Weeks 4 and 5

Not too much has happened in the last two weeks, so I decided to heap both weeks into one blog post. (Or, I'm just being lazy.  You decide.)

Two Sundays ago I went to a horse race with my host parents.  It was in the capital of my Kanton Aarau, Aargau.  There was a race about every half hour and in between races we went into a tent behind the stands for food and drinks.  The races are as much a social event as they are a sporting event.  It was very cool to watch, but what they don't tell you in movies is that it smells like pee and cigars.

After the horse race, I got to try fondue for the first time!  It was sehr gut.  We ate it all together and my host sister Julia and her boyfriend even came.  Afterward we all played cards together.

Last Wednesday was the last day of the language course in Zurich.  After school, a few of us went to a park by the lake and hung out for a while.  I'm sad that I won't get to see the other exchange students every week anymore, but hopefully we'll still see each other sometimes.

Last Saturday was my school's Tag der offnen Tur which is open house in German.  We had to wake up early on a Saturday to go to school, but it was okay because there were free croissants (which are SO GOOD HERE) and we only had three classes.

Next week is break (in which I will write college essays and a ten page research paper) and the next week is arbeitswoche!  It's a week where I'll go to Lausanne on the Genfersee (Lake Geneva) with my class and basically be a tourist.  I'm so excited!  I'll also get to be there for my birthday.

In other news, I've started reading Harry Potter in German!  I think it will help me with my Deutsch because I know those books inside and out.

Until next time,

Tschuss!

Orientation Weekend

Last weekend, I participated in an AFS orientation camp in Sursee.  I took a bus and two trains to get there with my friend from Brazil who lives in the same region of Switzerland as me.  I got to meet lots of new exchange students because our camp was mostly people from the Luzern German school and only a few from my language school in Zurich.  Our volunteers who ran the camp were also pretty cool because they were still pretty close to our ages.  We mostly played games but we also talked about AFS rules, went on a short hike, and went to a fair!  The fair was pretty fun.  I rode the ferris wheel and one other ride.  

Today in language school, I had to give a presentation on Hawaii.  I made a slide with some pictures of the Big Island.  I had to google Hawaiian food for the presentation, and it made me realize how much I miss it.  I didn't even think I liked Hawaiian food that much, but I've realized since I left that Hawaiian food is a much broader category of food than I realized.  Of course I miss my family and friends too, but I (thankfully) can still talk to them. :)

Ade!

First Days of Kantonsschule

On Thursday and Friday I had my first days of real school in Switzerland.  In Swiss high schools, there are four grades like in the US, but they are later because they go to middle school for two extra years here.  You also have all of your classes with the same people, but still change classrooms and teachers.  School starts here at 7:45 usually, but I didn't have to go until 9:20 because my class had Spanish class which I don't have to take.  When I got to school, I went to the secretary's office to meet my "coach" who is in my class and showed me around and introduced me to the others in the class.  I had German, Chemistry, English, and Physics on Thursday.  German was so over my head that it was easy, because I didn't have to pay attention. Chemistry was hard because my class was doing pretty advanced stuff and 'm already bad at chem.  I was actually able to understand some of the Physics because they were still doing the easy stuff.  English class was probably the best though, because everyone had to speak English in class so I understood everything.  I also introduced myself in English class because when you're new in a school in Switzerland, you have to introduce yourself to the whole class at once.  But my English teacher had me introduce myself in a different way than usual.  I went out of the classroom with three classmates and a subject to talk about (like school or family) and we asked each other about the topic.  Then we went inside and I presented them and they presented me.  It was a good way to get to know my classmates.  After morning classes we had a two hour long break so some of my classmates and I watched movies in a "black box" which is a black room with bean bags for watching movies.  

Friday was a very easy day.  The sports teacher wasn't there, so I didn't have to go, and I don't have to go to French, so I started at 10:25 with double math.  The regular math teacher had a substitute for the beginning of the year, and it was her last day, so we ate cake and played games for the second half of the class.  Then I had German class for exchange students at a neighboring school, and then I was done!  

I definitely like kantonsschule better than language school in Zurich, and I'm excited to be there full time!

Ciao!