After Christmas and New Years, life calmed down again. One of my good exchange student friends visited me for a few days which was a blast, and I had my birthday. On the day of my birthday, my classmates surprised me and sung happy birthday, and my host family surprised me with a beautiful cake, everyone was so thoughtful 🙂
The next big event was the Rotary Ski week in Slovakia! It took place February 11-17 and was one of the best weeks of my exchange so far! There were about 80 exchange students, and we met at ski resort called Liptovsky Mikuláš. Initially I was very scared to ski, because I hadn’t skied since I was 11 or 12 years old, but the moment I got on the hill I felt 100% comfortable and began remembering just how much I love skiing!! It really was a blast! The first two days I was in an intermediate group which was perfect because I was able to get used to skiing without being rushed. On Wednesday I moved up to the advanced group. That was really fun because it was more challenging for me! I had to push myself to keep up with the group and I really enjoyed skiing more difficult slopes and going faster! I was very proud of myself for only falling twice the entire week! I absolutely loved being in the snow again! I hadn’t realized how much I missed winter until I was in the mountains with all the snow 🙂
The majority of the week the weather was extremely cloudy and windy, but on Wednesday we had a BEAUTIFUL clear day! We went to the top of the mountain and the view was absolutely stunning! I love looking out over the mountaintops and all the exchange students had lots of fun taking pictures together 🙂
Skiing was definitely the highlight of the trip for me….. I LOVED it! And of course being with all of the exchange students was so much fun 🙂
Other than Skiing, we had really fun activities in the evening! On Monday night we had a carnival in the dinner room, so there was lots of dancing, sparkles and costumes! My favourite night was Tuesday night. Rotary had arranged for us to go sledding at a nearby hill! It was a BLAST! Myself and the other Canadians were joking around saying we felt like we were back in Canada, and we took it upon ourselves to teach some Australians how to properly toboggan haha! It was a beautiful warm evening and there were huge fluffy snowflakes. 🙂 The next day I was slightly bruised and sore, but it was an amazing evening!
On Wednesday we only skied half a day then we went to a waterpark! It was really nice to have a little break from skiing and just have fun 🙂 After the waterpark, we had some free time to explore the city! A group of us found an adorable coffee shop so hung out there for an hour! After that, we stopped at a grocery store for half an hour so everyone picked up some snacks 🙂
It really was such an amazing trip! Most rotary weekends have such tight schedules, so we don’t get any free time, but this trip was so relaxed! We had so much time to sit and talk with the other exchange students I loved it 🙂
This trip really reminded me just how much I Adore skiing!! I am definitely hoping to go on more ski trips in the coming years 🙂
A few weeks after the ski trip, I switched schools! My host family and Rotary club thought it could be a good experience for me to switch schools. I was very sad to leave my old classmates, but also very excited for a new adventure! So far I have had a very positive experience at my new school, and I have really enjoyed meeting so many new people!
Well, that is my summary of February! I’m afraid this blog post has been much shorter than my others, but more will be coming!!
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