XX. The realities of reading

   For once, this week was almost about normal as it could be. Living the life as a foreign-exchange student is not, as one might presume, always filled with excitement and adventures. For school, I am stuck now trying to read books in German, and that is SO not exciting. I don't know how my fellow classmates do it because, not only do they have to read German books, but they all have to read multiple English and French books too.

This is pretty much the first and only book that I can actually understand! "Märchenland" basically

means "fairytales" or something of the sort, so I'm reading very exciting short stories about princesses, dragons, and talking animals.

This book is what we're reading in my German class right now, and it's only 100 pages long, but I can't seem to make any headway. I finally Googled it out of desperation and discovered that the main character is already dead, he makes very lengthy monologues about random things, and the book basically has no plot. Grrr.

   Some good news is that I got a 5.5 (6 is the highest possible score) on my last math test, and everybody was so mad at me because I did better than the majority of the class. 

   Of course, I heard that Obama was reelected President. I don't think it would be possible to go to any place in the world to escape from all of the American politics. Everybody found out first thing on Wednesday morning, the front page of the newspaper was plastered with the huge pictures of Obama and Romney, and there were even Swiss reporters in Washington D.C. I'll admit that nobody here was really disappointed that he won, most likely because they barely knew who Mitt Romney was.

   My host mom just made pancakes again today, and I must say that they were terrific. Perhaps it was because she specifically bought measuring-cups for me, and she used them today. 

   

When my eyes fell upon these, it felt like Christmas.

   I would like to keep this post short and sweet, but first a couple differences.

   One thing I have noticed is that guys here seem to care a little more about the way they look and might actually occasionally exhibit a better sense of fashion than a T-shirt and sweats. 

   Students at school always have a little pencil bag that carries an assortment of pens, markers, and colored pencils, etc., and they actually use this stuff. In America, I would always be totally fine with just a pencil; any extra stuff that I'd need would be provided by the teachers in class.

   In terms of food, I still can't believe that people here never grew up with pancakes, and my host mom was asking me what other toppings you can put on them. "Well," I said (approximately, in German), "we normally eat it just with syrup, but you can put on other stuff if you really want to. Sometimes we add chocolate chips or blueberries, and they're also good with bacon." Then of course I had to make sure that she understood that I meant bacon on the side and not actually in the batter. As for new Swiss food, I've been trying some new desserts, but since everything is basically called "Kuchen" (cake) whether it is closer to a pie or bread, I can't really tell you what I've eaten, but they were good.