially the ones alone in the middle of the snow.

We got to our apartment late last night, so I woke up to the most amazing sight of my life. Majestic snow-tipped mountains against a vivid blue sky surrounded me. All the houses were covered with snow at least a foot deep. It had snowed for a few days back in Germany. All the farmland around our area was lightly covered with snow; I kept saying how that was the most snow I had ever seen. But, now the snow absolutely amazes me. This is nothing like the German slush I'm used to; this beautiful powdery Swiss snow perfect for skiing.

Skiing is hard work. We woke up early in the morning to eat breakfast then picked up our skis and boots from the hotel. Now, one would expect that skis would be light, but in fact they are very heavy. And hard to carry. It took at least twenty minutes for us to lug all our stuff up to the lift. When we finally got there we had to put on our boots on which we found to be quite challenging. Then, getting on the ski lift was crazy, especially with mom and my little sisters. But, after we finally hopped onto the gondola; the view was spectacular. You could see the town nestled in the snow, almost camouflage, and it was also neat to see the little animal footprints below us. We tried to figure out what kind of animal made what print but there were so many different kinds.

After we got off the gondola we had two choices, we could go ski to Italy or take another larger gondola to the lodge on the very peak of the mountain. Though Italy would have been awesome, we needed a little practice first. The new gondola was very big and stuffed with people, we were squished up against the windows. I found it amazing, how that big thing, so crammed with people, could be lifted up the entire mountain by two wires. While we were on the gondola, we were able to see the source of three sets of footprints in the snow. Three black and white mountain goats dared the cliffs below us. I know what stuffed animal I'll get here as a souvenir!

Today was the perfect day for skiing;

the snow was packed, but not icy, the sun was out, and the air was crisp, but not windy. It was a great idea to get an instructor, because skiing is no simple task. Lauren picked it up really quick, but I had troubles keeping my knees straight. Though, we were all doing well at the end of the lesson. I didn't fall until the day was almost over, when I braved the Bunny Slope. (The first slope we were on was so easy I called it the Chicken Slope.)

The Bunny Slope was really fun because it was long enough to actually enjoy the ride down. The moving rope you had to hold onto in order to get back up, however, was frustrating. It was hard to get a grip of it; its burned holes in you gloves; it was hard to keep the skis straight; in some parts there was too much slack which made you wipe out and it took an amazing amount of upper body strength, not good for us ladies.

Anyway, after we had our fill of going up and down the mountain side, we had to climb up the Chicken Slope. It was steeper than we thought. I never want to climb anything like that mountain again."

Day 4

"The next two days we hung out at the slopes. It was really fun and of course we still had to climb up the Chicken Slope which I vowed never to do again; on the bright side, it was the best workout I've ever had in my life. I wanted to go up the big slope, the Lion Slope, the Monster Slope, the Slope of the Howling Wolves. (definite over exaggerations) But, I knew that, with my lack of experience, the long hill would be very tiring. Not only that, but I would be falling down every 10 seconds.

After skiing for a couple hours on Saturday, Lauren and I took a walk around Zermatt each with 20 francs from mom.

It really is the cutest town! Sand is poured on the streets to keep it from icing. There are no cars in sight except for and few electric taxis and pick-up trucks; gas cars aren't even allowed in the town. Despite the many tourists, everything is very authentic like it had been there for centuries. Most of the houses and hotels are large wood cabins, each beautifully carved, painted and decorated.

Since the Matterhorn is such a big tourist attraction, everything is Zermatt is expensive. We were only able to buy a few things. But, we needed to spend all of our left-over francs, so we got a few small souvenirs as well as a stuffed animal goat, St. Bernard and marmot (which is a very popualr animal in mountain villages) and some Swiss chocolate."

Day 5

"Sunday is our last day. After some last minute shopping, we got on the train and 10:20 and from the train we got back onto the bus. This time, we get to drive through Switzerland in the daylight. The scenery is amazing. Mountains loom over us on all sides everywhere we turn. This is what I thought Germany would look like whne we moved here, but we live in the country, full of rolling hills but very lacking in mountains.

Soon the snow-capped mountains began to shrink into hills. They are the biggest, greenest hills you will ever see. The bus has gone through so many tunnels under the hills that I wonder how they manage to stay up. Jurni, Kitty's friend, just described this place as 'Narnia'.

Our trip to Switzerland was awesome, thats the only word I can think of to describe it. Skiing was more fun than I imagined it to be and the town nad apartment we stayed in was wonderfully whimsical. Overall, it was a very exiting trip that I'm definitly going to go on again. Now, its time to go someplace opposite of the Alps such as... the Bahamas!

Snow