A hike in the Swiss Alps

Swiss people, even if the weather isn't to good, love going on a hike in the mountains. And that's exactly what me and eleven of my classmates did from Monday until Wednesday.
All of us took the train in the morning over Olten (where we bought some stuff to eat) and over Luzern to Dallenwil. It's a small village in the middle of Switzerland from where we started our hike.
And yes, the weather wasn't too good.. I was literally hiking all the way up with my umbrella open and I think it was the best idea I had that day!
At the bottom of the mountain it was raining a lot but around the middle of our hike there was already snow. And that snow slowed us down a lot! In the end it took us about 6 hours to get all the way up through the deep snow until we reached the SAC-hut.
We were the only ones staying there and therefore we had the whole living room for ourselves. It was a really cozy place with a fireplace and we talked and played card games the whole evening.
I made some cards for a game called "werewolves", where there's a village with a couple of wolves in it and the wolves' objective is to eat all the normal citizens and well the citizens' objective is to get rid of the wolves; a very fun game for a large group!

The next day was very relaxing. We slept for a long time and then went out in the snow to have some fun :)
There was a woman passing by with two dogs and she made a stop at our hut. So we took the dogs for a little walk in the snow and me and my friend took some funny photos of them..
Later, again, we played card games and enjoyed our day up there.

On Wednesday we were already on our way back down to the village. And the weather was gorgeous! Not even one single cloud in the sky!! And I am sure that the walk down only took us half the time we had for walking up the mountain ^^

I can really recommend this hike onto the Brisen but check the weather forecast first..!

Milkyway Photography

Now, since we are on holiday and have a lot of free time, me and two friends of mine decided to go to the Schwarzwald which is at the border from Switzerland and Germany to take some pictures of the milky way. We went there because on a light-pollution map it was apparently the darkest spot close to us. And there are nice backgrounds with all the trees.
So on Sunday Davids mum picked me up and we arrived around ten at night at that particular spot. There was a little farm and we asked the farmer if we could park our car in his backyard.
We walked a bit to find the perfect spot for our shots and took some pictures of the moon. But since the moon was still up and really bright we had to wait for it to set and for the milky way to appear further up on the sky. So we went back to sleep in the car.
At half past one in the morning we woke up and it was freezing cold outside! But it was as dark as it could possibly get which meant we had the perfect opportunity to take good pictures of the night sky! And we stayed until 3:30 outside, so nearly two hours!
We took pictures of some different angles and one where I am as a silhouette visible in front of the milky way. It was so much fun and I think that we will try this again sooner or later :)

By the way I also made a Flickr gallery if you want to check it out ;)

Exchange-Week in Dresden and Berlin-Trip!

Every year my school offers some students to go on an exchange for one week to Heidenau which is quite close to Dresden in Germany. And later in June some of the students from there come to Switzerland :)

On Friday we took a late night train to Dresden. It was really fun and I had a great time talking to the others and playing card games with them.. We also slept in the train but it wasn't a really good sleep since, well, trains are loud..
On Saturday we all went to our families and I took a little nap there before going with my host brother and some of the others to visit Dresden and sit at the river for a little while.

We decided to go to Berlin on Sunday since we've never been there before and I thought it was a cool opportunity which we don't have every day. So we took a coach-bus to Berlin in the early morning and arrived there just two hours later! I made a little list of what I wanted to visit: The Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, and in the end a very cool flee market at the Wallpark.
Unfortunately we had to go home at six again..

On Monday I went with my host brother to school and I had my first lesson in Russian ever. But the teacher was very boring and did not even talk to us once..
Later that day we visited "Sonnenstein". It's a very sad place from the war times where they've killed disabled people. Everyone was very sad and it took us some time until we were ready to eat some lunch.. In the afternoon we went bowling together.. Nothing special but it was a lot of fun :)
But then, in the evening, our teachers booked tickets for us all to go to the "Semper Opera" to see a ballet. Nobody knew what the performance was about, but it was just brilliant! It's called COW; you should really look it up!

On Tuesday, after a german lesson, we went to the "Panometer" in Dresden. It's a ginormous 360° painting of the destruction by bombs in the end of world war 2. You can't even imagine the amount of destruction that these bombs made in this lovely city..
We also had a guided tour through the city later that day which was a little boring but we went to see places and the lady told us some historical things about them.
It was a really warm day, up to 25°C! So we took off our jackets and bought some ice cream while we went on a little shopping stroll through the old town :)

On Wednesday, after a fairly interesting history lesson, we went to the "Hygienemuseum". It's an art gallery where the exhibitions change regularly. Now there was one about all the bad stuff that there is in our clothes and how these chemicals harm us and our environment. And there was also a photography exhibition.
In the evening we ate a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Alex; if you ever go to Dresden, this is a lovely place with good food and it's not even that expensive.

In the morning of Thursday we hiked in the 'mountains'. It was like a walk but we had a lovely view up on the 'mountains' and the weather was just right for us to walk in the forests of the Sächsischen Schweiz :)
Since one of the germans knows a pizza restaurant, they could book for us all to eat some pizza in the evening. It was really nice and we had a great time again talking with each others since we were already about to leave tomorrow!

We already took the train home at 8 on Friday. In the train we listened to music and watched a film. It was a really cool week and I would recommend it to everyone who wants to exchange cultures to go to Dresden! Lovely city with lots of different things to do :D