10th August 2022
Today the campers headed to the aqua splash water park in Lausanne for a day swimming in the pools and soaking up the sun.
After breakfast both the juniors and seniors hopped on the bus for a scenic journey along lake Geneva to Lausanne for the aqua splash park. There was so much on offer at aqua splash, from lazy rivers and wave pools, to diving boards and slides galore. The juniors enjoyed a morning swimming in the shallow pools, taking trip after trip in the lazy river and cruising down the slides before spending the afternoon on the big slides. Dang Dang, Ayad, Ben and George had the worlds biggest splash off – the winner remains undecided.
While the seniors had free reign to go around as they liked, they raced down the free fall slide, the green enclosed speedy slide, and the chilled out blue slide. Tvrtko, Sam and Lucas even showed off their bravery by jumping off the 10 meter diving board while an audience cheered them on.
After a long day in the sun the campers headed back in the coach for a dinner of sausages, gnocchi and stuffed red peppers, and then showed off their acting skills with skits for the evening activity. Everyone should be sleeping well tonight after that!
9th August 2022
Today was a fun filled today for the senior campers of Camp Suisse. In the morning the non-language lesson campers went to Champéry pool by chairlift and cable car. The sky was clear today and the weather was immaculate so the campers took in the breathtaking views of the Dents Du Midi mountain range while going to the pool. It was really a sight to behold. Florence and Chloe loved the diving board and were creative by trying out different jumps. Language lessons also went well with different skills being learnt, such as debating in English, where Aviya and Shahar became extremely engaged in communicating and defending their opinions. After lunch the senior campers went to Parc Aventure, a high ropes park in Aigle, where the campers were challenged by the heights and the various obstacles, bridges and swings. The campers started off with the easier courses then eventually moved to the more difficult ones. Arni breezed passed most of the courses, while Petur took a cautious approach, as he was tackling the many obstacles which faced him. Parc Aventure was an amazing excursion and a great day out. In the evening the campers had a movie night as they winded down from an action packed day full of incredible memories and non-stop excitement.
3rd August 2022
Greens and yellows enjoyed an action-packed morning. Campers learning English, Spanish, and French finished their language projects and enjoyed a tournament-style competition with other students. Alice, Tvrtko, Adriana won bragging rights as they aced the Emoji music quiz and jeopardy game. Non-languages took a few chairlifts across the border to France and enjoyed waffles at Les Lindarets, a popular ski and mountain biking village. After a hot lunch of paninis, greens and yellows headed back out to learn survival skills during Bushcraft. They learned how to build shelters using hammocks. Bassam was the judge of sturdiness, comfiness, and ease of use – he rated his own team as making the most elite hammock. Campers finished off the session by making their own bread over an open fire! After a delicious dinner of chicken curry, greens and yellows got to show off their skills at Camp Suisse Got Talent before their penultimate sleep of camp.
2nd August 2022
This morning greens woke bright and early to do a quick morning meditation in the sun with the stunning backdrop of the Dents du Midi. They then went on to catch a chairlift up the mountain to meet the yellows after their camping trip. We all continued on together to Monthey pool where all the yellows and greens spent half a day trying to convince Natalia (our yellow colour group leader) to jump off the diving board. Jeremy outdid himself showing us all his backflips, Nahia loved using the slides but only backwards and on her belly and Bassam couldn’t get enough of the diving boards despite wanting to save his swimming energy for the Aqua Park planned for Thursday.
After leaving the pool we had a short walk into Monthey town where everyone got an hour for some free time. Full advantage was taken of the nearest Coop and Migros, but I think the biggest news of the day was Alice managing to find a pair of Urban Outfitter joggers for only 5 francs! Amazing. The sun had nearly everyone sound asleep on the quick bus ride home. Blackjack and roulette at the Casino night had everyone super competitive for the highly demanded prize of nogrots. After a quick wind down of basketball or a movie both the greens and yellows went to bed soundly.
1st August 2022
Today we had languages in the morning and camping in the evening.
We had languages from 9-12. In the Spanish lesson we learned about food, everyone created their own recipe and explained it to the rest of the class. It was really interesting because we learned about dishes from different countries. After three hours of languages we had hot dogs for lunch.
Everyone was really excited because after lunch we got our bags and all our kit ready to go camping. It was a 2 hours hike to get to our camp location – a beautiful chalet in the middle of the Swiss Alps! We were really lucky with the weather; it was sunny so we enjoyed being outside. We then had dinner all together. For the evening activity we had a general knowledge quiz by teams and the winner team got a small price.
While we were doing the quiz, we saw the beautiful sunset which was really calming and relaxing, after we finished our evening activity we got ready to bed to recharge our batteries for the following day.
28th July 2022
Thursday Morning brought a beautiful alpine start for the Greens as they returned from a high mountain camping adventure, where they joined the fresh and ready-for-the-day Yellows at the bright blue Villeneuve pool for a day of sun and fun.
The day was filled with laughter and a round of games and sports, intermittently split with long stretches of relaxation in the pool and the occasional ice cream and cold drink to stem the heat. Following lunch, the kids loaded up onto the unsteady banana boat to be thrown off into the deep blue waters of lake Geneva, where jeers of joy and laughter could be heard from the shoreline.
In the evening, the yellows finished off a lovely day by sitting round the campfire, singing songs and playing games while watching the sun set on the Dents du Medi. Concurrently, the greens were testing their cultural knowledge of music of the past and present, and displaying a level of knowledge that made the counsellors reconsider their perspective of music altogether!
Altogether, a wonderful day along the Valais canton’s famous body of water lent itself well the the beginning of the end of the first week, and the campers can’t wait for the next week to come!
25th July 2022
The Greens had an exciting day today with a mixture of languages, bushcraft, landscape drawing, and nature art jamming.
The day started for the language groups with some chilled out and relaxing English, French, or Spanish lessons. The groups learned new vocab, improved their conversation skills, and decided on a group project for the next two weeks.
Meanwhile the non-language group hiked to a campsite to learn how to start a fire. This included using a fire striker and cotton wool. Also, the campers learned about fire safety and and how to extinguish a fire safely.
After lunch the Greens got a chair lift to a scenic mountain top in order to try their hand at sketching landscapes. Afterwards they made their way back to camp and did some nature art jam. This involved finding flora from the surroundings to be used in their paintings. The campers then got stuck in to painting pictures with their collection in addition to some paint brushes!!!
After dinner, evening entertainment will include sports followed by either a film or chill out games.
20th July 2022
Today the greens and yellows headed to Parc Adventure to get up on the high ropes in the trees! Ali was our resident zip line expert, helping all of his friends with the techniques and getting over their fears! Albatool and Lamar both overcame some challenges on the ropes and Greta reached new heights, achieving more of the courses than she did last year!!
Afterwards the yellows headed to Champéry pool and got caught in a hail storm!
Meanwhile, the greens headed back to camp for an early shower hour, to get glammed up and head out of camp for a pizza party in a nearby restaurant!! Buon appetito!!
Afterwards, everyone chilled out with a quiz night, basketball or a screening of Kung Fu Panda! What a fab day had by all!
13th July 2022
After lunch, the green group set off on and scenic hike to find their way for camping night at Planachaux. They enjoyed discovering the fauna founded in the Swiss Alps as they walked pass the friendly cows, and proved each of the green campers their supportive spirit as they cheered each other up to make it up the steep mountain in this hot summer day. After getting a must needed energy boost at afternoon tea, they departed into the forest to find the perfect “marshmallow roasting stick”. All campers enjoyed roasting giant marshmallows in the fire and bananas with chocolate at dessert time! Campers ended the day proving their general culture knowledge with the majestic sunset view of Les Dents du Midi as their background.
12th July 2022
Today was a great day!
We had languages in the morning, some of us took French lessons some of English and some of us Spanish. It was a good morning, everyone seemed to enjoyed their lessons a lot. After lessons, we had lunch at camp with the yellows.
After that we went to Montreux, to the Montreux jazz festival! A really nice musical festival which happens on July, so we were lucky enough to go! It was a really sunny day! So perfect day to have a walk besides lake Geneva while listening to some live music!
There was a really nice food market, some of us got food, snacks and even ice cream to refresh ourselves. It was definitely a really nice day to spend with our friends at Montreux.
We then went back to camp by bus, to have dinner with the yellows and then our evening activities.