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.