...you can contact me through my blog, my personal email, via facebook, or at mobilemarypoppins@gmail.com. Thank you all for your support so far!!
WEEK 17
Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,
Here’s a tip for you. If you have a chance to learn another language at school, like French, or Spanish, or German, or anything other than English, pay attention! When I was at school, I didn’t like learning other languages, but I wish I had worked harder now. I know a tiny bit of French, a few words in Spanish, and now about 15 words in German. I am now determined to learn more!
This week I stayed with a very smart boy called Silvan. He lives in one of the most beautiful places on earth. In a tiny village in the middle of the mountains called The Alps. (These are a big range of mountains similar to those mountains I saw in New Zealand, the ones called the Southern Alps).
As well as two types of German (Swiss German and High German), Silvan also speaks Romansch. There are so few people in the world who speak Romansch that recently, UNESCO declared it as an “endangered language” because, if people don’t continue to speak it, it could die out. I thought only animal species could be “endangered” – until I met Silvan and heard about Romansch, I never knew a language could be considered endangered. That’s the wonderful thing about my travels... I learn so many new things!
I took a train from Zurich to Silvan’s house. I met his mom on the train as she was returning form a trip. The train ride was very beautiful. I saw people rafting down the river, called The Rhine.
The Rhine is one of the longest rivers in Europe and starts in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. Switzerland is a country made up of 26 cantons (which are like states) and Graubünden is the largest. It is the easternmost canton and borders the countries of Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein (which, with a population of 35,000, is the smallest country in Europe!)
I used my globe beach ball to show Silvan how far I had traveled to reach him in Switzerland.
I had flown all the way from Australia...
...through Asia...
...and the Middle East...
to the very center of Europe. Can you see Switzerland on the map? It’s not very big, but it is very beautiful!
Silvan’s house is also incredibly beautiful...
...and it has a swimming pool!
When I arrived I found he had many friends over and they were all swimming. Silvan’s mom had brought him a gift. A pair of flippers. I learnt my first German word, the word for flippers in German is Flosse.
In Silvan’s beautiful village in the Swiss Alps there are only 75 people. And in his school there are only 15 kids! My first day in the village, I went for a very long walk and took loads of photos to show you what a beautiful and special place it is.
I saw some llamas and some mountain goats.
I also saw another village that you can only reach by this cable car. There are no roads into it! You have to park your car and take the cable car across. How amazing is that!
There are christmas trees everywhere, giant ones, and great big forests full of them.
I also saw one that had seen better days! I don't know if it had been burnt or just died. 
The next day, after school, Silvan had his first tennis lesson.
I was very lucky to be able to visit Silvan’s school and have a look at what Romansch looks like.
There are a number of different ways in which Romansch is written. It is also called “Rätoromanisch” and there are lots of different styles. So in this book of words there are sometimes five different words for one thing!
In the dictionary I looked up the word for “Kindergarten” and it is scolina.
I suddenly realized that this language is very similar to an ancient language called Latin, which I learnt to write at school. No one actually speaks Latin anymore, and I guess this is why UNESCO is protecting certain languages in the world, so that they don’t die out like Latin.
Silvan was very proud to show me around his school and show me things he likes doing and things he had made.
I met all of Silvan’s class and his teacher, and they sang some songs for me. They showed me how good they are at climbing trees (I think this is a favorite activity of all Swiss children).
I also saw all their playground equipment that is all made out of local wood, which looks nicer than painted plastic and metal!
After school one day, Silvan’s mom took us to a beautiful lake. She called it a “sea” – usually her English is very good, but I had to laugh about this and explain that a “sea” is a little bigger than this little lake!
There was a really nice play area (with more wooden equipment).
A maze has just been planted. We could see the wooden planks to walk down, but by the summer all the grass will have grown so tall it will be a really cool maze to get lost in.
When the weather is warmer people love to swim in this lake. There is a great diving board, and a diving platform in the middle of the lake.
On the other side of the lake we found a wooden fence that had been painted in bright colors by all the local children.
There are so many pretty little villages in this canton and I enjoyed seeing them all. Here are a few of my best pictures from my week there.
On my last day, Silvan’s mom took me on quite an adventure. We went hiking in some woods. There is a place you can go rock climbing here.
When I looked up I was amazed to see a girl hanging above my head! There is a whole network of walkways and platforms to people can walk between the huge tall trees. I told you the Swiss love to be up in those trees!
We saw some really incredible views on our walk. Huge tall trees, turquoise swimming pools, and those wooden sculptures that the Swiss love to make!
One thing Silvan’s mom hadn’t told me was that we were going up this huge platform to look over the edge down into a very steep river valley. You know what I am like with heights! Well, I managed a quick peek before I quickly ran down to the bottom again!
When we got home, Silvan had made me the most beautiful picture to celebrate my visit.
Just before I left, I saw the funniest thing. Silvan's house is so high up, that when the air gets cooler, the clouds come down and his house ends up being above the clouds... it's like looking out of an airplane!
I had a wonderful week with Silvan and his family. They are very special people and they live in one of most beautiful places in the world. They have become such good friends of mine and invited me to come and stay with them again, any time. I can’t wait!
I took the train back to Zurich for one night and met a very special person. It was Juliana’s uncle! He took me to a piano concert and I was very happy to meet one of the pianists (there were two of them, playing duets).
The next day I took another train (it's a good thing I love traveling by train!) to Geneva, which is all the way over the other side of Switzerland, right next to France. In Geneva they speak French, and the style of the buildings is more French. It was so interesting traveling on the train and watching German Switzerland turn into French Switzerland. Even the people on the train turned from more business-like to more artist-like (so in some ways I began to feel a little more at home!)
I met a very special person there, a cousin I never even knew I had until a few weeks ago! She is my dad’s second cousin, and now she has become my very good friend.The first place we visited was just outside Geneva. It was a beautiful place called Lausanne, on the banks of Lac Leman. This lake was the most beautiful blue I have ever seen.
The next day I had a huge tour of Geneva. One of the things Geneva (or Genève as it is called in French) is most famous for is the Jet d’Eau, which means the Water Jet.
It is one huge fountain that shoot water so high up into the air, I have never seen a fountain this big before. The first one was made over 120 years ago. This one now shoots water almost 500 feet into the air. It’s almost exactly the height of the top of the statue of liberty, from the surface of the water!
Here are some beautiful pictures of of my day in Genève where I took a boat trip, saw some beautiful clothes stores, and had many coffees in little courtyards!
Another thing that Genève is very famous for is being the European home to the United Nations. Although the headquarters of the UN are in New York, the offices in Genève are the second largest and the largest in Europe. The United Nations is one of the most important organizations in the world because it is made up of members of most of the countries of the world and helps to stop wars and keep people friends and make the world a better place. Groups who are upset about their situation often protest outside the UN building.
Outside the United Nations building, which I saw from the bus, is this giant broken chair. It is like a symbol of how easily things can get broken in the world, through fighting and wars, and how we need to take better care of each other.
I met a very important person on the bus. He is the special assistant to the United States Surgeon General. They were visiting the United Nations to encourage countries to stop people from smoking in public places. Smoking is really, really bad for you and it’s especially bad for children to inhale the smoke from cigarettes that adults smoke near them so I think that’s a great idea to encourage all countries to ban it in public places!
Perhaps even more important to me, was meeting these two young boys. They are my third cousins once removed (which means one generation removed from me and their dad who are same generation third cousins). I didn't know I had any third cousins, let alone any removed ones! It has been a great bonus on my world travels to meet family I never knew I had!
I will write again soon.
All my love, Susie xxxx
