July 27-29, Monday to Wednesday

We left at 6am on Monday to catch our 9:45 flight from Geneva to Luton, just north of London. Our friend Neil picked us up and we immediately did some sight-seeing in quaint Finchingfield. Had some scones and clotted cream and tea by the river. Settled in a little at home. Did some shopping and made a nice chili-con-carne supper. Yumm!! Watched some Top gear and hit the sack.

Big day on Tuesday. Eggs Benedict for breakfast. Yummm again! Drove into Central London via the Docklands around noon. Parked up at Neil's work and did a serious bit of walking across London. Saw the Gherkin (green cucumber shaped building), Lloyds building, the Globe Theatre, St. Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Eye, London Bridge and Tower Bridge, Picadilly Circus. Walked across the wobbly bridge (Millennium Bridge.) Did some quick shopping down Regent Street and Oxford Street. Retail mayhem at Primark... Supper at a relatively classic pub. Pie and chips. Fish and chips. Yummm again. Long drive out west to Chobham, via the A4, M25, and M3. Spent a nice late evening listening to Neil's friend Flick play his guitar and keyboard(!) in a wee little pub. Great player, good music and a nice night. That man can play.

Wednesday was in the car by 9. Headed to Hertford to a wee small airfield. Neil's been taking some flying lessons, and so we went for a ride. We were hoping for nice enough weather to fly to Oxford for lunch. No such luck... too much low cloud. So we did some sighseeing around Essex and then Neil did 5 touch-and-go's before a final landing. He's nearly to the point of his solo. Nice little drive around to Ware to have some lunch. Then back home for a nap. I've been updating the blog since.

July 25, Saturday

Today we were up at 7ish to get breakfast and onto the bus by 8. Headed into France to Chamonix - the town near Mont Blanc. Beautiful little town. Did a bit of town exploring and shopping in the morning. Some shoes and clothes were bought, if reports can be believed. We all met up around 12 to take the train up to the gondola area. A cog train, to haul us quite steeply up the mountain. We loaded in turn into the red gondola cars, which took us at least half of the way down to the glacier. Lots and lots of steps to get the rest of the way down. Signs indicated how much the glacier has shrunk in the past 20 years. 'Cool' to walk through the tunnel they've shaved out of the ice. Lots of steps back up to either take the gondola back up, or to hike back up to the train station. Much ice cream was consumed as we relaxed and gathered up for the return train ride down to Chamonix. Bus ride back to the school in time for supper. Nice warm day, by the afternoon. Beautiful scenery.

July 24, Friday

The 3 musketeers headed out to Bex (say 'bay') for the morning to have a tour of a salt mine. Quite enjoyed the history and development story they told us. The train ride was neat, too. Managed to escape the gift shop with relatively little damage done. Back in time for staff meeting at 1:30 and Assembly at 2:15. There was the school rummage sale after assembly. Any items left behind by past students were sold for a coupla francs each. Seemed that everyone bought at least something, including some 'cool' clothes and even some cowboy boots (!) Leaving tomorrow am at 7:45 for Chamonix - Mont Blanc. All exchange students (except the veteran, Katelyn) are heading there with our tour group. She's headed to Zermatt - The Matterhorn with the other tour group.

July 23, Thursday

Mr. Watanabe, the headmaster of the school, took us three exchange supervisors (Rick, Char, and Jo), the exchange program liaison from the school (Terri) and Mr. Bill Mangan (the vice principal) out for supper to a traditional Swiss chalet, called Prafandaz. Great food, soooo rich and yummy. I had Croute, and Char and Jo had Rottis. Our arteries may never recover. They have treated us sooooo well here, can't say enough about their hospitality.

July 22, Wednesday

Was a rainy day, so the planned trip to Aquaparc was cancelled. The 3 supervisors went to Aigle castle in the morning, just down the hill from Leysin. We took the self-guided tour, and had some great views of the surrounding vineyards. Did some exploring of the town of Aigle and had a great Italian lunch before heading back up the hill to the school.

July 21, Tuesday

Today there was an excursion to Avenches and Merton for the European Studies students. Left at 11:15 and rode the bus and Mercedes van for 2 hours. Saw some Roman ruins and had the chance in Merton to see a medieval village relatively undisturbed. No tv antennae, no electrical wires; it pretty much looks as it did in the middle ages. Pretty little town. It's on a lake so we could choose to swim a bit. Took the Col de Mosses route back to the school, traveling many of the same roads as the Tour riders did on Sunday. Back in time for supper and study hall!!

July 20, Monday

We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary today.
I managed to find some flowers, and after the days activities we went for supper at La Fromagerie way down the hill.
Fondue and raclette... cheese til our eyeballs fell out. SOOOO good.

July 20, Monday

No huge events or trips for the students today. They had their first round of Monday acivities. Char went for a hike and found a group of many of our students doing some rockclimbing. Here are some pics.

July 19, Sunday

Tour de France!

The Tour went right by our village, only wayyyy down at the bottom of the valley. So we chose to drive to the nearby town of Les Mosses to see them at the end of a long climb.

We thought it would be a long day and it was… We left school at 9:15, the roads closed at 11:30 and the race supposed to come through 3:30ish. After the race the roads opened at 5:00. We were prepared! We had snacks, bag lunches, $$$ and our Canada stuff!! It was a good thing that we had scouted out parking and where we thought we wanted to see the race. We got to the area where we wanted to park and got waved into the lot-we drove the school van and so it was good to have a large spot! All the SRSS kids and 4 MMC kids were there along with the SRSS and MMC supervisors, Terri and another teacher, Veronica.

Once we got to the spot, we realized that with all the rain, the ground was really soggy! So some supervisors trekked into town to buy garbage bags to sit on. That proved to be a very good decision! It was quite muddy underfoot!


The hill continued to fill with people as the day progressed. Thankfully, we were able to keep ourselves entertained, buying Tour de France stuff, collecting tons of free giveaways from sponsors, getting chalk from the Lance Armstrong- live strong campaign and then writing on the road with our chalk! We were hoping that Alex's mom got to see her name on the road from the helicopter shots- but we took a picture of it anyway! I think that we were a source of entertainment for many of the other people who were waiting, some americans and Canadians came to visit- all in all, quite a festive atmosphere.





Our students were right by the road to see the race and even though we were hoping the incline would slow the riders down- the race was over (for us) in minutes! But we have lots of pictures, video and stuff from the race! We decided that it was still worth it!






The ride home was also an adventure! We were in the line to go through Les Mosses, but the line was neverending.... so we decided to take the back roads! Cows on the road, Ms. Samson (Terri) had to herd them off the road, and then the narrow winding road all they way back to Leysin. All in all, a very successful and exciting day!