Wait...it's April?

Eeek! How the time really does fly when you are having fun. I have officially been in Switzerland for 8 months. In some ways, it seems like I only arrived in Zurich a few days ago, but in other ways, it seems like I have already experienced a decade worth of memories. 8 months. It seems so weird, but fitting at the same time.

I am currently lying in my bed with my laptop on my stomach and am on about five different medications. I have a fever and a headache, and feel like I am dying boredom, which is what prompted me to write this blog post. I caught the flu from Laura and Sienna, who both had to miss three days of school last week. I am supposed to leave for Rome on Monday, and am desperately trying to get better in the next two days. With the amount of medication and bananas my host mom has been force feeding me, I am hopeful, but wish me luck! And if you have any suggestions on activities that you can do without moving, feel free to tell me. Reading the Great Gatsby in German truly isn't as fun as it sounds.

Anyways, here is my brief recap of the end of March and beginning of April:

It is FINALLY Spring Break! That means the entire Kanton has a blissful two weeks off to go traveling and vacationing to exotic places like Spain, the Maldives and the Canary Islands (those are all places my friends are actually going) . I am lucky enough to be going to Venice and Rome this week with Rotary, and I can not explain in words how excited I am! We are going to tour the Vatican and the colosseum and Sistine Chapel, and eat a lot of pizza! This is my first time in Italy, which I have been dreaming of going to since I would post pictures of Venice on my binder in Middle School.

Then the week after, I am flying to Nice to meet my Aunt and then go to Paris with her. I have missed her so much, and I am unbelievably excited to see my first family member in over eight months. And f course, to be in Paris!

After I return, it will be the beginning of the hectic and fantastic month of May. I will return to just two days of school before leaving for Berlin with my class to study music and art in the cultural center of Germany for a week. I am secretly nerding-out, because I am the most excited to be in Berlin because of the history. Dad, if your reading this: remember you helping me with my Cold War presentation last year? And now I am actually going to be there myself! I will be thinking of you when we go to the Berlin Wall, history-wiz. This will be better than any lesson Mr. Zecher could give!

The week after is only a three day week of school, and I plan on using my time off to go traveling with the Zug girls, and going to "LSD", which is a big celebration at our school for the last day of school for then Seniors (unfortunate acronym, I know). Needless to say, this is going to be a crazy  couple of months, with my first week of school being the last week of May. I know I am not going to have ANY time to blog, and I apologize in advance.

So here is what has been happening so far:

My class finally preformed our Beatles concert to a packed house last Wendesday. Over 400 people came, and we raised $4000 for the school's music program. We had been having a very intense rehearsal schedule, but I am very proud of our final product. My friends and host family came, and it was really nice to see faces I knew in the crowd, and even more to be preforming again, since I hadn't realized how much I really missed it. Our director (and my class' teacher) not only conducted and played the piano for the show, but also watched over some 50 teenagers for a week at our music camp, and all by himself. I think Mr. Ruetti is one of the kindest and most hardworking teachers I have ever had the pleasure of having, and one who really does change the lives of the students he teaches. Thank-you so much Mr. Ruetti, you are amazing!

I was also asked to make a cake for the concert, so I decided to make an American cake, which are much different than Swiss ones. I planned on making my favorite carrot cake recipe, and bought all the ingredients in preparation. I didn't plan on how hard it would be for me to bake, and ran out of time, and had to leave for the concert while it was baking, under the watchful eyes of my guest mother. I didn't realize how difficult it is to bake in the metric system! The metric system measures weight, unlike the US system which measures mass. I had to use this little scale for all the ingredients, and translate the German ingredients into English, and substitute brown sugar, which I guess doesn't exist in Europe. Long story short: something went awry along the way. Terribly wrong. My host mom brought me the news before the show, when she said she couldn't bring the cake because of an "accident". When I got home, I saw that "accident" was an understatement. My cake completely exploded, and somehow managed to get even outside the oven. The entire house smelled like smoke, and the oven was covered in black cake guts. My host parents weren't mad, they just thought it was funny, and so did I. My host dad's theory? He thinks I though that yeast was baking soda. Hahahahahaha

What else has happened these last weeks? Lets see. Yesterday, when Phoebe and I had a free afternoon, we decided to go on an Asian food hunt, since cheap Chinese food is basically non-existant in Switzerland. After a lot of train jumping, we ended up finding a take-out place in Winterthur, which is a city a little north of Zurich.  Let me just tell you, there is nothing more delicious and mouth-watering than having your first Chinese food in 8 months. Chinese food is one of the biggest American staples (I know, ironic statement) that exchange students crave. I think we both died a little eating it. And the best part of the story? We found A SUSHI RESTAURANT right next door! This is the first sushi place I have seen in my entire exchange, so of course, we had to get some sushi too. We probably consumed two days worth of calories, but it was worth it to eat both of our favorite food again, and a food that reminded us both of home. I just didn't let myself think of where that fish came from, since Switzerland is in the Alps...

Those are probably the two biggest events of the last two weeks (is that sad that one is entirely about food?) but have been having a marvelous time. I have been having so much fun hanging out with friends at the lake, and exploring this beautiful country during the weekend. Easter was absolutely wonderful here. I got some chocolate bunnies from my host family, which were probably the best things I have eaten in my entire life. Swiss chocolate Easter Bunnies, c'mon! We also had a delicious 3 hour brunch with my host family's family, who are all so sweet and kind, and I loved talking too (even though 3 hours is a little strenuous). My host grandma even said she wants to adopt me.

I can't wait for these next few weeks! Next time I see y'all, I will have been to France, Germany and Italy, and I am so excited. Until then, bis bald mitenand! Let my flu go away, and the fun begin! xoxo


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THE EXCHANGE STUDENT'S CREED:

I agree with every single one of these :)

Rotex Weekend!

Hey everybody! I just came back from the Rotex weekend (Rotex are exchange students who have returned from their exchanges) and it was so much fun!

We started the say by meeting in the Bern trainstation. All the exchange students from the West side of Switzerland were there--over 60 teenagers. We then met our Rotex leaders, who brought us by bus to Bern's Ropetech. A Ropetech is a park where ropes and bridges are suspended from tree over 50 ft high for you to walk on. About half of the students and I got to go first. We go suited up in harnesses, and learned the basics, and then got to try it out. In Switzerland, it is a lot harder to sue someone than it is in America, which is part of the reason why we got to do this semi-dangerous thing without any superviosion, which was super nice.

It was so so so much fun! We walked on ropes (clipped in of course, so it we fell we wouldnt die) 50 ft in the air! Some of the obstacles were so scary, and I am proud I was brave of enought to do them. One of them was where you had to walk across a log path in the air. The logs were standing vertically, and were suspened each by one wire, so you had to walk on the tops of them as steps. It was really freaky because they tipped when ever you walked on them, and the girl in front of me fell, and was hanging in the air by her harness!

You can see a person here stating to make the climb up the steps (right in picutre) to the starting of the lowest platforms.







A lot of the course was also ziplines. My parents would not believe you if you told them what I did...haha. I climbed up a series of ladders until I was parallel with the top of the forest, and then went on a 50 meter long zipline. I didnt get any pictures of that one, but here is a picture of one of my friend's Emily going on a smaller one. You can see here standing on the platform.




Later, we all took a train to a log cabin in Langenthall, and stayed there for the night. Immagine 60+ teenagers (and exchange students for that matter, which I think are a very...welll...open breed of teenagers) alone in a cabin for a night, with the only superviosion being four 20 year olds. Yep, it was a very fun night. We were all up until 4:30 in the morning...haha. I bunked with some girls I havent met yet, and they were all so nice. We talked so loudly that some Spanish girls who went to sleep early had to kick us out in to the hallway.

In the morning, after a great breakfast of bread and Nutella, (Swiss people loooveee Nutella!) we played a relay race and other games (which my team SUCKED at...we got an A for effort though!). We also took some picutres.

Here are all the exchange students who happened to be outside when this was taken.











We also took some country pride pictures.....yeah, America was not impressive. Here are the Canadians:

And here are the Americans. Only country which had no flags at all! Goooo America!!! I think we were the least patriotic group, but hey, how can you compare to Canadians or Argentinians? Those exchange students are weirdly partriotic...when I said I didnt like hockey, I think Patick got angry at me.

Here are the South Americans plus dark skinned people. (As you can tell by the addition of three Americans...haha)








To end a great weekend, some of us hung out afterwards in Zurich and made plans to meet again during break in 2 weeks. My new friends Hailey (a Canadian...boo) and Kelsey (weirdly enough, from Portland!) and I are planning on tracing the outline of Switzerland by trains, so we can get postcards from 6 different countries in one day! Yeah, strangly enough, from Switzerland, you can visit Italy, France,Germany, Austria and Lichtenstein in one day! I'm so excited! And Emily, Kim might come with us (more Canadians...double boo) to Ticino during break too. Ticino is the Southern most Kanton of Zurich, and the speak Itlalian there. We hear the gilatto and pizza is super good!

 Most popular game of the night: Ninja! We are such mature people.










You probably wont hear from me for 2 weeks or so. Next week is work week, and my class is preforming  music in the streets of Basel. Then, its vacation (and all my fun trips!) but I wont have acess to a school computer, and my computer crashes on this website. So until next time! Thanks for reading :) I'll try to update my last post tomorrow, sorry I have been so delayed--its just hard finding time to do this, Im a busy girl!

Beginning of School

Hello everyone! Switzerland is so much fun, and I am having the time of my life. Sorry I have taken so long to update, but as you can immagine, I hardly have time, and our internet goes out really easily. Actaully, I'm typing this at my school! Lots of stuff has happened since I last wrote, so this is going to be a lengthy post: you have been warned.

So many people have been asking me, "So, how is it?", and honestly, there is no way I can explain. Life is beginning to feel normal over here, and things dont feel as foreign as they used to. Immagine having to explain to someone exactly what life on Vashon is like; sure, you can give some funny annecdotes, but they will never truly know. It is so weird to think that my life over here is completly unknown to my friends and family at home. They have never had Margrit's cooking, talked to Elle or Sienna or gone to Migros to buy lunch.  hope these pictures and my stories will help you to understand whats happening here as best as I can!

Last week, Rotary took the exchange students and I took underground caves formed at the bast of a river. They were made by rain water dripping down rocks for hundreds of years! We had to hike through a forest to get to them, (one of the few forests I have seen so far) and it really reminded me of home. Being by the river looked just like it would if you were hiking near the Columbia back in the States. The caves were very intricate, and exciting to look through. It was really damp and cold too, and it reminded me of something you would see in Scooby-Doo.

This is a close up of the weird rock formations--they're kind of gross, aren't they?

Then after that, I met my host mom Margrit to go on a boat to celebrate the 125th anniversay of their family's company. I took the bus and walked there, and snapped some prettz pictures of Zug on the way to the marina.

The boat was super nice, and was decked out (haha, no pun intended!) with tables with white table clothes and fancy wine glasses.It was almost more like a yacht, and I really enjoyed it.

Only down side was that everyone was smoking on the deck. I mean, EVERYONE smokes here...even teenagers at school, because it is legal when you are 16. Sorry to go on a mini-rant there, but that has been one of the biggest things that has been bugging me, it is really hard for me to watch kids my age smoke, when the probably don't know the after effects of it.

It was still a beautiful night, and we went swimming in the lake and watched the sun set, and ate a LOT of food. I tried my first cherry kirsch, which Zug is famous for. I had no idea that it was alcoholic, so when I took a bite, it surprised me and I spit it out on the plate. All the adults were laughing, but I was reallz embaressed. Well, at least I know now that even cakes can be spiked!

That weekend, I also went with my host mom to a farmtown in Bern, her hometown, to see her family. It was VERY rural out there! We took a hike (have you noticed a trend in my weekends? Hiking basically every one? So Swiss.) and at a great brunch on top of a mountain; cheese, bread, yogurt and hash browns. That is a typical Swiss breakfast, lots of lights appetizers like cheese and bread, because lunch is there most important meal of the day. There were even yodelers there! And we went to here sister's house to celebrate her birthday.

The next week, Rotary took us to hike the Wildspitz. Very very hard hike for us Americans! Well, except Laura who was booking it up with the Swiss people...haha. It wasn't that hard I guess, but our guides were going really quickly, so it was hard to keep up with them. It wasn't that bad at the end, and the view was great! We had a 4 course meal afterwards (consuming twice the calories we burned I'd assume) and met a lot of Rotarians, who were all so kind and nice. Fun night!

Me and my friend Sienna have an ongoing rivalry about whether Hilo or Seattle is better, so I was very happy when one of the Rotarians said they knew what the space needle was! First one! My exchange friends always jokingly say that all we have is vampires. Pshh.  Sienna just though it was funny that I had only met one person who had heard of it, when everyone here drinks Starbucks.




This weekend, I went to Einsedeln with my host family. It is a beautiful BEAUTIFUL monistary (how do you spell that? Spell check wont work in English grrrr) in Schwyz. I couldn't take pictures, but found some on Google!

It is probably the most beautiful thing I have seen in my whole life. No joke. The building itself if gorgeous, but inside is even more spectacular. Just for reference, those benches in the picture below are about up to my shoulder in height. This picture doesnt even do the buidling justice.



The ceilings are huge, and covered with a painting worthy of Michaelangelo (again, how do you spell that?!?) of angels and clouds, and Jesus and humans and EVERYTHING. It looked like something from Anastazia or the Davinci Code. There was even a secret morgue underneath for monks who have died! Definitely Davinci Code worthy.



I could have stared at the ceiling for days. I kept hearing Viva la Vida in my head, because the giant picture of people and angles jumping to the sky seemed like a mural of all human existance, sorry if that sounds to corny. It in all seriousness was...for no better word...EPIC.


Some other things I have been up to but havent gotten pictures of are going to Lucerne and eating on the lake, going to an art museum in Zurich with my class and going to musical theater rehearsals for Aida. Life is so much fun over here, and so relaxed. When I was late to class yesterday, my teacher just told me it was fine, and to go outside and read! I love being an exchange student. Every night I go somewhere else, and every day is a new adventure of trying new foods, taking trains, and visiting some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Its not all fun and games, however. It is hard never being in your old home, where you could not worry about dressing up for dinner or where everything goes, or even being able to fight with your parents when you have a bad day (is that weird I miss that mom? It was a good stress releiever!) and to top that all off, you are in a constant state of confusion, because you never know whats happening, and it is hard never knowing what people are talking about. I used to be good at speaking, and now I have the skill level of a 4 year old.

I havent gotten to homesick (yet). I will get pangs of it when I see something and think "Oh! Anna Rose would love this!" or something only someone from Vashon would understnad.And as I said before, it is so hard for me feeling stupid all the time, especially in school. Its ironic how Switzerland is the land of mountains, because here I have had some of my highest highs, and some dropping lows.

I still love it though, and do not regret coming one bit. Until next time!

Where it all started

Hey guys! I am slowly getting ready for my year abroad next year, and I can tell you, it has been a long process. So not to bore you with all the details, I'll keep it short and sweet. The whole process has taken 8 months. I have had multiple interviews, filled our paperwork, gone to orrientations, and then more interviews. Finally, I was placed in Switzerland two months ago! :) Now, I am filling out a visa and keeping in contact with my host family. (I learned where I was going last month) I'll keep you posted, but from now until July its going to be a lot more paperwork and organizing.

On a positive note, I know which school I will be going to! Kantonsschule Zug :) I have google stalked it a TON, which is just making me more excited. Zug looks so beautiful! It is in the center of Switzerland, just North of the Alps. Some of the building were built 600 years ago!!!

I CANT WAIT FOR SWITZERLAND!!!