Ich liebe...

So I realize now I have not mentioned my favorite things about Switzerland! While being an exchange student can be really tough sometimes, there are also some amazing benefits, and it is easy to think of many things that I love, and will miss when my year is over....

• Cow bells (there everywhere! All the time!)
• Church bells (every hour!)
• Foamy hot chocolate (hard to explain)
• Trains/ Buses/ Trams!!
• My GA (train ticket...allows me to go anywhere, anytime for free!)
• Things open past 8pm 
• Random castles/ ruins behind my house
• Bread every morning for breakfast
• Zopf (Sunday bread)
• chocolate!!!
• windows that open both sideways and at an angle 
• Cool shoes
• European clothes
• Biking everywhere
• Kissing Greetings
• Being able to bike up hills
• Biking highways
• German!
• walking paths
• Amazing views everywhere you look
• The food :)
• Milk in a bag
• Recycling everything.....(and I mean everything!)
• The sweets/pastry's/baked goods!!!
• No school on Wednesday/Thursday mornings
• The toilet wall flushers
• Bed comforters with sheets (like a pillow case)
• Rivella
• Hours off from school (when no class)
• Cooking! Everyone can cook (real cooking) (adults, teenagers, children, boys, girls, etc) 
• Fellow AFS students
• The sunset over Ormalingen

Thats a very short list, but to name a few. :) 

Things I don't like so much:

• Expensive!! Living where the money is is not always a good thing.
• School on Saturdays
• School until 5pm
• Biking everywhere (its cold in the mornings!)
• German!
• Homesickness

As you can see the "don't like" list, is much shorter then the "like" list :) 

Best Wishes to everyone near & far!

Ciao

Quick updates....

So yet another 3 weeks has passed (without posting....), and I can not believe that I have officially been in Switzerland for almost two months now!!  Every day I am doing something new, learning a new language, and meeting new people, but it feels normal now. Like this is my daily life/routine. It is no longer strange to me to not understand the dinner conversation, or to take a train everyday to school.  Its hard to explain, but I am forgetting the little details that made up my daily life back in the states. Or more forgetting the differences, in the details, between the USA and Switzerland. When people ask me "What is different here?", its hard to think of them, because everything here that is different, seems normal to me now. The USA seems so far away from my life here, but I also feel like I just left.

So quick updates on things that happened before I went on Fall Vacation....

Me & Fellow AFS'ers in Lucerne

As mentioned I had one week of school at gymnasium before fall vacation....before this week I had my last week of language class. That week I spent a lot of time with other AFS'ers in Basel,  at our chapter welcome party, at a birthday party, and even in Zurich visiting another girl from the USA. All the AFS'ers are so nice and fun to be around that I can never stop laughing when we are together. Its hard to explain to people the connection you instantly have with other exchange students, but its really strong. Even though my entire life back home (friends, family, school, interests) are different from theres, its easy to become best friends. I feel like I have known many of them for years, not weeks, and I often forget that really we know nothing about each other. Sharing this exchange year is such a big connection that you don't even realize the differences. Its amazing :)

Beautiful View from the boat

Famous Bridge

On the last day of Language School, my class decided to go to Luzern and see the city. We went on the famous boat, crossed the bridge, and basically just had a fun final last day all together. Lucerne is beautiful, and if you've never been there, then you must go!!

While I am at Gymnasium, I will also have language classes, but only once a week. It is in a town near basel at the Gymnasium there, which is the same school on of my AFS friends goes to. The class is a mix of old (already been here for 6 months or so) and new AFS'ers, mixing kids who know nothing, with those who are almost fluent, so really we dont learn anything....hahaha. But it is a lot of fun. There are so many new exchange students that I have not met yet, so its interesting. I have to prepare a presentation on the USA this week so hopefully it will go well.

On Saturday I had a floor hockey tournament with my sports club in Sissach, which is a nearby village.The club is a group that meets once a week, on Wednesday nights, and plays a bunch of different sports each time. The tournament was a lot of fun even though we lost :) haha. The girls in the club are all really nice, and that night a bunch of the girls and I went out together. It was fun, and really great to finally have some swiss friends here. The club has different tournaments with different sports throughout the year, and in February we have a ski weekend in the mountains. :D

Tschüss!