10 Things to Smile About:

I have been in Switzerland just over a week, so I will share some thoughts -

Things I love about Switzerland -

1. The Alps/scenery
2. All my new friends
3. Accents
4. Scottish friends with accents! BONUS!
5. So many PE teachers working at camp
6. Chocolate
7. Walking everywhere
8. Waking up and standing on my balcony - looking at the mountains
9. Being with my best friend :)
10. So many memories to be made.......

Things I dont love so much -

1. Flies!!!
2. Stinky Cheese!
3. No Target's
4. Sleeping during the morning/day
5. Hiking in the rain/hail
6. Being far away from home/ the states
7. Taking care of sick kids
8. Not being able to understand half the things people are saying - language barriers!!
9. Realizing that it wont last forever.....

Well hope you enjoyed that little tidbit :) I now have 1 hour left, then off to bed, just in time to wake Ally up!

Hope yall are enjoying your summers just as much as I am!!!!!!!!!

Lots of Love,
Amanda

Mini Family Reunion!

Sunday (the first day of camp) I was able to go visit my cousin, Kyle, in Zermatt, Switzerland. He is traveling around Europe as a graduation trip with some high school friends. Zermatt is about 2 hours from me by train.

Since today/tonight is my first night as a night guard, I had the whole day off so I used that to go visit Kyle. Zermatt is so pretty and green! I love it! And there are no cars, so cool!!!

I met up with Kyle after he and a friend went for a hike and then we went to lunch and shared some fondue (my first ever!). I am not a big cheese fan, but it was pretty good! A good experience considering we are in Switzerland :)

Aside from my quick trip to Zermatt, I started my night guard shift today, from 8:30pm to 7am. It is now 6am - one more hour to go!!! There are 7 night guards, and we each take a separate floor to stay on during the night. My floor is the senior girls floor; so I have to deal with the girls staying up chatting, or my favorite, trying to sneak out of their room (considering they live on the garden floor - ground level - and they all have sliding glass doors that open onto the terrace). Tonight I caught 3 different rooms (out of 11) trying to sneak out and I had to take one cell phone away since they are supposed to be locked in a safe during the night.

I started writing this post last night and then got interrupted by some sick campers and some pioneer boys who woke up before 6am! Are they crazy?! Well anyway, I am almost done with my second night as night guard and I am enjoying a delish cappuccino (from the supposedly $40,000 espresso machine) and a fresh croissant (because the baker is baking away in the kitchen!) while sitting at a desk, waiting for everyone to start showing up for the days' activities.

Tonight was better than last night, no girls tried to sneak out on my floor, but I did have to take one cell phone away again. Ally and Erika (my roomies) came to visit me around midnight and get a little cappuccino action for themselves! Score!!! It is already light outside and started getting light around 5am. The sun will not come into view until around 6am though - and it stays late past 10pm! Crazy how that works, but I love it!

Besides that, my day has been kind of boring; when I woke up in the afternoon I was able to walk around camp and hang out with other counselors until it started raining... so we had to take it inside! During my night I was able to read some of a book I just started, watch a movie, Skype with my mom, hang out with Ally and Erika, get my internet stuff caught up on (email, FB, etc.), and still have time to finish all of my and Ally's laundry - I even ironed my dress! Be proud mom :)

Well, I have one more hour left! Better make sure everyone is still sleeping!

Lots of Love,
Amanda

Welcome, campers!

It's Sunday the 28th, so Amanda and I have been at camp for 7 days now! We had an exhausting but fun filled week getting to know over 100 new people who we'll become very close with in the next 9 weeks. They are from all around the world! A few days ago we played a game of dodgeball - North and South America vs. the World. Guess who won?? Of course it was the Americas!!
Today the kids are arriving. All day the counselors sit around waiting for their kids to get here. In the staff lounge there is a tv and the best channel to watch is music because every language can enjoy it. Over the past few days they have pretty much only been playing Michael Jackson so now I have seen just about every music video and I'm in the mood to learn how to dance like him.
I'm so anxious to meet the 8 teenage girls that I'll be spending the next 3 weeks with. I've heard many horror stories, but also many stories about becoming really close to the kids. This past week we have been getting up at 7am and starting the day with breakfast at 7:45am. With the seniors I don't have to be at camp til 8:20 so I have a little more time in the morning to sleep :)
Amanda is a nightguard so she starts off tonight watching the senior girls floor to make sure they don't sneak out and meet up with the boys. It'll be weird because when she is getting off work at 7am, I'll probably be waking up to start my day of work! She is in Zermatt today visiting with her cousin, Kyle.
This session we get to do so much with the senior (ages 14-17) campers. In a few days I am taking them on an overnight hike to a little cabin/hut. In the next couple weeks we will be going on day excursions to Zermatt and Bern. There is a river where we go rafting, a glacier where we spend the day sledding, and a ropes course called 'fun forest.' Some nights we take the kids into town and go to discos. Everything sounds sooo much fun! But I know I'll be running on empty with hardly any sleep...
Hope you all are having a great summer!!
♥Ally

Send Us Mail :)

Here is our address at camp incase you feel like sending us some love :)

International Summer Camp Montana
La Moubra
CH-3963 Crans-Montana 1
Switzerland

XOXO - A&A

And So It Begins.........

We made it to camp!!! OH MY GOSH Switzerland is amazing!!! We took the train from Milan to Sierre, Switzerland. Then we took the funiculaire up the mountain to Crans-Montana which is where camp is! The town that camp is in is also a ski resort town so all our apartments are set up like that.

**Crans-Montana**

Switzerland is breathtakingly beautiful. The air is so crisp! The first few days were cold which we did not enjoy but it is now warm and we both have sun burns! We live in San Giorgio in a two bedroom apartment with a total of 4 girls - our balcony looks straight towards the Alps across the valley.

** This is the view from our balcony - it also looks down at camp which you can see**

Ally and I share a room and Erika and Heidi (two girls from Encinitas) share the other room. We also share a closet and 1 bathroom. There is also a fully furnished kitchen - but we will never really use it since we get all meals at camp. So far we have been doing orientation - learning about rules and our jobs and getting to know everyone. We are having so much fun meeting so many new friends from so many different countries and hearing so many different languages. We are also kind of suckers for all the accents - its so fun! There are about 22 people from the states (including 6 Californians and even 1 Texan!!!) and 21 from Canada, the rest are from all over. It has been kind of a rush trying to cram everything in! The camp itself is very nice and pretty big - there are steps everywhere! We have been playing games, going to meetings, doing a ropes course, hiking, going into town, and of course partying!!! It is so much fun going out because everyone gets along and everyone goes out together. We basically took over one of the two bars in town last night! We are also served free drinks at the camp cafe during evening activities - how crazy is that!! We start every morning at 7:45 so we have not been getting very much sleep, but it's only just beginning. I think our favorite thing so far is just getting to know everyone and making new friends. The campers come on Sunday, so we are looking forward to that! I (Amanda) will be a night guard for the first session (three weeks). So basically I will be sitting in one hallway from 8:30 to either 2am, 5am or 7am (depending on the schedule) making sure the girls are staying in their room. Of course they wont - so Ill be watching for them to sneak out and try and go to the boys rooms and so on. Ally is going to be a senior girls counselor for the first session - she will be in charge of 8 girls (ages 14-17) taking them around to the different activities. The activities are so cool, mostly sports but also things like arts and crafts, karate, circus, etc. Today we walked into town and had our very first Swiss Chocolate :) YUM!
I will be on skype when I start doing night guard duties which will be during the afternoon/evening for everyone at home :)
Well we are off to quiz night!
XOXO - Amanda and Ally

**our first night out - and Ally's 22nd Birthday :)

Milano!

Hey everyone!! So, first of all I want to say THANK YOU MOM (this is Ally) for the Hilton hotel in Milan. We looove it. The beds are super comfy and there is a great view and air conditioning and a bathroom to ourselves. Thanks :)
So, we went to Acqua al 2 for dinner our last night in Florence and it was delicious! Now Amanda and I have been to both locations!! The next day we went to the San Lorenzo Market to pick up some souvineers before we checked out of the hotel. OH! And we were finally awake in time to enjoy the breakfast at the hotel. It was pretty good with some cereal, bread, and nutella!! Yum. It was Amanda's first time tasting nutella and she loved it! Who would have thought there would be chocolate for breakfast :) After the short trek to the train station which actually took us a while because of all our luggage (really its not bad for 6 months, but it isn't fun to carry!!) we got on the train and settled in our seats for a couple hours. Amanda read and enjoyed the scenery while I just read because I really wanted to finish my book.
Milan is way bigger than Florence! It's beautiful though. Lots of big buildings and big streets. It is more metropolitan than Florence. There is also lots of vegetation. We weren't expecting it to be so green in a city! We checked in to our hotel and watched a movie in our spacious room with air conditioning (it's really hot here and the fan in Florence did not feel as good as air conditioning). Then we decided to go shopping and eat dinner. Lots of the stores were closed, but it was nice to window shop. The time here is way different than we are used to! The shops open and close at different times, they close during siesta in the afternoon, and they eat way later than Americans do! We didn't sit down for dinner last night until 9:30! And we went to a restaurant called Brickoven. It was a very American place but with Italian food and American food (like huge hamburgers!). We tried a new drink called Panaché which is beer and sprite mixed together. It was good-sweeter than we are used to when it comes to beer.
Today we went sight seeing in the center of Milan! The concierge told us to take the subway, but we thought walking would be fine! It only took about half an hour to arrive in the fashion district. They had everything from Armani to Prada to Foot Locker!

Amanda took pictures of the stores so we will add them to the blog when we can! We walked over to the Duomo- which is HUGE. It's gothic outside, and has tons of stained glass inside. It was all so beautiful! We'll add pictures of that too.

From there we walked to the Castello (castle) and on the other side of it is a park that reminded us of central park. We strolled all through it, taking pictures of the scenery and watching people play games/soak up the sun. We walked back through the fashion district and the weather went from sunny to rainy in a matter of minutes. There was thunder, but the freak storm passed quickly.
After that we headed back to the hotel and cleaned up before going out again. Then we went to a supermarket located at the train station -weird- and *YAY!!!* Amanda pointed out my favorite chocolate that we have been looking for!! It just tastes so good :)
Well, it's almost 9:30 so we should probably sign off the internet and go get some dinner!! Tomorrow we are leaving for camp!!! Switzerland, here we come!!!
Lots of love,
Ally and Amanda

Ciao Italia

Hey Guys!!
Ally and I are sitting in a cafe in Florence using the internet for the first time since San Diego. We made it safely after two days of traveling. Our flight from DC to Zurich got delayed three hours but we had a 9 hour layover in Zurich so it didnt offset our trip. At the Zurich airport I was able to use some of my awesome German skills! Super fun. Only in Switzerland would we get swiss chocolate on the air plane :) It def. beats the pretzels or peanuts in America!

We arrived in Florence Wednesday evening. Instead of dinner, we decided to settle for Gelato :)

So far we have been walking around alot and seeing the city. We went to the Boboli gardens in the Pitti Palace where the family who ruled Florence once lived.

It is a lot hotter than Ally remembered - since she was here a year ago. Our hotel is small and quaint and up 5 flights of stairs... not fun to carry all our luggage up! The food is DELICIOUS!!! We had the best pizza and pasta last night at Ally's favorite restaurant. We also shared a caraf of their house wine!!! yummmmm.

We have met some crazy Italians - but don't worry, we havent been TAKEN! ha!
Tonight we are going to try and go to Aqua al 2 for dinner! If you guys miss us, you can always pretend youre there and go to the one in San Diego :) Tomorrow we will leave fabulous Florence for Milan. We are extremely excited to sleep in a comfy bed in our American Hilton - in Milan! Thanks mama Paur!!! After Milan we are off to camp!!! YAY!
We miss you all!!
Lots of Love,
Amanda and Ally

See Ya Later, America!

Ahhh! So it's 1:15am and I plan on waking up in 2 and a half hours to shower and get ready...then we leave for the airport at 4:45am!! We really could have used one more day, but probably would have done the same thing and procrastinated!!

Luckily the bags are packed and we are ready to go :)

Alrighty, I'm off to take a nap! Good thing we have lots of time to sleep on the plane (even though I can never get myself to sleep longer than half and hour).
♥Ally

Europe Here We Come!!

Alright, its past midnight! That means that today is the day that we leave America! Our flight leaves San Diego this morning(the 16th), then we will be stopping in Washington DC, then again in Zurich, then we will arrive in Florence on the 17th! [p.s. Happy Birthday Marin - on the 17th! Love you and miss you!!!]
Cheers to safe travels :)
We will update you when we can!
XOXO - Amanda

Our Last Weekend in CA

Well it's 9:30 on a Saturday night and I'm exhausted! In the past two days I've managed to help keep REI in business with tons of Euro purchases, and I now have 5 pairs of new shoes for the trip! Holy smokes between cleaning up from Texas, moving all my stuff around and packing I am worn out!! Last night Ally and I met 4 new friends from San Diego and Washington who will be returning to camp for their second summer to work! Yay for meeting new people!!!

For those of you who don't really know what is going on let me enlighten you...
Ally Paur and Amanda Young have been best friends since our Kindergarten days in Poway (San Diego). Although we were separated by a few states the past four years in college, we are still best friends! Fancy that! Ally and I decided that we were not ready to enter the real world of working or grad school once we graduated so we decided to go global and apply to work at an international summer camp in the Swiss Alps! A teacher friend of my mom has two daughters who worked at the camp last year and told us about it. After some research and heavy thinking, Ally and I filled out our applications and got hired! We will be camp counselors doing a number of different things - we will fill you in when we know - in the Crans-Montana region of Switzerland!

Well, that's the gist of it! I'm off to do more packing! Switzerland here we come :)

XOXO- Amanda

Countdown

10 days til we are off to Europe!! First stop- Zurich (we have a layover there for 9 hours). Second stop- Florence, where I lived for 4 months! Time to share this lovely city with Amanda. Third stop- Milan, an exciting place to stay before our time living and working in Switzerland! We can't wait to begin our travels :)
♥Ally