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.