I have experienced my fair share of predawn excursions over the course of my exchange. While living with my first host family, I fled Belgium under starry skies for Paris, England, and the sunny shores of the Mediterranean. Most Rotary exchange students in Belgium have three host families, and I moved in with my second at the beginning of January. Though living with a new family has changed my life in many ways, pulling myself out of bed at 4am, piling into their loaded van, and departing for Switzerland was second nature.

My host father's parents, my host grandparents, own an apartment at the ski station of Ovronnaz, nestled in the Swiss Alps. My host parents, Alain and Christine, and their three children, Sébastien and Virginie, both in university, and Charlotte, a freshman equivalent, make the nine-hour trek to Switzerland at least twice a year. They outfitted me with spare ski supplies from the garage and took me along for a week on the roof of Europe.

Ironically, we entered Switzerland from above. Around noon we had dropped into a winding gorge. A stream ran alongside the road, occasionally poking out from its icy cloak to gurgle along in the brilliant sunshine. Stately pine forests laden with fresh snow clung to the steep walls. Shortly, we rose out of the gorge, twisted through a tidy village tucked into a snowy mountain pass, and dropped into the Swiss valley below.

A stern and heavily equipped officer waved us through customs. The Swiss highway spun out of the valley, dipping and rolling across the undulated agricultural carpet of western Switzerland. We burst over a low fingerlike ridge to see the ground fall away beneath us to the shores of Lake Geneva. The sparkling azure tub ringed in an imposing buttress of rocky peaks that rose precipitously from the opposite bank. We had arrived at the gateway to the Alps.

The highway descended through a scattered town that seemed to be sliding into the lake, then hooked left into the clutch of a mountainous valley. I pressed my face to the window, mesmerized by the sheer might of the peaks soaring above us.

Deeper into the valley, we quit the highway for a thin mountain road. The twisting lane ascended precipitously up the rugged walls in tight switchbacks. My ears popped from the altitude as we climbed into Ovronnaz, a splatter of ski chalets clinging to the snowy mountainside. My host grandparents' apartment, our base camp for the week, was a cozy single story notch in a chalet-style apartment building. Sliding glass doors opened onto a patio with panoramic views of the grandiose peaks slumbering across the valley.

I bounced out of bed the next morning, unable to contain my excitement. We worked through an energizing breakfast of bread, butter, jam, cheese, Nutella, sliced meat, and yoghurt, pulled on our ski gear, and hit the slopes.

A bus, two chairlifts, and a T-bar shuttled us to the station's highest point. Clear light filled the empty sky and twinkled off the fresh snow. An invigorating chill hung in the air. The Alps' rocky heads soared above us. Sunlight raked the exposed ridge, but it was bitterly cold nonetheless. Serrated peaks encircled us, lurching chaotically to the horizon in a frothy sea of frozen rock. The wind lifted a snowy sea-spray from the alpine white caps.

All my previous skiing experience had come from the forested bowls and rolling hillsides of the Appalachian Mountains. By contrast, Switzerland plasters its ski stations onto the ragged folds and exposed ridges of jagged, treeless peaks. The world becomes arbitrary above the tree line. The few delineated trails blend into the limitless expanse of white. Spacial judgement is rendered impossible in the stark universe of snow, mountain, and sky.

We gazed down from our ridge at the little village below, asleep under its blanket of snow. Beyond the village, the hillside fell away to the brown valley below. The mountains on the opposite side of the valley lifted their rugged bulwarks to scrape the achingly blue sky.

We tightened our scarves, tipped our skis forwards and plunged into the precipitous ocean of snow.

Sébastien and Charlotte have been on skis since as soon as they could walk, and shot down the slopes with graceful ease. (Virginie is a life-long skier as well, but her university had classes that week and she did not join us until Friday). Alain learned to ski at the ripe age of six, and has been carving the Alps annually since his college days. Christine, who picked up the sport several years ago, descended in controlled, carefully-executed turns. It took me the morning to regain my ski legs after a year-long hiatus, but joy and adrenaline mounted inside me as I rediscovered the familiar sensation of flight.

The sun floated low over the somber peaks as we caught the final T-bars to the summit. I took a last awestruck gaze at the stark panoramic, then joined my fellow skiers in descending the vertical kilometer to the base of the station. We rejoined our fellow skiers once again that night for a therapeutic plunge in Ovronnaz's geothermally-heated outdoor pools.

Monday morning dawned gray and snowy. We descended from our mountain roost to meet family friends at Veysonnaz, a station located deeper in the valley. The thick clouds and snowy mountains merged into a depthless oblivion of white. It was nearly impossible to see the trail ahead, and over the course of the day I embarked on several inadvertent off-piste adventures.

Ari Snider is a Belfast Area High School junior studying in Belgium through Rotary International. He currently lives with a host family in Waterloo. His discoveries and adventures abroad have been the subject of his blog Belfast/Belgique

Monday's tempest deposited an extra blanket over the already formidable snowpack. The parents and Charlotte opted for a quiet morning in the apartment, while Sébastien and I struck out in search of fresh powder.

We found ample deposits on the higher reaches of the mountain. The clouds had poured into the valley below, forming a fluffy river that lapped at the mountains' rugged flanks. We hopped off the trail and, following the tracks of fellow powder-hungry souls, skirted below a massive weathered cliff to the edge of a vast white bowl. I plunged downwards, executing several smooth turns in the knee-deep snow before sinking my ski tips and somersaulting elegantly through the pristine drifts.

The snow was deeper than anything I had ever experienced before. However, I became more comfortable as the day wore on. By noon I was floating almost gracefully through the alpine powder fields. Sitting back on my hips with my ski tips up, I would plow through the drifts in an exhilarating explosion of glittering flakes. Sébastien and I stopped for a picnic lunch at an open air café on a shelf cut out of the thick snowpack. Having slaked our thirst for powder, we munched contentedly on our sandwiches as the unmoving sea of craggy mountains surged and crashed around us.

The Swiss ski vacation is a unique experience that extends far beyond the slopes. Wednesday, after a long day of skiing on the other side of the valley with another group of close family friends, we retired to their slope-side chalet for the most sacred culinary rite of all ski vacations: The Raclette supper.

Raclette is a traditional type of Swiss cheese. A Raclette supper entails melting a half-wheel of the prized dairy product in a special oven, then pouring it over potatoes, mushrooms, meat, pickles, and sauerkraut. The Raclette oven resembles a capital "E." The top bar holds electrically-heated wires, the half wheel of cheese is clamped face-up to the adjustable middle bar, while the flat base and backbone bar hold the apparatus together. When the top layer of cheese begins to bubble and run, the designated Raclette Chief scrapes it onto the awaiting plate.

Alain, Sébastien, and I awoke from an impromptu couch siesta to find the Raclette preparation in full swing. The cozy wooden chalet hummed with excitement as four families whirred about chopping, slicing, and dicing. The air was warm and tangibly amicable amongst the happy friends who had known one another since university. I was welcomed openly, and soon took my position in the mushroom slicing brigade.

Conversation flowed and bubbled as our golden half-moon of Raclette waned into the evening. I consumed two ample helpings of meat, potatoes, and all the fixins buried under a thick cloak of warm cheese. After a shift hustling empty plates to be replenished with a fresh dollop Raclette, two more servings were thrust amiably upon me. The rich scent of melting cheese, the greasy popping of grilling meat, and the airy tones of rolling conversation mingled in the warm air.

After supper, I joined the men in another storied tradition: The post-Raclette dishtowel fight.

I was still full as we struck out the next morning for yet another ski station further down the valley. We dropped down the familiar twisting lane, switchbacking through dormant vineyards chiseled into the precipitous hillside. When I expressed my surprise at the fervor and audacity with which the Swiss planted vineyards, Sébastien replied that because they have so little arable land on which to grow grapes, the Swiss have learned to make excellent wine with what they manage to coax from the alpine soils.

In contrast to the majestic peaks above, the valley floor felt overwhelmingly utilitarian. Loosely clustered towns placed haphazardly onto the checkerboard mat of gnarled grape vines. A four-lane highway and a railroad wove down the center. Commercial shopping centers, car dealerships, and bland warehouses dotted the land between villages. The Rhône, still in its turquoise infancy, trundled towards the mouth of the valley.

I felt more at home once we mounted anew into the alpine universe of snow, rock, and wind. We met with yet another Belgian couple, and passed yet another exhilarating day on the slopes. We ate lunch in a squat, gray-stone restaurant planted at the foot of a wide alpine basin. A thick mat of somber clouds hung in the sky, but we could still see the Matterhorn, a black humpbacked fang framed between two distant peaks.

Spending a week in the Alps with my host family was an unparalleled pleasure. Between work, school, extracurriculars and business trips, it is often difficult to keep all of us in one place for very long. Our vacation gave us eight full days in each others' company, and I could not have been happier. I talked easily and laughed often with Sébastien, the first older brother I have ever had, and Charlotte, the first sister I have ever had. My host parents, too, have welcomed me so generously into their family. I had long dreamed of skiing in the Alps, and thanks to my family's warmth, generosity, and humor, I realized my dream more perfectly then I could have ever imagined.

Friday was bittersweet, for it was our last day in the mountains. We finished the week on a high note, however, paying a visit Crans Montana, a massive station where Virginie had come to stay with a friend for a long weekend on the slopes. The mountain weather shifted erratically between thick clouds, screaming snow squalls, and brilliant sunshine. We floated one last time through drifts of airy powder, ate one last sumptuous slopeside meal, and descended one last time from the stark and beautiful mountains.

We closed our Swiss vacation in our cozy apartment with a steaming pot of rich fondue.