Papiliorama, Plus a Fribourgeois Afternoon

Yesterday I went to a Rotary event in Kerzers at the Papiliorama, one of those greenhouses filled with a butterfly garden. The event turned out to be a volunteer experience, and my counselor had forgotten to tell the president of my host club that he had suggested that we come, so everyone was a bit surprised by they said I was welcome to stay and help out. The event was for disabled and very sick children to come to this place with their families and enjoy the butterflies, food, and activities for a night. I ended up cutting out paper butterflies for the kids to color on and I ended up talking to the kids about their drawings as they sat at the table. It was really nice to be around kids because I haven't had any contact with kids at all this year. The youngest host sibling I have had so far is 15! Although that will change with my 3rd host family, which I will blog about a bit later.

So I actually got there an hour early because my Rotary counselor also hadn't specified a time, and I went and took pictures of the plants and butterflies while I was waiting for the others to arrive.

Then today we had the final debriefing meeting with the people in charge of the Rotary exchange for my host district. For once we had a Rotary event in Fribourg, so I only had to take the bus in the morning! And to make things even better, some Rivella representatives were giving out free bottles of Rivella green at the train station. Rivella is a Swiss soft drink made with 35% milk whey. It's actually pretty good. It was a bit strange the first time I tasted it but now I like it.

Paula and I in front of the train station with our Rivellas.

After the Rotary meeting, during which we talked about our year and about what could be improved with the program, we all hung out in Fribourg.

A view of the Cathédrale St.-Nicholas and the Sarine River

We ate lunch in Fribourg, visited the flea market, went down to a very small beach by the river, got ice cream from the best ice cream store in town, and played basketball. Not everybody was there for all of this. A few kids had to leave Firbourg right after the meeting, which was sad. A lot of people took their trains home before basketball so by then there were only four of us. The beach was very small and strewn with bits of broken glass as well as more sinister things, and as it was pretty much as far as one could get from an expensive beach resort, we christened it the M-Budget Beach after the cheapest generic brand that Migros carries. Of course I have nothing against M-Budget itself. The products are very nice. I chew M-Budget gum, talk on an M-Budget phone, write with M-Budget pencils, etc. It just made us laugh to imagine the entire beach somehow covered with the green M-Budget logo like the rest of the M-Budget products.

Flea Market

The flea market was nice, too. I have gotten used to everything being really expensive here so I was astounded that it was even possible to pay such low prices, even for used goods. I ended up getting a Swiss patch and a pin for my Rotary jacket, plus all three of the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials books in German for four francs each, which is about a quarter of the price that you would pay for a new book. Yay for flea markets!