Herbst/ Winter

Hallo!
Don't worry I'm alive! :]
    Soo my last week of Holidays was fun! Had my first Rotary meeting, went riding with my host sister, hung out with some exchange students (some of the best people I have ever met in my life). My Rotary meeting on that Tuesday (10/9) went well, I was introduced to everyone in my club (but I honestly cannot remember a lot of names, I always meet waaay to many people at once...) I also gave a presentation all about me, my state, and the USA in general; all in GERMAN. I was seriously nervous, but I guess I did okay; I was understood at least... I hope.. One person said we should of recorded it and watched it at the end of he year to see how much my German will improve.. lol Oh well, I'll go to another meeting soon, every week my German gets better. I went to Montreux with a group of exchange students on that Thursday (10/11), and we walked around the city being loud and obnoxious like usual. ;] We also visited the castle that is literally ON Lake Geneva. It was gorgeous (like pretty much every castle haha). I love exchange students, I've probably said this a hundred times, but we act like family even if you just met them an hour ago. They're so easy to talk to and get along with.
    After my 4 weeks of vacation (kind of, never a vacation off learning German ;] ), I was back into school! So I've had 3 weeks now (the first one is hard to count though, it was more like a quick trial). I'm getting used to the schedule, but I still have to look up my schedule all the time to know where I'm going. I've "taken" a Physiks and a Chemie test so far (there were other tests, but these were the first I've actually been given. The teachers know I can't really understand anything yet, so I basically just translated the tests and did the few questions I could answer. haha School has been fun, I'm always exhausted by Friday though, my brain is just like "no more thinking so hard in a foreign language please". :] I can tell I'm getting better though, I can follow most conversations, picking out a few words that I understand, though the Swiss German is still a little rough. I understand the numbers and a few words though..
    As some of you saw on my Facebook, I carved a pumpkin on Thursday! That was fun, I also roasted the pumpkin seeds and I've been snacking on those all weekend. :] Friday I went to a Biel ice hockey game with some of my classmates, that was so much fun! It's a lot like our American football games, with all of the younger fans in a standing section and jumping and cheering for their team VERY loudly (mostly in French [Biel is a bilingual city, it's also called Bienne], but a bit of German too). Annd we won 6-1! So it was awesome. :] Yesterday (Saturday), I had a "Follow-up meeting" with the Rotary exchange program in Freibourg, with the "West" group of exchange students, which includes the "Frenchies" as we call them. (They are in the French part of Switzerland) We talked about any problems we might be having here, and how we are "integrating" into Swiss life. Most of us agreed school is hard, but we all love it here. After the meeting, the Rotary people bought us all lunch, during which it started snowing! So after our lunch, we walked around the city. Snow might not seem like a big deal to most of us Minnesotans or to the other exchange students from Canada and Northern states, but we had exchange students from South America with us who had never seen snow before! It was fun watching them freak out about it, and they were freezing haha. So it was fall for all of 2 weeks here... And now it's snowing. It hasn't been sticking to much around my house, but in the hills and in Bern they have a good layer. :]
    So I go back to school tomorrow! And I have to bike. I have been for the past few weeks, don't get me wrong, but now it's SNOWING and COLD. Crazy Swiss people. :]
Tchüss!
-Anne-Marie