Day 1.
Quarter
to six I arrived at Willy’s front door, Denise was yet to come so he invited me
in the house to shelter from the heavy rainfall. It had been five minutes
before the doorbell rang. Denise had appeared with her entire family to wave
her of. As we made our way to the car with our weighty luggage the sky boomed
with rage and it began to rain even harder. Short after lightning struck down
from the heavens startling us all, including the entire Wijfjes family and even
Willy!
Before we could
begin our journey we had to pick up a very important package.
As
we arrived at Noah’s house the first thing we saw peering through the crack of
his front door was a camera, short after the mystery man revealed himself with
a cheeky smile. He jumped into to the car and off we went.
It
took at least eight hours to get to Switzerland! Of course we had been prepared
for this by Willy but blimey what a long ride. I had slept quite a lot during
the ride with my head comfortably on Noah’s bag. He sat in the front with Willy
and Denise and I sat in the back. I had downloaded some eminem songs that
continued to blare through my earphones on repeat the entire way there..so I
can now proudly say that I can at least rap one entire chorus of ‘Lose yourself’.
In
between my strangely, rather comfortable car naps we stopped once in a while to
stretch our legs and take in the view of the German countryside. I had never
been to Germany before so to see it so flat surprised me. I had expected more
of a Sound of Music like landscape. But I was to early with my judgement
because after an hour or two on the road our surroundings vastly changed to far
exceed my expectations.
After
another hour we began to notice a peculiar weather pattern, it turned from rain
to snow and from snow to rain all the way up to Switzerland. There the weather
was even more confusing as the fog slowly crept up to us and devoured us under
a great white blanket of mystery. I believe we could all feel a rush of
excitement as we first saw the mountain range, I barely know how to describe
what we encountered. Pearing through the fog we could just about make out the
great green giants from a distance. After a day or two we would realize that
these mountains were way bigger than we could had ever imagined, but when one
lives on the flattest place on earth where even a sand dune can impress you.
As
we made our way up the mountain the fog became thicker and thicker like a
intoxicatingly heavy syrup whispering us towards the finish line. We knew it
wouldn’t be far now and although Willy had a firm hand driving up the mountain,
I began to notice he was becoming more and more nervous as we gained altitude.
I also observed that inside the car the ambiance was gradually taking a turn
for the worst. Looking back on the situation I now understand the sudden
silence. It must have been terrible to have to drive up a incredibly steep
mountain in the fog
after
eight hours of driving with also three teenagers nagging at you with questions
like ‘are we there yet?’.
After
a good fifteen minutes I was getting fed up with far too serious vibe. So just
after Willy took another sharp turn a sentence flopped out of me that will
probably haunt me till the end of my school days . “And then we road off the mountain..”
I said dryly breaking the awkward stillness. Willy and the rest all cracked up
and have been mocking me with ‘and then’ jokes ever since.
We
had finally arrived at our destination Leysin. I couldn’t see more than three
meters in front of me but nethertheless I was very impressed by what little I
could see. Everywhere were tall student houses connected by a broad road
leading to the infamous “Leysin American
High School”, standing proudly carved into the mountain like an ancient
statue.
As
we entered the school the first thing my eye fell on was the giant student
library. I enjoy a good book so already I was longing to have a quick look. We
were standing in the hallway as we were suddenly approached by a friendly
looking man named Paul. We shook our hands and kindly introduced ourselves.
“Well you guys must be hungry after that long trip” he said gesturing to the
dining hall. Gradually we made our way over, yet to encounter the wonders of
the tosti machine.
Day 2.
We
had slept like lambs that previous night but when I woke up I still felt
absolutely knackered. We had arranged to meet Bill in the dining hall for
breakfast. We had a good chat and seeing as we were of for the day we decided
to visit have a look around. It was a rainy day but that didn’t matter to us.
We took the small mountain train down to a town by the name of Aigle and spent
the day sightseeing. We walked past the lake Geneva and had lunch in a
beautiful lunch cafe called Zurcher. We
each chose a different chocolate and split it into exactly four pieces so we
could all share. I chose a particularly scrumptious chocolate cake with with
layers of raspberry in it. We also visited the statue of Freddie Mercury which
was a lot larger than I had imagined.
After a couple
of hours we headed back to leysin and had a good dinner before bed.
Day 3.
Day
three was the first day of the course we were all very excited. Willy had asked
us to wake up early so we got up at half past six and headed to breakfast at
seven. When we stepped outside snow surrounded us for miles, there was not one
place that remained untouched by it. It was quite nice being the only ones in
the cafeteria, we had all the choice in the world including these godley
blueberry muffins. As we made our way to the middle school we had an epic
snowball fight, one of many to come. When we were inside we set up the stuff
and awaited the teachers. Willy’s course includes many games and fun
activities. The one I found the most interesting was the paper airplane game.
There were three or four teams of about five people
and
every one of them had a team captain. This team captain had chosen his/her
teammates on the account of qualities. There had to be a variation of qualities
in one group so the team captain wasn’t allowed to pick the same quality twice.
When the team’s were made and the game was on you could definitely notice
considerable differences between the team’s. They all had a very different
tactic, some had divided their groups into different divisions. Two people were
to throw the planes, two to fold the plains and two to finish them. Whilst
other groups did every step together. The more games the teachers played the
more they came in to there own and we began to see people began to take over
certain roles in the groups. There were leaders, followers, class clowns and of
course the mediators. It was all very interesting to study different groups
like that I enjoyed it very.
Day 4.
Day
two was the second and final day of the course. Some teachers had decided that
eduScrum was not for them had not shown up. Luckily there were still a lot of
teachers very enthusiastic to stay so we started with a couple more games and
Willy told stories from his experiences with eduScrum and as did we. We
explained the pro’s and the con’s of eduScrum in the classroom and we tried to
answer the questions from the best we could. At the end of the course we shook
hands and said our goodbyes to some of the foreign teachers. Because it was a
lovely day on the mountain we decided to go for a hike after we went back to
our rooms and had a long good rest.
Day 5
Day
five was a lovely day, the sun shone brightly on the mountains illuminating the
brilliant green leaves. The sky such a deep blue colour it looked almost like
you could dive into it.
We
had decided to go down the mountain to take a tour in the most notorious
Chillon castle on lake Geneva. After an hour or so we took the car for a drive
to Geneva but due to some problems with my health we couldn’t make it as far.
We drove back to up the mountain and played cards for the rest of the evening.
Day 6.
Day
six was our last day in switzerland, we went to breakfast early and took a
couple of tosti’s and fruit with us for the ride back. It took about the same
amount of time to get back to the Netherlands than the trip up to Switzerland,
although it felt a lot shorter. When we got to Limburg Maastricht Willy brought
us to a little snackbar where he ordered something called Zoervleis (which
means sour meat) which was ace and showed us the place where he grew up. It was
really nice to take a little break like that before we stepped in the car again
to drive home.
Thank
you Willy for this awesome experience and this amazing opportunity, I feel very
lucky for having been part of your eduScrum family. Also great thanks to Noah
and Denise for taking care of me and literally carrying me up a mountain. I
have made memories with you all that I will cherish them forever.
Bo
Walkden, 4 HAVO (Highschool)
