Over a Month in....

Sorry for not writing in so long, I've been busy. Here's some highlights:

• I started school!!!! (I also passed my German course.) It gets out the earliest at 4:15, I get home about 5, then I have a billion worksheets to translate into something understandable, dinner is at 7-7:30, finishes usually an hour later, and I have to try to speak German all the time. Add in watching the news or a movie on somedays, and you can see why it's been. However, my classmates are very nice and I was excused from three classes (two because of a test and the third was gym. There was a volleyball competition). Friday is a test in German class on a book they read, so I'll probably be excused from that too. I've never taken Physics before, but it's the only one where I actually know what's going on, other than English. Bio was easy, as we are learning about Mitosis and Meiosis. For my advanced art class I have to paint a picture of water with oil paints. That will definitely be interesting.
• I am considering taking Tai Chi lessons while I'm here. I found a place 5 minutes from the train station, but I don't know how much it will cost. Otherwise I'm going to do yoga. There's also a German course on Saturdays I can do. At the end, I take a test and can earn some kind of diploma or something that shows I am proficient in German. That's also I my list of things to do.
• I met my second host mother. She was really nice. Her children are adults and don't live at home, but she has the daughter of a family friend, Laura, live with her a few days a week. Laura works at a hospital in Bern several days a week and it's easier to live in Stettlen than to go from Basel. We went to a football game and around Bern last Saturday.
• I went to the Historisches Museum of Bern! That was awesome!
• I went hiking in Adelboden with Indigo two Saturdays ago. It was long, but fun. We rode down on these Trottinettes (AKA really Big Scooters) On the way down we stopped in the town where they were celebrating their 600th anniversary combined with the annual return of the cows and sheep and other animals from the Alps. Yeah, that town is 600 years old.

Other than spending a lot of my time with the other exchange students in Bern and the Welcome Meeting in Zürich, which went well, that's what I've been up too.

Over and out!

Week 3.5…

First off, some promised pictures of my trip to Murten:

I know it's been a while, but I've been busy. I went to an interesting concert in Luzern last Wednesday. It was Modern Classical (I know, sounds strange right?) and a student orchestra played Passacaglia für Orchester op. 1 by Anton Webern; Core, Turn, and Boost by Dieter Ammann (very good and dramatic. He wrote Boost in 2000/01 and Core in 2002. This was the premier of Turn); Variationen für Orchester op. 30; then finally Le Poème de Extase op. 54 by Aleksandr Skrjabin. Very, very good.

Then I went with my exchange student friends to Neuchâtel (Neuenberg) on Saturday and on Sunday to Interlaken with my host "Nonna" and host "Nonno" where there was a mineral expo. Today I went to Thun to the Thunersee (Lake of Thun). Between a trip to the bookstore for a copy of "Grimms Märchen" (Grimms' Fairytales), of which I did not find a complete version, and meeting Zöe (a future exchange student) and having various guests, I've been pretty busy here. Also started watching some TV and a movie with my host parents to hear some "normal" German, and not the crazy Swiss kind. German school is fine; I know the first day I start normal classes (October 18). I attempted to hold a conversation in German with my host father today. You don't realize how much of your vocabulary is slang and all the different tenses until you try to speak another language. Really. I understand more than I can speak right now.

And now.... Pictures!

The view of Neuchâtel from the Prison Tower

Inside the Prison Tower

Random door

The Church at the Châlet (I think that's spelt right)

Fellow Exchange Students in my German Course

From Left to Right:

Me, Indigo, Whitney, Helena, Brandon, Ian, Cristina, Veronica, and Bryanne

(Missing: Nick and Chris)

Crazy Statue

I'm a Princess!

A Beach on the Lake of Neuchâtel (the water was surprisingly warm...)

Sorry, no pictures of Luzern (the camera wouldn't fit in my bag so I had to use my iPhone. Those won't be available for a while) or Thun (because I didn't know we would be going). Pictures of Neuchâtel are Veronica's (my camera died), and I am most grateful to her for them.

Over and out!