XLIV. Leaving Switzerland

   I left Switzerland on July 17th, and it was one of the toughest things I ever had to do. I will miss the country and being able to see the Alps occasionally, but mostly I miss the people I had gotten to know there. Saying goodbye to them was so hard, especially since I had to say goodbye to some earlier than others, and sometimes I didn't know if I would see them again before I left or not.
   My last week in Switzerland was spent mostly at home or in town or the pool with friends.
   On my very last day my bike was stolen. My host mom had taken the basket off of my bike to put on her own, and the lock was normally kept in the basket. I went to the pool to say goodbye to my friends and didn't realize that the lock wasn't there until I had already arrived. I thought, what's the big deal? I was only going to be there for the afternoon anyway, and there were so many bikes there that surely nobody would bother looking for unlocked bikes to steal. And I had kept my bike safe and sound for an entire year, so it was highly unlikely to get stolen now.

XLIII. It's not over yet

   When looking back at the past couple of weeks, I can smile because I have made good memories, but I'm sad because I have only a little more than one week left.
   I experienced my last days of Swiss school. My class was really sweet and made a little surprise party for me. A couple girls baked a cake and cupcakes for everyone, and they presented me with a signed Swiss T-shirt and a scrapbook with pictures from our school trip.

 The cake that they made for me.

XLII. Savor time

   The way time is flying now is a little scary. I feel like I just wrote my last blog post, and then I realize that I'm already over halfway through June. Woops.
   Anyway, I have just about 4 weeks left in Switzerland, which I can hardly believe. My flight takes off on July 17th, although it was originally scheduled for July 5th (I wanted to stay longer). There seems to be so much to do in these last weeks, and I have to think about gifts, souvenirs, last trips, and final goodbyes.

This is a sunset that I managed to photograph from my balcony one evening. I think it's a fitting depiction of the coming end to my year.

XLI. German bubble

   I'd like to say that the weather in May was way better than in April, as it should be, but it was just the same, if not worse. Rain, coldness, and little sun pretty much sum up these last few weeks. Despite the natural depression that comes with the lack of sun, my time here in Switzerland is still going well.
   I might even go so far to say that my life feels almost entirely normal, almost like I've been living here for longer than a year. I'm going to school and actually participating during class; I'm hanging out with friends and my family; and I'm in the school theater group.
   My English bubble has now expanded to include the German bubble. You could say that I'm pretty much fluent in conversational German, but it's literature and longer texts that really get me. Swiss-German is also not such a problem anymore. I understand most Swiss-German, although it depends who is speaking and what they are talking about. I haven't tried to start speaking it because somehow I think it's just a Swiss thing that no one else can really master it. And I'm sure that if I started trying to speak it, everyone here would think it was either the cutest or most hilarious thing in the world. I get by fine just by speaking High-German.

XL. Spring in Switzerland

   With about two more months left in Switzerland, every day becomes more important to me, and I try to make the best of it. I try to savor every week, and make sure that I remember something from it.
   Last week was my first week back at school after about three weeks of vacation. As you already know, my mom was here for two of those weeks, but in the third week I was actually in Germany with my class from school. We went to Constance, which is right on the border between Germany and Switzerland, so it actually wasn't that far away, and we did lots of fun stuff.

XXXIX. Visit from America

   A lot has happened in the past several weeks. The major event was my mom coming to visit me during my vacation break, and with her arrival, we went travelling around Switzerland and even to Austria. We went to Geneva, Lucerne, Lugano, and to the small town from which some of our ancestors came from, Guggisberg. We also spent a day in Salzburg, Austria, taking a "Sound of Music" tour and visiting the house where Mozart was born.
   Besides travelling, my mom finally got a chance to meet my host family (and approved of them), and I introduced her to my new and different Swiss life.
   As a result from all the travelling we did, I have taken tons of pictures and have too many stories to recount in one post. In that case, I will let some pictures speak for themselves.

This is my mom and me in Lucerne.

XXXVIII. Easter and the last snow

   I suppose I haven't written in a while, and I have decided to post perhaps twice a month now rather than once a week, especially since now I am not experiencing quite as many wild and crazy things.
   Easter was last weekend, and that was an interesting time for me. Normally I don't really do much on Easter except go to church, but here my host family decided to give me a traditional Swiss experience. We decorated eggs by staining them in onion shell juice, and we searched for Easter nests that held little goodies in the house. In fact, I just finished eating my chocolate Easter bunny yesterday. Then I looked at the nutritional facts... and I immediately regretted being even minutely curious.
   We also went to meed my host mom's relatives, and apparently her family has this tradition to throw the eggs as far as possible until they crack, and surprisingly it takes a really long time before they do. It didn't really have a point except that we ate the eggs afterwards.
   We went to church on Good Friday (Karfreitag) and on Sunday. On Monday (I had a four-day weekend) I went skiing again with my host dad, and this time I made sure to get some more photos.

Here are some unstained and some finished eggs that we colored. They're all hard-boiled of course.

XXXVII. Why is there snow on the ground?

   Today is March 26, and there is snow on the ground. It has snowed for the entire day in fact, and this is after a week of almost spring-like weather. Ironically, my hometown got snow too, pretty much the first snow of winter for them.
   The last week was specifically busy for me because I had three concerts with the school band, Kantibänd.
   Yes, all of the songs were actually in English, and most of them were taken from the musical "Hairspray". There were seven singers, and the rest of the band played various instruments, including brass. I also played my violin for two pieces.

XXXVI. Integration

   This past week has been a little busy and a little stressful, but it's still been good. I guess I could begin by talking about the tests. I had a History test, and since all of it was comprehension and interpretation and writing long responses in German, I didn't stand much of a chance, but I could actually answer the last question to some degree. It asked how the US Constitution splits up the power in the US government, so I figured I should at least write something to that.
   I also got my Biology test back that we took a while ago, and when my teacher handed it to me, he was all smiles and telling me what a good job I did (I kind of thought he was joking, since I knew I had done a terrible job.). He was very proud that I earned 15 points.

XXXV. Now and the future

   The weather is getting warmer, and the snow is finally gone, and my bike is getting more use once more. The birds are chirping, construction on houses is beginning, and my host family is working on fixing our backyard. (Remember that they had to fix the retaining wall last fall, so everything is just dirt.)
   This week at school has been a good one. I think the highlight was earning a 6 (the highest grade possible) on a German grammar quiz. In fact, I was even named class best! Nevermind that two others did just as well, but mostly everyone was kind of embarrassed that I did better than the majority, especially since it's not even my native language. I think the reason why I did so well though was because they were all the exact same exercises from the practice book that we had, and I have a pretty good memory. Yes, that was a good day.
   My host sister has recently rejoined the family, and I'm still trying to get accustomed to having another member of the family in the house, but she is really nice, and I can't wait to get to know her better!

XXXIV. The coming of spring

   I've got to say that I'm really disappointed that February is such a short month because now it's gone already, and I have only 4 months left of my exchange year in Switzerland. However, with the coming of March, it is beginning to get slightly, slightly warmer. There is still some snow on the ground, but most of it has melted, and yesterday I actually biked to school again instead of taking the bus. It was still cold, but it was bearable, and I actually made it back and forth without getting too out of breath.
   I keep getting more and more comfortable with school, and now I'm sort of getting into a routine where I know how much I should work for each subject according to my abilities. For instance, in English class I don't have any excuses not to homework, and in Math and Physics, I am normally capable of doing most of the work. Actually in Math, we just started a new unit on logarithms, which I have already known about for 2 years but is new for everyone else, so I've sort of been helping the others who don't understand it at all. It's really difficult to explain Math in German, but somehow I manage it alright. We also have a new student

XXXIII. The sense of normality

   I'd like to keep this post short and sweet, and I'll do a quick sum up of the last week.
   For two days it began to really feel like spring, and lots of the snow melted, but then it got cold again, and right now it's snowing, so obviously winter is still fighting hard.
   I went to school like normal and tried my best on the Biology test. I also planned a movie night with the girls from my class, so they came over last night, and we had a blast. It was really awesome that I could get almost all of them together just to hang out. They are all really sweet; they brought me a present and offered to help clean up afterwards, which honestly really surprised me.

Some of the girls at our movie night!

XXXII. Back to the norm

   This first week of school after vacation held several pleasant surprises and a couple unpleasant surprises.
   Pleasant Surprise #1: My school schedule was slightly changed, so now Monday is not quite so wonderful as before, but Friday is now going to a whole lot better. My violin lesson was moved from Friday to Monday, and now I only have one period of Chemistry on Friday instead of two, so I can actually get home before 5:00. Super excited!
   Pleasant Surprise #2: The reason why my violin lesson was moved was because my teacher had a baby (which is just awesome in itself), so obviously I have a new teacher for the next couple months, and I was kind of scared that I wouldn't like him (as most substitute teachers seem to be not so great), but I actually think he will be a really good teacher, and I will enjoy learning more from him.

XXXI. Skiing like a pro

   Last week my host family took me to the Alps to go skiing. I had never skied before, so that was really an adventure. There was lots of snow there already when we arrived at the cabin, and the view in the mountains was just beautiful. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of me skiing with my camera because I was afraid I might break it, but here are some pics of what it looked like from the cabin.

XXX. Bern and Basel

   Obviously I don't normally travel this much within one week, but this was an exception where I got a chance to go to both Bern and Basel.
   I went to Bern with AFS (the organization that I traveled with) last Tuesday, and I met a bunch of other exchange students and got a tour of the Bundeshaus, or the capitol building.

This is a view of Bern, and here I am standing (on the right) with a fellow American friend.

XXIX. St. Gallen and relearning English

   We've gotten more snow in the past week, and it's actually been staying on the ground for several days. Last weekend I traveled to St. Gallen to visit my friend from America. I had to take a couple trains after I got out of school on Friday, the longest of which being over 2 hours long. Before I came to Switzerland, I never would have imagined myself traveling so far entirely by myself, but now it's not really a big deal.

   Fun fact: The chemistry test that I thought I would fail was still pretty difficult, but I tried my best and actually answered some questions. In the end I ran out of time before I could really finish.

   I slept over at St. Gallen, and on Saturday morning we went to do some sight-seeing, shopping, and talking in English. At this point, English is beginning to feel like a foreign language in our mouths, so we were just making mistakes left and right. It was quite entertaining.

We went to see the lake that isn't far from her house in a town called Rorschach. Apparently, Germany and Austria both border the lake as well.

XXVIII. Being an American

   If there is one thing I have learned about writing a blog, I clearly must never write on a Friday. I'll admit that in my last post I did sound a bit like a whiny teenager, so I'm writing today because I actually like my schedule on Monday, and I believe you all deserve a slightly more wholesome post. (I also tend to forget that I have a worldwide audience).
   In direct contrast to Friday, every one of my Mondays is a lot shorter. I have only five classes, but after our next vacation break, which is at the end of this month, I will have six classes on Monday and one less on Friday.
   My schedule begins with Wirtschaft (Economy). Today we had a test, and although I tried, there wasn't really any way for me to explain Swiss laws in German, especially since I've only lived here for about 4 1/2 months now.
   Then we had a double period of Mathematik. We started a new unit and got our tests back from Friday. I am very pleased to announce that I earned my very first 6 (that's a perfect score) since I've joined this school.
   After this I had two periods off for lunch, so I biked home and had a chance to relax a bit. It was beginning to snow a little, but we haven't really had any snow since early December.

XXVII. Back to school

   I know that as my first post for the new year (Happy New Year by the way), it's been a little delayed. I will admit that after being really lazy for two weeks of no-school, I became even lazier once I got home from school everyday this week. To say the least, I much prefer vacation.
   Not that school doesn't have its perks -- like seeing my friends and learning German -- but it can still be very tiring.
   Ironically, my least favorite day of the week is Friday. My schedule goes like this:

• Violin lesson
• Math - today we had a test, but for me it wasn't too hard
• Physics - not very exciting