Ftan thus far

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The village of Ftan, Switzerland has approximately 500 people, but that number goes up quite a bit when Concordia Language Village's English immersion summer camp is in session. The facility that we use is what is used as a boarding school during the school year. It is really high up in the Alps, and on a hill overlooking the village.

I, along with a guy who flew in from Omaha and a girl from Sweden, all arrived at around the same time in the morning on Monday at the Zurich airport (about 3 hours northwest of Ftan.) We met up with each other there, and the dean of the summer camp somehow found us even though he had never seen what we look like. He was with the camp nurse (who is also a staff counselor) and so we all took the train together from Zurich to Scuol, which is close to Ftan. We met up with a bunch of other counselors at the train station. Among the 8 of us, we had about 15 suitcases, a few duffle bags (we were carrying our personal stuff plus camp supplies), 3 guitars, and 3 long bamboo poles for a dance that one of the counselors is teaching. We were quite the sight when we transferred trains and had to basically throw everything onto the train, since we had about 1 minute before the doors shut. Then, when we got to Scuol to catch the bus to Ftan, we filled up about half the bus with our stuff. Luckily no one seemed to mind, but we got lots of curious looks!

Anyway, so far we have had a lot of fun. This week is the orientation so we don't have campers yet. They will get here on Monday, and some of us will go back to Zurich to meet kids who are flying in. The farthest away someone is coming from is a girl from Taiwan. The rest of the kids are mostly German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian, and French, but there are usually a small group of Danish kids and last year there was one Israeli boy. So, I don't know all the demographics... I can't wait to find out! That is the difference between this camp and the German camp in Minnesota I have worked at -- the German one is comprised of all American kids, but this one will be a mix of kids, so that will be really interesting and cool.

Now I will put up some pictures and then hopefully update sometime next week!

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Photos

the front of our facility
My friend Suzanne is on the right

"Marianne" and "Sydney"
We all have camp names -- these are their camp names. Mine is "Elli."

Rock 'n Roll!
During our orientation we have been having 'example' activities, and Rock 'n Roll is a very important one because kids love learning popular songs. For example, "Summer of '69" is a popular one.

Comments

[andrea]

Wow!
Wow! What amazing views!

[Aunt Kathleen]

Thanks for the post
Hi Alia! So glad to hear you're there and see some of the sights through your camera lens. Can't wait for your next entry. Have a wonderful month!

[Randy]

Cool place!
Hi Alia, looks like a fun place to spend some time this summer. Are all the counselors native English speakers?