Emily's Adventure

Washington DC Turkish Festival

2011-10-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

This summer I started actively volunteering with AFS and was quite excited to have the opportunity to work more one-on-one with AFS students. The DC area has fairly large AFS chapter, which hosts between 40 and 60 students every year. This year there are about 42 students from all over the world. There is, however, quite a large number of German speaking students, mostly from Germany, but also Austria and, you guessed it, Switzerland!

Represented countries include: Germany, Turkey, Belgium, Austria, Japan, and India.

While I was abroad in Switzerland, I loved how close all of the AFSers became during the year. We would often go traveling together or just meet in the city for coffee and Migros muffins ("An exchange students dream"). There were a few select people who often organized larger scale events to which all of the AFSers in the area were invited to attend. This was possible in Switzerland because of the reliable public transportation and the close proximity of the majority of the exchange students. The events were almost always free and there were always at least 18 group pictures taken throughout the get-together. I miss waking up on a Saturday morning to find an SMS inviting me to travel with a group of students to Lausanne or Lugano. The weird thing is, I thought that this behavior was really only possible in a country such as Switzerland.

Over-excited exchange students, who showed their joy by picking up the Rita's mascot.
It was hilarious!

As it turns out, the DC area students created a facebook group, where they can post upcoming events or activities for the group. After attending the Washington DC Turkish Festival, the AFSers are all finding out about their own culture's festival in the DC area and inviting the others to attend! I'm the same age as quite a few of the students, so I manage to slip right into their group. It's great being able to hang out with exchange students again! I've missed being with my AFS family.

Turkish dancers from Ankara, who performed
center stage at the Turkish Festival

This semester I'm taking a Turkish language class, so it was pretty cool to hear so much Turkish being spoken in one place and at the same time being able to understand some of it. I was proud to be able to order my döner kebab in Turkish. It was delicious, by the way. Ich vermisse döner.

"Baguette macht fett, Sushi macht wuschi, Pizza macht spitza, aber Döner macht schöner."

Check out the döner song here. :)

Kennedy-Lugar YES Program

2011-09-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Airports bring out three emotions in me: excitement, anxiety, and sadness. Ever since I can remember, I have had a mixture of these three emotions every time I've been in or around an airport. The excitement comes from the adventure of traveling to new places (or sometimes just the adventure of flying), while the anxiety comes from all of the stressful situations, which airports have in abundance (delays, anyone?). Lastly, there is the feeling of sadness. While traveling is about going somewhere, there's also the aspect of leaving behind places and people, with which/whom you are familiar.

On Monday, August 29th, 2011, I found myself in a situation, very similar to what I described in the above paragraph. There I was, sitting in the Dulles Airport with exchange students from all over the world, who were departing after a five day (give or take, due to hurricane Irene) orientation. From roughly 5 a.m. until 12:45 p.m. I was behind security at the airport, watching my students board their respective planes, and take off, heading for their various host communities. As the students, one by one, checked-in for their flights, I couldn't help but feel excited for them and their exchange year, which was just beginning. Yet, at the same time, I couldn't help but feel extremely sad. Over the course of the orientation I had grown very close with my students, we had really bonded during our time together and it was sad to watch them go off along their various paths.

Before I go any further, let me give a brief history of the program that I was working with, the Kennedy-Lugar YES (Youth Exchange and Study) program. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State to help facilitate mutual understanding between countries that have high Muslim populations and the United States. After the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, the DOS decided to initiate this program to provide a way of spreading cultural understanding about the various countries that participate, but also about Islam and the Muslim way of life. Every student that comes to the U.S. through the YES program receives a full scholarship for a year long exchange in the United States, which includes a monthly living stipend and host family placement, as well as various orientations and other events. Countries that participate include: Ghana, Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, among others. The Department of State also offers scholarships for American high school students, to spend a year abroad in select countries. You can check out the YES website HERE.

The YES program has a mandatory arrival orientation for students coming to the United States, which takes place in Washington D.C. Due to various complications in finding host families, there had to be three separate arrival orientations, and I was lucky enough to be able to work at the second of these orientations (even though I would've loved to work at all three!). I was given a group of seven students, who I lead through various content sessions and chaperoned during a tour of downtown DC, as well as during the down time that we spent at the hotel. The students in my group came from India, Indonesia, Turkey, the Philippines, and Egypt. The group dynamic was really great, and I was able to learn a lot from my students about their religion, various cultures and countries.

The orientation lasted four days total for the majority of the students (those not stranded by hurricane Irene). The first day was simply getting everyone from the airport to the hotel, showing them around and introducing them to the other students. The second day was spent in Washington D.C. touring the various sights and taking lots of pictures. Day three was spent on the hotel grounds, going through various "content sessions" about topics ranging from American life to religion, as well as "How to be a Cultural Ambassador." There were also outside speakers, who came in to talk about being Muslim in America. That night was a sad one, as it was full of saying "good-bye" and "good luck!" At the same time, though, flights were already being canceled, due to hurricane Irene, so some kids were being told that they would be staying at the hotel for a few extra days, which meant that they would have to watch their friends leave while they stayed behind. Of the 29 total students, seven ended up having to stay for the remainder of the weekend, to wait the storm out.

The Air and Space Museum

My entire group was able to leave on time, so I had the opportunity to get to know the stranded students, most of who I had talked to, but didn't know as well as the seven students who had been in my group. During the extra time that we all spent at the hotel, I was able to pick up some more Turkish words and phrases. Earlier in the orientation, I had spent a lot of time talking with Dilara, the only Turkish girl in my group, and she was nice enough to write some phrases, key words, and grammatical elements in my leader's manual, which I then practiced on her and the other Turkish students. I had so much fun learning Turkish, in fact, that I had the desire to learn even more. The remaining two Turkish students were kind and patient enough to teach me some more Turkish and help me practice using it. At the same time, I managed to pick up some Filipino as well, though, not nearly as much.

The last night of the extended orientation, our small group went out to a Turkish restaurant in a town near the hotel. During my year in Switzerland, I often ate Döner Kebabs, which are Turkish in origin, but other than that I'd never really experienced true Turkish food.

There I was, in a Turkish restaurant, sitting between two authentic Turkish guys. It doesn't get any more legit than that. As you can see from the above picture, we had our Turkish tea and the white glass was my Ayrın (pronounced somewhat like "I run"), which was a salty yogurt drink. The food (not pictured here) was absolutely delicious and the company was superb! It wasn't until we were on our way back to the hotel that I truly realized that the orientation as drawing to a close and that everyone would be departing the following day. It was a sad realization, but the truth is that ignoring reality doesn't help you to re-acclimate to it. After such an amazing week of working with such great people, I was sad to see it all come to an end.

The next morning, 4 a.m. rolled around much sooner than anticipated. Before I knew it, I was standing at in the D terminal, watching Salman, from Ghana, board his plane. After that I was busy making sure that everyone was fed and in the right place at the right time. After that initial stress wore off, however, I saw the situation in a different light: I felt almost as if I were the one about to board a plane on the way to meet my host family, with the anticipation of a year abroad on my mind. Non the less, I was the one still standing there as my last two students boarded their plane. While I sat, looking out the terminal window, waiting for their plane to take off, I couldn't help but be glad that I had brought a pack of kleenex with with me. I'm sure that the other passengers waiting nearby must have wondered why I was crying, but it's something they will, most likely, never understand. The closest comparison that I can make is that of a mother watching her children departing for a grand adventure. While she is most certainly excited for them, she is also sad to not have them close by.

I continue to be excited to for all of my students, as they realize their dreams of studying abroad, and grateful that I was able to have the opportunity to make new friends and meet such amazing people.

Advice for Future Exchange Students

2011-06-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

#1. Keep direct communication with your real family to a minimum.
Emails, phone calls, and instant messages are great ways to keep in touch, but they should really only be used in pre-planned intervals. Too much communication with your family can cause problems for you in your new environment. You're trying to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture, all of which can be interrupted if you're constantly communicating with your family (and friends) back home. One alternative to direct communication is to keep a blog. By updating a blog often, you can keep your family and friends informed about what you're doing, while maintaining a comfortable distance from your home culture.

#2. Learn the language before departure.
Arriving in a new country is hard enough, but if you don't speak any of the host language before arrival, it can cause major problems and misunderstandings. Of course, misunderstandings are going to happen anyways, you can't really prevent them, but by having a good base knowledge of the language you can save yourself from a lot of frustration, which might come from not being able to communicate adequately in your host language. Start by learning groups of words: pronouns, question words, simple verbs (to be, to have, etc), and basic nouns (refrigerator, bathroom, etc). From there you can start to connect words into simple sentences. Also try to learn verb conjugations and noun declensions. There are many websites dedicated to language learning, find one, set goals, and start working towards those goals. One site that I use for reviewing/improving my German grammar, can be found here.

#3. Befriend other exchange students.
This is very important. The other exchange students will be your in-country support system. Plus, at the end of the year, you'll have friends from all over the world, who you can someday visit.

#4. Don't be shy.
Don't be afraid to start conversations with your classmates, to invite yourself along to events, to speak in the host language (no matter how awful you think it must sound to a native), or to do crazy things. By this last example I do not mean "go to wild parties." One of my "crazy" experiences was randomly talking to a train driver and asking him if it was possible to ride in the locomotive. Not only did I make a friend, I got to do something that I never thought was possible.

#5. Be pushy with AFS.
You paid for your exchange program, now don't settle for less than what was promised. Know what you want and don't be afraid to ask for it. Let them know if you're having any problems (AFS in your host country that is) but also keep in contact with AFS in your home country, in case you need any backup.

#6. Participate in school.
You're an exchange student so don't spend lots of time working on homework or studying for tests. In some instances you can use these various homework assignments or tests to get to know your classmates better. Ask to study with a classmate/group of classmates, get involved in a group project to get to know some of your classmates better, and ask questions about the homework to show your classmates that you actually do care about school. A lot of times, the schools that AFS puts exchange students into are very competitive to get into/not flunk out of. Showing that your interested in learning can resolve any resentment that other students may have against you because of how easy you have it. However, on the flip side, don't worry about school too much. Go out and have fun, just don't completely ignore how important the school is.

#7. Don't waste your time, cherish every moment.
You're only there for 11 months (possibly even a shorter amount of time), so don't waste your time doing things that you don't enjoy. Try new things, hang out with friends, do stuff with your host family, participate in cultural events, learn to cook, etc. Get out there and do stuff!

#8. Travel.
If you have the chance to travel (with friends, exchange students, or your host family) take advantage of it. When else are you going to have the chance? Possibly never.

#9. Talk with returnees.
Returnees have "been there and done that," which makes them a great source of information.

#10. Stay active!
If you haven't heard it already, you are sure to in the future: AFS= Another Fat Student. Now take this piece of advice, and stay as active as possible. You might want to join a sports club, take up running, or ride your bike as often as possible. Start at the beginning of your year so as to get in the habit, and stick with it. For those of you who are in/going to Switzerland, you might want to think of limiting your chocolate consumption as well... ;)

Questions? Ask here.

Summer Again

2011-06-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

As the title hints, it's summer for me and somehow it's hard for me to believe. Not only have I finished my first year of college, and received my grades, but I'm back home, back to where I was before I left for Switzerland. It's also hard for me to believe that I have been back in America for an entire 11 months. Where did the time go?

Since August 2010 I have been completely focused on my academics. I dedicated the majority of my time to my academics and learning. Now that I'm finished for the summer, I have lost all ability to manage my time. Somehow, without impending deadlines and due dates, it's hard for me to concentrate enough to get anything worthwhile done. I have an entire stack of Dostoevsky books/novels to read, not to mention a conference paper to finish. Yet, I'm still so exausted from finals week (which was almost a month ago..), that finding the motivation to do anything is quite a challenge.

A few months ago I signed-up to be an AFS volunteer, and have been registered as such for a while now. I've been wanting to get involved mentoring students who are going abroad since I found out about the opportunity to do so. Through this blog I've come in contact with quite a few prospective students and also AFS students who are currently studying in Switzerland. Through these contacts, as well as this blog in general, I've been able to share my experiences, both with Switzerland and with AFS, to AFSers around the world. I've enjoyed helping fellow AFSers and would like to continue to do so in the future. Yesterday, I went through the first step in the Returnee Mentor training process and I should be able to finish the other half by the end of this week. I'm looking forward to being a full-fledged AFS volunteer.

In other news, today I should be receiving my Russian book, at which point I can start seriously learning Russian. This past semester I became interested in learning Russian, however, with minimal free time I was only able to learn the cyrillic alphabet and a few key words and phrases. Russian is a really cool language, though. It's a lot different than Germanic or Italic languages, which makes it really interesting for me. The other language that I'm currently working on is Italian. During my middle/high school years, I had around four years of Latin. Then, while I was in Switzerland, I participated in an Italian class on occasion. I also thought that Italian was cool because it's one of the four national languages of Switzerland, and would be useful for me upon my return to Switzerland.

Questions, comments, requests:
http://www.formspring.me/emilyraubach

Typical Swiss

2011-03-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

I found this post, which I posted quite awhile ago (six weeks into my exchange year) and for whatever reason I took it down. Well, now it's back. Enjoy!

_________________________________________________________

After being in der Schweiz for 6 weeks, I've started to notice the small details about how different Switzerland is from America.:

1. From what I've noticed about how people dress to go to school, is that matching stuff is overrated. You can wear navy blue with black, or brown with black. Crazy colors can be worn together, and it's just normal.

2. Everyone walks extremely fast, all the time. (a Zürich thing)

3. All the girls wear canvas shoes (the kind that were popular in the 70s) and they have them in every color. Also, Converse and Nike high top sneakers are very popular.

4. Wearing a piece of clothing only once is seen as wasteful. The same outfit can be worn for up to a week. (Can be awkward for Americans who wash everything after one use)

5. Big headphones are a must have accessory.

6. No matter how good a Swiss person's English is, they always say it's bad.

7. As an Exchange Student, everyone knows who you are, but no one will go out of their way to talk to you.

8. People are too clean for their own good.

9. You aren't cool unless you have an iPhone.

10. "to" is used only as an infinitive.

11. Everyone loves Obama and hates Bush.

12. Teens know nothing about Bush, and yet they still hate him. (as a general rule)

13. Hummers are a rarity.

14. Although one might be told that trains will rarely ever be late, they are often late. That is if you want to count two minutes as late... (Me? American? I think I'm actually Swiss...)

15. Migros makes my life.

16. When Swiss people think about America, they think food.

17. Loudly blowing one's nose in a public place is socially acceptable.

18. Churches are built at the highest elevation possible. If there happens to be a random hill somewhere, take Glarus as an example, you can be sure that there is a church on top of it.

Die Zeit

2011-03-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

There are certain numbers, times and dates, that remind me of Switzerland, not just generalities, but specific things. These small, constant reminders always seem to make me think back to the good days, back when I was still in Switzerland...

17:12 My train home from Zürich leaves at 12 after every hour. But when I lived in Schwändi, this was the last train that I could take to catch the last bus.
April 8th Nine months since I came back.
August 21st My first day in Switzerland, also my first day of college

Of course, there are always the negative reminders. Exactly a year ago my (ex) host family kicked me out, or rather, gave me a week to find a new family. Or go home. I won't assume whether or not they wanted me to go home, but I must say, them kicking me out was the best thing that happened to me in my eleven months abroad. I went from living with a mediocre family, who wanted a puppet exchange student to show off to the neighbors, to living with an actual family. Talk about awesome! I really can't say enough good things about them. It's strange because a lot of the other exchange students were quite patronizing about my whole situation, my host family troubles. And yet, those people who lived with a mediocre family for their entire year don't have the same type of relationship with their host family as I do with mine. I would say to any exchange student who isn't happy with their host family, don't just "deal with it," that only gets you so far, switch families, in the long run, you'll probably be happier.

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"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

2011-02-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

February 8th will mark the seven month mark since I've been back in the States.

This horrifies me to no end. It's hard for me to believe that it's been so long since I was in Switzerland. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was traipsing around Switzerland with my GA. And yet, here I am, in good old West Virginia. I would like to say that the time has just flown by, but it hasn't. I've been at University for a while now, and that keeps me occupied (lots of reading and writing to do everyday), but I'm constantly thinking about Switzerland and how much I miss living there.

[Begin Rant]
Since around October I knew that I was going to want to transfer out of the college that I'm in right now. It's a terrible match for me. The atmosphere is stifling, with only about 1,000 students, you know everyone. As much as I like the close knit atmosphere, I don't like how far away "real life" is. It's a 15 minute drive to get to the grocery store, and if you want to go into a "real" town you have to drive for at least half an hour. I'm a poor college student, and therefore I don't have a car, which translates to not being able to leave campus. This drives me crazy. I went from being able to go anywhere I wanted (in Switzerland) to being stuck in rural West Virginia with no mode of transportation (I don't even have a bike!). So it didn't take me too long to realize how much I disliked it. On top of that, Bethany [college] doesn't have very many majors, and none that I would really consider. I've come to the conclusion that I would like to study Linguistics (Sprachwissenshaft), German (Deutsch), or Classical Studies (Latin and Greek). None of which I can study at Bethany. Hello transfer applications.

The mentioning of Linguistics leads me to another point: American English. In Switzerland I had to deal with Swiss German, which (to me) sounds (depending on the speaker) very whiney. Annoying, yes, sometimes. But now that I'm back to hearing American English all the time, I've come to realize that Swiss German's annoyance factor is nothing compared to American English. "Like" should not be used five times in one sentence, there is no reason for it! Now that I spend more time noticing language and how it is spoken day to day, I've come to see it in a different light. Speak, and it's usage, is important when creating your image, which is then portrayed to others.
[End Rant]

http://www.formspring.me/emilyraubach

I've noticed a trend in the questions that are being asked. There have been quite a few asking about the clothing trends in Switzerland, the language, Swiss teens in general, etc. So I thought I would write a little bit more in depth about these points.

Clothing in Switzerland

http://streetpeeper.com/fashion/simone-zurich

http://youarebestdressed.blogspot.com/2010/06/street-style-zurich.html

Both of these are great sites to kind of see what kind of things are "acceptable" in Switzerland. Some of them are a little out there, others are quite stylish. I would say that teens in Zurich are very style conscience. Clothing is something that takes careful planning. Where I lived (Glarus) the teens were a little bit more laid back, and not quite as dressy. Typical school attire included jeans, nice sneakers, a dressy shirt (fancier tshirts would be acceptable), and often times a scarf (my personal favorite!).

Girls, check out: http://www.hm.com/ch/__fashion.nhtml#/instoresnowladies/
and Guys: http://www.hm.com/ch/__fashion.nhtml#/instoresnowmen/

Those are just examples of typical things that you might see teens wearing.

French vs German

It should be apparent to most of my readers by this time that there are four different language regions in Switzerland: German, French, Italian, and Romanisch. German, however, is the promenant language in the majority of Cantons. For exchange students, you have two choices: go to French or German speaking Switzerland. I would recommend the latter, as French speaking Switzerland is a very small part of the country, and you have fewer chances, par se, to see the rest of the country. Also, French Switzerland only accepts a handful of exchange students as there aren't as many host families and schools, not to mention that you have to have a certain knowledge of the French language. On the other hand, in German speaking Switzerland, you have to deal with Swiss German. I've come to notice that Germans, or people who can speak High German, find it really cool that I can understand Swiss German. There are the occasional "Schwiizerdüütsch" jokes, but mainly they're really impressed. Learning a German dialect like that can help you down the road if you ever encounter another dialect of German (i.e. Austrian German, Frisian, etc.)

I would say that both regions are super cool but the German region will give you more options when it comes to traveling and whatnot.

Swiss Teens

Most exchange students are placed in a Gymnasium, where the students receive massive amounts of homework every day. As an exchange student, you will not be required to do this homework, however, your classmates will, therein creating plenty of free time for you and yet none for your classmates. There are some extracurricular activities, however they are not connected to the school at all. You'll find all sorts of clubs that you can get involved in, including soccer, swimming, tennis, rock climbing, etc. There is usually some sort of one-time fee for these activities, sometimes around 100-200 CHf (for half a year, or however long).

Swiss teens are just like American teens, they like to hang out. Going out for drinks, chilling by the lake (if you're in Zurich :P), and going shopping are all popular activities. However, the teens can by shy, and might not invite you anywhere right off the bat, so invite yourself, or invite them to do something with you. If you make an effort, they'll notice and be more friendly to you (as a general rule).

Questions? Comments?
http://www.formspring.me/emilyraubach

Ciao z'amme!

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

2011-01-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

My exchange year was simply amazing, eh.

As requested, more pictures!

Schwändi

The Glarner Sprinter passing through Zieglebrücke

:-)

Walking down the road from Schwändi to Schwanden

The view looking down into Schwanden

In Schwanden

View from my ex-host family's house in Schwändi

The largest open space in the city of Winterthur

Switzerland's drink of choice... ;)

The pleasures involved in "walking the dog"

Me, going to Rolex

(I'd been dreaming of going to Rolex for years...)

...It was amazing.

More pictures to come.

Side Note:

The 20th of January marks the day that all of my "newbie" friends (who became the "oldies" after my group left last summer) are flying home to their respected countries. It makes me very sad to think of them going through the same things that I went through 6 months ago.. but I guess that's just life. I wish them safe travels. Also, wir sehen uns bald wieder, gel! :-)

Questions, comments, requests:

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Ich vermisse..

2010-12-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Ich vermisse die Schweiz = I miss Switzerland

I miss the Glarner Sprinter and never having to worrry about changing trains in Zieglebrücke.

Oh, not to mention hearing: "Nächste Halt Zürich Hauptbahnhof. Wir bitten alle Reisender auszusteigen, uns verabscheiden sich von ihnen." ...or something similar to that.

I miss getting on random trains and going places just for the train ride.

Like taking the ICE train to Basel, and then hopping on the TGV and coming right back.

I miss waking up in the morning, opening my shutters and seeing the Glärnisch.

I miss skiing in the Alps.

I miss biking to get places and hearing cowbells.

I miss seeing people bike everywhere and punching my friends everytime we saw a VW. Also, I miss being in the city and the countless hours of exploring that come with that.

I miss hearing different languages.

I miss speaking German with my American friends so that American tourists wouldn't know that we were Americans.

As weird as it is, I miss Glarus.

Although, I mostly just miss my host family,

because they are the nicest people I will probably ever meet. :-)

I miss the Zürichsee and the trainride from Zürich to Glarus.

I miss Lachen, and sitting on the left side of the train so that I could watch for the Hummer. :P

I miss Zürich Hauptbahnhof and always running into other AFSers. Always.

I miss knowing the fahrplan by heart.

and I miss taking the 22:12 train and riding in the locomotive!

I miss Zürich ♥

I miss my GA and the freedom of being able to travel anytime.

I miss going to the chocolate factory in Ennenda and buying really tasty chocolate.

I miss the SBB.

I miss Guarda and my crazy exchange student friends.

♥

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

2010-11-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

October 30, 2010 was a fairly monumental day, seeing as the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was in Washington DC! I can, very proudly, say that I was able to take part in this grouping of sane and reasonable people. Although, there were, of course, the people who completely missed the entire point of the Rally. Those people happened to be standing right next to me, smoking weed. I could only shake my head and give them a few dirty looks while coughing...

I woke up at 5 am the morning of the rally, so as to be on the mall early enough in the morning to be able to see the stage (at least if all the tall people had moved, I might have been able to see it) and/or one of the screens. It was about 9ish when my friends and I were walking into the rally, and it was already packed, and I mean packed.We had to squeeze and push our way through the crowd so as to get semi-ideal standing places.

The show itself (and yes, it was a show, no matter what anyone says) was superb. The musical acts were a tad bit uncalled for, but the ones which were actually used in the context of the show were actually pretty cool. For example, when Ozzy Osbourne and the other guy were singing the Train songs, it tied in perfectly with what was going on, which was, I must say, ingenious. John Legend was good, even though he, and the Roots, really had nothing to do with what was going on, they were still very talented. My favorite part of the entire Rally was when Myth Busters came out and did experiments with the crowd... and/or just Jon Stewart in general, because he is that awesome.

After a long day of standing, seven hours total, I still hadn't had enough of D.C. If it would've been possible, I would've loved to have dinner and then go out exploring. Unfortunately, that was not to be. We stuck around and got a bite to eat, even though that required waiting in line for ages because of the Rally crowd. Then we hopped on the metro to head out of the city.

Anyone and everyone knows about my love for trains. The metro, in my mind, does not really count as a "real" train, but it still counts as cool. Therefor, I enjoyed it immensely! I was able to meet some very interesting people, as well, which is always a plus. A college student who had spent time in Italy, and was reading a book in Italian, as well as a group of older adults who had been to Switzerland three times. It was really an ideal situation for me, and I took advantage of it!

In the future, if Jon Stewart and Stephan Colbert ever team up to put on a Rally (or any sort of event), I would recommend making your best effort to try and attend. It would be worth your while!

Q&A

2010-10-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, I've been getting lots of emails asking questions about Switzerland. I've managed to reply to a few of them, and this post if my effort to answer some of the recurring questions that I noticed.

Why did you choose Switzerland?
I didn't, actually. My first choice was Austria, but I applied in the middle of May, which is after most of the country deadlines, and my only option was Italy, that is until the day that I sent in my full application. I checked the website only a handful of times during the two weeks that it took for me to fill out the full application, but for whatever reason, I checked it again right after submitting it online. Turns out, Switzerland had reopened that day, and was accepting applications. Long story short, I choose Switzerland over Italy, and never regretted it (although, I would still like to learn Italian..).

Is AFS a good program?
This is a tough question to answer. One part of me would love to slander AFS right now, because AFS Switzerland is utterly awful. However, AFS USA did do a good job during my application process, and they wouldn't listen to AFS Switzerland, when they tried to send me back home. So I would say, AFS USA is a good, well run (for the most part) program. One bit of advice for those who may be going (or in country now) to Switzerland, behave yourself so that you never end up at the AFS office in Zurich. For one thing, it's in the red light district, and the office is located right overtop of a gay porn shop. But really, if you never have any problems throughout the year (with host family, school, etc) you will have no problems with AFS.

Is it expensive?
Yes, Switzerland is a very expensive country. However, learn how to manage your money, and you'll be fine. Ask your friends and host family where the best places to go shopping are. Also, buy a GA. You will not regret it. (https://www.sbb.ch:443/mct/wi/shop/b2c/adw.do?421). The GA will save you tons of money in the long run when it comes to public transportation.

How do the teens dress?
Teens in Switzerland always dress well. You will almost never see someone in school or on a train wearing sweats, just don't do it. Girls usually dress very stylishly, and tend to wear tights a lot, as well as jeans. Guys tend to wear t-shirts or polos, nothing to different from American guys. Shoes such as Converse and Vans are worn a lot, as well as boots for girls. Overall, teens dress fashionably, as do most Swiss.

Year vs. Semester?
AFS Switzerland doesn't offer a semester program, only the year and trimester. The trimester only lasts around four months, though (I think), and really, you'd be missing out on all the good times. Go for a year and enjoy getting to know your host family, blending in and "becoming" Swiss, as well as meeting all of the other AFSers (who will probably be some of your best friends).

Did you have any trouble picking up the language?
Oh goodness, yes. I had no prior knowledge of German, so that in itself was rough. What really added another level of difficulty, though, was learning High German while everyone around me spoke Swiss German. Don't let that scare you though. Being immersed in the culture makes learning a language much less painful, not to mention a lot more fun!

How hard is school?
The Swiss high school, Gymnasium, is extremely challenging, especially when compared to an American high school. Most of the time teachers don't expect much from exchange students, but make sure that you don't skip too much school! If you do, then you run the chance of being kicked out of your school and being sent home. Also, don't expect to be able to understand much; this does come with time, though.

What was your favorite city?
This is easy: Zurich. For one thing, it's a gorgeous city, easy to get around, and plenty of different attractions. It's also close to everywhere; an hour from Basel, Bern, Chur, St Gallen, Schaffhausen, Luzern etc.

What was the food like?
Swiss food is very cheesy. Literally. Where I lived, cheese was on everything, and if it wasn't already on the dish, there was always cheese sitting out that you could use. Potatoes are very common, as is pasta. Meat is not eaten everyday, in most households, as it is very expensive. Breakfast is usually cold, with bread or cereal. Lunch depends on your family, as sometimes your host family might all come home for lunch, or they might not. It is common to have only one hot meal per day, either lunch or dinner.

Did you have the chance to visit other countries?
AFS stresses (more times then they really need to) how they are not a traveling program. In other words, they like it when you stay at home, with your host family, 24/7 (no joke). However, you can technically do what you want, as long as your host family is cool with it. I was able to travel all around Switzerland, as in, I can't think of one major (or even minor) city that I haven't been to. I was also able to travel around Lichtenstein a time or two. Other then that, I only left the country twice: once on a vacation with a friends host family when we went into France for a few hours, and I went on an AFS organized trip to Europapark in Germany. During vacations you can organize trips into other countries, but you must be accompanied by a Swiss adult.

I might do a follow up post with more answers, depending on the amount of questions I receive. If you would like to ask a question, go to http://www.formspring.me/emilyraubach or leave a comment below.

New York City

2010-10-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

My first glimpse of NYC looked something like this. The city skyline was absolutely breathtaking, for me at least. This may be attached to the fact that I'm a city girl; I love city life. The city that I originally fell in love with is Zürich, but in all honesty, I just love cities in general. The people, architecture, public transportation, museums.. I love it all.

On Saturday, October 9th, I was able to spend all most the entire day, from 8 am to 10 pm exploring NYC. One of the first things I did was buy an all day, unlimited subway pass. After living in Switzerland for a year with a GA, this was something I had to do. The subway wasn't what I expected at all, though. It wasn't dirty, the people weren't (too) sketchy, and it wasn't too crowded, for the most part. What I didn't like was that there was no time schedule. You might have to wait one minute one time, and the next time 10 to 15 minutes another time. In my mind, it was completely ridiculous. Also, the stations were set up in strange, hard to find places. Some lines had stops with the same names as other stops, which was very confusing for non-natives, like myself.

Since leaving Zürich, what I've really missed is hearing other languages. In Switzerland it was normal to hear a large array of different languages on any given day. In the US it's kind of strange to hear any language other than English, and occasionally Spanish. However, in NYC, I heard so many different languages, such as: Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Norwegian/Danish/Swedish, High German, Japanese, Chinese, and maybe a few others. This was one part of city life that I had missed so much. There are days when I hate being able to understand what everyone is saying, days that I want to not understand.

After an entire day of wandering around and exploring the city, I met back up with the group from Bethany, and we loaded back onto the bus to leave. On the bus ride to New York, I had felt very nostalgic, but on the way back I had more of a clear defined thought pattern, and there was something that I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, I was going to live in a city. Right now I live in the middle of no where, but afterwards, Grad school and beyond, I'll be looking forward to city life.

'The Problem of Pain'

2010-10-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

I was reading the other day, trying to finish a book that I started quite some time ago. C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors, but I find myself unable to read more than a few chapters in one sitting, there is just too much information and otherwise, I would find myself unable to comprehend all of it. As I was reading one of the last chapters, which was titled 'Heaven', I came across the passage that I have written below. It is so vividly written, I felt like Lewis was talking directly to me.

"… you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw––but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported…Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it––tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But it should really become manifest––if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself––you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.'
-C.S. Lewis, excerpt from 'The Problem of Pain'

Favorite: Swiss Signs

2010-10-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

Pictures of some of my favorite Swiss signs from my exchange year:

This last one, isn't really a sign.

It's from the screens inside of a Tram in Zurich.

The picture was taken shortly after Switzerland defeated Spain in the World Cup. Drunken fans were blocking all of the roads.

It reads:

"Football(soccer) fans downtown: All lines operating irregularly."

Needless to say, Priceless.

Memories

2010-09-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

There was once a time when my life was close to what I would call perfection. Everything that I had ever wanted, I had. Things that I never even could have dreamed of happening, happened. I enjoyed it while I could, but thinking of the coming future, that was only weeks off, seemed to hold me back. My happiness seemed short lived, but I hold onto it through memories...

On the 8th of July, I left Switzerland with a heavy heart. I had to leave my almost perfect life, and return to the place I had grown up, and the place I had grown out of. I went home a completely different person, and yet, I wasn't allowed to be different. When with my friends or family, they treated me as they had before I left, as if nothing had changed. But something important had changed, and that was me. All of my freedom was taken away, and I was left stranded, with no where to go. My sanity was kept in tact by my horses. They were the only ones who seemed to acknowledge the new me, and they were accepting. I wasn't the same rider that I was a year before, I had to start at the bottom and work my way up, they helped me, accepting my mistakes. The other event that really helped me was volunteering for a week at a golf tournament. There, I was surrounded by new people, and I could be myself. I realize how strange this might sound, but it's the only way I can put it into words.

Every day since the 8th of July, I've thought back to Switzerland, to that life that I had. It saddens me to think that I lost it, but I'm happy that I had it at all, no matter how long it lasted, which in my case was only three months. I think about my host family, and how much they did for me. Not only did they give me food and shelter, but they also gave me a new perspective on life. They took me in (practically) off the streets, and out of a bad former host family situation. They didn't judge, or interrogate me as to why it hadn't worked out with the other family, they simply took me in. Before, I had lived with people. Moving in with them, I found a family, a family that I could finally be a part of, which is such a beautiful thing to experience. Towards the end of my stay, I wasn't home much, but they accepted that. They understood that I had things to do. I wish that I could compare them to my ex-host family, but really, they are incomparable, in every way possible. One instance, that I found particularly touching, was when I explained to them why I didn't want to go home, why it made me so upset to think about going home, and they didn't judge me or tell me that I should want to go home. No, they would hug me, and tell me that it was going to work out, that I had to go back to the States, but after I had finished everything there, I could come back to Switzerland. They said that there would always be a place for me in their house.

During my last few glorious weeks in Switzerland, I spent the majority of my time with my friends, most of which were of the AFS variety. And there was one particularly good week, that I remember distinctly, where I was completely happy and content for an entire week. It started on a Sunday, with a trip to Europapark. This means, essentially, an entire day of just hanging out with Exchange students at a theme park. We had a blast! Then I spent three days that week traveling all over Eastern Switzerland with one of my favorite Italians. We toured cities, rode around on trains, and even spent an hour on a "spielplaz" (play ground)! To say the least, it was simply amazing. The conversation, company, and great views made it, well, indescribably fantastic. Just thinking about that trip, makes me smile! To really top that off, on the last night of traveling, after saying goodbye, I ended up talking to a train drive (lokfuerer), and I asked him if it was at all possible to ride in the front of a train, you know, up in the Locomotive part. After explaining my situation, that I was an exchange student who loved trains, he asked only one question: How far are you going? Another indescribable experience, I must say. After dreaming about riding up in the locomotive, for an entire year, I finally got the chance. Not only was my dream fulfilled, but I also made a friend. What more could I ask for? One other thing happened that night, I formed a new dream. This dream is on going, and something I really want to pursue. I would like to return to Switzerland, move there actually, and become an locomotive engineer.

I've now been in college in month. An entire month. I find it crazy to think that I have been here such a short amount of time. In reality, it seems like I've been at Bethany for years. Most days, I'm able to forget my troubles, but some days they hunt me out. I'm constantly followed by the fact that I'm a broke college student. The majority of my free time I spend searching the web, looking for somewhere that I can study that wouldn't send me into debt, but also a place where I could get a quality education. I just haven't found it yet... Hopefully, though, it will be far, far away. Maybe even in Switzerland.. :D

Comments? Questions about Switzerland or AFS? Ask away!

College

2010-09-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Long story short, college is awesome.

I have some preconcieved notions about what life here at Bethany would be like. Being here has made me see that they're all wrong. I wanted to go to a small school so as to be able to focus solely on academics. Looking back, that sounds quite anti-social. I've met so many people, who are all so different. So many different cultures and races are represented here at Bethany, and I think it's great!

My dorm is pretty crazy, but it makes for a lot of good times. It's a house, with six "cubes" of 4 bedrooms each. I live on the top floor, where only one of the three cubes is girls, which is, well, interesting. Lately a lot of my evenings have consisted of sitting out in the lounge watching matches at the US Open. I jokingly say that it is my socialization for the day, because I end up talking to almost everyone who lives on my floor. The only downside to living in a male dominated dorm, is the fact that males tend to be very messy. I try not to go into the bottom level for fear of catching diseases.. Yes. It's that bad. My cubemates and I never venture down there, it's just too dangerous.

All of my classes are great so far. MWF, I have Intro to Religion and Psychology, both professors are really cool and very interesting. On Mondays I go down to the barn to ride, because I'm working on an Arab gelding as a project horse, and on Wednesdays I have an actual riding lesson. TTH, I have Deutsche Literatur (yes, the entire class is in German) and my Freshmen Seminar class, which is Leadership. Tuesdays are my busy day, I have classes from 9:30am till 3:20pm, because I have another Freshman Seminar class and Psychology lab. I really like my schedule though, and all of my classes are great. Another "unofficial" class that I have, is called "Hill Training". Everyone has to take this one every year, because the hills around here can be killer, especially when you have to walk back and forth from your dorm a lot. I don't mind it though. I have better calve muscles because of it.

On the downside, the food here sucks. There are two options for breakfast and dinner, and three options for lunch. In The Caf you can get unlimited food and drinks, but really, that food isn't very appetizing. However there is plenty of fresh fruit and ice cream. Boomers is more like a fast food resturant, except everything is ridiculously expensive and fattening. Then there is The Beanery, my absolute favorite place to eat. They have sandwiches, salads, yogurt parfaits, muffins, and all sorts of other yummy options, not to mentions coffee. Unfortunately, it's only open for breakfast and lunch, so I can't eat every meal there. In any given day, I usually eat a mixture of the three different places. My favorite place to eat dinner is the Caf, though. I always run into a lot of different people that I know, and or meet new people, which is fun.

The sad side of this, I have been back from Switzerland for two months, and I miss it more than anyone (other than my AFS friends) could even imagine. My dorm room is covered in Swiss things (a map, pictures, etc), which at least makes me happy, and my fridge is filled with Swiss chocolate, which I am hoarding, by the way. My dream is still to return to Switzerland, and I'm diligently trying to figure out how to make that dream into reality.

One thing that I forgot to mention is how there are nine German exchange students here at Bethany. They are all really cool, and will sometimes speak with me in German! They always mention how I have a Swiss accent though, and how cute it is. Aww, good ol' Schwiizer Düütsch.

also, ciao sämma!

Back in the States

2010-08-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

I've been back in West Virginia for 6 weeks now, might I mention that these last 6 weeks have been probably the worst six weeks of my life. It sounds harsh, but sometimes the truth hurts. In Switzerland I had so much freedom and didn't need to rely on any one for transportation. Once I got home though, I wasn't allowed to go hang out with friends but maybe twice a week. I couldn't drive because of insurance reasons, so I spent my summer sitting at home, in the house mostly because of the awful humidity. It was just not pleasant at all.

Now, however, I'm at college, and life is looking promising. I still miss Switzerland a lot, and can't stop thinking about all the great experiences I had there, but for now I have to concentrate on my studies and graduating from college. What has really got me excited is realizing how many languages my school offers. They offer the basics, like French, German and Spanish. But also Italian, Japanese and Latin. My goal for next year is to study abroad in Italy, so being able to take Italian classes would be really helpful. I'm even tempted to take some Japanese classes either my Junior or Senior year.

As for AFS, I'm still not happy with how they treated my situation while in Switzerland, but I would still like to help other exchange students. So if you are going to Switzerland, or even just thinking about going there, and want to know about the benefits of going there, shoot me an email or just write a comment. :D

(emilyraubach@gmail.com)

Arbeitslager Mai 2010

2010-05-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

This post is about the most enjoyable AFS experience I've ever had. That would be the work camp that I went to in Gluarda, GR. In German, 'Arbeitslager' is the equivilant of 'consentration camp.' Pleasant, right? But I promise you that it was nothing of the sort. I would use the word 'awesome' to describe it.

Back in January when I first got a flyer about the camp, I only wanted to go to get out of school. Think about it, one whole week of hanging out with other AFSers and not having to go to school. Sounds pretty close to heaven to me. I somehow managed to get into my camp of choice, the camp that a lot of my friends were going to. That's about when I realized how awesome the week was going to be.

The first day of the camp was spent mostly on getting there. A lot of the other AFSers were coming from way over on the other side of Switzerland. At least one was from kanton Valais (her ticket to the camp and back cost a whopping 126 CHF= around $120). For me, the camp wasn't to far away, maybe two and a half hours. I was bummed that I wouldn't be traveling with the group from Zürich to Landquart, but it was just too far out of the way for me. I met everyone else in Landquart, and we were all so pumped! On arrival in Guarda, we met up with the staffers, who I didn't like from the first moment. We threw our bags into one of the leader's cars, and then proceeded to walk up the mountain to Guarda. It was killer. Towards the end, I had someone behind me, urging me one, and someone in front of me practically pulling me up. I would say that it probably took us almost an hour to climb up the whole thing. By the time we got to the house, we were totally exausted. The house was actually the school for Guarda, which AFS had rented for the week. There were four floors, which we only used three of. The basement was where we put our coats and shoes, and also where the shower room was (please note that there was only one shower room). The first floor was the entry way, the leaders room, the bathrooms, and the gym (where the guys slept and where we played volleyball). The second floor was.. well, I'm not really sure. I would guess classrooms. And then the top floor was the kitchen, dining room, and girls room. I thought the set up of the house was really cool, mostly cause we had the gym.

On the first day, we played a few 'get-to-know-everyone' games, which I found to be quite dumb, maybe because I already know like 19 out of the 21 people. The moment that I really questioned why I came was when we played this incledibly dumb, soccer like game. The rules went something like this: You had to be sitting on the ground, and you could only touch the ball with your feet. So in otherwords, you had to move around like a crab, which looked completely retarded and wasn't even fun. The main leader was awful at calling fouls, which just made the game that much worse. Dinner that night, as I remember wasn't too awful (please note that at my last AFS camp, the fed us distusting, cheese covered nastiness, which I couldn't even eat because I'm lactose intolerant), at least it was eddible. After dinner we had our first 'serious' session, which was talking about the rules. Looking back, I see this as completely pointless. It's not like we stuck to these rules at all. But rule number one was: Nachtrühe ab 11 Uhr (Meaning that we had to be in bed, asleep, at 11pm). Rule number two: No cellphones. This one was argued though. I mean, we're all at least 16yo, we know how to manage our time, we don't need our cellphones taken away just so that we won't be on them all the time. Plus, texting/calling is so expensive anyways. So this rule was eventually just forgotten. Rule number three: Alcohol is not allowed/no going off into the forrest at night to go drinking. As for the other rules, they were probably broken anyways, so I don't see them as impotant now.

On the first real day of the camp, we went for a hike. I don't just mean a whimpy hour long hike, I mean like hardcore, all day hiking. We left the house at 10 am and didnt get back until almost 7 pm. We hiked along the side of the mountain a ways, level with Guarda, then way up onto the mountain, where we ate lunch. Then we hiked back down to another down, and from there farther down to a river. I'm still trying to figure our why we hiked all the way down to this river, it was just so pointless. Then we hiked up the mountain on the other side of the valley, went through a tiny little town, and then back down to the Guarda Bahnhof. Jordan and I were the first ones to get to the bahnhof, and by the time we got there, we were both pretty much dead. I knew for a fact that there was no way I was gonna be able to climb up that killer mountain again. Luckily, when we got to the bahnhof, we realized there was a bus in about seven minutes. Needless to say, we started jumping up and down and screaming. When the bus got there, we couldn't stop thanking the bus driver and acting so excited. A few of the others came on the bus with us, but not very many of them, because they didn't believe us when we yelled at them, telling them there was a bus. Poor Alessandro had to walk up that mountain on his birthday..

That night we had an apéro with the local farmers who we were going to be working with during the week. They explained to us what kind of work we were going to be doing and just basic information about themselves. The man who was behind the whole plan, was the youngest farmer from Guarda, and he is also a part time bus driver. It turns out that he was the bus driver that day, the one that Jordan and I thanked at least a dozen times. Our laughter could not be contained...

Use of our Free Time
Anytime that we had more than five minutes of free time, we started playing volleyball. It was the sport of the week. We would just kick the guys beds out of the way, and start a game.

Day One of Working
Before hand, I hadn't thought about how we were going to be split up into groups or even if we would be split up into groups. But since we were such a large group and since there were so many farmers who could use our help, we split ourselves up into groups of four. My group contained Onur (from Turkey), Pow Pow (from Thailand), and Alessandro (from Italy). We were with a very nice farmer who needed help cleaning up a shed that had been knocked over by an avalanch, and then help picking up sticks from a sheep field. We all worked well as a team and got everything done in a very timely fashion. We finished cleaning up the shed in under two hours. For lunch, the farmer built a fire and gave us wursts and bread as well as some wonderful peppermint tea.

Day Two of Working
We stayed up really late the night before, well past midnight, and without even having a good reason as to why. There was just a group of people playing cards, and so they kind of kept the rest of us awake. So that morning we were all really tired. My group conisted of Keaton and Jordan (from the US), and Tobia and Alessandro (from Italy). We spent the day with Nord, a kind of old farmer who spends a lot of his time fixing hiking trails. We took rakes and picks and cleaned rocks off of a hiking trail. The others found the work to be annoying and pointless, but I enjoyed it, and Nord was also pretty cool, he had a lot of good stories to tell. After lunch, the Italians worked on building some steps, while us Americans got driven to the top of the hill, and then walked back down, cleaning up the trail.

Day Three of Working
This was my least favorite day of working. Mostly because I was put into a very large group and there just wasn't enough work to go around. Not to mention the fact that the head leader was in my group, and he happens to be extremely obnoxious, bossing everyone around and throwing things at the Asians (because he thought they weren't working enough). We cleaned up a shed, like the inside of it. The shed wasn't even that big, so a group of about 13 people to clean it out was just too many. Wayyy too many. In the afternoon, the literally didn't even know what to do with us. The girls ended up pulling weeds from a set of gravel covered steps, and then spreading fresh gravel on them. But we were still just too many people for the work, so I designated myself the 'Kontrollieren' which was cool, cause then I got to watch everyone else work. My back was really hurting, so it was actually quite nice. I was even able to tell the head leader guy what to do..

Night at the Bar
That Wenesday was one of the farmers 50th birthday, and he invited our whole group to go to the only bar in Guarda to celebrate. I knew from the beginning that it was a terrible idea, but the head leader guy had a speach about how we were all almost adults and we 'of course' know our limits with alcohol. Everyone headed off to the bar at around 9pm, but I stayed back at the house, seeing as I'm not all that big on drinking, and Keaton couldn't go because he had been sick that day, so I just hung out with him. At around 11:30 pm, a counselor and Tobia came back to the house and invited us to come to the bar so as to take part in the midnight toast to the Farmers birthday, Keaton and I jumped at the chance. I didn't expect what I found though. Everyone was drunk. EVERYONE. The only people who weren't were Tobia and maybe a few Asians. It was just unbelievable. I had fun playing a few rounds of pool, though, and a glass of free champagne never hurts. When we were trying to get everyone back to the house is when problems started. I didn't feel like taking the leadership role at that point of time though, and so I just kind of ran back to the house with Tobia so as to let the other counselor know what to expect. Might I add that the head leader was completely drunk. Like having trouple walking drunk. AFS at its best. Back at the house was another story though. I was the one who had to get all of the girls to shut up and go to bed. I was the one who had to make sure that everyone stayed safe (not falling down the stairs, etc), and I was the one who had to open the window when one of the girls puked on the floor. I was also the one who had to chase some random guys off, three random guys who showed up in our room in the middle of the night. Not once, but three times. And yes, the leaders agreed to lock the doors after that... As you can see, it was a pretty crazy night.

Day Off
Thursday was a holiday, and so we didn't have to work at all. Instead we slept in, had a big breakfast, and then took a train to a neighboring town, where we got to go in a museum from the Swiss National Park. The museum wasn't very exciting... Afterwards, we went swimming in a heated outdoor pool. It was pretty chill. Too bad the head leader 'had a cold' (we all knew what that meant), and so he couldn't come.

Last Day of Working
The last day is always sad. I wish that I could have spent more of my year doing community service like this, instead of sitting in a school, doing pointless things. I would have felt more accomplished this way. But it just wasn't meant to be. My group was Taylor, Keaon and Christian (from the USA), and Alessandro (from Italy). If you noticed, I was with Alessandro the whole week, which was pretty awesome. We worked with the bus driver (who is also a farmer, of course) in the morning, piling hay, putting up fence, and picking up weeds. The farmer's wife made us soup for lunch, which was really tasty. Then in the afternoon we worked with Nord again, building steps and evening out a trail. Not all that exciting, but still fun. We came to realize just how much Nord loves to drive. He would drive back into town to get more material for the steps, come back, and decide he needed more, and so he would drive back. Again and again. It was so funny. It was also funny when he yelled at Keaton in half Italian half Romanish, for a good minute or so, before almost cutting off his head with a chainsaw... good times in Switzerland.

The Last Night in Guarda
It was sad. We had a big dinner with the farmers, who had made some really tasty food, the best being some fresh steak type kebabs (I mean like the skewered kind). Yum. It was nasty when a few of the exchange students decided to eat cooked worms though. For fun? I still don't really know why. All I know is that it was nasty! After dinner we had a slideshow of pictures from the week. I'm pretty sure all of them were from Tobia, because he took probably the most pictures out of our entire group. It was really cool to see them though, and to see what we did the entire week, and kind of relive it again (except for that hike, I would rather not relive that one again..).

Leaving
Saturday morning was reserved for cleaning up the house, which was by this time, really dirty. I did about my far share of cleaning, and then took a break to take back some dishes to a lady who lived near by. She gave us (it was a group of us Americans) a tour of her house, which was the typical Graubunden kind of house, which is special to the area, just like the language, Retro Romanisch. I think both are very cool. We also got the chance to try some fresh goat cheese, but it didn't really have much of a taste. It was still an experience though.
We put all of our bags in to one of the farmers trucks, and then we all walked down to the bahnhof. It was nice to appriciate our work on cleaning up that hiking trail and also the steps that we built. But then we had to get on that train, going home. I don't think anyone wanted it to be over. We had just had such an awesome week, and it was over so soon. I said goodbye to everone in Landquart, which was sad because I might never see some of them again. Maybe, though. There's always a chance.

That was, I guess, most of what happened at my work camp. I would definitely recommend going to an Arbeitslager if you are already an AFS student in Switzerland. It's truly an amazing experience. Sorry that this post is so long, but yeah, it kind of had to be. (:

Tschüss!

Endlich!

2010-04-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

This post has taken a while to get here for a few reasons, such as: skiing, changing host families, and my mom's two week visit. But it's here at last!

Skiing was one of the coolest things that I've done while in Switzerland. I absolutely love it! Somehow I managed to catch on really fast, and so after skiing twice with my host family and 2 hours of 'ski school' (private instruction with a ski teacher), I was hitting the slopes with friends. Unfortunatley I didn't get to go every weekend, like I would have liked to, but I still enjoyed it very much.

My changing host families, well, that is quite complicated. My host family was quite strange and never very nice to me, even from my first weekend with them, when my host parents refused to pick me up after a Thanksgivings event with my pervious host family. I had to walk up a mountain, or at least a part of it, in the dark, carrying lots of bags. It was rough, if not a tad bit dangerous. But anyways, they ended up talking to AFS, without talking to me first, then proceeded to kick me out, without telling me when. They gave AFS a little less then 2 weeks to find me a new host family, although AFS of course wasn't going to do this, so they tried to send me home without any reason. My host family had nothing bad to say about me, just that it just didn't work out. After finding out that I could be sent home, I went to school, and told my classmates my situation. They were all very sympathetic, and a few even offered to host me. That very afternoon I went to one classmates house, and her parents decided then and there that they would like to host me. It was great! I moved in with them 2 days later, and everything has been great since then. (:

My mom came for a two week visit during my spring break, although her flight ended up being canceled, and so she came one day later then planned. She has a Swiss Pass (like a GA, but for Americans haha). So for 8 days we traveled around Switzerland, visiting: Luzern, Basel, Bern, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Zürich, Glarus, Liechtenstein, St Gallen, and Geneva, to mention a few. Although, then she ended up staying in Switzerland for an extra few days because of the volcano in Iceland. We had a great time though.

These past few weeks, I've been working to choose a college for next year, I still haven't made my decision, although I have decided that I would like to come back to Switzerland after college. I love it here, and can't imagine being happy in the US again.

Tschüss!

More Pictures, Less Words

2010-02-12T02:47:00.000-08:00

The gorgeous architecture in Neuchatel

Out the train window

I love taking trains to random places, it's my favorite past time.

Skiing in Stoos

Train ride to Lausanne

Skiing in Stoos with Johannes's Host sister, Jasmin

Sportferien

2010-02-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

This past week was my sportferien. The time when I should spend the whole week skiing/snowboarding, or just in the snow, in general. In stead though, I spent the week traveling on my own, for reasons that I cannot fully clarify. I think it was one of the best weeks so far (if not the best). This post is pretty much gonna be just about what I did the entire week.

I left Glarnerland on Friday, January 29, and went to my friend Mac's house. The big problem with this fact, is that I had a backpack, duffle bag (stuffed full), skis, ski poles, ski boots, and my helmet. Luckily Mac came and picked me up, so I had some help. But the mile walk to his house was killer. On the 30th I went skiing in Hock Ybrig with Mac and his host parents (who are really, really nice!). The weather was awful, and I ended up falling a lot, but I also feel like I improved a lot as well. When we got home Mac and I were both super tired, but he wanted to go snowboarding the next day with some other friends, so I packed up my backpack and ski stuff and we headed over to Johannes's house (he's another exchange student, from Norway). We met up with a few other exchange students and their classmates (I think they were all from Zug), and we went skiing in Stoos. I have been to 5 different skiing places, and Stoos is one of my least favorites. It required more walking than skiing to get to the lifts. Anyways, towards the end of the day, I was skiing down with Mac, Johannes and Josie (also from the US). They were telling me that we had to go down a particular way to get whereever they wanted to go, and I just had to follow them. Turns out I was following them down a black slope. Thanks guys. Needless to say I ended up falling and injuring my shoulder (which is still really hurting). But I am still alive, so that's good. We went back to Johannes's house for dinner, which was super tasty. The dessert was like art. I felt kinda bad for eating it, almost. After that I headed to Winterthur to stay with my host grandparents, cause everyone else still had school.

So at this point, I'd just like to clarify that I had my ski stuff at Johannes's house, and the majority of my clothes at Mac's house (which I couldn't retrieve because it would take to long). So I ended up having my stuff strung between four different houses (counting my host family's house). Great.

While I was staying at the host grandparents house (they live kind of in the country near Winterthur), I did a lot of traveling, and just hanging out with my AFS friends. Monday I went to Altendorf to see Mac, and pick up my stuff. Then Tuesday I had lunch in Zurich with Jordan and some of her Swiss friends (who were really nice), and then in the afternoon I went to St Gallen, went back to Winti then back to Zurich for some AFS get together. On Wednesday I went to Bern. Thursday, Basel (on the TGV train, oh yeah). And Friday Lausanne/Bern, Zurich to hang out in the pub, and then with a bunch of AFSers to a birthday party, which we never found. On Saturday I packed up my stuff and headed to Basel to stay with Sarah.

Once in Basel, Sarah and I went shopping. Then, since all the stores closed at 6, we decided we'd come back the next day. WRONG. Turns out all the stores are closed on Sunday. Hmm, not like we didn't know that, but we'd forgotten. Instead we hopped on a train to Neuchatel and Solothurn. Neuchatel was mega schoen, but Solothurn, not so much. If it hadn't been so cold, it would have been perfect. Sarah and I also managed to watch a good movie together, for once. For some reason we also end up watching awful movies. The first one was "The Cube." Possibly the worst movie I've ever watched. Then "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." It's only saving grace was that it had Clive Owen in it, and the costumes were really cool. We watched "The Holiday" this time, and it was actually an okay movie. Not my favorite, but not too shabby.

I had off from school today (Monday the 8th), but since Sarah didn't I was at her house alone with the maid. A little awkward. But I went shopping, and finally bought some new shoes. I say finally because I've been looking for shoes for literally ages. Too bad I then had to carry all of my stuff all the way to Schwaendi by myself.

I know that my week doesn't sound that eventful, but you have to realize that I got to do whatever I wanted for a whole 10 days. It was pretty freaking sweet. But now I have school again. What a drag.

Bis spaeter!

Questions? Comments?

"In West Virginia, We Grow Rocks."

2010-01-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

This past week was the 5 month mark. Which means that I have been out of the US for over 5 whole months! Right now is right around half way through my time in Switzerland. It's kind of sad to think about, in two ways. The first is that I have to go home in 5 1/2 months. The second is that I still have 5 1/2 months left. Polar opposites, I know. I'm starting to really miss stuff from back home, but not in a way that I would want to go home right now. More or less like I just can't wait for July to get here.

(The Beautiful view from Flums!)

Today in Geography class I had to do a presentation on WV. I found out about it last week, but thought that I had to do it on Friday. Turns out I don't have Geography on Fridays (and never have..). I came to that realization yesterday afternoon, so I ended up only having a few hours to throw something together. Which meant that my power point was pretty shabby and my text that I read had lots of grammatic mistakes. When I was writing my text in my two free classes (my class has French and English), I started getting really nervous. I'm absolutely awful at reading in German, and I usually end up butchering words so badly that people just nod and pretend to understand. Knowing this, I wrote the text as I speak. Meaning that I didn't try to use any big, super long, words. I just used stuff that I already knew, and would use in a conversation. Two other classmates were also making presentations during the same class, but they were very nice (sarcasm) and let me go first. I did manage to get through my presentation, and cover all the things that I wanted to, which were: the general history of WV, Battle Lewisburg reenactment/the Civil war, the mountains/rocks, sink holes, and the Swiss town of Helvetia. After I finished, I felt really good about my presentation as a whole. I didn't really care that there were a few times that I stumbled over words or that my power point wasn't very good. I felt that I finally, at least in a small way, proved myself to my Geography teacher. Before he always spoke English with me (bad English, mind you). But now I think he might take me more seriously (whether that's a good or a bad thing, relating to homework, I don't know..haha). Also, I got my class to laugh twice. Yes, twice. Once was because I was telling about Helvetia, and how there are only 50 people. They found that pretty funny. And the other time was when I said that a saying around WV is that "we grow rocks." They thought that one was funny as well.

Since my presentation was first, I was able to sit back and relax while the other two people presented theirs. The first was by a girl who went to New Zealand for a year. She just came into my class about two weeks ago, but everyone likes her because she was in New Zealand. They asked her more questions about NZ in two weeks then they ever asked me about WV. Anyways, her presentation was just about her Exchange year in general, not really NZ as a country (that's about when I realized that I could have done wayyy more with mine, and talked a bit about myself). She told all about how she lived near a beach and did all sorts of awesome stuff (my whole class was "ohhh"ing and "ahhh"ing), like: surfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, kayaking, skiing on volcanoes, etc. It really put WV to shame.

The last presentation was by a classmate who went to the USA for a year, to some town in KY, right across the river from Cincinnati. She talked about how she got to visit a lot of big cities like: New York, Bosten, Chicago, Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, etc. And all about her host family, school, etc. Yet again, it really made WV sound dull and boring. After class, I got a lot of "das war sehr gut!"s, and so. Which made me feel good about my presentation, but I still highly doubt that anyone would pick WV over New Zealand or Kentucky.

(After picking up my ski poles, I was just walking along when I saw this right across the bridge from Ennenda)

The only other really exciting thing (like giving a presentation about WV is exciting?) that has been going on, is skiing. This last Saturday I went skiing for my 5th time, and it was my first time going with friends, and not my host family. I went to Flums, which is a huge ski resort about an hour from my house by train/bus/gondola. My host sister told me that Flums was huge, but it was bigger than huge. It was practically gigantic! I was there with three of my good exchange student friends (who just happen to be Americans), Taylor, Jordan, and Keaton. Taylor's host family has a small wohnung (or apartment) at the resort, so he's there all the time, and invited me and the others to go skiing for the day. We got there at a little after 8am, and hit the slopes at around 9. After an hour for lunch, we quit for the day when all the lifts closed, at a little before 5pm. That is 7 hours of skiing. And mind you, this was only my 5th time skiing. Ever! Although my host family likes to think of me as a fantastic skier, I don't really believe that I'm that good. I was all over the mountains with Taylor and Keaton, though. I'm pretty sure that I went down just about every slope that they did, and kept up with them most of the time. There towards the end my leg and knee really started hurting, but over all I had a great day. Skiing is so much more fun when you have people to go with.

(The above picture is of the hoards of people who were skiing at Flums)

This next week I have ski holiday from school, but will (sadly) not be skiing the whole week, for reasons that are hard to explain. I have plans to go skiing the first weekend though, which should be fun. I have twin tip skis, so I'd like to learn how to use them, if possible :P but then again, I think I'd rather not break any bones this year.

Ciao!

It's been a while.. whoops!

2010-01-19T04:03:00.000-08:00

Hallo! Wow, it's been quite a while since I've written anything. That is due mostly to the fact that I've been busy, and writing a blog entry is pretty low on my list of things to do.

I just want everyone to know that eventually I will write a long blog entry about.. something. (please note the eventually!)

One more thing before I run to catch my bus back to school, my classmate Mara got a 4.25 on her English test today. :P I think she said it was her first passing grade, and she was pretty proud of it. Gotta love English class!

Ciao!

All Things School Related

2009-12-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write this particular post for quite some time. But, school is pretty boring, so I never really found it that interesting to sit down and write about. Now I am, though. So, enjoy.

Kanton Glarus is the West Virginia of der Schweiz. It is small, rural, and relatively secluded and hard to get to. There are only 2 trains that go through Glarnerland. Yes, TWO! The GlarnerSprinter(which only runs on weekdays, mind you!) and a regular, nasty and old, train.

Take a look at this map, and you will see that there is really only one way in and out of Glarnerland. That is the way the trains go, and then there are buses to just about every little town. Buses to my town run every hour, if I'm lucky. There's usually, maybe, two in the morning, and then two around lunch time, and then three or four between 3:00 and 6:40pm (yes, the last bus is at 6:40).

Although, I must say that I am writing this post about the trains/buses at quite an inconvenient time. Because the whole fahrplan changes on Monday. Which actually changes how early I have to get up and go to school. But I'll get to that in a bit.

My Classes

I go to a Kantonsschule, which is a Gymnasium, just better (I'm still not sure why though, so don't ask me). Only about 15 percent (or so I've been told, I'm not really sure if this is an accurate number) of all teens/young people get into a Gymnasium. Kantonsschule Glarus is a 6 year school, and I have been placed in the 4th class. The school system here is very complicated, and very different from back in the states. Here, if you're stupid, people don't tell you that you're smart. You get placed in schools with people on the same level as you. Also, if you don't work very hard (doing homework, studying for tests, etc) then you can get kicked out of a Gymnasium. Not like public schools in the states where you have to finish high school.

Another big difference is that I stay with the same people for all of my classes (or lectures as they're called here). This is very "exchange student friendly" seeing as you don't have to be in different classes, with different students all the time. Plus you have more time to bond with the people in your class.

My class has 13 separate classes: Math, Geography, Chemistry, Music, Sport, French, English, Deutsch, Physics, History, Biology (+lab), Art, and Schwerpunkte.

Mathematik

I thought that Math would be the one class that I would understand from the beginning. Well, I was wrong. My class is doing advanced trig functions and the like. Stuff that probably only overachieving Seniors would do in the states. So in otherwords, I can't really keep up with my classmates. I try to follow along, but I usually just end up doing Sukoku.

Geography

This class isn't about maps, or what you might think of when you hear "Geography". My class has studied rocks and tsunamis since I came. I can't really think of what this class might be in the US, though. The teacher always ends up throwing at least one student out per lecture. At least.

Chemistry

I would think that this is basically the same thing as in the states. Except we haven't blown anything up yet. Too bad. The teacher is a real stickler though. He always yells at me for chewing gum. The thing is, he yells at me in German because he always forgets that I'm an exchange student. So then he attempts to speak some English, and fails miserably. But I did I project with a few classmates, and had to read the opening and closeing in German, and my group got a 6 (same as 100%)! So I was pretty proud.

Musik

Basically what we do in this class is sing out work on music theory. But so far only sing.

Sport (Termine or Gym)

Now here is a HUGE difference: we actually have to do stuff in gym class! The things we have to do range from Gymnastics (with trampolines, flips, and what not) to Unihocky and basketball. Mind you, I always get hurt. Sprained ankle here, basketball to the face there.. Otherwise this class isn't that bad. The teacher is nice (and she's also an English teacher) and it's a great time to bond with my classmates. Oh, and for this class the girls and guys in separate classes.

French

The language. Since it's one of Switzerland's national languages, it's kind of required that you take it. Of course, since I'm an exchange student, and have no previous experience with French, I don't go to this class.

English

This class is loads of fun. I understand everything, and have a legit reason to not take tests (or even come to class): English is my native language. I don't always go in English class, though. The teacher has a very annoying fake British accent, and he always asks me to clarify stuff. I only speak in German at school, so when asked to clarify very complicated English words, it's almost impossible.

Deutsch

A literature class, I think. I've only been to this class once though, so I'm not really sure. The teacher said that I shouldn't come because they are much more advanced in German (no really?).

Physik

Same thing as Physics, just, worse. The teacher is pracically insane, and is always doing things in class that would be totally inappropriate, and not tolerated, in the states.

Geschichte

Also known as History. This is my favorite class. The teacher is really cool and I can actually understand what's going on and what he's teaching about (right now we're learning about the Roman Empire). Also, my class is always quiet and paying attention. No one ever goofs off in this class.

Biology (+lab)

Biology is biology. Disecting animals, looking at bugs under a microscope, etc. I've actually found that Lab is okay, because I've done all that stuff before (using a microscope) so I don't feel totally stupid.

Art (BG)

I would have thought that I would really like this class, but it turns out that I really don't. This is the only class that I've had actual homework in, which just isn't cool. And right now we are working on correcting a drawing that we made, on the computer.

Schwerpunkte

This is the only lecture that you don't have with your whole class. It's the one lecture that you can choose. I think I had four choices: Musik, BG, Mathe, and Italian. That was a pretty easy choice for me, Italian all the way! But it's a class that you want to really focus on, and you have to choose it (and stay with it) from the 3-6 classes.

The only other thing I have to say about my school is that school food here is better, but more expensive (9Sf for a meal, including a drink), there are no such things as substitute teachers, and school is not like prison, you have a lot of freedom.

Any Questions? Post them below.

Ciao!

Photo Update

2009-12-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

This is just a photo post, due to my extreme laziness. Although, I am working on a post about my school/classes/schedule. I know everyone back home is just dying to know what I'm doing (everyone=my mother). In the mean time, here are some pictures:

A traditional Swiss pastry (actually it's pretty much just bread), but I have no idea how to spell the name. So I'm just not going to butcher it.

Hummer Hunting in Zurich. (:

While walking down the mountain (it sucks living on a mountain, that has very few buses) to meet an AFS friend.

The view from Schwandi.

Zurich, my favorite place in Switzerland. (so far?)

And a few of my really good AFS friends: Jordan, Keaton, Taylor, and Johannes.

Ciao!

Thanksgiving.. Swiss Style

2009-11-29T03:29:00.000-08:00

The AFSers from the US had been planning a Thanksgiving party (or just a get together) since that fateful plane ride back in August. We had all said something like, "oh yeah, that would be freaking awesome!" But no one ever really tried to plan anything. Seeing as I live in the middle of nowhere, there was absolutely no way that it could be held at my house, and I'm not the type of person who would feel comfortable asking that much of my host family. But a guy from Virginia, Mac, somehow managed to plan it all, and his host family made all of the food. When everyone had a plate full of food, and we were all starving, someone's phone rings, and it turns out that a Norweigen guy had decided to come (I thought it was an all American kind of thing, seeing as it was Thanksgiving and all, but I guess not) and so Mac had to go down to the bahnhof to pick him up. By the time they got back to the house, everyone's food was cold, and we were all hungry. I was (very sarcastically and mostly jokingly) to say the prayer, earlier in the day by Mac. I did say the prayer, after everyone was FINALLY there. It felt so much like home. Waiting to pray before you eat. It made me a tad bit homesick.

The whole night we talked mostly in English, with a some French and German mixed in here and there. There is only one girl from the US who is in the French part, so she was the only one who didn't speak any German. It worked out though, because everyone wanted to speak English, and so we had a legit reason then.

After dinner we all kind of chilled for a while, but then most everyone started playing drinking games. Since I don't drink I just chilled on a couch and talked with Mac's host sister and Taylor, who's from Virginia. Usually I would have felt kind of left out, or like I was missing out on something because I don't drink. But it wasn't bad at all. I was kind of tired already, so chilling on a couch was just what I needed. Everyone spent the night there, because we had all come from quite a distance so it was just easier that way.

In the morning we all got up and came to find out that Mac's family had been so nice as to make all of us breakfast. After eating and talking for quite a while, we all got ready and said 'danke' to the whole family.

After we all got to Zurich, a few people went their seperate ways, and I went with a friend who lives the closest to Zurich, to her house because I didn't have enough time to get to my house and back. I hung out with her all afternoon, then went to another Thanksgiving dinner at my second host family's house. There were 16 people there, I think, most of which were from the US, or Swiss with an American spouse. I ended up speaking mostly English with some German thrown in here and there. It's become second nature for me to say 'danke' and 'bitte' automatically. I know that I've been speaking too much English when I say 'thank you.' The food was all homemade, and was absolutely delicious. The turkey (which had been fresh not frozen) was amazing. And sweet potatoes have never tasted so good.

I've come to find out that having a GA makes me think not enough about how I'm going to get home. I always think to myself, "oh I have a GA, it's no problem to get home." Figured that one out the hard way. After getting on the 10pm train back to Glarus, I came to realize that my host parents were going to be asleep when I got home. Therefor I would have to walk from Schwanden to Schwandi. Which is quite a ways, especially since I didn't know the shortcut at the time.

Later, 45 minutes of walking (to be exact) later, I got home. It was 12:15, I was exausted, and I learned my lesson: don't stay out so late and expect your host family to pick you up.

All in all, my Thanksgiving(s) were a lot of fun. I enjoyed hanging out with all my AFS American friends and my old host family.

I hope everyone back home had a great Thanksgiving!

Ciao!

At long last... Pictures!

2009-11-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

Here are a few random pictures from AFS outings and whatnot. More to come at some point...

Lugano, Kanton Tessin, in the Itaian part.

Swiss food in McDonalds. What a contradiction.

AFSers paddleboating on the lake of Zuerich.

Brazil-Italy-Ghana-Peru

The cool things you see while walking around Bern.

Countries from left to right(oder links zu rechts): China, Brazil, USA, and Paraguay.

Adventures in Zurich

2009-11-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

Since my last blog post I have changed families, although I will not go into detail, it is enough to say that we just didn't get along well. I moved in with some old friends of mine who live in Zurich, and so far it has been amazing. I have never lived in a city before (let alone a city as big as Zurich!) so it's quite a change. I still have to go to school back in Glarus though, because AFS is not willing to let me change schools for reasons not worthy of mentioning, so everyday I have quite a long commute to school. I don't mid it though because I usually get to see the sun come up over the lake of Zurich, which is breathtaking.

Lately I've been very busy hanging out with friends (both AFS and Swiss), doing homework, going to Solidfestival, and just chilling in Zurich. Even though I really hate to be busy all the time, it really hasn't been bad. I've made some friends at my school, and even though school itself can be extremely boring, hanging out with my classmates is usually fun. I have come to fervently look forward to my 'down time.' The days that I can sleep in or just chill around the house. Sometimes I feel lazy or whatnot, but you can't be busy every second of everyday. It's just not possible.

Another point for all you people out there who will be coming to Switzerland with AFS, don't make enemies within the AFS group. The AFSers will be some of your best friends. When I first met all the others coming from the US to Switzerland, I thought "wow, I'm never gonna be friends with these people." (some were okay, but most were just not the kind of people that I would ever see myself hanging out with) But since being here I've come to find that a lot of them are not who I initially thought they were. And now I can see myself still being good friends with them, even after the exchange year if over. So no matter what your first impression is of the other AFSers, give them a chance. Because most likely they will be really cool.

If you have any questions or comments, please just leave a comment below, and I'll get back to you.

Ciao!

Crazy Times

2009-10-21T07:21:00.001-07:00

These last few weeks have been pretty hecktic. Full of great times and also, awful ones.

For my first week of ferien (holiday/vacation) I went to Basel to visit one of my friends aus den USA. I stayed with her a few days and got to hang out with her host family (they were all super nice!). I didn't get to see much of Basel, but what I did see I thought was gorgeous. Ich leibe Zurich als Basel, though. I spent one day at home just relaxing before taking off again, this time for the French Part and France! Another one of my USA friends invited me to come out to the French part where her and her host family had been spending the week. They took me around an old town (which was gorgeous) and then to a dinosaur walking trail, which would have been a LOT better had it not been raining... After the trail, once we were sufficiently soaking wet, we went on a tour of a cave that constantly remained at 7 degrees Celsius. BRRRR! It was freezing, but yet again, gorgeous. I got to see the largest stalactite in der Schweiz!

The second week of ferien I got to go to a church service in my town with my Liason. She wanted me to see how different it was from back in the States. It was very quiet. No one talked before the service, as they do in my home church. And there was only maybe 15 people, total, there for a regular service. No one really sang the hymns, and for the most part it just seemed to be lacking life, in general. Although I couldn't understand what the preacher said, my liason later told me that she used a lot of big "biblical" words, and most people wouldn't readily use, or know.

This also baffled me, because back home they try to help everyone understand.

On Montag of my second week of ferien, I went to Lugano with some AFS friends. Lugano is in the Italian part, about 3 hours from Zurich. It's crazy nice! While it was rainy and cold in Glarus and Zurich, it was warm and sunny in Lugano! There were even palm trees. I think we spent more time on the train to get there and back, then we actually spent in Lugano, though. Aber es war sehr schon!!

The rest of the week I spent mostly just hanging around the house, or out and about Zurich. Nothing to grand. I went Hummer hunting a few towns away in Lachen with another one of my USA friends (the Americans are pretty tight!), aber the Hummer war nicht there.

I've learned a lot about myself these past few weeks, and I've come to realize that everything I'm going through right now (host family problems and changing families) is going to better me as a person. I think that is more or less the point of AFS. To put you through things that you wouldn't normally experience in your home country. Whether it be huge cultural differences, or just having to learn to get along with different people. It all works to better you as a person. It's just the sticking it out that is hard. I've been more homesick this past week then I ever have been. It was truly awful. I felt like I might actually want to go home. But as it turns out I was just going to be running away from problems that I didn't want to face. I know that I would never forgive myself if I went home, though.

School has gone pretty well this past week. My classmates are nice, and always ready to answer questions if I get confused. The only thing that I really despise about school is that it starts to early. 7:50 is much too early for me. Especially since I will be moving soon, it will take me even longer to get to school. So long, that I will probably have to get up at around 5:30am. I've become used to getting up earlier, though, and going without so much sleep.

I should really start uploading some pictures onto here, but I'm kind of short on time. Maybe next time...

Tschuss!

Wirtschaftswoche [Part 1]

2009-09-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

Today started what is known as "Wirtschaftswoche" or Project week. All day my class, after being shuffled in with the other 4th year class, went to different rooms and discussed who knows what. The whole time I was totally oblivious. I had no idea what was being said or even what general subject was being discussed. An hour to the end of school, the teacher pulls me out of a discussion circle, of which I was not participating because of my lack of understanding, to tell me what was going on. At last. That is when I found out that the project had to do with an imaginary town which was trying to boost tourism. There are two options which could be used to boost the rate of tourism, which are: 1) Attract long term tourists by building more lodges and such or 2) build better/more ski lifts so as to bring in more one day tourists. My group is for the first one, which is actually the one I would have chosen, if given the choice. We have to come up with a financial plan and then present it at in a program in front of the entire school and our parents. The people get to vote for which ever plan they think is better.

I like the idea behind the whole thing, but it's a little hard for me to participate seeing as I don't even speak Hoch Deutch, and during the discussions they talk Schweiz Deutch anyways. So really, I would be lost no matter what. Luckily everyone is very nice, and if I look extremely confused they'll try to explain whatever is going on or they'll just talk to me.

Tomorrow there is more "Arbeiten in Gruppen" which might or might not be fun. Who knows.

After this week I have two weeks of Herbsferien. Ahh I've been looking forward to it so much. I finally get have some time to travel around Switzerland and have some fun, with no school to worry about.

Oh just a note about what I've come to find out about what (most/a lot of) Swiss people think about that American government. My host family LOVES Obama. They have a book by him for goodness sake. When I asked them "why?" They just answered with what they "hoped" he would do: pull the troops out of the middle East, end wars, give the rich people's money to the poor, etc. But the thing is that they liked him because of his appearance (being black) and how he spoke. They also hate Bush. and think Clinton was "okay." MoreAmericans need to come over here and educate the Swiss people on American politics. Because what they're watching on TV is just sugarcoating everything, and I hate it.

Here are a few phrases in German:

Tschuss - see ya

bis bald - see you later

bis Morgan - see you tomorrow

Wie gehets es dir? - how are you?

Mir geht ist gut. - I'm doing well.

was ist los? - what's wrong?

was ist das? - what is that?

nicht guet! - not good!

du bist dumm. - you're stupid.

That's all I can think of at the moment..

Tschuss!

First day of "real" Schule

2009-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day at the Gymnasium, more commonly known as the "kanti". The building itself is huge. There are three floors (I think..) and plenty of stairs. The structure is made up of mostly concrete and looks very modern. There is also modern art throughout the whole building. The class rooms have nice tables and chairs (not one person, extremely uncomfortable desks) and out the windows you can see picture perfect views of the Alps. Absolutely breathtaking.

My class was okay. They weren't exactly welcoming, but I'd heard that the Swiss aren't always warm when you greet them for the first time. AFS in the kanti had gotten 2 girls from my class to volunteer, and so Mara and Laura showed me around and introduced me to people. I got to tour the whole school before going to the first class of the day, which happened to be math. Yuck. The only good thing I have to say about math, is that I could understand it for the most part. My next class was Geography. Didn't understand a thing, except that the class had visited a volcano and therefor that's what they were studying. After that was Chemie (chemistry) but since they were taking a big test, I stuck off to the library to read(C.S. Lewis of course!). Music class was next, and it was awful. The teacher was sehr weird... After that was lunch. And lunch here in Switzerland is WAY different than in the US. You have so many options! There's the mensa (cafeteria), Migros (down the road), small restaurants or cafes, or you can go home for lunch! Then I had Deutch class, which was easy because we just watched a movie(auf Deutch). My last class was Enlgish. Oh my goodness, it was CRAZY hard.... NOT. They were doing about 3rd grade English. Sunny (who isn't really in my class..) and I just talked the whole time, well after answering questions about our home countries. After that English class I decided to hang around and go to an "Advanced" English class, which happened to be at about the 5th grade level. And yes, I'm being generous.

All in all, school was very good.

I miss all my AFS friends though :(

Language Schule ist fertig!

2009-09-19T00:37:00.000-07:00

Looking back at this past month, there have been a lot of good times with the other AFSers. Being in Zurich everyday meant that we could go exploring after school. Or even just plain shopping! My favorite memory, however, is from inside the classroom. I had an amazing teacher, named Maya, and I really learned a lot from her. But when her family in the US got sick, she couldn't finish the course, so we got a subsitute. This substitute was either extremely gullible or just plain stupid. Although I'm still not sure which, I'm leaning towards the first one. We had a lot of fun with the Sub. But I should probably not repeat all of it here. Lets just say, she believed anything we told her. I became Jordan from Canada. Ay. But that wasn't even my doing...

On Monday I start school at the Kanti. I'm so excited, but at the same time kinda scared. I'm just happy that I'll finally have friends here in Glarus. For the past month I've only really been able to hang out with other exchangers. It'll be good to have some Swiss friends.

Yesterday my awesome host sister got me my school schedual!

I have: math, geoography, Deutch, English (that one's gonna be hard..), Italian or French (I'm hoping for Italian), PE, and some other stuff that I don't really know exactly what it is.

What I'm most excited about though, is that every Wednesday I only have half a day! And just about every other day I get out at 4:15 at the latest, but usually 3 something. Also, I only have zwei wochen of schule before zwei wochen of holliday. (:

This past month has gone by so fast. I can deifnitely see my year going by this fast as well.

Chow!

One Week In

2009-08-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a week since I arrived in Switzerland. This last week has gone surprisingly slow. I feel like a few months should have gone by...

Language school has been quite a drag. I was placed in a class with mostly Spanish speaking students, so I've been having a hard time distinuishing the two. So far I only know how to ask simple questions, or make simple statements like: Ich heisse Emily. Or Ich Kommt aus den USA. I think I will catch on faster once I'm in actual school, away from my American friends. As sad as that will be.

Homelife has been alright. It's awkward living with strangers. I feel so weird sometimes walking in on a conversation or whatnot. It's so much easier to just sit in my room on the computer, but what is easiest, is not always the best.

I got to go "shopping" (I didn't buy anything, so I don't know that I would call it shopping) on Zurich's famous Bahnhoffstrasse. It was very impressive, to say the least. And also very expensive. What I like best about outtings like that, is just getting to know the other AFSers. We all came from such diverse backgrounds, so it's really cool to compare things.

I'm starting to miss random things. I think what I miss the most is Ranch dressing. In the US I ate it on EVERYTHING. But here they don't even know what it is. I plan on going to the Migros (best shopping place ever) to try to find it, but I'm not too hopeful.

Lastly, about the picture. I took that out of my bedroom window... Yes, I got lucky, and live in the Alps. (:

Tchuss!

Grüezi

2009-08-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Wow. I have been in Switzerland almost a week now. It's pretty crazy. The orientation in New York was pretty cool. We got to learn more about Switzerland and it's culture, which was nice. There are 12 other exchange students from the US. Five of them are going to language school in Zurich with me.
The trip from NY to Zürich was terrible. And I'm underestimating there, it was way worse than just 'terrible', but I'll leave it at that. First the plane is broke before take off, and they said over the intercom that they would fix it with a 'big hammer'. Then we take off (later than we were supposed to). While circling New York they find out that the wing flaps, aptly named Spoilers, were broken. But instead of just being able to go on or land, we had to circle New York for 3+ hours. Once most of the excess fuel had been burned off, and we were cleared for landing, we dropped down onto the run way. The plane was shaking and swaying and swerving all over the runway as we landed. Rescue vehicals lined the runway (because we might have needed saving, which was kind of scary..) After we got back into the airport (we were supposed to be over the ocean about then), we had to sit there for another 3 to 4 hours. An AFS person got there about 5 minutes before we boarded the new plane. Then we proceeded to wait for another hour and a half on the plane, waiting for the captain to get there. And on top of that the seats were terribly uncomfortable, so I didn't get more than 15 minutes of sleep the whole time.
I arrived in Zürich at around 4 on Friday afternoon. Customs was a breeze, and so was getting our bags. US airways lost one of my bags when flying to NY, but none of that mess in Switzerland. Then I met my host mom and sister. And they took me by train back to Niederurnen.
So far I really like it. Every moring I wake up and look out my window and see the Alps. It's so gorgeous. The train I take to Zürich for language school goes through the Alps and past lakes... it's so nice.
I've compiled a list of what I love about Switzerland:
-manual cars
-the Alps
-public transportation
-bread
-Migros
-Nutella
-Peach tea
-Swiss flags
-other AFS students
-HUMMERs (:
-GA
-three kisses

Stuff I don't like so much:
-smokers. YUCK.
-rain
-Control
-rules
-some AFS students
-not being able to drive
-not having wifi in my room
-not having friends who understand my jokes..
-butter.
-Spam
-not having my Homicidal Psycho Jungle Kitty :(
-people talking about me in German, and not knowing what they're saying..

Pictures will come soon.

tchüss :D

Time is ticking away..

2009-08-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

This summer has been pretty crazy. I've been here, there and everywhere. Down to SC then up to MD. Hanging with friends, and even having a party. But all through that I've been looking forward, waiting to see what God has in store for me. I've never been away from home for more then about 3 weeks. So it'll be hard to be away from everything for so long. I think I'm gonna miss my Homicidal Psycho Jungle Kitty the most though ;)

Packing has been going kind of slow. So far I have my bag (just a huge, light, rolling duffle bag from sams club haha), and I've been trying to make a list of all the stuff I "can't live without." I just found out that I can take 2 bags though, in addition to my carry-on backpack (which I have yet to purchase....). But otherwise I've got it narrowed down to a piles. There's the "maybe" pile, the "have-to-have" pile, and the "staying-at-home" pile.

Tonight at youth group I had to say goodbye to 3 people who I've been really close to. It was pretty hard to walk away from them. A year is a long time when you really think about it. When I get back next summer a lot will have changed. I already see that it is going to be really hard coming back next year, but well worth it I'm sure.

So far I've talked to quite a few other exchange students (thank you Facebook!) from all over. I can't wait to meet all these people and get this thing started! I'm just pumped to get there, and live for Him. It's going to be amazing, to say the least!