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Wow! I am always catching myself every month, remembering to write on here! Time, it seems, likes to play tricks on me and goes by really fast.
So a lot of new things have happened since the last time I left you. I'll start in chronological order (oh I’m surprised I still know this big English word)
NEW HOST FAMILY! Exactly a month ago today, I changed to my third and last host family. I was living in the middle of the city and now I am living only 10 minutes out of town. I have had such good luck with my host families. They have all been so nice, open, and friendly toward me. I really feel I have made a connection with all of them and I will consider them my host mom and dad and brothers for the rest of my life. My last host family here is really great! My host dad is an architect and is constantly working like my other host dads. My host mom works as a secretary in a High school part time and also teaches Yoga. I have two host siblings, Oliver (14) and Lara (21). Lara has her own apartment and works in an office downtown, and Oliver goes to a different school than I do in Luzern as well. This family is very open and caring. They always are interesting and I’ve never had a dull moment with them.
EASTER! So two weeks in the new host family and Easter pops out of nowhere. My host mom is originally from the Southern canton called Wallis (where the Matterhorn is), so we went to visit her mother and her brothers. Little did I know that she grew up in a town with a population no bigger than 150. Yes, 150 people. If you can think of the most stereotypical Swiss town, on the mountains, with a road going up that only fits one car for both ways of traffic, and then you have an idea of what this town was. It was great!!! I felt I should have got out an Alphorn and started attempting to play something. Easter in Switzerland is very much like back at home. The Easter bunny comes on Sunday morning and the town goes to Church on Sunday morning too. Everyone goes to grandma’s house and eats a big dinner (unfortunately no turkey though). And I also went snowboarding for the last time this weekend. April 7th, exactly 8 months in Switzerland, I was snowboarding. I have never even snowboarded in March before!!
THE REAL PARENTS! And just as Easter came to an end Sunday afternoon, I was back on the train home because my parents came the next morning. They stayed for a week and a half. It was great to see my mom again after 8 months!!!! And dad, well I already saw him but it was good to see him too. Jokes jokes haha. So we traveled to the French part of Switzerland (the west part) and saw Geneva, the UN and the Red Cross Museum, Lausanne, the Olympic Museum and the town, and Chateux de Chillion which is a castle on Lake Geneva which dates back to the 1100’s! I was able to practice my French too, since I am just starting a beginner course here. Didn’t get too far. Est-ce que vous parlez Allemand? Do you speak English? Really nicely said I might add. Yes, then we went to a town called Grindelwald which is directly under the Jungfrau, over 4000m high. We took a train to the highest point we could, couldn’t really see much because of the fog, but we were up there!!! Then it was back to Luzern to visit all the host families and my Rotary Councilor. It was great being able to spend time with my parents again and getting a taste of home once more. They were gone last Wednesday and in two days I was off to….
MUNICH with an exchange-student friend of mine! Great city! We got there on Friday and stayed till Sunday afternoon. When we got off the train we went straight into exploring the old city, the old church’s, and everything that falls in between. The biggest difference from Switzerland though, THEY SPEAK HIGH GERMAN!!! Swiss dialect is very hard to understand if you only speak High German, but here that’s all they speak! I understood everything! It was awesome! I got a headache from understanding everything! Wonderful, all I can say. On Saturday we went to the big soccer stadium, the Allianz Arena, which can seat up to 66,000 people. Underneath it is Europe’s biggest parking lot, over 9000 parking spaces. It was nuts! I’ve never seen such a huge arena before in my life! After this we checked out the Olympic stadium and grounds in Munich too. Immense. No words.
The most memorable part of this trip though is most definitely when we went to the Dachau Concentration Camp last Sunday. I was taught throughout my life about what happened in World War 2 and the tragedies that occurred, but never fully realized it until this point. Over 200,000 people were held at some point in time at Dachau between 1933 till 1945. Dachau was mostly just a camp to hold people until they could be sent to other camps. Still, walking through those front gates made my stomach twist and it didn’t untwist until I was safely on the bus back to the train station two hours later. Just stepping on the same ground where all of those people who were tortured and killed made me want to run from the place. The things I saw there where I will always remember, but I will never go back to one again. The gas chamber was the worst. And I didn’t even realize I was in it for about 30 seconds. 11,000 people died in Dachau, and it was one of the better ones.
Anyways on a lighter note, I am back in school now and am just getting back into life’s routine. Next exciting thing, two of my good friends from my high school are coming to visit me next week!!! I am really excited and can’t wait to show my friends all the great stuff about my exchange country, not to mention traveling with them to Rome and Paris!!! Hope everyone is doing well at home and is enjoying the beautiful weather! I know I am, its plus 27 today.
March 24, 2007
It's been a month since my last blog so I better fill you guys in a little. So I left off with Fasnacht and skiing, and the month of February. In March nothing huge or exciting happened, just settling into life a bit more. I am now starting to understand more and more swiss german. I can sit down in the middle of a conversation and know what they are talking about and jump in. This makes life ALOT easier, because my friends don't even remember that I'm an exchange student anymore haha. So with that coming, and now understanding almost all of high german, I am starting to get right into school and with the classwork. Granted I still can't do a whole lot but its come a long ways from the beginning.
This month I went to a city in the French part of Switzerland called Lausanne, the Olympic Capital of the World. This city was very beautiful. I went with two of my good friends (Leah and Luis) for a Saturday to explore. We checked out the Cathedral (huge!) and a castle which was cool, the lake front which was beautiful, but the main point was going to the Olympic Museum! The whole Olympic Centre is in Lausanne and the Museum was amazing! First we saw all the history, got to see and touch all of the torches from the turn of the last century, see all the medals, and there was many more displays on training and Olympic coins and stamps from around the world. It was really interesting. We ended up getting kicked out cause they were closing but we could have spent half the day just looking at everything.
In School we had a project week (Sonderwoche) on business. It was very interesting. Two of my friends and myself had to make a presentation on business related to geography. So we made a presentation about Pilatus, a aircraft company here in Central Switzerland, and made an example of it for Swiss Quality. It is #1 in the private small aircraft industry. It was great! The school only made us go to school on the monday for little seminars then the rest of the week we just used the time to make the presentation. We ended getting a 5.5 out of 6! Gut gemacht!
And between this, I've just been going to school and hanging out with friends here. Life is just turning more into a normal everyday routine, instead of being the person that is awed by everything. I really do feel that I am continually being submerged into the Swiss culture. That plus the skiing :).
Last weekend, my host family and I went on a Skitour. That means, we took our skis, put felts (like a very fine carpet) on the bottom of our skis, and hiked up a mountain with the skis on then skiied down the mountain. It was awesome! I have never done something like that before. It was like a cross between Cross country skiing and hiking! You definitely get a great feeling when you finally get to the top of the mountain and see the view. Amazing.
Till next time!
(The next few months are going to be awesome! Three months, 6 different countries)
February 25, 2007
Fasnacht und skifahren
FASNACHT (CARNIVAL)
Well, if you look in my pictures then you will see just how crazy Fasnacht is. I should give a little background information on Fasnacht for you. Originally it is based on the Catholic faith, and is a fest for a week which is to scare away the ghosts of winter to make way for spring. Pretty much it’s a giant party in my city for a week. So I will describe Fasnacht as I discovered it. So:
I woke up on Thursday morning at 4 so I could meet friends at the train station at 5. IN THE MORNING! As I was walking to the train station I passed the old city and all the roads are closed, there is people everywhere, and everyone is in a costume of some kind. So I meet my friends and within two seconds there is a giant firework and the Fasnacht week has begun! So I go back with my friends to the old city where there is so many people you can barely walk and sometimes you can’t. Then all of the sudden you are being pushed out of the way because a Guugen music band is coming through. A Guugen music band is like a smaller marching band that is a little bit out of control and always ALWAYS has a theme group costume. So this was at about 6 in the morning, the sun is not even up, and people are going nuts in little organized Switzerland. I stay with my friends all day because there is a parade in the afternoon and then after more Fasnacht. So went from 4 in the morning till 1 in the next morning. Oh boy, mom wouldn’t let me do that at home.
So yes, that plus the pictures should give all of you back at home some kind of idea what Fasnacht is like, but like the Swiss say: You can never really tell someone about Fasnacht. So I went back out on Saturday night, then Monday in the day and night and Tuesday night. My host family was almost pushing me out the door to go experience the Fasnacht. I’m not argueing :P.
SKIFAHREN (SKIING)
So my host family right now has a chaleux on a smaller hill just a half hour away from where we live, and we went back and forth the whole two weeks for skiing. There is only one problem. There is no snow here. DILEMMA IN SWITZERLAND!! Yes, it’s probably the warmest winter that Switzerland has ever had; well at least what my host mom and dad have seen. We now have an average 7 or 8 degrees in the city right now… IN FEBRUARY!!! So my host brother and I tried skiing a bit and it was good for the first weekend of the holidays but then it just disappeared as the week went on. So we went one day to another hill that was up to 3000 m so there was definitely snow there. I am really glad that everyone in my host family here skis well, because then we just go go go!!! My poor snowboard though has a couple dents in it. Whoops my bad haha.
So now it’s back to school for the month of March. I will be changing host families at the end of March for the last time. It is quite scary to think that I have already been here for close to 7 months. The German is going pretty good now. Again not fluent, but everyday it seems that the conversations get more and more complicated which is good. I am also trying to pick up a bit of French here since I will be taking it in University next year. Its interesting have three languages going on in your brain at one time. The Swiss in school automatically have to learn German, French, and English, and now I am understanding exactly how international these people are even though they live in such a tiny country. Anyways, I should get to some homework I guess. Hope all is good at home! Be back before you even know it! TSCHUESS!
P.S. The story behind the pictures of Fasnacht and the Canadian flags is this: I was dressed up as a Canadian fan, and I took out my little paper flags to give out to people. So I was walking with Leah and my host brother for the parade and then suddenly all the little kids spotted me with my flags. Then it was a swarm of 30 kids around me asking: CAN I HAVE ONE!?!?! Haha I am going to be a great ambassador :P.
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