Kickoff Camp

This past Thursday-Friday, we had Kickoff Camp. The point of Kickoff Camp is for the students and the teachers to spend time together and have fun with each other! It's a fun way to start the year :-) The Oberstufe (secondary students - grades 7-9) go to a different place than the elementary students, and the Oberstufe students stay overnight.

We all met at 8:30am at one of the school buildings and parted ways to travel to the campsite. In America, it probably would have looked something like this: Everyone piles into big, yellow school buses (maybe even Coach buses, if you're lucky!) with luggage and everything and everyone heads for the campsite. Or, volunteer parent chaperones would drive carfuls of students to the campground together.

Not in Switzerland!
In Switzerland, getting there is half the adventure :-) Our campground was about 8 miles north of Winterthur. 

This is the driving route.

 Students traveled together by class. Some students traveled by foot, and some by bicycle. One class went by car (they set up all of the tents before everyone arrived), and one group went by boat. I was with the group that went by boat! Now, if you're thinking that we rode in something like this:

Nope.

You are wrong.

We traveled with something more like this:

But without the seats. And no decorations--only black.

There were six of us in the bigger boat (me, another teacher, and four girls), and three in the smaller boat (the main teacher and two boys) and one boy trailed along by inner-tube behind the smaller boat! First we drove to a town called Frauenfeld, where a mother of one of the students dropped us off. The main teacher's friend had left a trailer behind for us with the boats and supplies. We unloaded everything, inflated the boats, changed into appropriate boating (and swimming if necessary) clothes, put on our life jackets and set out on the river. The river is called the Thur river.

A=Winterthur, B=Frauenfeld, and the Red spot=Our Campground

We went for a while and then pulled over for a short break and to switch rowers. Then we continued on. After another short while, we stopped and ate lunch in a wide open field. It was beautiful :-) We then traveled the rest of the way to our campsite. Along the way, we encountered a small...ledge? waterfall? I'm not sure what you would call it. It wasn't big enough to be a waterfall, I don't think, but ledge sounds weird. Anyway, it was about 1.5ft tall and we had to go over it--no way around it! We weren't afraid and were prepared for it, so we were excited to go over it. As we went over, we clung to the boat and water poured over the sides. We didn't tip over and no one fell out, but we sure were wet! Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the campground!

After arriving, we leisurely changed into dry clothes and put our things in our respective tents. Each class was divided by boys and girls, and there was one tent for the teachers. Now, you're probably picturing a tent like this:

Not even close.

Wrong again! Our tents were homemade out of tarps, rope, and beams of wood. They looked more like this:

Excuse the MS-Paint-esque drawing...Google Images didn't have anything sufficient.

There was one large tarp over a rope, tied between two wooden beams, and a gray tarp on the ground. Luckily, I was raised to be a camper and am used to camping in tents--so a makeshift tent was not hard to adjust to! (Thanks, Mom and Dad ;-) ) Luckily another teacher lent me a sleeping bag since mine didn't exactly make the cut into my suitcase. All the other teachers and students had mats under their sleeping bags, but I didn't because 1. I'm used to sleeping sans mats, and 2. I wasn't given one with the borrowed sleeping bag. People were surprised when I said I didn't have a mat and offered me their own mat, but I said I didn't need one--to which I received some pretty strange looks. I guess sleeping without a mat is kind of strange--more "roughing it"? One point for the American! (Thanks again, Mom and Dad ;-) ) Haha.

As each class arrived from their various journeys, students engaged in games of soccer or other active and clever games, some I didn't recognize. The teachers milled around, chatting with students or other teachers and relaxing around the site. Some students even waded into the river, although swimming was not allowed (just wading). Eventually we ate dinner and then the 9. Klasse (the oldest students there) led a sort of Olympics. It wasn't exactly like Olympics, but more like silly games at various stations led by two or three of the 9. Klasse students. The teams were picked randomly by the teachers ahead of time and they rotated each station every five minutes or so. I think there was a winner at the end, maybe calculated on how well they did at each silly game, and the teammates got a CD or something. It's hard to follow sometimes when it's all in Swiss German ;-)

After the Olympics, everyone gathered around the fire for some fellowship and songs. Eventually it was time for the students to get ready for bed. Soon enough, it was time for Quiet Time/Lights Out (not that there were lights to put out...). Each teacher was given a time to have Night Watch. I was lucky enough to be given the 12am-1am time slot (the second slot). I stayed awake until 12, since Lights Out was just at 10:45 or so, and sat by the fire with the other teachers until then. It was nice to sit by the warm fire (as it got rather cold at night!) and talk with the other teachers. I had Night Watch with one other teacher. It was very easy; we just stood in the middle of camp and listened for anyone talking or doing something they weren't supposed to. If someone was breaking the rules, we had to write them up, but all was quiet for our post. After that, I headed straight for bed. With two layers of clothing, an extra blanket, warm woolen socks borrowed from Dorina, and a down sleeping bag, I really was not that cold during the night--I only had trouble sleeping due to snoring around me ;-)

In the morning it was very foggy and cold and drizzly. Breakfast came quickly and afterwards we had to tear down camp. My allergies had been bothering me for a couple of days, and the cold rainy weather did not help; however, I managed to pull through. We traveled back to the school building that we'd met at (this time, we were driven back--no boat ride against the current home, luckily. That would have been awful in the cold rain!). After hanging all of the tarps in a giant open room to dry, we went home. Unfortunately, I developed a cold, but with a long weekend (Friday-Sunday) of sleep and rest, I am feeling much better now. :-)