Speaker: Aymo from Switzerland, Mount Baker Secondary School, Grade 11
Why did you choose Rocky Mountain International Student Program for your study abroad experience?
Aymo from Switzerland: My reason why I chose the Rocky Mountain International Student Program is because I live in Switzerland and I want to spend my year abroad in the same environment or a similar environment as in Switzerland. So they have a lot of mountains and snow here. They do have in Switzerland too, so I can snowboard and like do what I like, follow my hobbies, and it also doesn't get cold or too cold in summer. So it's like nice and warm here the same in Switzerland, so it's like not too weird change for me. Yeah.
What do you like best about Cranbrook, BC?
Aymo from Switzerland: the thing that I liked the most about the community is that everyone is so polite and so nice. For example, in Switzerland, we don't say, hey, how are you when you like order something at Mcdonald's or at Starbucks? It's like, it was a little weird for me in the beginning, but now it's like I adapted, it's like automatically you ask someone, how are you, if you order or talk to someone. And that's what I really like. And also the community and the high school is not too big. So you have like a lot of people that, you know when you know everybody knows pretty much everyone and that's something that I really like and it's easy to like meet people when they're not that many.
What do you like best about Mount Baker Secondary School?
Aymo from Switzerland: My favorite thing about Mount Baker is that the school is not too big. I think I already mentioned in question two. So you can like easily started a conversation with everybody. It's so easy and everybody is so nice and it's just I know I like the environment that are like way more students in my school in Switzerland, so I have no overview who is there. But here, if I see someone, I can easily tell, Oh yeah, I've seen that guy before. I or I was in a chemistry class with her or something. It's like, like a small community. It's so nice.
What do you like best about your homestay?
Aymo from Switzerland: I love my homestay and my family and I think they do love Me too, or at least I hope they do. And my favorite thing about them is that they like, they're like so open with me, like they leave me my freedom. But we also have one, we have like a perfect balance between I can do what I want and I do stuff with them. So we spent time together, we went ice fishing at Lake Moyie with Derby with my host dad and my host brothers and it was amazing. And yeah, I just absolutely love them. And yeah, the balance between like having my free time and spending time with them is like something that I really appreciate and they're really open. That's amazing.
What has been the best part of your experience with Rocky Mountain International Student Program?
Aymo from Switzerland: My favorite thing about the, or my favorite experience with the RMISP was definitely the winter camp at Blue Lake. It was so funny. We had like our own cabins or cottages and we, we felt like a small village, everybody knows everyone we get along so well and the activities there are also so fun. And what is I also like the food a lot. Sometimes in Switzerland. We when we have camps are actually not even Switzerland in general when we have camps with like many people in at school, sometimes the food gets really bad or there's not enough food or something, but the food there was actually really good. And yeah, it was just amazing and like the night I spent the night with my friends in the cabin and it was so funny.
