Well hello all!
Yes it's been a month since I last wrote, but in my defense, everything really interesting happened in the past two weeks, and I had no time to write.
So let's see, my last week of school before ferien was great. Had a couple tests, but the teachers were really relaxed otherwise. My Chem teacher bought us coffee. :] I also went to a hockey game on the 22. Biel won again. :] But I got beer spilled into both of my boots.. That was gross, plus it was raining outside and I had to partially walk home. :[
Skyped with my family in South Dakota on the 23rd, and my mom's side of the family on the 25th. It was good to see all of my family, I was a little sad that I couldn't be there in person. All of the exchange students say Christmas is the hardest time to be away from your family, and I would definitely agree. But I'm taking advantage of my awesome year in Switzerland, and trying not to stay homesick for to long. Christmas is not so over the top here. Where we put up a crazy amount of lights and decorations up, they seem more minimal here. They also don't really put up decorations until a week or so before Christmas, and take them down almost immediately afterwards. Not like the USA, where the decorations are up from November until March. haha And the tree, that kind of scared my sometimes. They put REAL candles on the tree!!! Every time they lit them (whenever people were over) I was just imagining my family's tradition of burning the tree in the first bonfire of the year, and the flames reaching 30 ft into the sky. They also put little sparklers on the tree. Yes, the fire kind. They only last a couple seconds, but they still worried me.
I skyped with my mom, my synchro co-captains, and their moms on my mom's Birthday (28th), that was nice too. I miss those girls, and their moms were like second moms to me, so them all together was fun. :]
For New Years, we went to Lenk, where friends of my host parents were staying. At midnight there were fireworks and lots of bells ringing. It was loud, we were up the side of a mountain a bit, and we could still here the people yelling the countdown in the town below. :] Then on the first, I had my first skiing experience in the Swiss Alps. :] I only fell a few times, but it was still fun. :]
Then the next two days were spent packing and cleaning. I moved to my new host family (the brother of my old host dad), on the 3rd. I really settled in fast here, I think. My room is already all decorated with pictures my parents have sent me, a Hawaii calendar from my Auntie, and a horse calendar from my grandparents. :] (anyone else want to send me pictures for my wall? ;] )I also have a stash of food from Christmas still; so much chocolate!! I went to see Life of Pi with my host parents too, that movie is so good! And the music is awesome too! I highly recommend looking up the soundtrack. ;]
Then on the 5th my old host family picked me up and we went to Leukerbad for a skiing/ thermal pool week. That was AMAZING. I'm basically speechless on how to describe it. It's on people bucket lists to go skiing in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by gorgeous snow covered mountains, and I got to do it. There were moments when I was skiing where I just looked around me and thought "Oh My God, I can't believe I'm here". It was so surreal and just amazing. Falling at least twice a day didn't even take away the surrealness. ;] I was always exhausted afterwards though. There are also thermal baths (pools). Only one comes right from the ground, the hottest one (you can't stay longer than 30 min, I only stayed 10ish), the others are all hot-tub-warm though. And most of them are OUTSIDE. So you're just relaxing in the warm water, with jets giving you a massage, and there are mountains around you. It was amazing! My host sister, her friend and I spent all of Monday there. :] I also found out that my camera can go underwater! It said it could, but it didn't look like it, no protective casing or anything, so I was nervous to try; my host sister dunked it for me. So that was fun having an underwater photo shoot. :]
On Tuesday evening I met up with an exchange student from Canada in her "host town" Brig. It's not to far from Leukerbad, only a bus down the Mountain than a short train ride. :] We went ice skating, and I'm proud to say I didn't fall!(Though there was plenty of arm flailing haha) We skied on Wednesday and then packed up and drove home that evening. And the next day I had school! (Technically I had school the whole week, but I'm an exchange student and need to experience the culture ;] ) My old host family had three weeks off, I only had two, but I have another week off the second week of February.
So now I live with a two year old, and a 6 year old. They love to come say hello when I'm in my room. And look at all my stuff. haha. As long as I'm here I don't really mind. Little kids mostly only speak Swiss German here though, so sometimes it's harder to understand them, but I'm getting better. I think my German will get a lot better here because I have no other option. :]
So that was my past three weeks. It was a great ferien, and now it's back to school! My second semester starts the first week of February, so I'll get a new schedule then..
Hope everyone had a Good Christmas and a good New Year!
-Anne-Marie
