Home

Hello for the last time ladies and gentlemen,

After 11 months, thousands of kilometres, and millions of memories, I am back home.

First things first: I said I'd write a bit about Eurotour on this blog, however I'm not doing that anymore due to how many pictures I took (about 2,000) and because of how much I learnt. I can't decide which Eurotour stories are better than others and if I decided to post them all, you'd probably be sitting here reading for 3-5 business days. So instead of that, here is a link to my album on Facebook where all the pics can be found.

All of us together in Vienna

Now that that's done, time to talk about going/being home. On Wednesday July 13th 2016 at 09:35, my flight took off from Zürich Flughafen on it's way to Toronto. I was fortunate to be able to sit next to my friend Cam, who I started this insane journey with, and our other friend Tamara, who we also flew there with. We landed around 12:30 local time and sailed though customs and baggage claim to greet our families. Naturally we all ran into each other's arms and had shared some long-awaited hugs.

Coming out of arrivals

Later that day we finally made it back home. It was very weird to come back and see my house and neighbourhood again. It all seemed oddly smaller than I remembered it, but otherwise the same as always. Later that day I got to see my Nana again as well as go out for dinner at my favourite restaurant. After that I drove a car again for the first time in a year which was easier than I expected, and got to see a good friend of mine. That night I was so exhausted and completely passed out by 22:00 (which felt like 04:00 for me).

Since I've been home I have mostly focused on getting back into the rhythm of things, as well as sharing stories of my adventures. We had a party for my homecoming a few days after I got home which was great. There I was able to see most of my family and friends again which was so nice.

My welcome home cake

Through all of this however, I find myself missing my second home. My exchange year was truly the most amazing year of my life. I made some unforgettable friends and memories that I will carry through my whole life. Although I'm still having trouble accepting it, I know in my heart that it will never be the same again. Sure, I'll be back in Switzerland, but it will never be the Switzerland I got to know on my exchange.

One day this will all be far behind me, the memories will have faded, the faces of people I'm now so close with will change, and I will grow beyond my exchange. For now however, while the memories are still fresh and clear, I'm going to just have to be content with missing it. To every single person I met on exchange, from the close friends who stuck with me no matter what, to the people I briefly met on a night out, thank you. You were in some way part of my exchange which changed and shaped me into the person I'm meant to be right now, because there is truly no denying, everything happens for a reason.

Mitch Mahoney
Rotary Youth Exchange Student
Switzerland 2015-2016

Ich liebe dich Schweiz.
Ich werde dich nie vergessen.

Tenero, Basel, End of School

Hello everyone!

As my year in Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Switzerland comes to an end, I'm constantly trying to do as much as I can to bring it to an exciting close. I am constantly keeping myself busy which has made for a very exciting past few weeks. So anyway, here's what I've been doing since the end of my last post:

On the Saturday morning of June 4th, I left Chur with Claire on the 10:08 bus headed to Bellinzona. We arrived just after noon and walked around for a little while whilst waiting for our connecting train. More of our friends arrived within that time and we all met up at the train station in Bellinzona. After a quick half hour ride to Tenero, we met up with everyone else and began the weekend. There were about 120 exchange students there in total which made us very loud and hard to deal with, but it was still fun nonetheless. We began by choosing our tents with our friends then went for a short debriefing session to summarise our year. After that was over we played some sports for awhile before we all went swimming in the lake. It started out with just a few of us in the water but after awhile we had almost everyone swimming. A few meters offshore there was a floating dock that we all swam out to. At the busiest point I think we had about 50 of us on it. It was kind of crazy but definitely lots of fun. That evening we all just kind of hung around the area and had some fun. For dinner we had a big meat BBQ which was awesome!

On the bus to Bellinzona

The next morning we woke up pretty early and cleaned out our tents before going for breakfast. After breakfast we all took a long walk to Locarno and headed up on a mountain to take some good pictures. When we got back down to the city we enjoyed some nice gelato and a short walk around the city. When we got back to Tenero we just hung out some more, did some flag signing, cried a bit, and said some goodbyes. Claire and I got off the train a little bit earlier than everyone else because we live much closer than most people and didn't feel like going all the way north to Zürich then back south to Chur. Instead with the extra time we had we took a small detour to Lugano. When we got there it was pouring rain worse that anything I'd seen so far in Switzerland, but we didn't let that stop us. We walked down into the city to find a good pizzeria to eat at, however everything was either extremely full or super expensive, so instead we settled on McDonald's. While we were in there the rain cleared up a little bit and we were able to walk around some more and even get gelato again for the second time that day. By the time we got home we were super wet and completely worn out. Signs of a good weekend.

Tired after a long day

Lugano after the rain

After one more week of school, I took off with my host parents to head up to Basel for the weekend. We drove up after school on Friday and arrived around 18:00. After quickly going to my Host-Mom's sister's house we walked through the beautiful Altstadt (old city) to an Italian restaurant overlooking the Rhine River. There we ate lots of salad as well as lots of pasta which was amazingggg!!! While eating we also got to watch a bunch of boats going up and down the Rhine which was super cool.

Basel Altstadt

Rhine ship

The next day we began by taking a trip out to the Dreiländereck (the point where Switzerland, Germany and France all meet) where we took some pictures and enjoyed more views of the Rhine. After that we headed up one of the tallest towers in Basel to take a quick view of the city which was beautiful!! After that we took a long walk through Basel and saw all the main and interesting parts of the city. My Host-Mom and I also climbed to the top of the Baseler Münster, which is a towering church in the middle of the city. Here we got to see again some amazing views of the city and take loads of pictures. After heading back down we crossed the Rhine in an interesting ferry kind of thing. Basically it's a normal looking boat attached to a cable that spans the river, then the boat is angled a certain way and the flow of the water will pull the boat along the cable to the other side of the river. It's sort of hard to explain but mega cool. After that we grabbed some late lunch then headed back home for a few hours to nap and relax. Later that evening we all went up to Germany to eat in a restaurant which famously serves asparagus. Normally asparagus isn't my favourite thing in the world however here it was so good and I ended up enjoying it a lot.

Dreiländereck

Cool fountains in Basel

From the Münster

Ferry boat

Cable to pull us across

The next day we simply headed home and enjoyed a relaxing evening after our busy weekend. The next day resumed school and I tried as hard as I could to enjoy my last full week. However that did get interrupted by a last minute day trip wit my friend Lachie (Australia) to Europa Park in Germany. We just spent the day riding roller coasters, eating food, and making some awesome memories! Definitely a day to remember.

Entrance to Europa Park 

Wodan

Blue Fire

Silver Star

Bored on the ride home

That following weekend I simply spent having fun with exchange students and enjoying a few parties before the it all ended. After the weekend I only had three more days in school, Wednesday being my last day. During the week I tried to see as many people as I could and say some last goodbyes, and finally on Wednesday afternoon I enjoyed my last lesson with my class before saying my goodbyes to all of them. I definitely enjoyed my time I spent at Bündner Kantonsschule, I will never forget all of the memories, good and bad, that I made there. It was an amazing experience for me to make so many friends from a different country and I will truly never forget any of it!

5Gf

That's all for this post folks! Today began the final Eurotour and the last great adventure I will have in my exchange year. Stay tuned for lots of pics from the tour. Words cannot express how excited I am for this amazing trip!

Tschüss mitenand!