Daily Living...

3 weeks. 21 days. 504 Hours.  30240 minutes. Also known as the time I have been in Switzerland. Its strange because one minute I am anxiously waiting, planning, and packing, and now all of a sudden I have been here for more than 1814400 seconds, and have a daily life. :) I have not posted in forever, and for that I am sorry! I have just been really busy and as many of you know, I am an expert procrastinator. But I am now planning to write a post every Saturday where I will talk about my week. For now, I will try to sum up my past 3 weeks...

Below, is a (week)day in the life of Sarah- Swiss style... ;)
7:45 - wake up
8:30 - Breakfast

Language School friends :)

9:05 - leave the house & walk to bus stop
9:11 - get on bus headed to the train station
9:18 - Arrive at train station.....chill
9:29 - get on train headed for Olten w/ Maggie and Sofia
9:45 - Arrive in Olten....walk to school
10:00 - Language School
12:00 - Lunch Break
1:00 - Class resumed
3:00 - FREE!!!! Headed home
4:00 - Home :)
4:01 - chilling/homework/hanging with host family/Basel/something
7:00- Dinner
8:30 - chilling resumed haha
11:00 - Bed

The first weekend I went to my host uncles house on the lake in Luzern!!! It was amazingly beautiful, surrounded by the alps, and I couldnt take enough pictures! We hung out in the lake, and I saw for the first time the traditional swiss sport...a strange lumberjack style form of wrestling. Something that started on the farms. Very entertaining to watch and my host uncle got really into it which was fun! The winner of the entire tournament won a $30,000 (the dollar is almost exactly = to the swiss-franc now :( ) cow....hahhahahahaha. A serious prize, but it still makes me laugh :D

The Rhein in Basel

I have been to Basel about 5 times now, and it is a beautiful city! Reminds me a lot of Burlington back home, only much much bigger in size. The first time I did the touristy stuff, and simply hung out on the Rhein with a few of Carla's friends, and since then I have been shopping, gone to the movies (step-up 3D in English w/ German subtitles....amazing theater), been out to a few restaurants, etc. I also carried around my first whine bottle...i didn't buy it, but even carrying it around on the streets was strange! I felt like someone was going to come and arrest me! Its an amazing city though, and I feel so lucky that its so close! Apparently there are some huge festivals there in February that last a week or so.....I am excited!!

It was a pretty amazing Poster :)

In language school, (which is going really well.....its starting to feel a lot like regular school now....boring and I dont want to go in the mornings... , but I know it is helping a lot as I am understanding so much more at home. It really amazing how much German I am learning in just 3 weeks!!) we all had to do a presentation on our country's, in German. I was surprised at how much German I knew when I went to write the speech!. I presented with Maggie, as we are both from the USA (mika, the other girl from the USA who was in our language class knew so much German after 5 years of it back in the states, that she started at the local school after the first week). It was cool to learn about the other peoples country's, as even though i have known them for three weeks, we don't talk much about the details of our country's (more just our lives back home).

Me, Rebekka, and Carla

I have already made chocolate chip cookies over here twice, but I must say, baking something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie is still an adventure. First I had to search Migros (Migros and Coop are the two huge grocery stores over here. There everywhere!) for baking soda, and then had to figure out the recipe conversions, and try to explain the things I needed to my host family. The Vanilla is very different, as it is not really a liquid, and the brown sugar is very different so the cookies end up tasting different. However there still amazingly delicious and the many people I have introduced to them all approve greatly :D haha.

The house we stayed in...It was so old!

Last weekend we had our AFS weekend with kids from Olten Language class, as well as Basel Language class. (about 25). I have to admit, at first I was not excited to go, and thought it would be really boring...just old people talking to us about the rules, and asking "what do you hope to gain from this experience?" but this is not what happened....at all. The camp leaders were four kids who had also been on exchanges, aging from 18-25. They were all really funny, and the camp started with them making us hold hands and walk two by two not talking....I felt like I was in kindergarten...haha. But after the initial traditional haseing and picture taking of our hands, the fun began. It felt more like a weekend hanging out with 20 new amazing friends, chilling around the camp fire, staying up till 4am talking, playing drinking games with overly sweetened ice tea (60% powder, 40% water....so gross) (I still cant think about ice tea without gagging now) and other strange games like trying to open wrapped chocolate with a fork and knife while dressed for winter skiing, or "Honey I love you....but I just can't smile". I was honestly sad to leave, but luckily many of the kids I met are in my local chapter so I will see them often.

AFS'ers!

On Thursday I went to the Gymnasium in Liestal which is where I will be attending school for the year (same school my host siblings go to) and will be in the FMS class, first year. Schools here are more like colleges in that you chose a major, and have mostly all your classes with the same kids (in your major). You only have to be at school when you have class, and there is school Mondays-Fridays anytime from 7:45 - 6-ish. and On Saturdays until noon. Along with my regular schedule, I will have language class on Thursday afternoons in a town above Basel, to help with the German. My schedule seems pretty cool. While I have no afternoons off, I have no school Wednesday and Thursday mornings, and am always out by 4 at the latest. I will post a more detailed schedule once I start at gymnasium.....but you can say I am very excited!

Last night I went to Basel and met my AFS Liaison. Her name is Caroline, and she was in Rochester NY on exchange two years ago. She is actually the host sister of a girl I met at AFS weekend last week :). We went to this really cool Italian restaurant, and just talked and hung out for 3 hours. It was a lot of fun!

Traveling here is also something that still amazes me. My host sister went to Berlin for a weekend with her friends, and my host brother...well okay... Three days after i got here he left for Greece for a week, then was home for a week, Now is in France for a week, then home for a week, then a camp thing, and then home for a week, and then we are all in Spain for a week. Its something so surreal for me, but when I think about it its like me traveling to NYC, Boston, Washington DC,....I still think I would chose traveling to Spain or France over Washington DC or something any day though ;)

Today is September 11th, and its crazy to think its been 9 years since the attack on the USA. My first day on the train ride home from the airport i was looking at a magazine and saw a USA Soldier holding a sign reading "baby I'm coming home". Thats when my host sister said..."oh yeah the wars over, did you hear about that?" It took me about 10 minutes to process the news! Such a strange concept!! I was seven when the war began, and its hard to imagine the USA without it. But I must say it was a great start to my exchange, to know that such a big movement for peace was already happening. :)

Its really starting to feel like fall here, and that makes me miss home. Fall was always my favorite season, with the local Tumbridge fair, school starting, football season starting, apple picking, pumpkin carving, and leaves changing. I am already starting to see some pokes of yellow in the trees here. But while it sucks to be missing everything back home, I know  I am so lucky to be here. There are so many things I am going to get to experience, and so many people I will get to meet from all over the world! So i think its good to have that reminder of home here....Shot out to Randolph!!

Tomorrow I have a welcome party with the local chapter. I must say the chapter is really cool. Its all young kids who have gone on exchanges running it, and we're doing a ton of fun activities together throughout the year like going to see a Basel soccer game (FYI they just made it into the Euro Championship league!!) I can't wait. Plus the other exchangers are all really fun, and entertaining to be around. Well I guess thats all for now! I promise to start posting more often! :)
Bis Bald! (until soon)
~Sarah