Braunwald over. TRIP STARTS

days were really enjoyable and the work we did was incredible.. what can i say about the environment, humans are slowly destroying it.. at times the course was really frustrating, u learn soo much, and then thinking of what you can do, where to start its soo diffucult...

i experienced many experiences there from an eight hour hike up and down a mounatin to lessons learnt, through great discussions and great parties, but one that really troubled me was one day we were discussing water scarcity and the different reasons, the last reason being the socio politcial one, which of course one of the examples being Israel and Palestine, and i turned to see the palestinian guy shaking a bit, saying yes, we know they will never leave that.. i dont know how to describle how i felt... it was soo hard.. i dont know how to feel about not really having a country that exists...

the course had incredible teachers, roger, matt, klaus, jens, jeff... all inspirational people.. that have really done something...

Sharm bombings.. what a shock..

Sitting on the train leaving the conference was soo hard... didnt want to leave.. nearly missed my train.. Conclusion of teh conference SUSTAINABILITY IS DIFFICULT...

I visited Michel in St Gallen.. so great to see an old face aggain... soo bizarre seeing him in his atmosphere.. different from what im used to seeing..

Bombings in Sharm soo disgusting..

In Amsterdam!! Spent a couple of hours waiting in the airport for Vivianne to get off work..
Ahh great to see her... Ahh i love her and Ingmar, whats even weird.. i left the next day to go to Belgium.. How random!! Three countries in 24 hours.. that was nothing, went to pick up Nihal from the boarders of France, so 4 countries.. wow... too cool...

Belgium was great.. got to see my aunt and uncle, and two cousins.. Farah i hadnt seen in 5 years, and Zuzu in 10 years, and my aunt in like 3... crazy reunion, saw an old childhood acquaintance, and really cool.. Got to see Andries and Xavier.. two guys i met in Kenya.. cool to see them.. We went to Brussels with them..Andries father should definetely be a tourist attraction, he is among the coolest guys i have ever meet.. he learns languages as a hobby and knows around 20, 7 really well and the rest needs to brushed up.. He Speaks arabic without an accent... Got to see mamakin pis... hehe...

Wasted time getting back to holland, cause stupid belgium women, as the man behind the ticket counter said..

Climate

"Climate lasts all the time and weather onlz a few days"
Mark Twain "English as she is taught"(1887)

Braunwald?? Where is that??

So where am i? im in this small little village in this place called braunwald, up in the alps of Switzerland, Braunwald belongs to this canton(county, state, governate) called Glarus, which is the center of where alot of the drinking water is from here..
Glarus is interesting because it is one of the last canton, where the still exercise the right to vote by hand, till today... pretty crazy?? but pretty cool...

Anyway so back to this town called Braunwald.. its population is about 500 people, and has no police, to get here you need to take this cable car from Lithal a bigger town at the bottom of the mountain.. Brauwald is this enviromnment friendly town, which minimizes manufacture which is government funded for its farming.

how to make a can of what do u call it?

Interesting, how much energy wasted to make an alumunium can.. It travels far...

1. it starts off with looking for a mineral called Bauxite where the majority is found in Australia--use a truck to process(1 bauxite to .5 alumunium oxide)
2. Then it is transported for three months by sea to Sweden/Norway(water power plant)
3. two months in the smeltery where the alumunium oxide is changed to alumunium
4. two weeks of tempering, where it is transported to the rolling mills (Sweden/Germany)
5. 500 degress heating, blooming down 10 rolls, where it is then stored..
6. then there is cold rolling
7. transported to England, whihc there is punching, cuping, washing, drying, coating, painting, seaming, protective film, storing on palette
8. it then is moved to a filling machine, where it is washed,filled(at 1500ml/sec), lid is placed on, then packing..
9. it is then distrubuted all over the world
10. sold within three days
11. it is consumed by drinking it in a few minutes, and it takes one second to throw away

Course starts

Course starts… wow impressive 38 people, 30 countries… We have a great group of facilitators, Also have this interesting guy called Klaus, who is an artist, and his role is to include art in sustainability, so he interprets us in the middle of sessions… to tell us all these things, and he always draws a drawing of how he felt the day was..

Food is good!!!

We learnt a lot about the Switzerland.. Everybody here votes, whats even cooler in a lot of places they vote by hand count… Also I found interesting how Presidents are not voted on, its like an honor for one of the 7 federal president [basically presidents role is to represent function, doesn’t decide].

Oh so where am I ?

In this tiny village called Braunwald, its about 2 hours from Zurich… You get there like I said before by cable car… and if that doesn’t work, then your stuck up there.. there is no police, no cars, except for these bio-diesel run farming machines.. and horse carriage.. Its above so you can see the valley below..

We went on this walking tour, and it was one of the sight seeing walks I have ever been on, we first stopped and our guide went on about the mountain, then he took out some Swiss cheese for us.. And then we walked a bit longer, and he took out tons of chocolate… and what can I saw the view is absolutely breathtaking…. I feel I jumped into a story book, soo incredible..

Oh also got to see the guide's son play an alphorn, which I got to try to play as well... cant say I was very good.. Well its this traditional swiss instrument so people in different towns could greet each other, the longer it is, the lower the song is…

Cool facts I learnt today, Swiss government puts a recycling fee on batteries when people buy it.. which is very smart!!

But what can i say they are smart people..

Leaving to Switzerland

Interesting start to a trip:
days confused
car crash
errand around Cairo[BILLS]
rush to the airport
Budapest—gorgeous from the plane, Linda!! Wrong Number
Nearly missed connection flight
Personal Escort to bus that heads for the plane
Chauffered to the plane
Sight Seeing Zurich NO: Showered by rain YES


Positive I am excited for the course, love flying to green fields, forestry area with loads of trees.. Soo… Unbelievably BEAUTIFUL,,,
Love acting like a stupid tourist, everything's in German, not just German, Swiss German.. Forests reminds me of berries, raspberries, gooseberries, wild strawberries, Yummi!! :)

Train ride at the airport, quite fun..

Quite a few veiled women quite surprising!!

Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles… turns out you can borrow them for free… Weird??

Everything is in francs, and I keep forgetting how expensive it is…. You even pay for the bathroom McClean is a public bathroom company[costs 2 francs]

Thinking of sky diving, depends on the money situation, interesting option!!

Arrived…Wow!!! You take a televick ride up… I was soo confused no one spoke English but I meet this Taiwanese guy Chao, so that helped…

People are great.. We starting singing songs, and I suggested songs from their countries[very AIESEC]

Alps are soo gorgeous, still in shock that I am here..